Posted on 01/23/2011 6:28:44 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/jan41/f01jan41.htm
German air power in Sicily growing
Wednesday, January 1, 1941 www.onwar.com
In the Mediterranean... The strength of the German 10th Air Corps in Sicily is now 96 bombers and 25 fighters. At this time the RAF has only 15 Hurricanes in Malta.
In Berlin... Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, meets Filov, the Bulgarian prime minister, to discuss arrangements for allowing the passage of German troops across Bulgaria. No agreement is reached but Bulgaria is now nearer to acquiescing to German pressure to join the Tripartite Pact.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/23.htm
January 23rd, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: Churchill requests that he admiralty arrange for faster carrier borne aircraft to be embarked for service in the Mediterranean, he suggests the “Grumman Martletts or converted Brewsters” as “Fulmars are really not fast enough”.
GERMANY: Operation Berlino. Scharnhorst departs Kiel with Gneisenau under the command of Admiral Günther Lütjens. (Navy News)
U-204, U-561 launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
ROMANIA: Budapest: Associated Press reports that the revolt has been crushed and the Antonescu government has announced that it is in complete control of the situation.
BULGARIA: Sofia: General Boydev, the Bulgarian army Chief of Staff, has agreed terms for co-operation with German military officials.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Under continual attack, HMS Illustrious is repaired temporarily in Malta and leaves for Alexandria. Her sister ship HMS Formidable is sent out via the Cape of Good Hope, but it is some weeks before she reaches the Eastern Mediterranean.
ERITREA: The British Exchange News Agency reports:
British motorised troops have advanced approximately 42 miles into the interior of Eritrea in their sharp pursuit of the retreating enemy. Supplies of fuel and provisions are getting through and making it possible to continue motorised operations.
LIBYA: An advance guard of the Australian 6th Division, supported by British units, is ordered to advance on Derna located about 100 miles (161 kilometres) by road west-northwest of Tobruk (Jack McKillop)
CANADA: Luftwaffe Oberleutant (USAAF 1st Lieutenant; RAF Pilot Officer) Franz von Werra escapes from a train which is taking him from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the ship bringing him to Canada from the U.K. had docked, to the POW camp at Neys, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Superior. At 0530 hours local, the train slows and pulls into a rail yard near Smith Falls, Ontario, and von Werra and another prisoner break a window and jump into the snow along the tracks. The other prisoner is recaptured by von Werra makes his way on foot to Johnstown, Ontario, on the St. Lawrence River, where he steals a rowboat and makes his way across the partially frozen river to Ogdensberg, New York, on the neutral U.S. side. He is caught by U.S. authorities and charged with illegal entry into the U.S resulting in a diplomatic tug-of-war with Canadian officials who want him back. Von Werra makes his way to New York City and, funded by German money, escapes to Mexico and then to Panama, Peru, Bolivia, and, by mid-April, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he flies back to Germany. On 25 October 1941 von Werra’s plane crashes off the coast of the Netherlands while on a routine Luftwaffe mission. Neither von Werra’s aircraft nor his body were ever found. Von Werra was the only known German prisoner to escape in Canada and make it back to Germany. (Jack McKillop)
Minesweeper HMCS Wasaga launched North Vancouver, British Columbia.
Corvette HMCS Agassiz commissioned.
Corvette HMS Bittersweet commissioned Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Minesweeper HMCS Reo II commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: Charles A. Lindbergh, a national hero since his nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Lend-Lease policy and suggests that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Hitler. (Jack McKillop)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 511 January 23, 1941
British SS Lurigethan is bombed and set on fire by a German Fw200 aircraft 200 miles West of Ireland (15 crew and 1 gunner killed, 35 crew rescued by corvette HMS Arabis). Lurigethan will be sunk by U-105 on January 26.
British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, damaged by Stukas on January 10, is repaired enough to sail with much of her heavy equipment removed. She leaves Malta for Alexandria, Egypt, escorted by destroyers HMS Jervis, Juno, Janus and Greyhound.
German pocket battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are spotted in the Great Belt (between mainland Denmark and the island of Zealand) by a British agent who alerts the Admiralty in London.
Operation Compass. British minesweeping trawlers HMT Arthur Cavanagh and HMT Milford Countess begin clearing sunken Italian ships from the harbour at Tobruk.
On a musical note today Artie Shaw and his orchestra recorded Moonglow on Victor Records.
In the band were such sidemen as Johnny Guarnieri, Jack Jenney, Billy Butterfield and Ray Conniff (on trombone).
There was an aircraft accident today near Robertson, Missouri and although details are still sketchy the plane was said to be Douglas DC-3-3 operated by Trans Continental and Western Air. Two passengers and one crew were killed. The following is a brief summary of the accident:
Shortly after passing over the west boundary of the airport, the pilot started a left turn. While in the turn, the plane contacted trees 113 feet above the level of the airport. Full power was applied to the engines in an attempt to pull up but other trees were struck and the pilot lost control. The aircraft crashed to the ground at a point approximately one-fourth of a mile southwest of the airport boundary. The action of the pilot in attempting a landing under adverse weather conditions in disregard of the minimums prescribed by the Civil Aeronautics Administration and in maneuvering for such a landing at a dangerously low altitude is questioned.
...When the project is completed it is believed by Federal authorities that it will far surpass the German Government's index as well as that made up in Great Britain.
Those in charge of the work have had the benefit of the British and German experience.
In fact, a German authority who played an important part in the mobilization of the scientific and professional brains of his country, now a refugee in the United States, helped in setting up the American roster."
The Nazis used similar IBM equipment to help identify and select Jews for certain "special actions."
I wonder if the ongoing battle in Greece has been a catalyst for the instability in the Balkans in general and Rumania particularly.
Rumanian “instability” predated Italy’s aborted invasion of Greece. We saw the repression of the Iron Guard last year well before all the Italo-Greek war. Same for Soviet annexation of Bessarabia.
Rumanian turmoil, Yugoslav turmoil, Greek war...neither one really causes the other. Instead, it’s all the same disease, just contracted by different patients.
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