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At least from an external view, the war was really not going well at this time for the Allies. The Soviets were being pushed back inside their own borders every day, and it would have been rational to conclude that the latest big city to be entered, Stalingrad, would fall within days. British Commonwealth forces had been pushed back to El Alamein, where they had however arrested the German advance. The Japanese were advancing in New Guinea, and while the US had landed Marines on Guadalcanal, the Japanese Navy had driven the U.S. Navy from its coast.
Stalin's trip to the USSR would be regarded an ordeal by modern travelers. He met with Stalin at 7:00 p.m. that night, having just arrived from Tehran, and informed Stalin immediately that there would not be a second front in 1942, although he then went on to inform Stalin about developing plans for Operation Torch, the landings in North Africa, which by any rational measure was a boosting of an existing second front.
Churchill promised landings in France in 1943.
On this day the Germans took Slavyansk and, in Operation Pedestal, the British ships Cairo and Foresight were sunk and the tanker Ohio badly damaged. The Ohio had to be taken under tow. The convoy was constantly under attack from the air and sea by German and Italian forces.
The Germans, however, transferred forces from Case Blue to the siege at Leningrad, which weakened the offensive which was already running into trouble. Erich von Manstein was dispatched with those forces to Leningrad.
Actor Phillips Holmes died in a midair collision while serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Actor and future aircrewman Clark Gable joined the U.S. Army as a private. He was 41 years old.
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