CLAUSEWITZ (July 1942) CLAUSEWITZ ( JULY 1942) The 1942 summer offensive operation by the Wehrmacht, originally code named BLAU II, that advanced through the Donbass region toward Rostov CLAY, LUCIUS D (1898–1978) Clay was an engineer by training and an administrator, rather than combat soldier, by inclination and talent His main responsibility was the massive procurement program that underwrote the American war effort and fed Lend-Lease aid to Allied states His most public role came after the war as military governor of the American zone of occupation in Germany from 1945 to 1949 CLAYTON KNIGHT COMMITTEE From 1939 to 1942, the RAF and RCAF covertly recruited American pilots though this shadow organization It was named for the American World War I ace who organized it with Billy Bishop, his Canadian friend and top Allied ace of the Great War It operated discretely to avoid legal complications that the Neutrality Acts posed for any U.S citizen fighting with a foreign military Before those U.S laws were repealed, the Committee recruited over 6,700 American volunteers See also Eagle squadrons CLOSE AIR SUPPORT Tactical bombing and strafing in support of specific and individual enemy battlefield targets in support of one’s own ground forces See also interdiction COASTAL COMMAND See air–sea rescue; Atlantic, Battle of the (1939–1945); Royal Air Force (RAF) COAST WATCHERS Western Allied military personnel and civilians who stayed behind on Japanese-occupied islands in the South Pacific to report on enemy air, ship, and troop movements The Japanese also used coast watchers to observe enemy shipping Most of the several hundred Allied coast watchers were Australian Australian naval intelligence had organized a coast watch service after World War I It built on that foundation from 1941 Some coast watchers were native to the South Pacific islands or colonists there before the war Others were escaped prisoners or soldiers who evaded capture Other watchers were organized under the intelligence branch of South West Pacific Area (SWPA) command From mid-1942 coast watchers of several nationalities worked for the Allied Intelligence Bureau They were especially effective in warning of Japanese ship and aircraft movements during the early Solomons campaign, around Bougainville and Guadalcanal Some branched into rescuing downed Allied—and even Japanese—air crew The Japanese rigorously hunted coast watchers and were merciless when they caught them, despite Western Allied attempts to give them military rank and legal protections Many were killed The service disbanded in October 1944, as the war moved away to the Central Pacific 244