Posted on 05/11/2011 5:16:32 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
Nazis Bomb Widely – 2
The International Situation – 3
Nazis Held Ready to Crush Serb Guerrillas and Jews – 3-4
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the War – 5-6
Editorial – Helicopters – 6
News of the Week in Review
The Far Flung Limits of the Battle of the Atlantic (map) – 7
Twenty News Questions – 8
American Opinion and the War (chart) – 9
Present State and Trends of Public Opinion – 10-11
Answers to Twenty News Questions – 11
Whirlaway Defeats King Cole in $69,500 Preakness
30,000 at Pimlico – 13
Chart of the Preakness – 14
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/may41/f11may41.htm
U-110 sinks on way to Iceland
Sunday, May 11, 1941 www.onwar.com
In the North Atlantic... U-110 sinks from the depth charge damage while on the way to Iceland.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/11.htm
May 11th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Fighter Command: At night the Luftwaffe attack 45 RAF airfields - although two-thirds of the airfields hit are dummy installations.
London: The Blitz builds up. Chamber of House of Commons destroyed: MPs now meet in House of Lords. 20,000 Londoners killed and 25,000 badly wounded in war so far. Liverpool, Glasgow and Clydebank, Belfast, Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth all feel weight of Nazi attacks.
After last nights raids so many London streets are impassable - estimated at a third - that people can hardly struggle to work. Every main line railway terminus is out of action. Over 150,000 people are without gas, water or electricity. Pavements are littered with burnt-out incendiaries.
At least 5,000 houses have been destroyed. Estimates for last nights casualties are over 1,400 people dead and 1,800 badly injured. Rescue parties are still digging. Among the dead are the mayors of Westminster and Bermondsey. Many fires are still burning. There is huge gin fire in City Road and in the west the burning Palmolive soap factory is perfuming the air as the water directed on it turns into froth.
Corvette FS Mimosa (ex-HMS Mimose) commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
VICHY FRANCE: Darlan meets Hitler and declares resolve to enter war against Britain.
GERMANY: The Wehrmacht High Command announced:
Over the last few nights the British air force has once again deliberately bombed the residential districts of German cities, including the German capital. In retaliation, strong German Luftwaffe forces carried out a major assault on London last night. Ground visibility was good and the British capital was bombed throughout the night by relay waves that dropped high-explosive bombs of all calibres and tens of thousands of incendiary bombs.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Submarine HMS Undaunted sailed from Malta on 1 May for a patrol off Tripoli. She was due to return to Malta on 11 May but she failed to do so and is presumed lost on mines. It is also possible that she was sunk by the Italian torpedo boat Pegaso which had sailed from Tripoli on the 12th. At 2030 that evening Pegaso signalled that she had attacked a submarine with depth charges and that a large patch of oil had been observed, an indication of the submarines destruction. Against this theory is the fact that by that date Undaunted should have been back at Malta but it is possible that a decision to remain at sea longer had been taken or that she had suffered mechanical problems preventing her return. It is also possible that she was sunk by the Italian torpedo boat Pleiade off Tripoli on the 13th but this is not very likely. (Dave Shirlaw)
LIBYA: Five Royal Navy destroyers bombard the harbour at Benghazi.
SYRIA: Two French Morane 406 fighter planes of 7 Squadron, 1st Fighter Group (GCI/7), forced 3 Me110’s from 4 Squadron, 76 Destroyer Wing to land in the Syrian city of Palmyra because the German planes had crossed French territory without announcing their presence.
U.S.A.: Herbert Hoover, the former president, says that America must stay out of the war in order to help Britain.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U110 sinks on tow to Iceland.
City of Shanghai (Master Arthur Frank Goring), dispersed on 28 April from Convoy OB-313, was spotted by U-103, but the lookouts of the vessel also spotted the U-boat and tried to escape. Schütze wrote in the KTB - Nun muss er fallen, wenn ich auch nur einen Aal im Rohr habe (Now he must fall, even if I have only one torpedo in my tube). At 0148 on 11 May, after a hunt of 19 hours, U-103 fired the last torpedo and hit the City of Shanghai, which was then finished off with the 105-mm gun off St Paul Rocks. Six crewmembers were lost. The master and 27 crewmembers were picked up by the Dutch merchant Stad Arnhem and landed at Freetown. 17 crewmembers were rescued by the British merchantman Richmond Castle and landed at Glasgow. 22 crewmembers were picked up by the Argentinian merchantman Josefina S and landed at Pernambuco. (Dave Shirlaw)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 619 May 11, 1941
Iraq. A British flying column of horses and armoured cars under Brigadier Kingstone (Kingcol) leaves Haifa, in British-held Palestine, heading East across 500 miles of desert to reinforce RAF Habbaniya, Iraq. The first 3 Luftwaffe aircraft arrive at Mosul from Greece, via airfields in Vichy French-held Syria.
Ethiopia. South African 1st Brigade finally reaches Amba Alagi, having fought up the road from the capital Addis Ababa in the South. The Italian mountain stronghold is now surrounded but they have laid in supplies and ammunition for a lengthy seige.
At 1.30 AM 750 miles Southwest of Sierra Leone, U-103 sinks British SS City of Shanghai with the last torpedo after tracking her for 16 hours (6 crew lost, 67 survivors taken to Freetown, Sierra Leone; Glasgow, Scotland or Pernambuco, Brazil).
RAF bombers attack Hamburg and Bremen again.
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I hadn't fully realized that heavy German bombing of Britain continued, despite Hitler's preparations for Barbarossa.
But note how the story is written -- with hundreds of German bombers, it does mention "damage and casualties were great", but gives no real details.
In reality, the numbers killed & wounded would have been hundreds, maybe thousands, but you'd never know that from this New York Times story.
Can anyone imagine a news report today which would so neglect the most important part?
"In an attempt to foil American radio eavesdroppers and mask their vast preparations for war, Japan's naval command introduces an entirely new radio code system.
The Imperial Navy calls it the Yobidashi Fugo HYOO 8 (radio call signs edition 8).
It changes every radio address in the Japanese navy.
Japan was positive it would protect the security of the warships..."
"Today" on May 11, 1941:
"Station CAST [Philippines] breaks into HYOO 8 and identifies the Akagi's new radio call sign as HA MI 9.
Then, using a radio direction finder CAST locates the carrier operating near Sasebo Base at the southwest corner of the island of Kyushu."
There was some vision for the helicopter - if they only knew where it would go.
Did you see the picture of Sikorsky setting a helicopter endurance record in Saturday’s thread (5/7)? When I saw that on the microfilm I thought of a couple scenes in “We Were Soldiers.” Especially the one at the climax of the battle where the helicopter is hovering over the ARVN rear area hosing them down with the mini-gun. Yeah, there might be a few military applications for this technology.
Maybe you can help me with #5 and #7 in the Twenty News Questions. I’m stuck on those two but I think I will go with “mobile field kitchen,” and “rocket ship,” respectively.
Thank you very much for posting this.
You are quite welcome. Thany you for browsing the older issues.
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