Klaus Fuchs, a notorious Russian spy, worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. For an exciting description of his background, click on this link. Credit: detective-store.com.
By: Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
From a British prison in India, Mohandas Gandhi on August 14, 1942, writes U.S. President Roosevelt: “I have suggested that if the Allies think it necessary, they may keep their troops, at their own expense, in India, not for keeping internal order but for preventing Japanese aggression and defending China. So far as India is concerned, she must become free even as America and Great Britain are.” Gandhi receives no reply. However, U.S. troops in India are ordered to “exercise scrupulous care to avoid the slightest participation in India’s internal political problems.”
The last of six surviving merchant ships (of 14 that started out) of the “Pedestal convoy” — the damaged American tanker SS Ohio, with 10,000 tons of oil on board — is towed into Malta by three British warships on August 15. In Moscow, Churchill and Stalin in their final day of meetings, discuss strategic options for operations in North Africa and for, at some point, opening a second front on mainland Europe. In Russia, German troops reach the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains.
On August 16, for the first time in the war, U.S. Army Air Forces planes, operating out of Egypt, provide tactical air support for the British Eighth Army in its fight against Rommel’s Axis forces. In the Caucasus, the Red Army evacuates the Maykop oil fields. In California, a mystery unfolds: The U.S. Navy blimp L-8 — on a coastal patrol over the Pacific — drifts ashore near San Francisco, eventually coming down in Daly City with its two-man crew missing. No distress signal had been received, and there are no clues as to why the men (both naval officers) have disappeared. No trace of them is ever found.
In the first air raid conducted solely by the U.S. Army Air Forces in Europe, 12 Flying Fortress heavy bombers hit the railroad marshaling yard in Rouen, Occupied France, on August 17. Klaus Fuchs, a German scientist interned in the United Kingdom when the war broke out, becomes a British subject. He works on the Anglo-American-Canadian “Manhattan Project” to develop an atomic bomb. Unbeknownst to his co-researchers, he is also spying for the Soviet Union, and passing along important information about the secret work.
Due to increased activity by partisans behind German lines on the Eastern Front, Hitler on August 18 issues a directive ordering harsher measures against local populations suspected of resistance. He also grants increased power to the SS Special Units (Einsatzgruppen). The waters off Jacksonville, Florida, are mined by a German submarine. Gen. Sir Harold Alexander, of the British Royal Army, replaces Gen. Sir Hugh Auchinleck as commander, Middle East.
On July 19, in an operation code-named “Jubilee,” some 6,100 British and Canadian troops conduct a raid-in-force against the port of Dieppe, on the northern coast of Occupied France. It ends in disaster. In less than 10 hours of battle, the British and Canadians lose 1,380 killed in action, 1,600 wounded and 2,000 made prisoner. The RAF loses 107 aircraft and the Royal Navy loses a destroyer. German losses are 345 dead or missing, and 268 wounded, with total Luftwaffe losses being just 40 aircraft. Civilian casualties are put at 48 dead and 100 wounded. Halfway around the world, troops of the Australian 7th Division make amphibious landings at Port Moresby, New Guinea. In the Soviet Union, Gen. von Paulus orders the German Sixth Army to attack Stalingrad.
The next day, August 20, at Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands, 19 Grumman Wildcat fighters and 12 Douglas Dauntless dive bombers are flown from the American auxiliary aircraft carrier USS Long Island to Henderson Field. The USAAF establishes the Twelfth Air Force as the aviation component of “Operation Torch.” It will train in England until moving to North Africa. In San Francisco, dim-out lighting regulations are implemented. Chinese forces retake Guangfeng and Shangrao, in Chiang-hsi Province in southeast China, from the Japanese.
