Posted on 05/02/2011 5:30:09 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
Washington Shifts Fifty Oil Tankers to British Service – 2-3
Beaverbrook Gets Public Liaison Job in British Shake-Up – 3
Nazi-Soviet Moves Viewed as ‘Dicker’ – 3-4
The International Situation – 4
Axis Pushing War in Mediterranean – 4-5
Italian Staff Chief Dead; Wounded in Tripoli Raid – 5
Fierce Battle with Parachutists Was Last Fight of B.E.F. in Greece – 5-6
Axis Units Pierce Tobruk Defenses – 6-7
The Position of Britain – 8
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the War – 9-10
Ship Sinking Held No Cause for War (by George Gallup) – 10
Questions in Commons Strike at Lindbergh – 10
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/may41/f02may41.htm
Siege of Tobruk continues
Friday, May 2, 1941 www.onwar.com
In North Africa... The fighting in Tobruk continues with little change in the positions on either side.
In Iraq... The British airfield at Habbaniyah is attacked by considerable Iraqi ground forces. The British have about 80 obsolescent aircraft at Habbaniyah, many of them training types. Despite their age and unsuitability they are immediately employed against the Iraqi forces with considerable success. The British are, therefore, encouraged to hold Habbaniyah although their ground force there is very small. There are also some skirmishes at several points near the Persian Gulf, especially at Basra where there are riots and some shooting in opposition to further British landings.
There is a chart part way through today’s entry that I omitted since it didn’t work as a straight copy and paste. Maybe someone with more posting know-how can bring it over.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/02.htm
May 2nd, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM:
From an article in the New Chronicle:
By 53% to 38%, with 9% undecided, the people of Great Britain are in favour of reprisal bombing of Germany.
But people in heavily blitzed areas are noticeably less in favour of reprisal bombing than those in areas which have escaped the worst of the raids on this country.
These facts revealed by the latest Gallup survey, in which the question was asked: “Would you approve or disapprove if the RAF adopted a policy of bombing the civilian population of Germany?”
The results over the whole country are as given above. But when the figures were analysed by areas significant differences appeared.
It would appear that sentiment in favour of reprisals is almost in inverse ratio to the amount of bombing experienced.
RAF Bomber Command: 2 Group: ‘Channel Stop’ A 2,000-ton ship is claimed off Ostend.
Corvette HMS Windflower completed Scoutson and headed to Tobermory for workups.
The fifth Lake class US Coast vessel, USCGC Chelan is transferred to the Royal Navy under Lend Lease and is renamed HMS Lulworth. (Dave Shirlaw)
MALTA: Returning to Malta with cruiser HMS Gloucester and other destroyers from a search for Axis convoys, HMS Jersey is mined and sunk in the entrance to Grand Harbour, Valetta.
Minesweeper Fermoy is bombed and damaged beyond repair whilst in dry dock at Malta for routine boiler cleaning and maintenance.
IRAQ: The Iraqi Army has concentrated a force of more than a division in strength overlooking Habbaniya. The British Flying School Squadron in Habbaniya armed with Gladiator fighters and supported by Wellington bombers from the RAF base at Shuaiba bombs the Iraqi troops in their positions only a mile away from the airbase. The Iraqis responded to the raid with a cannon barrage, supported by bombs and machine gun fire from their own aircraft. The British are aided by five companies of Kurds. This same day Rashid el Gailani asks Hitler for military assistance.
Allied troops occupy Basra and oil installations, and start to evacuate women and children from Habbaniya air base.
Opposition to continued British landings at Basrah, Iraq result in unrest, sniping and rioting. (Michael Alexander)
U.S.A.: Admiral Ernest J. King assumes command of the USN’s Atlantic Fleet. (Jack McKillop)
The USNs Office of Naval Intelligence initiates a three-week indoctrination course to prepare naval officers for foreign and domestic intelligence duties. (William L. Howard)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 2114, U-201 found the drifting wreck of the Capulet and sank her by a coup de grâce. (Dave Shirlaw)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 610 May 10, 1941
Iraq. At 5 AM during Muslim morning prayers, 33 aircraft from RAF Habbaniya and 8 Wellington bombers from RAF Shaibah bomb and strafe Iraqi artillery on the plateau above Habbaniya, causing the Grand Mufti in Baghdad to declare jihad against Britain. Iraqis reply by shelling RAF Habbaniya (13 killed & 29 wounded, including civilians on the base). RAF also bombs Iraqi air force base at Rashid airfield near Baghdad (destroying 22 aircraft on the ground). RAF loses 5 aircraft in all.
Libya. Fighting continues in the German salient at Tobruk. German infantry are held by Allied reserves sent to plug the gap while sandstorms prevent Rommel from using his Panzers. British gunboat HMS Ladybird bombards Afrika Korps positions at Derna.
British destroyer HMS Jersey hits a mine off Grand Harbour, Malta, and sinks next to the breakwater (35 crew killed, 48 wounded). As a result, cruiser HMS Gloucester and destroyers HMS Kipling & Kashmir divert to Gibraltar. British steamer Parracombe, carrying 21 crated Hurricane fighters to Malta, sinks on a mine off Cape Bon, Tunisia.
German anti-submarine trawler Vp 808 is sunk by RAF bombing off the island of Borkum, near the Dutch/German border.
British minesweeping trawler HMT Alberic and destroyer HMS St. Albans collide in Pentland Firth between the North of Scotland and the Orkney Islands. HMT Alberic sinks with the loss of 13 crew. The destroyer sails to Southampton for repairs to her bows (completed on June 4). Royal Navy commissions convoy escort ship HMS Lulworth (ex-US Coast Guard Cutter) at New York with a crew from British battleship HMS Resolution (under repair in USA).
Luftwaffe bombs Liverpool again overnight.
I see our friend Walter Duranty is making sure his friends in Moscow have their point of view heard on the Times front page. It’s amazing, that column could have been written by one of the apparatchiks from Pravda.
Figured you might like this WWII movie in case you have not seen it. It’s called Downfall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O705I-xT6KI
"I can conceive of nothing more futile than to send expensive tanks against a prepared position. The doctrine for so doing was originally written by me and was based on the fact that in 1918 tanks were invincible, but a careful analysis of what the Germans have done leads me to a totally different solution for present day armored forces..." - George S. Patton in his Address on Orientation in Maneuvers"The thing I believe which we must remove from the minds of the high command is that the direct charge against anti-tank guns over open country is as impracticable as is a cavalry charge against barbed wire." - George S. Patton to Major General Lesley J. McNair, head of the Army's training program.
I'm beginning to see the seeds for Patton's preference for lighter and faster tanks like the Sherman in comparison to the Panther and Tiger.
Next I have an interesting bit on Japan's nuclear program. Many don't realize that the Japanese were also looking at the possibility of making an atomic bomb as well, they just didn't have number of people involved or the dedication to the idea. Many of the records concerning their program were destroyed so homing in on just how far they really got is very difficult to ascertain. However, one of the players in the Japanese bomb program was Tokutaro Hagiwara.
Japanese physicist Tokutaro Hagiwara lectures at the University of Kyoto that not only does Uranium235 have the potential to make a fission bomb but that also it has potential for being used to initiating fusion of hydrogen and thus create a thermonuclear bomb.
On the American side of things right now the thought of using an atomic bomb as an initiator for a hydrogen bomb is just an idle idea in Edward Teller's head. "The Super" as it will be called will not even be officially considered for another year.
Then there are some problems at the State Department that will lead to a fued between F.D.R. and the Army. This will cause problems down the road when it comes to delivering intelligence to the President.
The State Department reports that they have lost intelligence memo Number 9 from the previous March which the Army believes led to the Germans warning the Japanese that their codes had been compromised. Fortunately, Japan ignored the warning, but G-2 headed by Brigadier General Sherman Miles decides to clamped down on security as a result of this slip and stops providing the White House with MAGIC decrypts.
Finally, I have this quote from today by Colonel General Erich Hoepner, commander of Panzer Group 4 preparing for operation BARBAROSSA. This demonstrates the totality of the upcoming war even in the minds of the front line generals. This will lead to some well documented atrocities of which even the Wehrmacht cannot absolve themselves from responsibility.
"The objective of this battle must be the destruction of present day Russia and it must therefore be conducted with the unprecedented severity. Every military action must be guided in planning and execution by an iron will to exterminate the enemy mercilessly and totally. In particular no adherents of the present Russian-Bolshevik system are to be spared" - Colonel General Erich Hoepner
Somewhere around today, my grandfather and his heavy bridging pioneer company have their equipment loaded in to rail cars, and are heading for Koenigsburg, East Prussia as an Army Group North asset, loosely attached to 58th Infantry and 18th Army for the next couple of months for protection.
Thanks for the ping.
As for Hoeppner’s order, he was passing along the orders he received himself from his national command authority. I will note that the Germans didn’t see fit to issue such orders inspiring the troops a year ago. It does show that the Germans were really gearing up for a Rassenkrieg.
When we get to the post-war assessment of criminal culpability, most of the German generals tried really hard to distance themselves from these orders. Hoeppner, ironically, did not get the chance. He was a co-conspirator in the July 20 plot to kill Hitler and executed on August 8, 1944. When assessing the “altruistic” motives of the July 20 plotters, in Hoeppner’s case you have to square their participation in the plot with the issuance of this order, and that’s a tough task.
“I see our friend Walter Duranty is making sure his friends in Moscow have their point of view heard on the Times front page.”
Watch how fast Duranty and his Socialist buds in the media turn on Germany after June 22. It would be hysterical in the historic sense, if it didn’t show just how biased, and under Soviet control, some of these people really were.
“The thing I believe which we must remove from the minds of the high command is that the direct charge against anti-tank guns over open country is as impracticable as is a cavalry charge against barbed wire.” - George S. Patton to Major General Lesley J. McNair, head of the Army’s training program.”
Somebody forgets to tell the Soviets this, for 4 more years....
"The objective of this battle must be the destruction of present day Russia and it must therefore be conducted with the unprecedented severity. Every military action must be guided in planning and execution by an iron will to exterminate the enemy mercilessly and totally. In particular no adherents of the present Russian-Bolshevik system are to be spared......"
- Colonel General Erich Hoepner
That's a fairly ominous quote coming from someone like Hoepner who was, I believe, one of the conspirators involved in the July 20th Plot. Excellent, work Cougar.
“The Commissar Order” will come out around 6 June, and when the Soviets learn of it, hardens the resolve of the hardcore Communists to fight to the last man, or the last of the OTHER men, especially in the NKVD Units in the Kiev area.
Wehrmacht Infantry troops in training May 1941 in Poland. (All smiles, for now)
The German failure to overwhelm Tobruk swiftly was an immense irritation to Rommel but he reluctantly accepted that he must wear down the defenders with repeated aerial and artillery bombardments. For the defenders, the German bomber raids became the most constant of the many unpleasant features of life in the fortress. This was a period of German aerial ascendancy as the RAF's resources were limited by other commitments and the distance of its airfields from Tobruk. Stuka raids were particularly disliked by the ground troops. One of the Tobruk gunners, L.E. Tutt, described the feeling of being under dive-bomb attack:A less welcome break in the routine was the occasional Stuka raid on the position. They were stub-winged, almost ungainly in appearance. They looked rather slow-moving in flight until they went into their dive. They came down like a stone holding their course until it appeared that they were going to dash themselves to pieces on their target, then they would pull out of it with such suddenness that you felt their wings would be torn away. Under attack one seemed to have been chosen as their sole target. You could see the bombs leave their racks, wobble hesitantly then straighten up as they gained velocity. We were encouraged to fire at them with our rifles; I think this was solely to help us with our morale. I saw a Stuka that had been brought down by a Bofors team and the area round the pilot was as armoured as a light tank. No rifle bullet could have penetrated it.
Despite the best efforts of the Luftwaffe and the German army, the defenders of Tobruk did not waver, and all Axis attacks were repulsed. Life for the garrison was tough: the repeated artillery and aerial bombardments had to be endured against a background of summer heat with water and food shortages. A series of nightly convoys, conducted by the Royal Navy, maintained a sufficient supply of ammunition and supplies, but almost all luxuries were denied to the fighting troops. The harsh conditions engendered a sense of shared comradeship that bound the men together, and made then formidable opponents.
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