Posted on 04/12/2011 5:18:43 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
#1 – “Amapola” ((Pretty Little Poppy) - Jimmy Dorsey, with Bob Eberly and Helen O’Connell
#2 - “Oh Look at Me Now” - Tommy Dorsey, with Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers
#3 - “Perfidia” - Xavier Cugat
#4 - “Song of the Volga Boatmen” - Glenn Miller
#5 – “Do I Worry” – Tommy Dorsey, with Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers
#6 - “Frenesi” - Artie Shaw
#7 - “New San Antonio Rose” – Bing Crosby
#8 - “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Harlem” – Glenn Miller
#9 - “Music Makers” – Harry James
#10 - “Blue Flame” – Woody Herman
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/apr41/f12apr41.htm
Road to Greece undefended
Saturday, April 12, 1941 www.onwar.com
In the Balkans... British and Australian forces defending the Monastir Gap pull back. Meanwhile, Allied forces to the east are pulling back from the Aliakmon Line to a position hinging on Mount Olympus. Meanwhile, in Yugoslavia, the city Belgrade surrenders, in the evening, to General Kleist’s forces who have advanced down the Morava valley from Nis. They only reach Belgrade a little before other German units from the north and east.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/12.htm
April 12th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Bomber Command: 2 Group: During a raid on Flushing Docks, Holland, three Blenheims are caught by two Bf109s and an air gunner is killed.
Operations Order 27 expands the anti-shipping campaign from Bordeaux to Norway.
Bristol: In his role as Chancellor of Bristol University, Churchill confers an honorary degree on Mr. Winant, the US ambassador, Dr JB Conant of Harvard and Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia. Many of the academics are still covered in the grime from fighting the previous nights air raid.
GERMANY: Daily Keynote from the Reich Press Chief:
The Minister has ordered that the music of the grand Prince Eugen Fanfare and the German national anthem should no longer be played every time a special announcement is made, because then we would have no way left to intensify [the people’s mood]. He has reminded us that our broadcast for the ceasefire with France moved the people most profoundly, precisely because [the music played] was unique. Thus the grand Prince Eugen Fanfare and the German national anthem must be played only two or three times throughout the whole Balkan campaign.
Russ Folsom adds: The march was composed in 1853 by Andreas Leonhardt inspired by a much earlier melody, (c.1717), the “Prinz Eugen Lied”, which was the traditonsmarch of the k.u.k. Dragoon regiment NR. 13 “Prinz Eugen von Savoy.” (See here for PrinzEugenmarsch.mp3.)
BALKANS: Croatia is proclaimed as a sovereign state, with Ante Pavelich as head of the puppet Axis state.
GREECE: The British and Imperial forces, deployed along the rugged terrain from the Gulf of Salonika to Edhessa in the Vermion mountains, have been pulled back to Mount Olympus, the next defensible line, some hundred kilometres to the south. The Allied C-in-C, General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, decided he had no other choice when he learnt that the Germans were pouring into Greece through the Monastir Gap and Yugoslav resistance was crumbling.
The 53,000 strong British and Imperial forces have had little or no time to prepare their defences, and their strength is insufficient to organize a defence in depth. If the Germans are not stopped at Monastir they will soon be turning the British left flank.
At Vevi the Germans thrust back the Rangers but the Royal Horse Artillery and Australian anti-tank gunners held back German infantry and tanks. By dusk German tanks were among the forward posts of the 2/8th and it was out of touch with Brigade Headquarters. It withdrew but the men reached the vehicles further south and on the west the 2/4th withdrew except for a company which walked into the German lines and was captured. After two successful rearguard actions by the armoured brigade the force was extricated and the infantry reached the Olympus-Aliakmon Line.
With the Australian and New Zealand units fighting side by side, Blamey as commander of 1 Australian Corps, renames it the Anzac Corps. (Anthony Staunton)
The Luftwaffe carry out a heavy raid on Kozani behind the position of the Amynteion Detachment. There was virtually no opposition to the raiding aircraft and the town was severely damaged.
The Greek Albanian forces in the Northern sector begin their withdrawal from Albania today, 6 days after the initial German thrust into north-eastern Greece. Steve Sttatharos’ grandfather’s unit pulls out of Beragozhde (Pragosda) blowing up the road behind them to slow the Italians. The Italians, in fact, do not respond to the Greek withdrawal by advancing themselves until the following day. (Steve Sttatharos)
YUGOSLAVIA: Yugoslavian Headquarters announced:
In the northern sector, the superior enemy forces have crossed through Drvar (Yugoslavia) and reached the Save river; they have also occupied Kragujevac. German troops have marched into Zagreb unopposed by our troops.
NORTH AFRICA:Bardia falls to the Germans.
NORWAY: Hammerfest: A British raiding party on a Norwegian destroyer attacks a fish-oil factory.
U.S.S.R.: Moscow: Stalin has now issued a secret directive for the strengthening of the western frontier fortified zones. Some 150,000 construction workers have been drafted in, but work is held up by shortages of such materials as timber and cement.
U.S.A.: Washington: the United States has decided to establish air and naval bases in Greenland, under an agreement concluded here yesterday between Henrik Kauffman, the Danish minister, and the US secretary of state, Cordell Hull.Kauffman has been disowned by Danish leaders in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen, but he said he was acting in the name of the Danish king. In terms of war, if not law, it will ease the ferrying of aircraft to Britain and enable the US Navy to patrol further eastwards to protect Allied convoys.
The code name for Greenland was BLUIE. Bases on the west coast of Greenland were coded “Bluie West numeric,” e.g., Bluie West 1, or BW-1, was Narsarssuak while BW-8 was Sondre Stromfjord. BW-1 was located about half way between Goose Bay, Labrador and Reykjavik, Iceland making it an ideal emergency field. BW-8 was planned as a backup but the flying weather proved to be better through BW-8 and across the Greenland ice cap.
The Army Airways Communication System (AACS) had stations in operation at both of these bases on 7 December 1941; the USAF’s Airways and Air Communications System (AACS) still had the two stations in operation when I was in Iceland in 1956-57.
Bases on the east coast of Greenland were coded Bluie East numeric. The USAAF could not find a suitable site on the east coast and never built a landing field there. I know that US military installations existed on the east coast but I am not familiar with them; they may have been US Coast Guard weather stations. (Jack McKillop)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 590 April 12, 1941 (Easter Saturday)
Libya. Rommel underestimates the number of Allied troops at Tobruk (about 30,000) and their determination. German tanks & armoured cars again probe the perimeter in small groups but are repelled. Luftwaffe and artillery bombard Tobruk (3 Stukas shot down over the harbour). Believing the Allies ready to evacuate Tobruk, Rommel also sends columns further East to chase the British into Egypt (his stated goal is the Suez Canal). To prevent this, British prepare blocking positions at Halfaya Pass, near Sollum, Egypt. RAF bombs and strafes German columns moving around Tobruk and towards the frontier with Egypt. British submarine HMS Tetrarch sinks Italian tanker Persiano 55 miles Northeast of Tripoli, Libya.
Greece. Leibstandarte SS infantry overrun British and Australian troops South of Vevi. With the Aliakmon Line unhinged, Allied forces to the East pull back to a line inland from Mount Olympus to block both the valley from Vevi and the coastal route from Salonika. British anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Coventry, destroyers HMS Decoy & HMS Encounter and troopship Glenroy evacuate a battalion of troops, 1000 tons of stores and 40 vehicles from Greek island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea near Salonika.
Yugoslavia. Hungary joins the German/Italian invasion, to take a share of the spoils. In the evening, Serbian capital of Belgrade surrenders to German troops converging from 3 directions. German Ju87 Stukas dive-bomb 4 Yugoslav WWI-era river monitors on the River Danube (3 shot down by anti-aircraft guns on the monitors). Drava is destroyed by a bomb down the funnel (54 crew killed, 13 survivors) while Morava, Sava & Vardar are scuttled to avoid capture by the advancing Germans.
At 5.09 AM 100 miles Southwest of Freetown, Sierra Leone, U-124 sinks another steamer carrying grain from Argentina to Britain, British SS St. Helena (all 36 crew, 2 gunners and 3 passengers picked up by destroyer HMS Wishart and landed at Freetown). 920 miles Southwest of Freetown, German armed merchant cruiser Kormoran sinks Greek steamer SS Nicolaos D. L. carrying Oregon pine from Canada to Durban, South Africa (all 38 crew taken prisoner).
It’s really looking desperate for the Brits....
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