Posted on 09/05/2011 5:06:15 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/sep41/f05sep41.htm
RAF strikes German battleship in Norway
Friday, September 5, 1941 www.onwar.com
In Norway... British RAF Flying Fortress bombers attack the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer in Oslo Fiord.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/05.htm
September 5th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: This is how a Hurricane pilot who had run out of ammunition forced down a M.E. 109 during Saturday’s battle over Kent. ...
He gunned the German, feigned an attack, and eventually forced him to land in a field. Then he circled low and dropped a packet of cigarettes to the Nazi, who picked them up and waved acknowledgement.
Daily Herald
Destroyer HMS Bicester launched. Escort carrier HMS Fencer laid down. Submarine HMS Universal laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: U-387 and U-631 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
BALTIC SEA: German forces complete the occupation of Estonia, occupied by the USSR in 1940.
U.S.S.R.: Moscow: As the Germans approach, all children under the age of 12 are evacuated from the city. Soviet submarine SC-136 commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Marshall offers MacArthur a “first-class” National Guard division. MacArthur declines and asks for more aircraft.
Initial flight of nine B-17D’s of the 14th Bombardment Squadron of the 14th Bombardment Squadron of the 19th B.G. are transferred to the Philippines.
CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS Ungava commissioned.
Minesweeper HMCS Nipigon arrived Halifax from builder Toronto, Ontario.
Corvettes HMCS Arvida, Barrie and Dauphin departed Sydney, Nova Scotia as escort Convoy SC-43.
Corvettes HMCS Chambly and Moose Jaw depart St John’s for exercises. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: Roosevelt promises 5 B-17’s to the USSR as a token gesture.
The U.S. Army’s Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, issues a memorandum giving a “Brief Periodic Estimate of the World Situation.” The estimate for Japan states “beset with uncertainties, may do nothing, may attack the Maritime Provinces (the islands north of Hokkaido and all of the Sakhalin peninsula. Mike Lenox), may seek to expand to the Southwest; it is even possible that she may withdraw from the Axis. Japan also has the capability of concentrating her newly augmented forces against China and seeking a decision there. No indication or likelihood of this is seen. In the general picture and excluding China, where she must continue to fight, her most likely, but by no means certain course is inaction.” (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-141 sinks steam trawler Anders.
U-501 sinks SS Einvik in Convoy SC-41. (Dave Shirlaw)
btt.
stage is set. waiting on dec 7.
meanwhile, churchill watches as the russians get their brains beat out and feed limitless numbers of troops into the nazi grinder.
In Churchill’s defense he wasn’t just watching. Actually, he dispatched a letter to Stalin yesterday that will arrive tomorrow that covers Stalin’s requests for some fighters to be shipped to the Soviets from England. In this letter Churchill states that “any assistance we can give you would better be upon the same basis of comradeship as the American Lend-Lease Bill, of which no formal account is kept in money.” Prior to this, all aid delivered to the Soviets were considered to be either purchases or credits in which repayment in gold or raw materials were to be expected. The resulting delivery of first 200 Tomahawk P-40Cs will be labeled by Churchill as a “gift” to the Soviets.
The biggest trouble it getting the supplies to the Soviets. From England many shipments will go north to the port at Archangel. The Germans will patrol this area heavily and many transports will be sunk. The supply lines were difficult in these initial stages. Aside from the Archangel route, we have already seen the Japanese distaste for an American route through northern Japanese waters to get to Vladivostok. This is also why there’s a joint Russian-British movement in Iran right now, in order to establish a supply route through that country as well.
"In its first days Le Juif et la France drew 100,000 Parisians.
Exhibits appealed to French patriotism by portraying the Jew as the enemy, a monster intent on destroying France."
Frome DANFS. Doesn’t exactly sound unprovoked to me:
” The “Greer Incident” occurred 4 September At 0840 that morning Greer, carrying mail and passengers to Argentia, was signaled by a British plane that a Nazi submarine had crash-dived some 10 miles ahead. Forty minutes later the DD’s soundman picked up the underseas marauder, and Greer began to trail the submarine. The plane, running low on fuel, dropped four depth charges at 1032 and returned to base, while Greer continued to dog the U-boat. Two hours later the German ship began a series of radical maneuvers and Greer’s lookouts could see her pass about 100 yards off. An impulse bubble at 1248 warned Greer that a torpedo had been fired. Ringing up flank speed, hard left rudder, Greer watched the torpedo pass 100 yards astern and then charged in for attack. She laid a pattern of eight depth charges, and less than two minutes later a second torpedo passed 300 yards to port.
“Greer lost sound contact during the maneuvers, and began to quarter the area in search of the U-boat. After 2 hours, she reestablished sound contact and laid down a pattern of 11 depth charges before discontinuing the engagement. Greer had held the German raider in sound contact 3 hours and 28 minutes; had evaded two torpedoes fired at her; and with her 19 depth charges had become the first American ship in World War II to attack the Germans.
“When news of the unprovoked attack against an American ship on the high seas reached the United States public feeling ran high. President Roosevelt seized this occasion to make another of his famed “fireside chats,” one in which he brought America nearer to outright involvement in the European war. Declaring that Germany had been guilty of an act of piracy, President Roosevelt in effect unleashed American ships and planes for offensive action as he stated `’in the waters which we deem necessary for our defense, American naval vessels and American planes will no longer wait until Axis submarines lurking under the water, or Axis raiders on the surface of the sea, strike their deadly blow first.” The period of “undeclared war” in the Atlantic had begun.”
This incident illustrates as well as any that the President was not looking for ways to make peace, but rather was itching for incidents which would allow him to ratchet up US military actions against axis powers.
The quote from you should have read:
PAR35: "Declaring that Germany had been guilty of an act of piracy, President Roosevelt in effect unleashed American ships and planes for offensive action"
To which I am responding:
This incident illustrates as well as any that the President was not looking for ways to make peace, but rather was itching for incidents which would allow him to ratchet up US military actions against axis powers.
That’s not me saying that - it is the US Navy.
Churchill is always concerned, and justifiably so, that Hitler and Stalin will make a separate peace and return to their former alliance.
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