Posted on 01/14/2011 4:21:39 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/jan41/f14jan41.htm
British talk intervention in Greece
Tuesday, January 14, 1941 www.onwar.com
In Greece... General Wavell and Air Marshal Longmore are in Athens (January 14-15) for talks with Prime Minister Metaxas and the Greek Commander in Chief, General Papagos. The Greeks ask for nine divisions and a substantial air component to be sent to support their forces. The Greeks have the equivalent of 13 divisions facing the larger Italian force in Albania and four facing the Bulgarians. At this stage the Germans have 12 divisions in Romania and more in Bulgaria. To meet such a force Wavell is able to offer only a small contribution now, but more later.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/14.htm
January 14th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: George Crosses are gazetted for Sub-Lt John Bryan Peter Duppa-Miller (b. 1903) and AB Stephen John Tuckwell (b.? d.1966), RNVR who dealt with a mine which had fallen into soft mud in a tributary of Barling Creek. In all, they disposed of ten mines in their work together.
London:
Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food, spiked the guns of speculators when the prices of 21 foodstuffs were pegged today as the level at which they stood at the beginning of last December. Prices of many of them will fall, but retailers welcomed his action. They say that they have been forced to buy supplies at inflated prices. Chickens, which come under the order, have risen since December from 2/3 a pound to 3/3. Price controls also apply to coffee, cocoa, honey, tinned food, meat paste, rice and pasta, pickles and sauces, jellies and custard, biscuits, nuts and processed cheese.
“I am always glad to catch the speculator,” said Lord Woolton. Further price controls are expected soon on jam, syrup, treacle and tinned soup.
A survey of the cost of living just completed by the Ministry of Labour shows that families earning less than GBP250 a year spend GBP 1/14/1 per week on food, out of an average family budget of GBP 4/6/3. They survey was begin in 1937 and presumable does not take into account the recent wartime price rises as goods become scarce.
Destroyer HMS Onslaught laid down.
Minesweeping trawler HMS MacBeth commissioned.
Corvette HMS Jasmine launched.
Destroyer HMS Oribi launched.
Submarine HMS Torbay commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: Berlin: Associated Press reports that Germany and Russia have signed a series of treaties today in Moscow including a new trade agreement designed to aid Germany’s war effort. This new deal involves “many billions of marks.” Other agreements recognise trade deals that Germany has previously signed with the Baltic States, now absorbed by the Soviet Union. The agreement includes “the greatest grain deal in history” and could be called an “economic plan” as well as a deal.
Daily Keynote from the Reich Press Chief:
The Minister has explained that we must avoid giving air shelters the reputation of being military barracks. This is in fact what is happening due to a multitude of prohibitions and regulations that have merely caused people to feel annoyed and indignant. The Minister suggests that certain absolutely necessary rules of conduct should be displayed in the air shelters in a summarised form as the “Ten Commandments of the Air Shelter.”
The government presses Romania to enter the war on the Axis side.
Berlin: The American United Press News Agency reports:
Reliable sources have just informed us that the German have begun dismantling the Maginot Line. Once the fortifications have been removed, they then plan to parcel up the land into hereditary farms.
GREECE: British General Archibald Lord Wavell, Commander in Chief Middle East Command, and Air Marshal Longmore are in Athens today and tomorrow for talks with Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas and the Greek Commander in Chief, General Aleksandros Papagos. The Greeks ask for nine divisions and a substantial air component to be sent to support their forces. The Greeks have the equivalent of 13 divisions facing the larger Italian force in Albania and four facing the Bulgarians. At this stage the Germans have 12 divisions in Romania and more in Bulgaria. To meet such a force Wavell is able to offer only a small contribution now, but more later. (Jack McKillop)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Swordfish aircraft from HMS Eagle lost while searching for an Italian convoy. (Dave Shirlaw)
LIBYA: RAF bombers continue their frequent attacks on shipping in Benghazi harbour.
CANADA: Motor minesweepers ordered in Canada - HMS MMS 104, MMS 105, MMS 106, MMS 102, MMS 103, MMS 99, MMS 100 and MMS 101. (Dave Shirlaw)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 502 January 14, 1941
British Commander-in-Chief Middle East General Wavell meets Greek Dictator Metaxas and CIC General Papagos in Athens to discuss military aid to Greece. Papagos asks for 9 divisions and air support. Wavell offers only 2 or 3 divisions. The Greeks refuse, not wanting a British presence that will prompt a German invasion but be too small to help stop it. Wavell, Churchill and British War Cabinet are relieved to have fulfilled the obligation to assist Greece while still maintaining forces in Libya.
In the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, German armed merchant cruiser Pinguin captures almost an entire Norwegian whaling fleet (whale oil tanker Solglimt, factory ships Ole Wegger & Pelagos and 11 of their attendant whalers). 20,000 tons of whale oil (worth 4 million US dollars) and 10,000 tons of fuel oil are captured without a shot and with no casualties. 3 whalers escape and warn another factory ship, Thorshammer, which departs with its flotilla of whalers.
100 miles West of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Italian submarine Cappellini loses 3 men in a 2 hour gun duel with British auxiliary cruiser Eumaeus carrying troops to Egypt around the Cape. Eumaeus finally sinks (12 crew and 15 naval ratings lost). A Supermarine Walrus from seaplane carrier HMS Albatross responds to distress calls from Eumaeus, dropping life rafts to the survivors and bombing Cappellini (which is badly damaged, requiring 3 days of repairs in the Canary Islands and a return to base at Bordeaux).
14th January
‘You can’t die either these days,’ complained a woman who had come to arrange formalities in the mortuary office in connection with the death of her mother. There is nothing exaggerated about such complaints if one considers that, with the current increase in the death rate, a minimum of three days’ wait to bury the dead, sometimes even ten days, has become an everyday occurrence. The causes of this abnormal state of affairs are worth noting. There are scarcely three horses left in the ghetto to draw the hearses, a totally inadequate number in view of the current increase in the death rate. Several times, there was such a ‘backlog’ in the transporting of bodies to the cemetery that, out of necessity, a sideless hauling wagon had to be pressed into service and loaded with several dozen bodies at the same time. Before the arrival of the current frosts, when the death rate in the ghetto did not exceed 25 to 30 cases per day (before the war the average death rate among the Jewish population of the city amounted to six per day), there were 12 gravediggers employed at the cemetery. Today there are around 200. In spite of such a horrendously large number of gravediggers, no more than 50 graves can be dug per day. The reason: a lack of skilled labor, as well as problems connected with the ground being frozen. And this causes the macabre line to grow longer.
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