Wait, wait, what? Poisonous gas? No, no, no, not since 1918, right? Huh?
This week? By accident? Tell me more. Wait, I'll call you back, okay? December 3rd, 1943. This week, something momentous happens.
This week, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt meet with Joseph Stalin in person for the first time. And now a word from TimeGhost. And since it's Christmas season and you're probably thinking about what you can surprise your own neighbors and your friends and your loved ones with, check out our merch store because we've got some really cool new stuff and you'll not only make everyone really happy, you'll also be supporting us.
I'm Indy Neidell, this is World War Two. Last week in the Pacific, the Americans attacked the Gilbert Islands, taking Makin and Tarawa atolls. The attack on Tarawa was extremely bloody and extremely costly, though ultimately successful.
The Allied campaign in the Dodecanese, however, came to its end in failure. In the USSR, there were gains by both sides, and in Italy, Allied plans were thwarted by the weather. There was also an Allied conference in Cairo. which is a preliminary conference for some of the Allied leaders who are soon to meet with the Soviets in Tehran. And that Tehran conference begins this week on the 28th.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin Roosevelt, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin meet in person together for the first time. Stalin actually has not left Russia or the USSR since the October Revolution in 1917. The insistence of Churchill on repeatedly returning to the charge on extended operations in the Mediterranean and delays in Overlord meant that most of three of the four days at the Tehran Conference was taken up with arguments over strategy in the European War, although Stalin made his own preference absolutely clear at the very first meeting. Stalin insists that everything else be subordinate to a cross-channel offensive, Overlord.
in May 1944, and also either simultaneous, or even better just before, a landing on the southern coast of France. There will also be a simultaneous Soviet offensive in the east. On the 28th, Churchill tells Stalin the conditions on which Overlord depends.
First, there must be a satisfactory reduction in the strength of the German fighter forces in northwest Europe before the assault. Second, that German reserves in France and the Low Countries must not on the day of the assault be more than about 12 full-strength first quality mobile divisions, and third, that it must not be possible for the Germans to transfer from other fronts more than 15 first quality mobile divisions during the first 60 days of the operation. Also, on the 29th, which Stalin is not told, a B-29 has been modified to carry and drop an atomic bomb when one is completed. Today, on the 3rd, 15 atomic scientists arrive in the US from Britain to join the bombs team.
One of them, Klaus Fuchs, is a Soviet spy. Just saying. Anyhow, on the 30th, the conference establishes the agreement for Operation Overlord. They also discuss Operation Anvil, the plan for the invasion of southern France. This has been just an American idea up to now, but Stalin supports it.
so it gets attention. Here's the thing, there's a lot in the background that creates arguments over everything. The Americans certainly hope that the invasion succeeds, but if it doesn't, they'll just try again.
They can, they have the force. The British, maybe not. They've been kicked out of Europe three times this war. The fourth time, should it happen, really could be the final one. The Soviets just think it's about time for their allies to strike.
Stalin insists a commander in chief be appointed for Overlord. The British have blocked an overall European command, so Roosevelt is going to appoint Dwight Eisenhower Overlord Commander in Chief. All the arguing does lead to some changes. Overlord will take place in May, but not May 1st as earlier planned, and the landing in southern France will come either at the same time or after, and will be a full two division assault landing. Stalin also formally agrees to join the Pacific War once Germany has been defeated.
They spend so much of the time talking about military and strategic issues that they don't really talk much about politics, Finland comes up and Stalin says he does not want to annex it, but will insist on the post-Winter War borders, maybe trading Hanko for Petsamo, who knows. Churchill and FDR agreed to the Soviet demands to pretty much restore the 1941 and not 1939 borders with Poland, using the Curzon Line with small variations as the guide. The Western Allies could hardly reject a border drawn up by their representatives in 1919 and named for a famous British Foreign Secretary.
Roosevelt does say that since he's running for President again in 1944, he cannot very well make this public. Poland will get pretty extensive territory from Germany in the west, though, which is some great industrial and agricultural land, but whether anyone can convince the Polish government in exile to accept Moving their whole country a bit to the west, or convince Stalin to have diplomatic relations with them again remains very much to be seen. In the field this week, the Soviets are doing their best to move to the west. In Belorussia, on November 30th, Vasily Sokolovsky's Western Front launches another offensive towards Orsha. They attack with some force, 34 rifle divisions and 284 tanks, against Pretty much the same defenses they hit in mid-November, but initially this goes off with disappointing results and minimal gains.
However, south of the Dnieper, 5th and 33rd armies finally make some progress, capturing Bobrova. The Germans pull back to a new defensive line about 4 km from where they started the week, and by tomorrow that line stabilizes, and on the 5th the offensive will be called off. Further to the south on the Eastern Front, on the 30th, the Soviets pull out of Kordersten.
The mud and the cycle of freezing by night and thawing by day have really put a stop to major action here this week, and also the fact that German Commander Erich von Manstein is putting together his forces for a counterattack versus the Soviet salient north of Zhytomyr. That attack is planned for next week. Far to the southeast from here, The simultaneous attacks begun last week by Fyodor Tolbukhin's 4th Ukrainian Front against the two ends of the Nekopol bridgehead continue this week.
See, Tolbukhin figures, correctly, that the Germans have just one mobile division around here, the 24th Panzers, so this will either make them split it or send the whole thing against one end, allowing his other to make better progress. Both attacks did make some progress at the end of last week, But now on the 27th, the Germans counterattack the northern Soviet push. They do manage to regain most of the front line, as do counterattacks the 28th and the South, and there they remain the rest of the week, and it seems likely they will be there for a while longer. But elsewhere, new offensives are- just getting started. In Italy, on the 28th, 8th Army finally begins their offensive against the Sangro River with a massive artillery bombardment.
They secure a bridgehead and by day's end the 8th Indian Division has almost reached Mozzagrona. However, Therefore, since this offensive has been delayed a week by weather, the Germans have had time to assemble reserves behind the defending 65th Division, though that particular division is poorly trained and not very well equipped. The next day, Mozzogronia falls to the attackers and on the 2nd they advance further, taking Lanciano and Castelfrentano and taking San Vito today as the week ends.
On the 2nd, in the west of the country, 5th Army attacks on Monte Camino begin with heavy artillery. Now 5th Army has been waiting for nearly two weeks to launch their new attacks. See, those 8th Army attacks in the east are hoped to have caused the Germans to thin out their defenses in the west to beef up to the east.
This is the heaviest artillery barrage seen in Italy so far. Over the last two days of the week, 900 big guns fire 200,000 shells. The British begin climbing Camino and the 1st Special Service Force, a commando unit made up of Americans and Canadians, attacks La Defensa.
It is cold and it is raining, which is sort of the status quo just now. By 7 am today they've reached the top of La Defensa. This because this newly arrived unit has been specially trained in mountain, ski, and paratroop combat, and they take a route up the mountain which the Germans believe to be impossible.
Taking the saucer-shaped top of it will give them no pause, though, as they're hit by mortar fire the whole time they wait for reinforcements. And those reinforcements take 40% casualties while climbing the mount. British units reached the peak of Camino also today, but it is anything but theirs and anything but secure. Some other important things happen in Italy away from the battlefields this week.
On the 1st, the newly created 15th Air Force opens its headquarters at Bari. Bari is actually now the main supply point for 8th Army, since it's taking time to restore Naples. This is also the supply hub for the building of 15 or so airfields at places like Foggia.
Jim Doolittle, whom we saw last year over Japan, is the commander of the new headquarters, which is down on the waterfront in the same place the Italian Air Force used to have their headquarters. Doolittle's job was to augment the bombing of strategic targets, such as German aircraft plants and oil facilities. Doolittle had claimed that flying weather in Italy would be almost twice as good as that in the United Kingdom, a proposition sorely tested by the cancellation due to inclemency of roughly half the bombing missions in November.
Still, Allied pilots now owned the Italian skies. It's true, other than four November attacks on Naples, German long range bombers have only flown four times here in the last six weeks. Three-quarters of the Luftwaffe fighters have been sent back to Germany as well. In fact, on the 2nd, Arthur Cunningham, Air Vice Marshal, says he would take it as a personal insult if the Luftwaffe were to attempt any major action in the area. He is thus personally insulted that same day with a German air raid on Bari.
One bomb hits an Allied cargo ship carrying mustard gas, releasing it, and killing 83 soldiers. Over a thousand others die in this air raid. An ammunition ship is hit and blows up.
17 ships total are sunk for 70,000 tons. Eight more are damaged. 38,000 tons of supplies are destroyed. This is the worst surprise attack damage against the Allies since Pearl Harbor. That cargo ship was the Liberty ship John Harvey.
carrying 1,350 tons of mustard gas. Why, you may ask, are the Allies transporting mustard gas? Well, in August, Dwight Eisenhower, acting on Italian intelligence, told US Army Chief of Staff George Marshall that Berlin had threatened to use gas if Italy turned against Germany, which Italy soon did.
Prisoner interrogations as well in Italy have hinted that at impending gas warfare, and even some new terrible German gas to be used. In October, a 5th Army memo came out that said many soldiers in the German army say Hitler will turn to gas when there is no other way out. Also, back in August, though, Roosevelt told Berlin that the use of poisoned gas would meet with swift and full retaliation in kind.
To ensure such capacity for retaliation, thousands of gas bombs were to be stored in dumps near Foggia. As Rick Atkinson does point out, though, how the Germans would be deterred if the deterrent remained secret was never adequately explained. Of course, the people in the harbor during the raid have no knowledge that a ship is carrying mustard gas, and those that die from it do not do so at once.
They slowly begin showing symptoms. The smell lingers in the air, and by the third, people begin going blind and suffering the internal injuries caused by the gas, and no one knows how to treat them because no one knows what's going on. Blisters appear on skin and people begin dying. Those few who know what John Harvey, now at the bottom of the sea, was carrying, decide not to tell the public and to use a ton of bleach to disinfect the ship's former berth.
Doctors Figure out what's happened soon enough, of course, but not until hundreds of people have inhaled toxic fumes from contaminated clothing could have been prevented. Aside from those 83 that died, there are 617 confirmed mustard gas casualties. There's this too. Allied secrecy may have duped the public. But the enemy was not fooled.
I see you boys are getting gassed by your own poison gas, axis Sally cooed. The Hermann Goering division and other units intensified their chemical training. A memo from the high command warned the Allies could begin the gas war tomorrow.
If Allied media isn't reporting that, it is busy reporting another scandal. Remember back in August? when George Patton got in some trouble for two slapping incidents. I wondered then what might happen if that ever went public.
And now we know. Drew Pearson reports it on his radio show last week on the 21st. Well, sort of. Pearson- He's very well known for his sensational reports, often made extra sensational by combining factual stories with unsubstantiated or just plain fabricated material. President Roosevelt even put it bluntly once recently at a press conference calling Pierson a chronic liar.
See Pierson has it in for FDR. Since Pierson is a staunch supporter of the Soviet Union's fight against Hitler, he has demanded The US opened a second front in Western Europe in 1943. This has not happened, so he has publicly, and often, criticized Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull. But Pearson's reputation takes a real hit after the President calls him a chronic liar.
So when Ernest Cuneo at the OSS suggests that an exclusive and sensational news story would make everyone forget what Roosevelt said, and and gives Pearson details of the slapping incidents. When I say Pearson then broadcasts the story to the world, sort of, I mean that like much of his material, it has a grain of truth but doesn't exactly bear relation to the events it's supposed to cover. For starters, he combines the two incidents into one, and he also says Patton won't have combat posts anymore, which isn't true. But of course, partly fabricated or not, it has the desired effect.
Allied Command does confirm that Patton slapped at least one soldier. In newspapers across the USA and even in Congress, there are demands for Patton to be recalled back to the States. Public opinion, however, is largely on Patton's side.
Looking a bit ahead, Dwight Eisenhower will keep Patton in Europe. Marshal and Secretary of War Henry Stimson will support this decision, acknowledging that it might not be the best move for public relations, but is the right move militarily. Patton hasn't commanded in combat since Messina fell in August, and in September he was passed over in favor of his junior Omar Bradley to be in Britain commanding the US 1st Army training for the cross channel adventure next year, but both Eisenhower and Marshall say they decided that before the slapping incident, and anyhow, back in September Eisenhower recommended Patton for promotion to four star general. I'm sure we'll see how Patton's life unfolds one way or the other soon enough. I got a feeling.
But that feeling ends the week, with new offensives in Italy, the weather slowing things down in the USSR, not really any action at all in the Pacific, a major conference in the Middle East to further guide the course of the war. Oh, and also, the Atlantic War not even feeling like a war, since in November and December spoiler 78 Allied shipping convoys cross without a loss, but a possible gas war on the horizon. Isn't that possible? I mean, a poison gas war on top of everything else this war is would take war is hell to the next level.
It is, though, orchestrated hell, and today, December 3, 1943, Edward Murrow gives a speech calling it just that. He is specifically talking about the bombing campaign against Berlin, but that description is pretty apt for any and all theaters of the war, and the systematic murder and atrocities committed in occupied territory. It very much is orchestrated hell, and these episodes are our orchestrated response to that hell.
to try and bring a better understanding of it to a new generation. You can be part of this by joining the TimeGhost Army at timeghost.tv or patreon.com. These are our newest commissioned officers, and Martin Trankell is the Army Member of the Week.
If you want to see a great Between Two Wars episode about earlier conferences and the appeasement that allowed Hitler to further his plans, you can click right here for that. Do not forget to subscribe. See you next time.