August 2nd, 1942...Things on Guadalcanal aren't going too well for Coastwatcher Snowy Rhoades, who learns that local chiefs have held a meeting and decided he is too much of a liability to have around. They are sure he will be ultimately caught and the neighboring villages wiped out. The chiefs want to kill Rhoades first and present his head to the Japanese. However, a local chief named Pelisse has objected, pointing out that Rhoades has a rifle, 3,000 rounds, and is a good shot. Even if the natives attack at night, they will take heavy casualties. And Pelisse has promised to help Rhoades, and will keep that promise. So the chiefs have deferred this decision.

Just after midnight, Col. Gen. Andrei Yeremenko leaves his walking stick in Stalin's outer office with the major-domo, and walks carefully but boldly into the meeting room of the State Defense Committee. Stalin looks Yeremenko carefully in the eye and says, "Well, so you think you're all right?"

"Yes, I've recovered," Yeremenko answers. "Well, then," Stalin says, "We'll consider you as back in the ranks. You're very necessary to us just now. Let's get down to business. At Stalingrad now circumstances have so turned out that we can't get by without taking steps to strengthen this very important sector of the front, and without steps calculated to improve the direction of the troops. It has been decided to divide the Stalingrad Front which was formed recently into two. The State Defense Committee intends to assign you to head one of them. What's your view on it?"

"I am ready to serve anywhere you think necessary to send me," says Yeremenko.

Yeremenko's hour has come. He is given the northern of the two fronts, the Southeast Front, which must be created from scratch. Stalin tells Yeremenko to fly to Stalingrad at once.

August 3rd, 1942...CAPT Sukemitsu Ito's force of six Mavis seaplane bombers are finally ready for work in the Aleutians. Ito is short on bombs (two of his cargo ships have been sunk and his navigational charts are hopelessly inaccurate, made in prewar surveys by Japanese "fishing" boats. One map has Nazan Bay three miles from its actual location. Ito has spent the last month flying the Aleutian chain himself, making new maps. Now he's ready for war. He briefs his pilots and three Mavis bombers drone out of Kiska harbor, bound for Kuluk Bay. There they attack the subtender Gillis and destroyer USS Kane, damaging neither. The American ships avoid bombs with good maneuvering, and Japanese ordnance chews up the harbor bottom, spewing mud. Irritated, Ito decides to try again next day.

Blitzkrieg in the East rolls on as German Army Group A rumbles into the Kuban and overruns Voroshilovsk. The 23rd Panzer Division punches out the Caucasian Cavalry Corps, destroying 68 tanks in one hour, and capturing the corps' chief of staff. German troops reach Stavropol in the Caucasus, cross the Don at Tsimlyansky, and press east to Kotelnikovo, less than 100 miles from Stalingrad.

"The heat of the Kuban steppe was stifling," writes Gen. Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, a panzer corps commander. "We were glad to approach the Caucasus Mountains and breathe cooler air. By this time my corps had spent over a month behind the Soviet lines. Rumors of disagreements at Supreme Headquarters on account of the eccentricity of the maneuvers -- southward toward the Caucasus and northeastward against Stalingrad -- did not worry us at this time, but difficulties with fuel supply were already being felt."

Coastwatcher Don McFarland joins Martin Clemens for what they expect to be the last stand. Headquarters in Townsville, Australia, is demanding more and accurate information. Clemens fires off eight different messages giving his latest data.

The USAAF releases the first flight pictures of its newest fighter, the P-47 Thunderbolt, which is now in production. This aircraft features a 2,000-horsepower, air-cooled engine, and a 40,000-foot ceiling. But it lacks the range to reach Berlin, and is not as nimble as some of its opponents. Nonetheless, it will be a formidable machine. Unfortunately for American pilots, they are not using it. They have to rely on P-40s and P-39s to counter the Japanese Zero and German Me-109.

August 4th, 1942...HMNZS Achilles picks up a convoy of four transports from the cruiser USS Helena, and escorts them to New Caledonia.

Andrei Yeremenko arrives in Stalingrad and is met by his "Member of Military Council," an officer who is responsible for indoctrination, propaganda, morale, and welfare of the troops. This officer is also responsible for ensuring maximum cooperation from local Party authorities, and if need be, ensuring that Yeremenko remains "politically" sound. Readers of Tom Clancy's novels would recognize this character as being the front's zampolit. The world in general will recognize this character by his name and later work: Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev.

Yeremenko is give four days to set up his defenses. He puts his headquarters in the new Tsaritsyn Bunker. The dividing line between his front and Gordov's runs right through the center of the city.

Gen. George Brett is out of a job in Australia, as Gen. George Kenney takes over as head of Allied airpower in the Southwest Pacific. Brett's chief achievement to date has been the loss of American airpower in the Philippines.

Standing trial in Indianapolis is one of the nation's odder figures, William Dudley Pelley. During the 1930s, Pelley led the Fascist and anti-Semitic Silver Shirts, a paramilitary right-wing militia born out of Depression hard times (which should echo eerily with recent accounts of American militias). Pelley is charged with 11 counts of sedition. Today, Charles Lindbergh testifies that Pelley's rhetoric was what the majority of the people believed before Pearl Harbor, that the US should not get into the war. Lindbergh, a staunch isolationist and Nazi sympathizer, adds that since Pearl Harbor he has devoted his time to the war effort. The jury is not impressed.

During his visit to Cairo, Winston Churchill is told that if the Germans take the Caucasus, they will threaten the Persian Gulf. Field Marshal Alan Brooke, Churchill's chief of staff, tells the Prime Minister that Egypt and North Africa would have to be abandoned, to protect the Persian Gulf and Britain's oil supplies.

Brooke recommends to Churchill that Gen. Sir Claude Auchinleck's place should be that of Commander-in-Chief, not head of 8th Army as well, and that Lt. Gen. Bernard Montgomery, the planned commander of the British 1st Army in Operation Torch, be given the 8th Army instead. Churchill prefers Gen. Strafer Gott, who is on the spot and can work out immediate plans for an offensive. Auchinleck insists that there can be no attack for six weeks. Churchill is not happy.

2/10th Australian battalion is exercising in Queensland when Driver J. Ferguson comes out in the staff car bearing a message from brigade. Battalion CO is wanted at headquarters. The CO hops in the car and the following conversation ensues:

Ferguson: "This is it, sir."
CO: "This is what?"
Ferguson: "We'll be moving, sir."
CO: "Moving where?"
Ferguson: "New Guinea, sir."
CO: "How the hell do you know?"
Ferguson: "I got it from one of the cooks at division, sir."
CO: "Then it must be right."

They are quickly shipped to New Guinea, where they start building roads and airstrips at Milne Bay. The roads are formed of soft coral, which breaks up under vehicles, so backpower is used to move gear, in the pouring rain.

The rain brings additional misery in the form of malaria which becomes endemic. Soon there are 100 cases per 1,000 soldiers per week. The troops are issued quinine, which has the unfortunate side effect of passing on the disease if a malaria- ridden soldier serves as blood donor for a wounded man.

Australian officers fine their men three pounds for walking barefoot on hookworm-laden tracks. Troops swap out Queensland shorts for tropical long pants, and men are told to avoid scratches that can soon turn into tropical sores. Another problem New Guinea troops face is that their mosquito nets are white, not camouflage green, and can be seen by enemy snipers for miles.

In the Aleutians, Col. William O. Eareckson, the American air boss, tries an ambush technique, using bombers to escort fighters. Five B-17s over Nazan Bay pick up three incoming Japanese bombers on their radar. Fed range and direction by radio, P-38 Lightning fighters (something new in war) jump on the incoming Japanese Mavis seaplane bombers, surprising their boss, Ito. The Americans shoot down two bombers, but Ito escapes. It is the first victory for the twin-boomed fighter in World War II, and the Americans continue the tactic for 10 days, when Ito gets the point, and he flies his last surviving Mavis back to Japan.

The Japanese are having a hard time living in their Aleutian conquests, as troops are short of supplies. ADM Boshiro Hosogaya puts his large attack submarines to work as transports to keep the men from starving. Those men, using picks and shovels, start building airfields on Kiska and Attu.