Posted on 11/15/2010 4:53:50 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour
Yet today's school system teaches that Hitler was "far-right," contrary to Stalin's "far-left" state.
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/nov40/f15nov40.htm
Italians retreating around Mount Morava
Friday, November 15, 1940 www.onwar.com
In the Balkans... The Greek counteroffensives continue with especial success for the advance from western Macedonia in the area around Mount Morava.
In the Caribbean... US flying boats begin patrols from bases in Bermuda.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/15.htm
November 15th, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM:
Operation Moonlight Sonata.
Coventry: Last night 449 Luftwaffe bombers, led by the specialised pathfinders of KG 100, bombed the city of Coventry.
The 14th-century St. Michael’s Cathedral was turned into smoking rubble and many factories making munitions, engines for tanks and aircraft and other war supplies were badly damaged. 568 people were killed and 863 seriously injured. “Coventry is finished” said one survivor.
Many have fled, the army wants to impose martial law until essential services are restored. There is no water supply or transport and the telephone system has been disrupted. The air is still warm from the fire which raged through the city centre and daylight is obscured by a pall of sooty fog.
The raid arrived in three streams over Lincolnshire, Portland and Dungeness. The first bombs, 10,224 incendiaries and 48 small high-explosive devices were dropped by 13 He-111s of KG 100 at 7.20 pm. They started fires which acted as beacons for the main force. Land mines, high explosive and incendiary bombs came crashing down. Groups of bombers were assigned to particular factories:
Lehrgeschwader I: The Standard Motor Company and Coventry Radiator and Press Company.
KG 27: The Alvis aero-engine works.
KG 51: The British Piston Ring Company.
KG 55: The Daimler Works.
KG 606: The gasholders in Hill Street.
The factories are situated amongst residential areas though and ordinary homes took the brunt of the bombing. It is estimated that 60,000 out of the city’s 75,000 buildings have been damaged, among them 111 factories, 600 shops, 28 hotels, 121 offices and all the city’s railway lines.
The city’s defences consisted 24 3.7 inch anti-aircraft guns, plus the 12 Bofors of 157/53 Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, a figure acknowledges as inadequate by General Pile of AA Command on the 4th of November. The balloon barrage consisted of 56 balloons of No. 916 and 917 Squadrons, RAF.
121 sorties were flown by RAF night fighters. These consisted of 10 A.I. Beaufighters, 39 A.I. Blenheims, 22 Defiants, 45 Hurricanes, 4 Gladiators and 1 Spitfire. The fighter operations resulted in 11 A.I. detections, culminating in one enemy sighting; one sighting assisted by searchlights and 9 unassisted sightings. 2 engagements resulted from these sightings and one enemy aircraft was damaged.
The disappointing number of combats which followed on the 21 interceptions or enemy detections is attributed, inter alia, to the exhaust glow from Hurricanes and Defiants and the poor vision through the perspex screens of Blenheims and Hurricanes.
The one German bomber lost was probably attributable to an accident.
RAF Fighter Command:
London is bombed heavily this night. More than a 100 bombers drops HE’s and incendiaries. Drury Lane Theatre is hit.
RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group: Raids are carried out on Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen and ports from Stavanger in Norway to Lorient in Brittany. The raid on Berlin caused a number of serious fires which were visible 30 miles away.
Motor minesweepers HM MMS 119, MMS 120, MMS 121, MMS 122 ordered.
Corvette HMS Delphinium commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
POLAND: Warsaw: The Jewish ghetto, with 400,000 inhabitants, is sealed off from the rest of the city.
ALBANIA: The RAF Bomb the port of Valona, base to Italian troops and supplies coming from Bari.
LIBYA: Sidi Barrani: As Italian troops work to fortify this remote coastal village, the limit of their advance towards the Nile Delta, British troops are carrying out clandestine preparations for a major counter-offensive.
Moving only by night, and lying low under camouflage netting by day, they are burying large quantities of water and fuel in secret dumps along the 75-mile “no-man’s-land” from Mersa Matruh and westward.
Marshal Graziani shows no sign of advancing further. An Italian observer reports a “holiday atmosphere” in their ranks as more British tanks arrive in Egypt.
EGYPT: Cairo: Telegram from HQ RAF ME to Air Ministry: [In reply to Churchill’s of the 13th.]
CAS has explained that high figures quoted represent large proportion of non-operational aircraft and ancillary personnel. Rest assures I will continue to operate all available aircraft whilst not providing their fighters with too easy prey.
U.S.A.: Submarine USS Trout commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-65 sank SS Havbør and Kohinur in Convoy OB-235. U-65 captured the second officer of the ship Kohinur after sinking that vessel. (Dave Shirlaw)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 442 November 15, 1940
19 days after the Italian invasion from Albania, Greeks have cleared the invaders from their soil. Reinforced with troops from the border with Bulgaria, Greece now has a numerical advantage. Greek forces go on the offensive, taking advantage of confusion caused by the Italian retreat to attack their defenses on the Albanian border. In addition, Greece receives reinforcements from Britain. A convoy of 5 transports and numerous British war ships leaves Alexandria, Egypt, for Pireaus, Greece, with 4230 troops, 700 trucks and other vehicles, plus petrol and supplies, arriving safely tomorrow.
200 miles Southwest of Sierra Leone, U-65 sinks British SS Kohinur at 3.11 PM (17 killed and 68 escape in lifeboats). Norwegian tanker Havbør stops to pick up the Kohinur survivors. Only 31 have been taken on board when Havbør is torpedoed by U-65 at 6.16 PM which ignites her cargo of 11,500 tons crude oil, killing 28 of her crew and all 31 rescued from Kohinur. (The remaining 36 survivors from Kohinur are picked up next day by British merchant City of Pittsburg and taken to Freetown, Sierra Leone). 5 of Havbør’s crew jump overboard and swim away from the burning oil holding onto a plank (1 dies of burns the next day, 4 are found on November 24 by British SS Baron Ardrossan and taken to Freetown). http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/654.html
British tug HMS Guardsman sinks on a mine in the mouth of the Thames Estuary (2 crew lost).
“tail bones from which a naturalist can reconstruct the entire animal”
lol. Yeah as long as you don’t mind 95% error!
Churchill was great, but he had way too much faith in science.
Thanks for the snip!
Mind explaining that. While it's true the Greek army basically defeated the Italians, this caused the Germans to invade Yugoslavia and Greece, which they totally defeated in a matter of weeks. If we're just talking time frame, we also can't forget the Soviets. Then again I am probably missing your point entirely.
BBC - Coventry Loudspeaker Announcement
The second is a bit more somber as it is announced that the cathedral at Coventry has been destroyed
BBC - Reverend R.T. Howard announced Coventry Cathedral Destroyed
“Far-left?” When was the last time you heard that term used? Under the doctrine of political correctness, the spectrum is now defined as:
Visionary(Michael Moore)-Progressive(Nancy Pelosi)-moderate(0bama)-right wing extremist (anyone who doesn’t think 0bama is the greatest president ever)
Today, the failure of Hitler’s foreign policy is almost complete. Having been rebuffed by Franco, unable to get any level of trust or coordination with the volatile Il Duce, and Vichy now confirmed as a worthless puppet, Molotov is returning to Moscow, leaving Hitler with nothing.
Hitler and Ribbentrop only wanted to talk about the USSR participating in the liquidation of the British Empire, and Molotov came with orders to talk about German moves in Eastern Europe and nothing else. Hitler is exasperated by Molotov’s “stone-ass” attitude. After Molotov leaves, Hitler will give the final approval for Barbarossa.
And so, despite all his military success, Hitler now finds himself increasingly isolated diplomatically. The only rebuff left for him is when Japan refuses to attack the USSR and turns south instead.
Interesting side note I saw on the WW2DB. Isoroku Yamamoto was promoted to the rank of Full Admiral today.
I’ll cut Woodward (a fellow Georgian) some slack, since he got his start in the Spanish American war, and never really seemed to catch on to modern warfare.
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