From
Spirit over Steel:
December 17, 1939: British deception operations about a massive buildup outside the River Platte fool the Captain of the Graf Spee – who is required by law to leave Montevideo but scuttles his damaged ship rather than getting his crew killed in a hopeless battle. Later, when Captain Langsdorf learns he was fooled, he takes his own life. Finnish troops cut off the 44th and 163rd Soviet rifle divisions; starving them of supply and leaving them strung out along several roads.
December 17, 1940: Roosevelt outlines his “lend-lease” policy in a press conference. The British occupy Sollum, Capuzzo and some other Italian border forts.
December 17, 1941: Manstein’s 11th Army launches a series of attacks on Sevastopol. Field Marshal von Kluge takes over command of Army Group Centre from von Bock. Nimitz relieves Admiral Kimmel, and efforts are being made to relieve the garrison on Wake. A British cruiser, Dunedin is torpedoed by a U-Boat.
December 17, 1942: The Volga has frozen over and the battered 62nd Army inside Stalingrad is in supply once more. Hoth’s offensive is still proceeding, however, and is making good progress. Thanks to intelligence smuggled (at great risk) out of Poland and elsewhere in occupied Europe, the evidence of the Nazi mass murder of Europe’s Jews is abundantly clear. The British and Americans openly denounce the murders but there is little they can do to stop it.
Essential Reading: The Polish Resistance hero Jan Karski carried much of the news (including his own first-hand observations) of the plight of Europe’s Jews to the Western World in 1942. His 1944 book
Story of a Secret State ran to 400,000 copies in 1944/45 alone. The book was reprinted and updated in 2001, but any true bibliophile would rejoice to have one of the earlier editions.
December 17, 1944: 82nd and 101st Airborne are pulled out of rest and sent to shore up the Ardennes: Various other US Corps and Army troops are rushed in as well. Admiral Vian sends the aircraft of Illustrious and Indomitable to hit oil instillations in northern Sumatra. 10th Indian crosses the Senio River in Italy. US forces make gains on both Mindoro and Leyte. Troops from the 1st SS Division massacre 87 American POWs at Malmedy, Belgium.
PFC Willam A. Soderman, Medal of Honor
The 2nd US Infantry Division’s determined fight on the 16th and 17th of December was a major contribution to the defeat of the Ardennes Offensive even as it began. One of the many soldiers whose grit and determination made this success possible was PFC Willam A. Soderman outside the town of Rocherath. At dusk, as five German tanks rumbled towards him, he stood up in their sight with a bazooka, and then destroyed the lead tank. The others passed him by before he could reload, but he engaged another group of five tanks at dawn on the 18th, forcing their withdrawal after crippling the lead vehicle. He also used his bazooka with some effect on a platoon of German infantry. As his hard-pressed company began to fall back, PFC Soderman heard the approach of another group of German tanks and decided to engage them before they fell on his vulnerable comrades. He disabled one of those tanks, but was then severely wounded by their machinegun fire. However, he crawled away from the scene and was picked up and evacuated by withdrawing GIs. His actions won him the Medal of Honor.
Spirit over Steel is available at Amazon.com
