The siege of Pavlov’s House (26 September 1942 till 25 November 1942)

The house built parallel to the embankment of the river Volga, Prior to the war, the four story building Pavlov’s House had served as a residential building for employees of the regional consumer union. It was considered one of the most prestigious apartment complexes of Stalingrad, as it overlooked 9 January Square.

The beginning of the war in Russia came as a surprise to the Soviet government, even though they had been repeatedly warned by other countries that Nazi Germany was planning an attack on Russia.

The German offensive to capture Stalingrad began on 23 August 1942, using the German 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army. In this new form of urban warfare, frontlines were constantly shifting block by block, and every building was a fortress waiting to be stormed. One of the most notable of these urban strongholds was given the moniker "Pavlov's House."

In September 1942, the house was attacked by German soldiers, and a platoon of the Soviet 13th Guards Rifle Division was ordered to seize and defend it.

Captured by Red Army Sergeant Jacob Pavlov, a low-level noncommissioned officer in the last weekend of September, the house allowing the defenders to observe and fire into German occupied territory.

The building was not just important because it stuck into German defenses , but for the fact that a grain mill converted into a Soviet command post and staging ground was only 300 yards into Soviet lines behind the house.

This allowed for constant communication between the observation stronghold and Soviet HQ. All of these factors of course made the house a constant target for German offensives, which is where the fame of Sergeant Pavlov and his defense originates.

In keeping with Stalin's Order No. 227 - "not one step back", Sgt. Pavlov was ordered to fortify the building and defend it to the last bullet and the last man. Taking this advice to heart, Pavlov ordered the building to be surrounded with four layers of barbed wire and minefields, and set up machine-gun posts in every available window facing the square.

From their vantage point, they could strike at the Panzers with impunity. They were not only a symbol of the resistance against the Germans, but they were also proven deadly. The Germans would routinely attempt to take the house almost daily, only to fail every time. Pavlov’s House stood for fifty-eight days, until the defenders and the civilians found hiding in the basement were finally relieved in November.

The siege of Pavlov’s House (26 September 1942 till 25 November 1942)

Hirsch's "Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg" at WHS

The next meeting of the Washington History Seminar will be devoted to Francine Hirsch, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her book, Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal After World War II.  It will be held on Thursday, November 12 at 4:00 pm ET.  Click here to register.

Organized in the wake of World War Two by the victorious Allies, the Nuremberg Trials were intended to hold the Nazis to account for their crimes and to restore a sense of justice to a world devastated by violence. As Francine Hirsch reveals in her groundbreaking new book, a major piece of the Nuremberg story has routinely been left out: the critical role of the Soviet Union. Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg offers a startlingly new view of the International Military Tribunal and a fresh perspective on the movement for international human rights that it helped launch.

--Dan Ernst

Poland, Nazis, and World War II

I was forwarded this article in NPR talking about how the government of Poland is poised to pass a law making it a criminal offense to claim "...Poland was complicit in the Nazi atrocities committed on Polish soil during World War II."  First allow me to say that I am not a fan of any law that attempts to restrict or regulate academic inquiry or the exploration of history.  Frankly such a law seems to imply more a fear of something being discovered or a high degree of prickliness about the past.  But the broader issue I wanted to address in this blog post is the question, can one argue that Poland has any complicity in the actions conducted by the Nazis during World War II on its soil.  My contention is that this conversation is actually particularly valuable because it forces those considering it to answer the question of what exactly makes a nation-state complicit in events that occur when it is occupied.

First off Poland (technically the Second Polish Republic) existed as a sovereign nation from 1918 to 1939, and gained its independence from a mix of the Versailles Treaty and armed resistance after the end of World War I.  That independence ended de facto by early October 1939 when the last organized and formal units of the Polish army were defeated in the field of battle and some dispersed to continue fighting through guerrilla actions.  By 30 September 1939 the Polish government-in-exile was formed with its wartime leader taking the oath of office in the Polish embassy in Paris.  This action was undertaken within the bounds of the Polish republic's constitution at the time.  This government in exile was recognized by nations outside of Germany and its allies.

Now what makes Poland unique in World War II is that, unlike every other nation Germany successfully invaded and overran, the Nazi German government did not create a puppet government to oversee Poland incorporating elements of the Polish citizenry to lead it.  Every other nation the German's occupied had at least a fig-leaf of a government with some local citizens providing token leadership or its pre-invasion government was allowed to continue operations with German controls upon its functions.  Poland though had territory directly annexed to Germany and the non-annexed bits were put under the control of a special Nazi created government called the General Government.

The General Government was under the control of Hans Frank, who held the rank of Gauleiter, which although it had different technical duties depending on location, time period, and ambient Nazi administrative chaos factor in his case meant he was the head of all civilian government operations in the General Government.  Below him every official within the General Government, above the lowest ranks of civil administration were filled with German officials.  Higher education institutions were closed, the judiciary was modified so that only Poles answered to Polish judges, matters involving German interests were overseen by a parallel court system.  Although Polish police officers were retained (and history indicates probably took part in anti-Jewish violence and roundups) Polish police officials and officers were installed Germans.  (Polish policemen were restricted to the rank of patrolman.)  The Polish police department was also nationalized to further German ambitions.

Now individual Poles and organized groups of Poles did engage in actions that supported the Nazis, of that there is no historical question.  But I think I can say comfortably that the Polish state can probably be found to not be responsible for what the Nazis did on Polish soil.  I'll admit it is reading the events of World War II in Poland with a very narrow lens, and if anyone has information about the Polish state supporting the Nazi actions during the occupation I'm interested in learning about it.

Sources

• Wikipedia article on General Government
• Wikipedia article on Polish police during the Occupation, the Blue Police
• Wikipedia article on Hans Frank
• Wikipedia article on Gauleiter
• Time article on the law 

Battle of the Java Sea (February 27, 1942)

Java Sea was the site of a battle between Japanese forces en route to Java and remnants of the Allied fleet in the Netherlands East Indies. In January 1942, the Allied defense of the southwest Pacific was collectively organized in the American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA Command).

By February 1942 Japanese pans for the invasion the Dutch East Indies island of Java were well advance; and Allied naval units based at Surabaya were the only real obstacle. On February 24, two Japanese invasion forces set sail for Java. Rear Admiral Takagi Takeo commanded a force of 2 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and 14 destroyers covering 41 transports.

Dutch Admiral Karel Doorman commanded the ABDA striking force of 2 heavy cruisers, 23 light cruisers and 9 destroyers, representing all four ABDA nations, but had no air support.

On the afternoon of February 27 1942, at 2.27pm Doorman was notified of the approach of an invasion force some 80 miles northeast of Surabaya in the Makassar Straits.

At 4.16 pm the Japanese opened the battle. Soon thereafter, the heavy cruisers USS Houston - its aft turret inoperable from earlier battle damage – and HMS Exeter returned fire. During torpedo attack by Japanese, The Exeter later was damaged before finally being cornered and sunk by the Japanese.

An Allied counterattack resulted in the loss of two more ships - the Eletcra and the Kortenear – and Doorman was forced to turn south to regroup.

Doorman went down with his flagship De Ruyter. Japanese forces suffered only minor damage. Surviving Allied ships attempted to flee, but most were hunted down and sunk in separate air and sea engagements over the next few days.

In the battle of the Java Sea, the Allies lost two light cruisers and three destroyers. Three cruisers and six destroyers (four US) survived. Four American destroyers reached safely in Australia. With the Allied forces swept from the sea, the Japanese landed on Java after one-day delay and the island fell on 8 March with almost 100,000 Allied troops taken captive.
Battle of the Java Sea (February 27, 1942)

No Amelia Earhart was not a prisoner of the Japanese

The Magics
This is one of those moments that makes me, as an amateur historian cry inside, because stories like this grow legs and go racing along the digital byways of the 21st century.  The above photograph is being held up as "potential proof" that Amelia Earhart, rather than dying during her round-the-world flight attempt in July 1937 was instead captured by the Japanese and held prisoner/killed/helped by the U.S. government as part of its secret spying mission masquerading as her flight.  The culprit on this is the History Channel with promotional stories like this one and breathless articles like this one run by People Magazine.

I'll summarize for you the gentle reader - the above photograph was found in the National Archives by a retired federal agent named Les Kinney who found it misfiled.  The image was in the collection of the Office of Naval Intelligence and, you can see from the caption on it, was taken in the Marshall Islands, a Japanese possession at the time and within "oopsie" distance of Earhart's flight path.  Purportedly one of the gentlemen in the shot is her navigator, Fred Noonan, and the individual in the white shirt with the short haircut seated on the dock is Earhart.  In the far right, her plane is being towed by a ship into harbor.

People Magazine helpfully blew up the picture so you could see the magic.  The other chunk of proof is a listing of records from the Office of Naval Intelligence that shows a file of 130 pages about Earhart being a prisoner on the Marshall Islands was in the governments records and was "purged":

Why This Is Stupid
Context mainly, to accept this theory requires a misunderstanding of the 1930s, Earhart's life prior to her flight, Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. military and government resources, and American-Japanese relations in 1937.  Lets dig into things piece by piece:

• Earhart's Flight/Aviation in the 1930s was dangerous - there is a reason Earhart's exploits earned her so much press and also so much fame, they were dangerous and being done by a female aviator.  Flying across the Pacific in the 1930s was a risky activity, the Clippers that did the jaunt regularly and were commercial aircraft carried extensive survival gear in case of crashes - and one of them vanished as well without a trace.  Support systems in the Pacific were minimal and Earhart's flight plan centered on landing on a tiny spot of an island to refuel, when her fuel capacity was extremely low.  It was a high-risk/high-reward strategy to hit a timeline and get press.  Speaking off...
• Earhart was a brand as much as a person and her style was wildly popular - that photo hinges, if you read the articles, on that being Earhart's signature haircut.  She did cut her hair short and maintain it cut short, as part of her image.  An image plastered on magazines, newspapers, and newsreels the world over.  A haircut imitated by a huge number of women in the 1930s.  Have a look at some style guide photos from the period below and remember - we are identifying Earhart based on looking at the back of her hair - any of the styles below potentially look like they might be mistaken for her distinctive look from the back?

• Earhart was a good pilot, not a great pilot - for the conspiracy to work you have to imagine that the United States government wanted to spy on the Japanese fortifications in the Marshall Islands (or other Pacific regions), needed a really good cover story to do so, and settled on convincing one of the most popular celebrity flyers of the 1930s to undertake this mission and keep it a secret.  Earhart was a close personal friend of the Roosevelts but she was also a popular lecturer, writer, and professional celebrity, trusting her with such a mission would be risky on those grounds alone.  But she also wasn't a great pilot - good pilot per those who knew her, solid pilot, but not great.  Also prior to her flight she hadn't spent a great deal of time with her plane and made several errors in flight that damaged it.  
• The United States had other pilots and spy aircraft - spying on Japanese military base construction in the Pacific was actually not that hard for the United States, the U.S. Pacific fleet (which was in the area and took part in the expensive search of Earhart post disappearance) had plenty of aircraft capable of long range flight in the late 1930s that could have taken pictures of those bases.  Aircraft piloted by veteran naval pilots familiar with their craft and, if captured, not a public relations nightmare for the U.S. government.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt was into spy stuff but not crazy spy stuff - FDR was down for unusual plans to mess with Japan and he did enjoy dabbling in spy missions/covert operations, but there is no evidence he went for using civilians as spies in this capacity.  Covert military operations, covert financial aid, absolutely.
• FDR was already hiding secret stuff to support Earhart - that airstrip that Earhart was going to land on at Howland Island, built by the U.S. Navy.  At FDR's request, to support this effort, because he, his wife, and Earhart were good friends.  Built at considerable expense during the Great Depression.  Now imagine going to Congress and saying "Yeah I built that base to support a secret spy mission on Japan.  What?  Use it again, nah, no plans for that."  FDR was popular but not that popular.
• Japan had nothing to really hide in the Marshall Islands - I dug around and it took some work but if you look at a solid online listing here the Marshall Islands did have military fortifications beginning in 1936 on them.  Specifically some minor guns and a few troops.  On islands owned by Japan.  Fortified in violation of their League of Nations mandate but as Japan had resigned the League of Nations in 1936, they kind of didn't care.
• The Office of Naval Intelligence file is not a smoking gun - it is a 130 pages of correspondence on Earhart being a prisoner of the Marshall Islands, as in - people wrote the government letters on the subject.  Funny thing about the government, generally it has to file every letter it receives for its archives.  Every one.  Even crazy ones talking about how Earhart's plane was brought down in the Marshall Islands by magical flying squirrels who taught her their secret nut-based code, which led to her being taken prisoner by the Japanese.  Because the squirrels taught her how to get to Atlantis and the Japanese wanted to know.  Goes in the file.  Eventually the file gets thrown out after enough years.  Could there have been a useful letter in there by someone with information?  Possibly, but there were also probably a LOT of squirrel letters.

But since we are in a special spot historically with this, I'm going to go to the broader point, in 1937 Japan could have really used a good public relations boost with the United States.  The image above is of the sinking U.S. gunship Panay, destroyed in December 1937 by Japanese aircraft.  The ship was stationed in China and the Japanese government apologized and paid an indemnity for the action.  1937 overall was a bad year for Japanese-American public relations, with Japan's invasion of China and smashing of large amounts of territory.  Earhart vanished in July 1937 and the U.S. government spent over $4 million in the largest search and rescue effort in history to that point trying to find her.  

Had the Japanese government found her, why in that climate would they have locked her up?  Lets look at the options:

• She is a U.S. spy on a clandestine mission - Japan returns her without saying anything, FDR owes them a favor/is at risk of exposure.  Japan exposes her, FDR looses position in the U.S. and faces some nasty questions from Congress.  
• She saw some Japanese military building while crashing - the U.S. learns about Japanese base building, which isn't actually a secret, and Japan gets credit for finding and saving the most popular female aviator in the world.  Bonus points if done after the U.S. government spent $4 million and failed in its efforts.  Japan is a hero for finding and saving her.
• She didn't see squat and Japan found her - Japan gets hero points and makes a wonderful public relations success with the U.S. public

Had the Japanese government found her in July 1937 alive post crash I can only imagine them announcing it to the world with glee.  Probably offering to help fund repairs to her plane and an offer that she work with them in he next attempt to use Japanese facilities to support her flight in a "hands across the Pacific" PR coup.

Earhart was a brave woman, a brave aviator, and she and her navigator died attempting a dangerous Pacific crossing.  Mistakes were made, it was an ill-fated attempt, but give her credit for flying and dying pursuing it.  Don't turn Earhart's story 80 years after her death into a weird conspiracy mess.

Sources:  Wikipedia on Japanese history in the Marshall Islands, USS Panay incident, and Amelia Earhart; North American Forts listing of Pacific island fortifications, Timelines of History on 1937 events

1920 National Defense Act, Tank Developments, and World War II (Why U.S. WW II tanks kind of sucked)

One of the unusual stories from the interwar period (1919 - 1941 for the United States) is the passing of the National Defense Act of 1920.  Sponsored by Julius Kahn this piece of legislation reorganized the United States Army and modified the rules on procurement and acquisitions, aiming to decentralize the process.  The National Defense Act of 1920, to my eye, has its greatest impact in how it influenced the development of tanks in the United States between World War I and World War II, due to a key technical requirement of the bill, that tanks were to be subordinated to the needs of the Army.  During World War I the United States had played with the idea of a separate Tanks Corps but after the war decided to focus in on tanks serving in an infantry support roll.

This, frankly, annoyed two leading United States military figures, Patton and Eisenhower, because it would strip tanks of their mobility potential and instead put them on the path of being rolling infantry support vehicles.  Congress however was firm on this point and also reduced the available budget for tank development to a bare minimum, forcing the army to pour its development dollars in the 1920s into vehicles like the one pictured above, the M2, a slow, under armed, mobile gun platform with an emphasis on machine guns to cut down advancing infantry over heavy cannons to destroy other tanks.

However Douglas MacArthur was made Chief of Staff of the United States Army and MacArthur wanted the United States Army to focus on being a faster, more mobile, and more nimble force.  He also wanted to develop tanks that focused on mobility and anti-tank capacity over lumbering along behind the infantry with a wad of machine guns.  But Congress had forbidden any development of tanks except by the Army, so what was a newly appointed general to do?

As it turns out, engage in some legal trickery.  The top image, and the one just above, are of respectively the T7 Combat Car and the M1 Combat Car.  Nearly identical to tanks they were developed by the United States Cavalry and use of development dollars was permitted because MacArthur told the Congress, with a straight face, that these weren't tanks.  No, these were "combat cars" - use they had armor, they had treads, and they had guns, but they were "cars" not tanks.  In fact the T7 Combat Car pictured at the top was built so it could be converted from treads to rubber tires, so it could flexibly roll along paved roads and then switch to an off-road tracked configuration.

This focus by Congress on cost-savings, and pinching military development funds during the interwar period, did help reduce the federal budget but it also led to the United States entering World War II with some, speaking frankly, really shitty tanks.  What you see above is the M3 Medium Tank, the Grant, which was obsolete at the start of the war and featured the terrible design flaw of many western tanks of the period, putting the heavy armament in a fixed side turret because fully rotating top turrets were hard to make work well.  The problem with this design is if your enemy happens to have a tank with a moving turret they have a better chance of lining up your non-cannon side for a kill shot.  (Note the awesome side mounted machine guns though.)

The United States did eventually hammer the issues out, with the design of the M4 Sherman, but it was made under pressure of war.  The United States also never really got into the business of real heavy tanks until World War II was nearly over, leading to some very lopsided tank engagements in 1944 through 1945 with the German army.

But I remain convinced it all hinges on the 1920 National Defense Act and how Congress shifted the focus of the United States military towards a fun-sized cost-saving military plan.

Sources:  Wikipedia articles on U.S. Tank Development History, the 1920 National Defense Act, the T7 Combat Car, the M1 Combat Car, and U.S. Army Military history journal entry on the Birth of the Armored Forces

The Japanese Oil Embargo - History and Ambiguity of Sources

It is always a bit of a thrill to read an article that covers a facet of the 1930s or 1940s which I'm not aware of, which made this Salon article on the 1941 United States oil embargo against Japan fascinating.  To summarize for those unfamiliar with it, in 1941 before the Pearl Harbor attack United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt imposed a freeze on Japanese assets within the United States, which would require permits to be issued prior to any sale of goods taking place to Japan.  As Japan relied heavily upon United States oil exports to meet its fuel needs, particularly for its military, this action represented a significant risk to Japan's ability to continue its on-going war in China at the time.

The ambiguity comes in regarding how the oil embargo was imposed and the role of Dean Acheson, pictured above, in creating that oil embargo.  As Assistant Secretary of State at the time Acheson had an unusual opportunity to shape United States policy, while the President was in Newfoundland having a secret conference with Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, Acheson had near total authority to decide if any licenses would be issued to Japan to allow the purchase of oil.  He chose to not issue any such licenses, imposing an effective oil embargo on Japan and starting the chain of concerns that led to the Pearl Harbor attack on the United States in December 1941.

The question that needs to be asked though is this - did FDR know that Acheson was going to take this action and allowed it or was he surprised by the action and left it in place to avoid appearing weak?

This is not an easy question to answer, several sources claim that Acheson acted on his own and FDR was not involved in the choice, he wanted to avoid war.  However one source I checked claimed that FDR did know and, more critically, a close friend of FDR's was in the State Department and had access to warn FDR if Acheson had been acting without approval.

My research into FDR has shown when it came to foreign policy he seemed to like having a distance between himself and certain actions, but was very willing to engage when needed in quite aggressive action.  The theory that seems most likely to me is FDR was aware of the oil embargo being implemented by this indirect means and supported it, to see what impact it would have on Japan.  If it turned out to be far too dangerous he'd be able to then retract what Acheson did and state Acheson had gone "too far" with his authority.

But we won't ever know - this was one of the items that there simply aren't clean records or sources to document.  Considering this policy can be directly linked to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, it has relevance.

Sources:  Salon article on this topic, Wikipedia on Dean Acheson, State Department page on Acheson, Google Books scan of "An Introduction to the Causes of War" by Greg Cashman & Leonard C. Robinson, Google Books scan of "The History of American Foreign Policy from 1895" by Jerald A. Combs