Posted on 04/30/2011 5:03:52 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/apr41/f30apr41.htm
Bombardment precedes Tobruk assault
Wednesday, April 30, 1941 www.onwar.com
In North Africa... After General Paulus has decided to allow a further effort against Tobruk the heaviest German attack yet goes in after a bombardment by artillery and many Stuka bombers. A salient in the western section of the perimeter around the Ras el Madauar hill is gained by the attack but vigorous defense halts it there.
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 608 April 30, 1941
Iraq. Overnight, 6,000 Iraqi troops with 30 artillery pieces leave Baghdad on a ‘training exercise’. By dawn, they occupy a plateau overlooking RAF airbase at Habbaniya (45 miles West of Baghdad). Rashid Ali expects the arrival of German aircraft and airborne troops but he will be disappointed. RAF Habbaniya is reinforced with 300 men of 1st Battalion King’s Own Royal Regiment flown from RAF Shaibah. British Ambassador, Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, warns British civilians to leave Baghdad (230 escorted by road to Habbaniya and then airlifted to Shaibah, 350 take refuge in the British Embassy and 150 in the American Legation).
Rommel gets Paulus’ permission to attack Tobruk. At 8 PM, German tanks break through the perimeter under cover of dark and an artillery barrage, Overnight, German infantry overrun several Australian gun posts but some hold out, preventing a complete collapse of the defenses. To their right, Italian Brescia Division fails to break in.
British gunboats HMS Aphis and HMS Ladybird bombard Afrika Korps at Gazala, Libya, and Sollum, Egypt.
During a German air raid at Malta, British cruiser HMS Gloucester is damaged by a bomb which passes through the ship without exploding (repaired in 1 day).
Greek island of Crete, with a major Royal Navy base at Suda Bay, is the obvious next stop for the German invasion. New Zealand General Bernard Freyberg VC is appointed commander of Allied forces on Crete (14,000 British garrison, plus 25,000 British and ANZACs evacuated from the mainland and 9000 Greek troops). Many are unarmed and most guns & vehicles have been abandoned on the mainland. Freyberg is briefed by General Wavell on German plans to attack with ‘airborne troops plus a possible sea attack’ using intelligence from ‘most secret sources’ (Ultra intercepts, but Freyberg is not told this).
At 10 PM 300 miles Southwest of Cape Verde Islands, U-107 sinks British MV Lassell (2 crew lost, 51 survivors in 2 lifeboats are picked up on May 9 and 10 by British SS Egba and SS Benvrackie).
4 ex-US Coast Guard Cutters are commissioned into Royal Navy at New York as convoy escort ships HMS Banff, Culver, Fishguard & Hartland with crews from battleship HMS Malaya (which is under repair in USA).
Baldwin's column is worth a read today. There is an overview of the military importance of Crete,though the idea of airborne assault seems not to have occurred to him.
Well, off to the library.
British military and naval personnel survey defences on the island of Crete, which would become the next battlefield after the fall of Greece. For Germany, Crete would be a useful staging post for attacks against the British in Malta and North Africa.
Sources do not agree on the number of the soldiers the British Commonwealth managed to evacuate. According to British sources, 50,732 soldiers were evacuated. But of these, according to G.A. Titterton, 600 men were lost in the troopship (the former Dutch liner) Slamat. Adding 500–1,000 stragglers who reached Crete, Titterton estimates that "the numbers that left Greece and reached Crete or Egypt, including British and Greek troops, must have been around 51,000." Gavin Long (part of Australia's official history of World War II) gives a figure around 46,500, while, according to W.G. McClymont (part of New Zealand's official history of World War II), 50,172 soldiers were evacuated. McClymont points out that "the differences are understandable if it is remembered that the embarkations took place at night and in great haste and that among those evacuated there were Greeks and refugees
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/30.htm
April 30th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Bomber Command: 2 Group: Three Blenheims of 21 Sqn. attack a convoy with eight flak ships escorting a tanker with Bf110s overhead. One Blenheim is lost to flak.
Frigates HMS Mourne and Barle commissioned.
Corvette HMS Celandine commissioned.
Tug HMS Peuplier sunk off Plymouth. (Dave Shirlaw)
A RAF Wellington crashes in St. Andrews Park, Bristol. Three of the six man crew die, but three are saved by amongst others a young probationary police officer, Bruce Westlake, who entered the burning plane. More...
GERMANY: A small Argus pulse-jet of 265lb static thrust flies for the first time suspended beneath a Gotha Go 145 biplane. This is the ancestor of the engine that powers the Fieseler Fi 103 flying bomb.
The Wehrmacht High Command announced:
During the evening and night hours of 29 April, German bombers and dive bombers made a very effective raid on the port of Valetta on the island of Malta. They scored direct hits on a light cruiser and on antiaircraft positions, wharves and fuel tank depots, and set a destroyer on fire. Additional raids were made on the Luqa and Valetta airfields. The enemy lost two Hurricane fighters in aerial combats over the island. There were no German losses. In North Africa German and Italian dive bombers bombed Tobruk harbour, artillery positions at Fort Pilastro, and fortifications south of Via Balbia, with the heaviest calibre bombs.
Munich: Bavarians are outraged by a ban on crucifixes in their schools. The state culture minister, Adolf Wagner, has declared that crucifixes, church decorations and religious pictures “have no place in our schools” and ordered their gradual removal. Bavaria was the breeding ground of Nazism, but it is also intensely Catholic. Farmers have refused to deliver milk in protest, and parents have blocked school entrances or withdrawn their children. Michael von Faulhaber, the cardinal of Munich and Freising, has protested about the Nazis’ continued “destruction of Christianity in public life.”
Berlin: Hitler sets the new date for Barbarossa for June 22.
U-501 is commissioned from the Deutsche Werft AG of Hamburg.
U-453, U-454, U-575, U-576 launched.
(Dave Shirlaw)
ITALY: Count Ciano writes on a meeting with the King on “the Croatian question”, “He is very happy, on the other hand, about the bestowal of a crown on a prince of his house. If the Duke of Aosta had been in Italy the King would have designated him without hesitation; as things stand, the only choice is between the Duke of Spoleto and the Duke of Pistoia. The King favours the first, because of his physical appearance and also, up to a certain point, because of his intellectual capacities...The Duce replies to Pavelich’s letter, accepting the crown...”
GREECE: The last British, Australian, New Zealand and Polish troops were taken on board ship today from Kalamata in the Peloponnese after a fighting ten-day retreat from Thermopylae. About 7,000 men were captured at Kalamata by a German Panzer force before they could be evacuated.
However, 50,732 men were taken from harbours and beaches in this “second Dunkirk”, called Operation Demon, and many have been transported to Crete for the island’s defence. There was too little time however, to take off all their heavy weapons, trucks and aircraft. As the Allies left the Germans began occupying islands in the Aegean.
Britsh and Empire forces lost 900 men in battle, 1,200 wounded and 9,000 taken prisoner. The Germans suffered 1,518 dead and 3,360 wounded in Greece, in addition to the 151 dead, 15 missing and 392 wounded in the Yugoslav campaign.
CRETE: Major-General Bernard Freyberg takes command of British and Imperial forces.
NORTH AFRICA: General Paulus allows a further attack against Tobruk. The artillery bombardment is supplemented by Stuka raids. This is the heaviest attack yet. The defence is not to be overcome.
IRAQ: The new pro-German Iraqi government ordered approximately 9,000 troops to march on the RAF station at Habbaniya, a few miles northwest of Baghdad, and to set up their 28 cannon in artillery positions on the surrounding plateau. There are 2,000 British troops and 9,000 civilians sheltering at the airbase.
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Trail commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: The motion picture “My Gal Sal” is released in the U.S. Directed by Irving Cummings, this musical stars Rita Hayworth, Victor Mature, Carole Landis, James Gleason and Phil Silvers. Gay 90s musical of songwriter Paul Dresser (Mature) in love with singer Hayworth. The film was nominated for two technical Academy Awards and won one. (Jack McKillop)
The motion picture “That Hamilton Woman” is released in the U.S. Directed by Alexander Korda, this action adventure film stars Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Alan Mowbray and Gladys Cooper and depicts the ill-fated romance of Lord Admiral Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton. The film was nominated for four technical Academy Awards and won one. (Jack McKillop)
Destroyers USS Chevalier and Strong laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC:
The first four of the ten Lake-class U.S. Coast Guard cutters are transferred to the Royal Navy. USCGC Pontchartrain (CGC-46) becomes HMS Harland; USCGC Tahoe (CGC-47) becomes HMS Fishguard; USCGC Mendota (CGC-49) becomes HMS Culver; and USCGC Itasca (CGC-50) becomes HMS Gorleston. USCGC Itasca was the ship at Howland Island during the Amelia Earhart flight in 1937. (Jack McKillop)
SS Nerissa sunk by German U-boat, off Ireland, 73 Canadian Army personnel and 6 RCN personnel lost.
At 2155, the Lassell was hit by one torpedo from U-107 and sank about 300 miles SW of the Cape Verde Islands. The ship had been in Convoy OB-309, which was dispersed on 19 April in 50°00N/23°50W. 17 crewmembers were lost. The master, second officer, 22 crewmembers and one passenger were picked up on 9 May by the Benvrackie, which was herself sunk four days later by U-105. 15 survivors from Lassell were lost. The master, nine others and the survivors of Benvrackie were rescued after 13 days in lifeboats by HMHS Oxfordshire and landed at Freetown. The chief officer, W.H. Underhill, four officers, 13 crewmembers and eight gunners were picked up on 10 May in 10°57N/29°13W by the British merchantman Egba and landed at Freetown five days later. (Dave Shirlaw)
Losses:
48 ships of 282,000 tons and 3 armed merchant cruiisers.
2 U-boats.
MERCHANT SHIPPING WAR:
Europe - Losses:
40 ships of 99,000 tons.
Mediterranean - Losses:
105 ships of 293,000 tons.
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