Posted on 04/17/2011 6:54:23 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/apr41/f17apr41.htm
Yugoslavs surrender to Germans
Thursday, April 17, 1941 www.onwar.com
In the Balkans... On the Dalmatian coast the Italians enter Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia. The former prime minister, Cincar-Markovic (deposed March 27th), signs an armistice with the Germans. In the course of overrunning the country the Germans have lost less than 200 dead.
In North Africa... German-Italian attacks on Tobruk are held.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/17.htm
April 17th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: Chartier, French Consul-General, is expelled from Britain.
London: Lt. Ernest Oliver Gidden (1910-61), RNVR, spent six hours chiselling molten metal from the highly sensitive fuse of a bomb on Hungerford Bridge, and putting in a gag to stop the mechanism. (George Cross) Hungerford Bridge carries an electrified railway line with the live current on a third rail. This had caused the bomb to weld itself to the rail.
The Luftwaffe drop 170 HEs, 32 parachute mines and 5,400 incendiary bombs on a decoy installation on Hayling Island in Hampshire.
London: Churchill agrees to a secret appeal from General Papagos, the Greek C-in-C for British and Empire forces to evacuate mainland Greece in order to save it from further destruction, but insists that Crete must be held with force.
London: The War Office announced:
No confirmation has been received from the Greek of British high commands in Greece of the German-spread rumour that the enemy has broken through Allied lines at the Mount Olympus sector of the front [northeastern Greece] and that German troops are already advancing into the Larissa area.
GERMANY: Berlin: The Wehrmacht High Command announced:
In retaliation for the British air raid on the residential and cultural centre of the German capital on the night of 9th-10th April, the German Luftwaffe last night carried out a grand assault on the British capital. A great number of German bomber wings released countless high-explosive bombs of all calibres, and incendiary bombs, uninterruptedly throughout the entire night. Ground visibility was good and the bomb detonations and their effects could be observed with absolute clarity. Large fires had sprung up in the harbour districts, a well as in other city areas, by the time the first German formations flew away; some of the fires joined together to form wide-scale conflagrations. The glow from these huge fires was visible as far away as the Channel and some of them even from the Belgian coast. In future, any British air raid on residential quarters of Germany will be answered by increased retaliation.
YUGOSLAVIA: Belgrade: After 12 days of resistance the Yugoslav government signed the act of surrender to the triumphant Germans today. In Sarajevo remnants of the army gave themselves up; around 6,000 officers and 335,000 men were marched off to PoW camps. King Peter and Prime Minister, General Simovich have escaped to Greece.
From the outset the Yugoslav General Staff was committed to fighting an unwinnable campaign. The bitter divisions between the country’s many nationalities - especially between Croats and Serbs - meant that an attempt had to be made to defend the whole country.
The Yugoslav forces were thus strung out along the frontier without depth or necessary reserves. The Germans jumping off from Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria plunged into Yugoslavia along the mountain passes accompanied by dive-bombers. Within a week German forces were in Belgrade.
Many Yugoslav units never saw battle and they remain in remote areas still with thier weapons, where some inted to fight on as partisans.
GREECE: By midnight the Anzac Corps’ four forward brigades had left their positions, embussed and driven south, leaving the 6th NZ and the 16th and 17th Australian Brigades astride the 3 main roads converging on Larisa. (Anthony Staunton)
Savige force withdraws from the Kalabake area during the night.
Athens: A group from the Joint Planning Staff in Cairo arrive to plan the evacuation of ‘Lustre’, the Allied expeditionary force.
ATLANTIC OCEAN:The German raider Atlantis sinks the Egyptian liner Zamzam and takes 220 passengers prisoner.
These passengers included “Life” magazine photographer David Scherman. Scherman was aboard the “Zamzam” heading toward Cape Town on Apr.17, 1941. He said one passenger on deck late at night saw flashing lights winking from a dark hulk, and then heard two ear-shattering explosions. The fire was coming from the German raider “Atlantis.” The passengers aboard the Zamzam had to take to the lifeboats as their ship was attacked, and Scherman got photographs of the Atlantis before being taken aboard it. He secreted the film in tubes of toothpaste and shaving cream.
He passed inspection by two German officers and was put ashore two weeks later on the coast of Portugal. He returned to the USA, and “Life” published his photos. They were used by the Royal Navy in their hunt for the raider, which was eventually sunk.
U.S.A.: Igor Sikorsky lifts his VS-300 helicopter off the water for the first time near the plant in Sikorsky plant in Stratford, Connecticut. (Jack McKillop)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 595 April 17, 1941
Yugoslavia officially surrenders after just 12 days. In Belgrade, Yugoslav Foreign Minister Cincar-Marcovic signs an armistice with Germany and Italy. The Hungarians, technically “not at war with Yugoslavia”, do not sign the armistice. Germans capture 2 Yugoslav destroyers Beograd and Dubrovnik at the Adriatic port of Kotor, but destroyer Zagreb is scuttled by her crew (2 killed).
In Greece, New Zealand 21st battalion reinforced by Australian 2/2nd Battalion demolish the Pinios River railway bridge and hold the Tempe and Pinios Gorges, delaying the German advance down the Aegean coast. This allows Allied troops to withdraw to new defenses on the Thermopylae line.
Iraq’s new National Defense Government led by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, which seized power in a coup d’etat on April 1, requests German military assistance to eject the British from Iraq. Rashid Ali has already sent an artillery force to surround the RAF airbase at Habbaniya. British garrison is reinforced with 1st Battalion King’s Own Royal Regiment which is flown from Karachi, India, to another airbase RAF Shaibah near Basra.
Tobruk, Libya. Italian infantry and tanks attack in early afternoon. Again, the attack is broken up by British artillery fire but 6 tanks break through the wire, crossing an Allied minefield which fails to detonate. 7 British cruiser tanks engage the tanks while Australian troops again trap the following infantry in crossfire. Only 1 Italian tank escapes back through the wire. After dark, there is a running tank exchange across the perimeter wire (3 of 12 Axis tanks destroyed). Rommel, running low on ammunition and other supplies, decides to wait until 15th Panzer Division arrives in strength before making a concerted attack on Tobruk. Off Libyan coast, British submarine HMS Truant sinks Italian barque Vanna carrying ammunition and fuel to Derna.
At 5.30 PM 600 miles West of Ireland, U-123 sinks Swedish MV Venezuela (the crew of 49 abandon ship in lifeboats but are never found).
German motor torpedo boats S.41 S.42 S.43 S.55 and S.104 attack Convoy FS464 off Great Yarmouth, England, sinking 2 small freighters and damaging a large steamer. The German S-boats are engaged by British motor gun boats MGB.60, MGB.59, and MGB.64, without success.
Interesting story-I'll be posting the (rather lengthy) story of this encounter as related by the Captain of the raider.
I'm amazed how many entire crews of these sunken vessels were never found. Not long ago I saw a TV program on "The Laconia Incident" were a German sub attempted to rescue a large number of Italian POWs after it had torpedoed the ship that was carrying them. This happened later in the war so I won't get ahead of history.
Geeze....She is very pretty and I love that she is smart. Moreover, she is unchangeable on her positions. She’ll give a little but there is a line she will not cross and another she will not allow others to cross.
That is the kind of person I am looking for. A little elastic but not much and has a definite demarcation point.
Opps! I was posting to the ping below yours, regarding Bachman.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2706047/posts?page=43
Just about every day there is at least one merchant sinking described on the ntlworld diary I link to. There is almost always loss of life involved. The merchant marine was a very hazardous way to make a living during 1939-43. How would you like to climb in your bunk every night knowing you have a fairly good chance of getting awakened by a torpedo hitting your ship? Sweet dreams.
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