As USS Washington and her teammates head back to Iceland, word comes in that the mammoth German battleship Tirpitz is at sea. Washington goes to battle stations at 3 p.m., and all stations report GQ set in 4.5 minutes, beating the previous record of eight. The regulation procedure calls for the gunner to get the keys from the captain's safe and bring them to the armory for distribution to the gunner's mates. Instead the gunner (a warrant officer) uses dog wrenches to break open every magazine lock. Thereafter, gun keys are kept in the armory to save time.

But Washington does not face Tirpitz. Instead her radio crews listen to the disaster befalling Convoy PQ-17. Morale aboard dips. SN Mel Beckstrand writes, "I wish someone would make up their mind. I would like to see an attack myself; it would break up the monotony. Everyone is gunning for Adolf, and we aren't the least scared of him. 'Bring him on' is the general opinion this ship. The Limeys, however, seem a bit leery."

US naval intelligence determines that the Japanese are indeed building an airbase on Guadalcanal. Adm. Chester Nimitz, CINCPAC, orders the 1st Marine Division to invade the island, and code-names it "Cactus."

The 1st Marine Division is, at the moment, a title, but it has a commander, Maj. Gen. Archibald Vandegrift, 55, quiet, determined, a quick study, and naturally optimistic. He is a prize protege of Gen. Smedley D. Butler, twice recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and understands that the key element of war is man.

1st Marine Division consists of three regiments, and a panoply of support units, including a regiment of 75mm pack howitzers, a battalion of M-3 Stuart tanks, and amphibian tractors. The Marine rifleman carries not the M-1 Garand, but the M-1903 Springfield bolt-action rifle used in World War I.

Its men come in two varieties: many who are young and under 20, who joined right after Pearl Harbor, filled with patriotism, eager for combat. The remainder are a thin cadre of veteran Marines called the "Old Breed" (described by historian Samuel Griffith) who have been yanked from navy yards and recruiting shops to provide the division with a core of experienced NCOs. Some are World War I vets. They have fought "Cacos" in Haiti, "Bandidos" in Nicaragua, and French, English, Italian, and American soldiers and Sailors in every bar in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

They are inveterate gamblers, accomplished scroungers, disciplinary nightmares, chew tobacco, and drink hair tonic. But they wear expert badges with bar for proficiency with rifle, pistol, machine gun, hand grenade, automatic rifle, mortar and bayonet. "They knew their weapons and they knew their tactics. They knew they were tough and they knew they were good. There were enough of them to leaven the Division and to impart to the thousands of younger men a share of both the unique spirit which animated them and the skills they possessed."

They are among the toughest fighters America has to offer, and they are about to face an army that has yet to be defeated in World War II.

The Auckland Dominion newspaper scares everyone in New Zealand with an article by military analyst George Fielding Eliot saying that "The only way to take positions such as Rabaul, Wake Island and Tulagi, is to land troops to take physical possession of them." He adds that US Marines have been sent to a South Pacific port, suggesting action. Intelligence officers find out that Eliot made this analysis from nothing more secret than a Rand McNally map of known Japanese positions.

6 NZ Brigade returns to Kaponga Box in Egypt and 4 Brigade assembles west of it. Brig. J.R. Grey, commanding 4 Brigade, is killed in an air attack that delays the division's forward move. Brig. Jim Burrows, of Christchurch, takes over the outfit.

The First Battle for El Alamein rages on, with the Afrika Korps down to 36 tanks. Gen. Sir Claude Auchinlek, head of the 8th Army, relieves the tired General Norrie, boss of 30 Corps, who needs a rest. General Ramsden of 50th Northumbrian Division takes over. The corps, busy with the folderol of changing commands, performs sluggishly for the next two days, as does the whole of the tired 8th Army.

German tanks in Russia reach the Don on either side of Voronezh. The Soviets create a new "Voronezh Front" to cope with the situation, under General Vatutin. Russian resistance is patchy and disorganized as the Germans thunder on.

July 6th, 1942...A joke making the rounds in Berlin as follows: "There is no petrol in Berlin this week. Reichmarshal Goering has sent all his uniforms to the cleaners."

In a continuing effort to confuse the Germans, a deception scheme called "Cascade" unrolls. The latest brainstorm is to convince the Germans there are two New Zealand divisions in Egypt. Troops at New Zealand's Maadi Base camp assume the title 6 NZ Division and the nomenclature of base and training units is changed accordingly.

The same day, the real 3 NZ Division is established in Auckland.

PQ-17 gets hammered, losing four more ships to U-boats, another to the Luftwaffe. The Salamander and her group, joined by the corvette Lotus and convoy Commodore J.C. Dowding, forms its own little convoy, moving through fog to Murmansk.

Organized Soviet resistance in the Crimea ends, while the German 4th Panzer Army reaches the Don at Voronezh, facing stiff opposition.

Convoy PQ 13, coming home from Murmansk, makes a navigational error, and runs into a British minefield off Iceland. Five merchant ships are sunk, along with the British minesweeper Niger and the Russian ship Rodina, carrying on board the wives and families of Soviet diplomats stationed in London.

German troops launch yet another attack on Soviet partisans. This time it's Operation Swamp Flower, against Soviet partisans near Dorogobuzh. These partisans are reinforced by Soviet paratroopers.

In China, Gen. Joseph Stilwell's typists have a busy day issuing instructions setting up the China-Burma-India Theater. Meanwhile, Chinese representatives in Washington say their country needs more help.

German-American Bund leader Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze is held for $50,000 bond in New York for failing to tell the draft board of his whereabouts.

12 Japanese ships arrive off Guadalcanal and unload four heavy-duty tractors, six road rollers, two generators, an ice plant, 100 trucks, a completely labelled infirmary, and a dozen cases of a soft drink called Mitsubichampagne Cider. The Japanese bring no bulldozers, but two tiny locomotives, hopper cars, and rail tracks. Also arriving are the Navy's 13th and 11th Construction Units, and 400 infantrymen to guard them. Coastwatchers in Guadalcanal are ordered by Australian naval intelligence to find out everything possible.

Don McFarland and Ken Hay, at Gold Ridge's five-bedroom house (formerly headquarters for the European manager of a gold- mining company) are happy to oblige, sending their local scouts down to reconnoiter.

The scouts find it difficult. T. Ishimoto, a local Japanese who lived in the Solomons before the war, has turned out to be now the local head of Japan's secret police. He recognizes a couple of Hay's scouts, and they flee before Ishimoto can bring in the cops. Ishimoto and Japanese troops prowl the jungle to find the Coastwatchers. Martin Clemens puts citronella on his heels and walks in streams, and scatters arsenic along trails leading to his hideout to defeat rumored dogs, but the Japanese don't use any.

That evening, Clemens finishes up another move to Vungana, a jungle pinnacle, hiding the government safe in a tunnel dug into the hillside. His radio batteries are low, and he is short of water.

July 7th, 1942...The battle of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel breaks out when aviators from USS Enterprise mourning their lost shipmates at the hotel bar overhear Army B-17 pilots modestly claiming to have sunk the entire Japanese Navy. Navy attacks Army which starts a full-scale riot ended 20 minutes later by the Shore Patrol. Enterprise herself is in the Navy Yard for upkeep and repair.

Meanwhile, USS Saratoga, finally out of repair, heads for Pearl Harbor for the South Pacific, flying Vice Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher's flag. She will lead the carrier force covering the invasion of Guadalcanal.

4 NZ Brigade attacks Italian troops northwest of Kaponga Box. Patrols of the Special Air Service and the Long Range Desert Group make life interesting by destroying seven Italian fighters on the ground.

That evening, the Australian 24th Brigade raids Rommel's 15th Panzer Division in Laager. Angry, Rommel fires the 15th's commander.

The New Guinea front opens when Co. B, 2/39th Australian battalion, leaves Port Moresby for Kokoda, travelling the hard way over the Kokoda Trail.

In Berlin, Heinrich Himmler confers with three key subordinates, Concentration Camp Inspector Richard Glueks; hospital chief Professor Karl Gebhardt, and gynecologist Karl Clauber. Subject: performing medical experiments of "major dimensions" on Jewish women at Auschwitz. The experiments will be done in such a way that a woman would not be aware of what is being done to her. One of the decisions taken is to research the possibilities of using X-rays to castrate men. Himmler warns all hands that these are "most secret matters."

The German 6th Army hooks up with the 4th Panzer Army northeast of Valuiki. 6th Army's boss is a lean, ascetic Prussian named Friedrich Paulus. (The "von" often added to his name is not accurate) Paulus is one of the Army's better thinkers, having devised many operational plans while a top staff officer in Berlin. He is also relatively chivalrous as the war goes, refusing to assist SS Einsatzgruppen in their efforts to murder Jews in his army's areas.

The German-American Bund, which has spent the 1930s praising Hitler in Madison Square Garden rallies, running paramilitary camps, and beating up Jews on New York street corners, faces justice when 29 of its leaders are indicted for conspiring to violate the Selective Service Act and Alien Registration Law.

July 8th, 1942...Task Force 99 arrives in Iceland. Washington's crew replenishes with fuel and stores. Disgusted by its lack of combat action, Adm. Ernest J. King, commander-in-chief, orders the force's recall.

The New Zealanders abandon Kaponga Box at El Alamein. Both sides are short of supplies in Egypt, but the Germans operate at the end of a 1,420-mile supply line from Tripoli, 660 miles from Benghazi, 330 from Tobruk. Axis supply columns are hindered by the RAF and the Long Range Desert Group. Another problem is that Rommel, a superb tactician and field officer, is not an expert on logistics, a common failing in German generals. He expects his supply teams to support him no matter what. A third problem facing the Axis are their transport vehicles. German Opels and Italian Isotta-Franchinis are reliable trucks, but like most European vehicles, are designed for short-haul transport in a continent that moves most freight by rail. European vehicles are usually made to a high level of excellence, but lack interchangeable spare parts.

British Bedford and Leyland army lorries are not much of an improvement, but they have only a 70-mile trip from Alexandria to El Alamein. Just as importantly, one of America's leading contributions to the war, the 6-by-6 deuce-and-a-half ton truck, is making its appearance in North Africa. Configured for long- haul travel, these vehicles arrive in North Africa properly packed and weatherproofed, and spare parts fit in without using hammer and chisel.

72 more German-American Bundists are arrested by the FBI. Meanwhile, the trial of George Dasch and his seven fellow saboteurs kicks off in Washington. Roosevelt orders the crew be tried by a military tribunal of seven generals, the first since Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Prosecuting is the able Attorney General, Francis Biddle, a wealthy Philadelphia Main Liner, who will go on to be judge at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Defense is handled by Col. Kenneth Royall, later Harry Truman's secretary of war. The trial is held in secret at the Justice Department. Biddle accuses the spies of coming to America to wreak havoc and death. The saboteurs denounce Hitler and insist they had no intention of actually causing chaos.

July 9th, 1942...Coastwatcher Snowy Rhoades moves on Guadalcanal, with 24 carriers hauling his rice, kerosene, benzine, and teleradio to the west coast of the island. Everyone takes a nap in the dark near the ocean, and is awakened when a barge loaded with 40 soldiers and Ishimoto chugs past, 100 yards away. It doesn't spot them, and Rhoades is still safe for the moment.

The Germans attack Kaponga Box at El Alamein to find it empty! Rommel orders his tanks to sweep southeastward, sensing victory. Surely now nothing can top him from entering Cairo. Then he hits the sack.

The Australians ship the 7th Brigade, back from North Africa, to Milne Bay in New Guinea. The Diggers will go from the intense burning heat of Libyan sands to the intense humid heat of New Guinea.

US Rep. Andrew May, D-Kentucky, chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee, predicts the war will end sometime in 1942 and "unquestionably in 1943." He says his source for the prediction is a military secret.

Himmler and Hitler have a chat at Rastenberg on what to do with Russia once it's conquered. They agree that Germans from Italy's South Tyrol will be shipped to the Crimea for resettlement.

Later in the day, the Fuhrer splits Army Group South into two more Army Groups, dividing by binary fission. Army Group A's 1st Panzer and 17th Armies will streak on toward Rostov and the Caucasus, while Army Group B's 4th Panzer Army and 6th Army will head for Stalingrad. Army Group B will be headed by Field Marshal von Weichs. Army Group A's boss is the only one Hitler can't fire: Der Fuhrer himself.

July 10th, 1942...A big day for the British in North Africa when an Australian platoon storms and sacks the German forward radio listening unit. After mopping up, the Australians find out that the Germans have broken the British codes, aiding their success. A big factor in German intelligence has been the US Naval Attache to Egypt, Cdr. Bonner Fellers, who has been sending detailed reports to Washington in "Black Code." Unfortunately, the Italians have broken "Black Code," and Rommel is reading Fellers' mail. Fellers soon gets a new and exciting job commanding an ammunition dump in Kansas.

Also discovered is that the Germans have sent a half- Egyptian, half-German agent into Egypt to incite rebellion and gain information. A classic espionage chase ensues in Cairo, with the British ultimately triumphing, with the help of a Zionist bar girl who seduces the German, finding out that the agent's code is based on words and phrases in the Daphne Du Maurier novel "Rebecca." The British are able to use the code to their own advantage.

While Du Maurier's novel is aiding the Axis, Du Maurier's husband is aiding the Allies. He is Lt. Gen. Frederick A. Browning, the founder and first commander of the British 1st Airborne Division, who later commands 1st British Airborne Corps in the ill-fated Operation Market-Garden.

At 3:30 a.m., Rommel is awakened by the sounds of a bombardment that reminds him of World War I. He realizes he has been outmaneuvered as the 26th Australians, backed by 32 Valentine tanks, have attacked first. The Aussies destroy two battalions of the Sabratha Division. Rommel's HQ party watches in amazement as Italian troops flee in panic and rout, shedding rifles and boots to run faster.

Luckily for Rommel, his reinforcements from Crete, 164th German Infantry Division, has just arrived, and they form a line to defend Afrika Korps headquarters. Rommel cancels his plans to attack.

German forces seize Rossosh in Russia and cross to the east bank of the River Don, as the blitzkrieg roars on.

At Auschwitz, the first hundred Jewish women are taken from the barracks block to the hospital block for sterilization and other experiments.

Commodore Dowding arrives in Archangel with two ships out of the 33 he sailed with in PQ-17. Gradually a few more shuffle in. 23 ships have been sunk in the convoy, and only 10 reach harbor. Of 156,492 tons on board, 99,316 have been sunk, including 430 of 594 tanks, 210 of 297 aircraft, and 3,350 of 4,246 vehicles. 153 men have been drowned. Newspapers charge the Royal Navy with cowardice. Merchant seamen's confidence in the Royal Navy is shaken. Stalin sees in the disaster an absence of will to succeed.

Historians will debate if the convoy should have scattered. Some will argue that it should have stayed together against the air and undersea threat, others believe had it stayed together, Tirpitz and her consorts would have sunk the whole lot.

Either way, the convoy is a case of political expedience insisting on the carrying out of an operation, which, even before it is begun, is known to be strategically unsound.

Winston Churchill has to cancel convoys to Russia until autumn.

The US dodges a bullet when Adm. Chester Nimitz escapes a plane crash in California with minor injuries. He is in the states to receive the Distinguished Service Medal for his handling of the Coral Sea and Midway.

July 11th, 1942...Troops of US 1st Marine Division arrive in Wellington.

Chinese troops surprise practically everybody by seizing Futou Island near Fuchow.

Martin Bormann, head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, tells SS leaders that "by order of the Fuhrer, in public discussion of the Jewish question any mention of a future total solution must be avoided. However, one may discuss the fact that all Jews are being interned and detailed to purposeful compulsory labor forces."

Meanwhile, at Rastenberg, Hitler orders Operation Blucher, which will hurl his Crimean forces across the Kerch Straits and into the Caucasus.