Tuesday, July 13, 1943. Operation Citadel ends due to Operation Husky

I don't put up German posters often (I really ought to, to demonstrate what they looked like) as I don't want to give any mistaken impression that there's any admiration for the Germans in World War Two in this quarter.  Indeed, it's been a real mystery to me and others as to how a cultured people could go so far astray as to elect the Nazis into power.  Having said that, events since 2020 have been a real illustration as to exactly how a country descends into fascism.  Anyhow, this is a poster for the Herman Goering Division which, at that time, was one of the two German units fighting in Sicily.  Oddly, the division was technically part of the Luftwaffe, not the Herr, in order to honor its namesake.  The cap device on the flat cap depicted in this poster demonstrates that.  This poster is from 1943 and reads, roughly; "Come to us! Herman Goering Division. Taking volunteers!"  The division stands as an example of German military inefficiency, in a way, in that it meant that there were three ground forces all fulfilling the role that the army would have normally, the army, the airforce and the SS, although the Luftwaffe ground forces were only seriously an air arm in the case of paratroopers.

Today in World War II History—July 13, 1943: Battle of Kolombangara: in the Solomon Islands, US & New Zealand ships sink Japanese light cruiser Jintsu, but fail to prevent reinforcement of Kolombangara.

We covered what Sarah Sundin notes here yesterday, as this was a nocturnal battle, but this entry noted above is correct.

What Sundin also notes, and what is a more significant event, is that Hitler ordered a halt to Operation Citadel due to Operation Husky in order to redeploy troops from the Kursk offensive to Sicily.

That actually occured the evening of July 12, when Hitler summoned Kluge and Manstein to is Rastenburg headquarters.  Kluge, aware of a coming Soviet counteroffensive, was relieved to receive the order, fearing what that would mean, but Manstein opposed it given that his troops had spent a week of hard fighting and, he believed, were on the verge of breaking through.  Manstein argued, "On no account should we let go of the enemy until the mobile reserves he [has] committed [and is] completely beaten."

Manstein may have been overestimating the extent of Red Army losses, but the Red Army had sustained huge losses, including massive losses the day prior.  At any rate, Hitler relented to the extent that he agreed to allow the offensive to temporarily continue in the south.  However, on this day, the 13th, he ordered Manstein's reserve, the XXIV Panzer Corps, to move south to support the 1st Panzer Army, removing from Manstein the forces he actually needed to continue.

Therefore, it was the American, Canadian, and British armies that brought about the end of Operation Citadel, and one day after a German tactical victory in that offensive that had resulted in huge Soviet losses.

Could Citadel have achieved its objectives?  That's much more difficult to say.  The Germans and the Soviets were still fighting at Prokhorovka, although the Germans had arrested the Red Army attack the day prior, with large losses being sustained by the Soviets in a battle that is still so murky that partisan historians, professional and amateur, declare victory for each side. Model, however, had completely committed his reserves and the Soviets, while sustaining huge casualties, had not yet broken.  Given this, it seems unlikely that the Germans would have reduced the Kursk salient, but they would have taken enormous losses attempting to do so.  

This provides one of the uncomfortable facts about the Germans during the Second World War, that being that quite frankly Hitler's estimation of the battlefield situation was often better than that of his generals.  People like to repeat the "Hitler is the best general we've got" quote that some Allied commander said during the war, but in terms of tactical decisions, he was often better at calculating them than generals in his army were.  The decision to call off Citadel was probably correct, Manstein notwithstanding, as the Germans had committed very good armored forces with large amounts of armor and had not broken through.  Ignoring Husky early on stood a very good chance of resulting in a rapid Allied victory in Sicily which could possibly have taken an already teetering Italy out of the war.

The American League won the All Star Game.

Luz Long, age 30, 1936 Olympic medalist, died of wounds sustained in fighting in the Germany Army in Sicily.  His death came in a British hospital.  Long had been friends with Jesse Owens and was, prior to entering the German army, a lawyer.

He held the rank of Obergefreiter in the Heer, which is a rank that's somewhat difficult to correlate to American and British enlisted rank structures.  It's roughly equivalent to the World War Two US rank of Corporal or the British Rank of Lance Corporal, which would effectively be the first NCO in a squad to command other enlisted men.

White Rose figures University of Munich student Alexander Schmorell, age 25, and Professor Karl Huber, age 49, executed by guillotine for distributing anti-Nazi literature.  Wilhelm Geyer, Manfred Eickemeyer, Josef Soehngen and Harald Dohrn were acquitted of the most serious charges and convicted for the less serious crime of failing to report treason, benefitting from the absence of the chief judge and that Judge Schwingenschlögl, the most lenient, was presiding. Soehngen received a six-month sentence, with credit for time served, while the rest were ordered to pay court costs, a truly lucky break for them.

Monday, July 12, 2043. Axis victories at Prokhorovka and Kolombangara.

By Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-219-0553A-36 / Koch / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5410458.  German (probably SS) soldier examining destroyed T-34 at Prokorovka.

The II SS Panzer Korps and Red Army 5th Guards Tank Army fought a protracted engagement at Prokhorovka resulting in large numbers of German and Red Army tanks fighting each other over a four-day period.  The first day was critical, although the details are murky, something that's common for the Battle of Kursk.

German armor numbers vary from 240 some tanks to 900 some tanks, that latter number being very unlikely.  Over 600 tanks were deployed by the Red Army.  It was a Red Army counterattack, not a German assault.  AT the end of the day, German forces still held a critical topographic feature, Hill 252.2.  The Germans had advanced on neighboring terrain.  July 12, and the following few days, resulted in a German tactical defensive victory in the engagement, upsetting Stalin, who briefly considered making command changes as a result.  Having said that, the battle served to arrest German advances in the area, and it resulted in huge German armor losses, as well as Soviet ones. The Soviets could afford to lose more tanks.  Havintg said that, Germans, on this day, lost somewhere between 40 and 80 tanks, and the Soviets probably around 300 to 400 tanks.  German manpower losses of all types were around 800, whereas the Soviets were over 5,000.

The battle is one of the largest tank engagements in history.  It is also unfortunately shrouded in myth and suffers from having been fought between two dictatorial regimes, making it difficult to really know what actually occured in the battle.  This is particularly true with the Red Army, which did not tend to exhibit candor about its battlefield losses.

Of some interest, this particular battle featured three well equipped SS armor divisions whereas in Sicily the Germans presently had one armored division and one Panzergrandier division, both of which were good.  Of course, the primary Axis force at this time in Sicily was Italian, consisting of 200,000 Italian troops, although the Germans would soon commit additional forces.

Canadian troops on this day, in Sicily.

The Axis scored another tactical victory in the Battle of Kolombangara off of the island of that name when the Imperial Japanese Navy sank the USS Gwin, but lost the Japanese cruiser Jintsū, the only Japanese loss. 

 USS St. Louis (CL-49) and HMNZS Leander (75) firing during the Battle of Kolombangara

The Japanese were "running the slot" to resupply their ground forces, and at this stage of the war were superior at nocturnal naval engagements.

The United States Army Pharmacy Corps was established.