Posted on 03/04/2011 5:21:08 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/mar41/f04mar41.htm
Hitler meets Yugoslav Prince
Tuesday, March 4, 1941 www.onwar.com
In Germany... Hitler meets Prince Paul of Yugoslavia secretly at Berchtesgaden to ask him once again to join the Tripartite Pact. Paul returns to Yugoslavia convinced that he must decide very soon between Britain and Germany. Talks in the next few days convince him that Britain has little help to offer.
In Occupied Norway... There is a British Commando raid on the Lofoten Islands. The 500-strong force is carried by naval units which include two light cruisers and five destroyers. Ten ships are sunk in the operation and 215 German prisoners are taken. There are also 300 Norwegian volunteers who are taken to Britain. The operation is a success but the Germans take fierce reprisals when the British force withdraws. Many members of the Norwegian resistance movement do not approve of such raids for this reason.
In Greece... General Wilson, who is to command the British forces being prepared for Greece, arrives in Athens to arrange the final details with the Greek general staff. A major convoy is about to leave Alexandria with the first large contingent. The British have only just discovered that the Greek forces in Macedonia have not retired to the Aliakmon Line and will not be able to persuade them to do so because of the damage to morale that would result if territory is obviously given up without a fight after the German move into Bulgaria. Wilson is further hindered by the Greek insistence that he remains incognito inside the British Embassy in order not to provoke the Germans. In fact the German consulate in Piraeus overlooks the port area which will be used to land the British forces, so they are well aware what is happening.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/04.htm
March 4th, 1941
GERMANY: Munich: Prince Paul, the regent of Yugoslavia, was summoned to the Berghof, the Fuhrer’s mountain retreat, this evening and given the usual treatment accorded to small powers. After listening to Hitler’s threats and ranting into the early hours, Prince Paul buckled and agreed to follow Romania and Bulgaria into the German camp and sign the Axis Pact.
Hitler, in high spirits at having got his way, offered the prince a consolation prize - the Greek port of Salonika, which would give Yugoslavia access to the Aegean. Paul, aware that joining the Axis will be unpopular at home, has arranged for the signing of the treaty to take place in great secrecy in ten days time.
NORWAY: Lofoten Islands: OPERATION CLAYMORE: Britain’s new raiding force, the Commandos has destroyed 18 factories producing fish oil - a commodity which is made into glycerine, a basic ingredient of high explosive - on the Norwegian Lofoten Islands.
“Herring oil factories and trawlers at Svolvær, Henningsvær, Stamsund and Brettesnes were destroyed”. (All those places are in Lofoten). “Raiders included 52 Norwegians amongst them Captain Martin Linge.” (Alex Gordon) (87)
About 800,000 gallons of oil and petrol were burnt, 11 ships totalling 19,000 tons are sunk and 215 Germans and 12 Norwegian collaborators (dubbed “Quislings” after Norway’s Nazi puppet leader) taken prisoner. 314 volunteers also left with the commandos. The Germans will need to especially vigilant from now on.
Led by Brigadier Charles Haydon of the Irish Guards, 500 commandos with 100 other specialists went in escorted by five destroyers and a submarine.
The destroyer HMS SOMALI while leading the commandos, chanced upon a German patrol boat. The Germans opened fire, which the British returned. The German crew leapt out and the German boat, the _Krebs_ beached itself on a nearby islet. A British boarding party rescued vital papers that contained the daily Enigma settings for February, 1941. (Michael Turton, Torstein and 81)
SWEDEN: The Swedish newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet reports:
Further severe damage has been caused in western Sweden by drifting British barrage balloons.
At the moment approximately 20 British barrage balloons are drifting over Sweden. In Uckluma a balloon pulled down a factory chimney with its 1,875-foot-long trail rope. Other balloons have destroyed the rigging of fishing boats with their trail ropes. In the rock island-strewn Goteborg area, a number of islands were left completely without electricity because one of the barrage balloons had destroyed the power transmission line.
BULGARIA: The government breaks diplomatic relations with Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland. (Jack McKillop)
GREECE: Athens: General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, who is to command the British expeditionary forces being prepared for Greece, arrives in Athens to arrange the final details with the Greek general staff. A major convoy is about to leave Alexandria, Egypt, with the first large contingent. The British have only just discovered that the Greek forces in Macedonia have not retired to the Aliakmon Line and will not be able to persuade them to do so because of the damage to morale that would result if territory is obviously given up without a fight after the German move into Bulgaria. Wilson is further hindered by the Greek insistence that he remains incognito inside the British Embassy in order not to provoke the Germans. In fact the German consulate in Piraeus overlooks the port area which is being used to land the British forces for OPERATION LUSTRE, so they are well aware what is happening. (Jack McKillop)
TURKEY: The government turns down Hitler’s personal plea to join the Axis powers. The Turkish President replies that he is grateful for the assurance that German troops would be kept a safe distance from the Turkish border; and he tells the German ambassador that Turkey will do everything in her power to avoid war with Germany. He purported, however, to be deeply concerned about Bulgaria’s mobilisation, which it seemed could be directed only against Turkey. von Papen, the German ambassador in Ankara, hastened to tell him that this was not so.
CANADA: Registration of all Japanese Canadians. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: The government freezes all Bulgarian assets in the U.S. (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-105 refuelled from the German supply ship Charlotte Schliemann in Las Palmas. (Dave Shirlaw)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 551 March 4, 1941
Greece.
As German troops move into Bulgaria, Yugoslavia becomes the key to the invasion of Greece. Hitler meets Prince Paul of Yugoslavia at Berchtesgaden to pressure him into joining the Tripartite Pact, offering the Greek Agean port of Salonika in return. Britain also seeks Yugoslavian assurances denying Germany access to Greece. Prince Paul must decide soon.
Transport of Allied troops and equipment from North Africa begins (Operation Lustre). 4 freighters depart Alexandria and Port Said, Egypt, escorted by destroyers HMS Hereward and HMS Stuart.
British General Wilson arrives in Athens to take command of Allied ground forces. He discovers confusion over the planned defense against German attack. Greek troops still hold the Metaxas line facing Bulgaria instead of withdrawing to the Aliakmon Line (as had been agreed, or so the British thought).
In Albania, Italian warships shell Greek coastal positions in preparation for a renewed Italian ground offensive.
Operation Claymore. At dawn, landing ships HMS Queen Emma and HMS Princess Beatrix land 500 British Commandos at 4 ports in the Lofoten Islands, Norway (escorted by destroyers HMS Somali, Bedouin, Tartar, Eskimo and Legion). They destroy fish oil factories and 3600 tons of fish oil (Germany extracts glycerine from fish oil, a vital ingredient in high explosives). 9 merchant ships are blown up by the Commandos or sunk by shellfire from the destroyers. Enigma cypher machine rotor wheels and code books are captured from German armed trawler Krebs, allowing cryoptographers at Bletchley Park to read the German naval codes (Krebs is then sunk). At 1 PM, the landing ships leave with all the Commandos, 228 German POWs and 314 Norwegian volunteers.
In the Indian Ocean South of the Seychelles, a Walrus seaplane from Australian cruiser HMAS Canberra spots German steamer Coburg and captured Norwegian tanker Ketty Brøvig (supply ships for German armed merchant cruisers). HMAS Canberra tries to intercept, but Coburg and Ketty Brøvig are scuttled to avoid capture.
Photo of Prince Paul and The Führer During an Earlier State Visit.
BTW:This image from the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) was originally copyrighted by the Presse Illustrationen Hoffmann (Heinrich Hoffmann, Berlin SW68 Kochstrasse 10) and was seized by the US government after World War II and vested by the United States Attorney General as US government property in 1951. It is considered public domain because it was not divested to the original copyright owner and because of the ruling in Price v. United States: United States Court of Appeals, Fifth circuit, 20 November, 1995[1] which confirmed that under US law Heinrich Hoffman items in the National Archives are not copyrighted by the original copyright owners.
Interesting article in Vanity Fair on William J. Donovan:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/03/wild-bill-donovan201103?currentPage=all
(Note the error in the photo caption. They seem to confuse Donovan with Lord Mountbatten)
There is a new biography of Donovan out last month: “Wild Bill Donovan” by Douglas Waller.
According to Victor (pages 32 & 47), Donovan received at least two specific warnings of the coming attack on Pearl Harbor.
These would be passed along to President Roosevelt during their regular meetings.
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