Posted on 09/13/2009 6:21:18 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
NAVAL EVENTS-Wednesday, 13 September
Northern Patrol - light cruiser DELHI arrived at Scapa Flow for duty with the 12th Cruiser Squadron on Northern Patrol.
Northwestern approaches - U.27 sank British trawler DAVANA (291grt) 21 miles NW by N from Tory Island. Survivors were rescued by steamer WILLOWPOOL (4815grt).
British northern waters - Destroyer MATABELE escorting tanker MIXOL departed Rosyth for Scapa Flow. Submarine OBERON proceeded in company and was detached at Dundee. MATABELE and MIXOL arrived at Scapa Flow on the 14th.
U-boat operations, Scottish east coast - the last two of six submarines departed Germany to operate off the Scottish coast against British warships. On the 7th, U.36 had left Kiel for Wilhelmshaven, and then with U.21, U.23, U.31 and U.35 left that port on the 9th. On the same day, U.36 sighted submarine SEAHORSE.
On the 13th, both U.14 and U.24 left Kiel, initially for operations in the Moray Firth area. U.14 went on to reconnoitre Scapa Flow until the 25th and U.24 stayed in the Moray Firth area until the 27th. By then, of the total seven U-boats– three were deployed off the Firth of Forth, one east and one southeast of Moray Firth, one in the North Sea between Shetlands and Norway, and U.24 in the Moray Firth area.
U.21 attacked a destroyer off the Firth of Forth on the 22nd, U.14 a submarine off Duncansby Head on the 24th, and U.24 destroyer FORESIGHT off the Shetlands, also on the 24th, but all failed due to torpedo defects.
British east coast - destroyer WALLACE was badly damaged in a collision with steamer REDRIFF (1577grt) off Lowestoft and reported in danger of sinking. WALLACE was attended by destroyer WANDERER and met by tugs, temporarily repaired at Yarmouth, then taken to Hull where repairs were completed on 23 October.
Sloop WESTON ran aground on the Shipwash, was refloated without assistance and was able to proceed to Rosyth. The only damage was to her anti-submarine dome and she was soon back to duty.
Convoy FN.4 departed Southend and arrived at Methil on the 14th.
North Sea - German trawler STOLP (122grt) was sunk in accidental collision with torpedo boat LUCHS in the North Sea.
Dutch waters - U.3 departed Wilhelmshaven for patrol off Terschelling.
Norwegian steamer RONDA (5136grt) was mined and sunk off Terschelling, with 17 crew lost. The survivors were rescued by Italian steamer PROVVIDENZA (8459grt).
German waters - U.6 arrived at Kiel.
U.16 was in dock in Wilhelmshaven from 13th to 29th for repair to her electrical system.
Baltic - Greek steamer KATINGO HAJIPATERA (3661grt) was damaged on a mine off Falsterbo, Sweden and ran aground. She was refloated and proceeded the same day to Copenhagen escorted by a Swedish minesweeper.
During the night of the 13th/14th, Polish minesweepers JASKOLKA, RYBITWA, CZAJKA laid 60 mines south of Hela to prevent German battleship SCHLESWIG HOLSTEIN shelling the Hela Peninsula.
Dover Straits - destroyer JAVELIN, with sister ship JERSEY in company, attacked a submarine contact near the East Goodwin Light Vessel.
Destroyer BLANCHE attacked a submarine contact five miles east of Dungeness.
English Channel - destroyer MALCOLM attacked a submarine contact 22 miles east of Guernsey.
UK-France convoy - Destroyers VENOMOUS and WREN escorted convoy MB.2 from Southampton to Brest from the 13th to 14th. The following convoy, MB.3 was cancelled.
UK-out convoys - Convoys OA.4 and OB.4A of 31 ships, departed Southend. Destroyers ANTELOPE and ACASTA departed Plymouth and escorted the convoys from North Foreland from the 13th to 16th, before arriving back at Plymouth on the 17th.
Convoy OB.4 departed Liverpool escorted by destroyers WHIRLWIND and WARWICK until the 16th.
Southwestern Approaches – U.35 was attacked by a British aircraft which dropped three bombs west of Ireland. No damage was done.
U.29 sank tug NEPTUNIA (798grt) SW of Ireland. She was en route to tow destroyer WALKER. Her 21 man crew was rescued by steamer BRINKBURN (1598grt) after spending 28-30 hours in the ship’s boat.
U.26 sighted a submarine, presumably French, south of Ireland, but was not able to attack.
Casablanca, Morocco - French minelaying cruiser LA TOUR D’AUVERGNE (Formerly named PLUTON) was offloading mines at Casablanca when a mine being disarmed accidently exploded, setting off a chain reaction that blew up and destroyed the ship at anchor.
EV 1/c A E H Pugliesi-Conti was killed and CV Dubois, LV H G E O L’Hertier, Commander of Marine Detachment Lt Marc, Doctor 1/c Tarello CH MO, Reserve Officer EV 1/c Merlen, IGM 2/c Salle, Supply Officer 2/c Levaique, Reserve Officer EV 1/c Lepeque and Doctor 3/c F Brunet went missing. Two officers were wounded and some two hundred ratings killed or missing. Many of the rest of her crew of 17 officers and 407 ratings were wounded.
Trawlers ETOILE DU MATIN, SULTAN, MARIE MERVEILLEUSE were lost and a number of other ships in the harbour damaged by the explosion. Auxiliary minesweepers CHELLAH (70grt), GOSSE (300grt), and CHARCOT were badly damaged and not repaired. ALCOR and GRODIN were damaged.
Mediterranean - destroyers GRENADE, GRIFFIN, GARLAND, GIPSY, of the 1st Destroyer Flotilla departed Malta to escort Convoy Green 1 en route to Alexandria. On the 16th, GARLAND was damaged by the explosion of one of her depth charges dropped while steaming at slow speed. The explosion not only damaged her stern but wrenched loose another depth charge on the depth charge thrower. The second depth charge was thrown into the water and exploded under the ship.
GARLAND was towed to Alexandria by GRIFFIN, arriving on the 17th. Additionally, four of GARLAND’s more seriously wounded crewmen were transferred to light cruiser GALATEA which also arrived at Alexandria on the 17th. After emergency repairs, GARLAND was taken to Malta in October for repair, which lasted until 16 May 1940.
Heavy cruiser SUSSEX struck a submerged wreck with her propeller in the Ionian Sea and docked at Malta on the 13th.
Chinese waters - Heavy cruiser KENT departed Hong Kong on patrol, and arrived back on the 28th.
From Berlin...
The German Armed Forces High Command (OKW) announces that civilian targets in Poland are being bombed because civilians are involving themselves in the fighting.
In Poland...
A small German infantry force begins to cross the Vistula just south of Warsaw. The Bzura battles are now going badly for the Polish forces. The heaviest fighting will be over by September 15th but some engagements will continue until the 19th. Although the Germans will take their largest single haul of 150,000 prisoners in this battle, by September 19th, units of two Polish brigades and elements of others will manage to escape to Warsaw.
From Warsaw...
The US ambassador to Poland, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., reports that German bombers are attacking the civilian population. He says “they are releasing bombs they carry even when they are in no doubt as to the identity of their objectives.
In Paris...
The French Prime Minister, Edouard Daladier, forms a War Cabinet in which he is responsible for foreign affairs as well as retaining the portfolios of war and national defense. The former foreign minister, Georges Bonnet, is appointed Minister of Justice. Raoul Dautry is appointed Minister of Armaments and Georges Pernot is appointed Minister of Blockade, both are new portfolios related to the war effort. Daladier is keen to have a war cabinet that will enable France to put recent divisions aside and fight the war with a spirit of national unity.
Not quite. They came close, but were still fooling themselves. As the article goes on to say:
'How, however, the "removal" of Jews from Poland without their extermination can halt the alleged "strengthening" of Western Jewry is not explained.'
As we now know, no explanation was necessary.
So we weren't the only ones to have problems with torpedoes.
The attack to secure the ridges north and northeast of the Lvov, in Southern Poland, was launched by Group Schoerner at 1000 on 13 September.
The task force made rapid progress from the start, reaching the commanding height known as Hill 374 in the afternoon, and Zboiska and the surrounding ridges by dark. The major road to the north was cut by the capture of Zboiska, and the mountain troops dug in to hold their gains against a series of heavy Polish attacks. Other task forces moved out to secure the approches from the southwest and Przemysl, and to close off exits from the city to the south and southeast.
On the left flank of Fourteenth Army, meanwhile, progress was slow, and VIII Corps, had to be shifted to clear the north bank of the Vistula as far as the junction with the San. The units opposing the forces on the left of the Fourteenth Army front comprised remnants of the Polish 21st and 22d Mountain Divisions and the Rzeszow Armored Calvary Brigade.
The Polish units fought a strong rear guard action and withdrew across the San in a northeasterly direction to the dense forest and swamp area about Bilgoraj.
Notice that the US conquest of Iraq in 2003 covered more land in less time with fewer casualties than the German blitz did in Poland?
Early German Electric Torpedoes suffered from early problems with its internal depth-keeping equipment, and its firing pistol, but these were solved after the Norwegian Campaign.
(UBoat.net)
Sort of like what we are doing on this series of threads, isn’t it?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091104312.html
A Virtual Revolution Is Brewing for Colleges
http://www.feldgrau.com/september.html
September 13, 1939: Polish troops trapped in the Radom pocket surrender (60,000 prisoners).
Casablanca, Morocco - French minelaying cruiser LA TOUR D’AUVERGNE (Formerly named PLUTON) was offloading mines at Casablanca when a mine being disarmed accidently exploded, setting off a chain reaction that blew up and destroyed the ship at anchor.
EV 1/c A E H Pugliesi-Conti was killed and CV Dubois, LV H G E O L’Hertier, Commander of Marine Detachment Lt Marc, Doctor 1/c Tarello CH MO, Reserve Officer EV 1/c Merlen, IGM 2/c Salle, Supply Officer 2/c Levaique, Reserve Officer EV 1/c Lepeque and Doctor 3/c F Brunet went missing. Two officers were wounded and some two hundred ratings killed or missing. Many of the rest of her crew of 17 officers and 407 ratings were wounded.
On the 16th, GARLAND was damaged by the explosion of one of her depth charges dropped while steaming at slow speed. The explosion not only damaged her stern but wrenched loose another depth charge on the depth charge thrower. The second depth charge was thrown into the water and exploded under the ship.
The Bombing of Frampol happened during the German invasion of Poland in 1939. On 13 September, the town of Frampol (Poland), with a population of 4,000, and without any military or industrial targets, nor any Polish Army defenders, was practically annihilated by German Luftwaffe bombing practice. Over 60%[1] to 90%[2] of town's infrastructure was destroyed; only two streets remained untouched, plus a few houses.[3] As Norman Davies writes in "Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory":Frampol was chosen partly because it was completely defenceless, and partly because its baroque street plan presented a perfect geometric grid.[4] The city lacked any military facilities or military defenders. The bombing of Frampol plays an important part in the short story "The Little Shoemakers" by Isaac Bashevis Singer
http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/5987.html
Pluton
Light cruiser of the Pluton class
History Pluton (Capitaine De Vaisseau Henri Jean Etienne Dubois) was sunk at Casablanca due to an internal explosion while unloading mines. The Commanding officer was killed in her loss.
Pluton was intended to be renamed La Tour d’Auvergne on completion of a refit from which she was to emerge as a seagoing training ship for Sub-Lieutenants, but was lost before the renaming could take place.
I got an idea, let’s just order a STAND-DOWN for a few days, in the middle of a War, to address these obvious training defincencies!
I feel so ignorant. I am so livid I am nearly speechless.
That the New York Times used the word, not even in quotes, EXTERMINATION, referring to a group of people (the Polish Jews) is unforgivable.
The New York Times then goes on to report as truth that the Jews were looting and so deserved the punishment of death. I shouldn’t be so shocked. The Times is about as serious in reporting the truth today.
I did not know how much Nazi vocabulary had been accepted by the Americans of the time. My great-grandparents each had, thanks to the attention to detail of their captors, Extermination Dates (Vernichtungsdaten). I am still gasping that the New York Times used such verbiage.
HMS Glowworm, Sister of H37 ORP Garland
Interesting that 70 years ago to the day Germany started confiscating tires and we put an embargo on tires (trade war headline) yesterday.
Wasn’t GLOWWORM sunk off Norway in 1940in combat withthe German Heavy Cruiser ADMIRAL HIPPER?
The real economy recovered after the war
Yes...
A stupid action by the Captain of the Glowworm, initiating combat with known superior forces, when he should have led them towards the heavy guns of the Renown, instead.
That said, it is one of the great bravery stories of warfare. He Damaged a Destroyer, and put Hipper out of commission for two months, at the loss of his life and command.
The only Victoria Cross ever awarded at the RECOMENDATION of an enemy commander, Captain Hellmuth Heye of the Hipper, in a message sent via the Red Cross.
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