Posted on 05/29/2011 6:02:56 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
This excerpt is a scathing attack on Short but it seems to me he conducted his exercises in a way that used the resources he had at the time. - Homer
Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/may41/f29may41.htm
British destroyers sunk evacuating troops
Thursday, May 29, 1941 www.onwar.com
In the Mediterranean... British destroyers Imperial and Hereward are sunk by Luftwaffe attacks. The ships were engaged in evacuating troops from Crete.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/29.htm
May 29th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM:
London: The Daily Mails’ editorial says:
When are we really going to get down to the job of winning the war? When are we going to run machines, factories, and shipyards to full capacity; when are we going to see an end of masterly retreats ...?
Churchill declined to believe that there was any uneasiness about Greece. Perhaps he can be persuaded that the people are deeply disturbed about Crete.
We have been surprised in Norway, France, Greece and Crete. We have suffered from serious mistakes. The Germans seem to have made no mistakes.
Something is wrong...
Changes are needed and Churchill should not hesitate to make them. The fate of the government may well depend upon his prompt and vigorous action.
Destroyers HMS Grove and Southwold launched.
Minesweeper HMS Whitehaven launched.
Destroyer HNLMS Isaac Sweers commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY:
U-262, U-618 laid down.
U-132, U-452, U-572 commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
ITALY: Count Ciano notes in his diary: “The Duke of Spoleto comes on a visit. He wishes to take Guariglia (my note: diplomat, former ambassador to Germany and France) with him to Zagreb, and this seems to me an excellent choice. He said nothing of any particular importance, but the tone of his conversation was distinctly anti-German.” (Mike Yaklich)
GREECE: CRETE: Early in the morning 4,000 men are evacuated from Heraklion on the north side. As they do so the damaged HMS Imperial has to be scuttled. She is heading south from Heraklion at high speed when she suffers a loss of steering. It is decided that there is no time available to allow the steering fault to be repaired, so the crew are taken off the ship by HMS Hotspur and Imperial is scuttled at 35 23N, 25 40E. HMS Hereward is hit in an air attack 5 miles south of Crete at 35 20N, 26 30E. It is decided to leave her on her own rather than delay the rest of the force, and Hereward is last seen heading slowly towards Crete shrouded in smoke. She is eventually sunk in an air attack close to land, and Italian motor boats rescue the majority of the survivors. (Alex Gordon)(108) Shortly, HMS Dido and HMS Irion are badly damaged to the southeast. Evacuations from the port of Sfakia continue as well.
SYRIA: Associated Press reported:
A German infantry detachment geared for speed lands at the port of Latakia just south of the Turkish border. Armoured cars and mobile field guns are among the equipment unloaded from coastal steamers which apparently hugged the coast to avoid British naval interception enroute from the Italian Dodecanese islands. The German units are believed to have moved southward to Beirut.
IRAQ: The last three remaining He-111s of the Junck Special Unit fly their last mission.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: MacArthur informs Marshall that he would be closing the Mission and returning to the U.S. in the near future. (Marc Small)
CANADA:
Minesweeper HMCS Swift Current launched Montreal, Province of Quebec.
Corvettes HMCS Baddeck and Levis arrived Halifax from builders Quebec City, Province of Quebec. (Dave Shirlaw)
NEWFOUNDLAND: U.S. Navy Patrol Squadron Fifty Two (VP-52), based at Naval Air Station (NAS) Argentia, Newfoundland with PBY-5 Catalinas, deploys four aircraft to Reykjavik, Iceland, based on the seaplane tender (destroyer) USS Belknap (AVD-8). The aircraft survey the east coast of Greenland where Danish weather stations are suspected of being in use by the Germans for relaying weather forecasts to the submarine wolfpacks. Inspections of the facilities shows that they are abandoned and the detachment returns to NAS Argentia on 8 June 1941. (Jack McKillop)
RN auxiliary oiler Teakwood arrived St John’s to support NEF. The establishment of the NEF posed significant logistical challenges. There were virtually no naval facilities at St. John’s and the issue of which Government would pay for the necessary development provoked a prolonged exchange between Canada and Great Britain. The short-term solution was to employ a ‘Base Force Afloat’ (USN term) through the use of depot and stores ships, afloat accommodations, and ‘post’ tankers. Teakwood, although termed an ‘oiler’ was neither intended nor equipped for underway replenishment. Teakwood was built in 1927 for the Jacobs Line. Her Gross Registered Tonnage was 6,000 tons and her deadweight cargo capacity was 9,100 tons. She was 415 feet long. Her draught was 26 feet and she could make 10.5 knots. She was, in most ways, typical of inter-war period British tankers, although her capacity was a bit under the wartime planning average of 10,000 tons. Plans for fuel oil storage tanks at St. John’s were increased several times. Work on the base did not begin until Aug 41 whereas the first warships arrived on 27 May. By Aug 41, 40 ships were based at St. John’s. The logistical demand constantly outpaced the capacity of the ‘base’ to provide support. The demand for fuel reached a weekly total of 39,000 barrels by Mar 42. The original plan to build tankage for 89,000 barrels was obviously inadequate and in March another 180,000 barrels expanded the plan. The first of the shore tanks did not go into operation until Sep 42 and the last tanks were finished in Sep 43. Because of enemy action, the main problem became one of getting fuel to St. John’s. As soon as the last tanks were useable, Teakwood joined a shuttle service hauling fuel from Halifax and Montreal. She was returned to the UK in Dec 43. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: Washington: The US agrees to train RAF pilots to fly American planes supplied under Lend-Lease.
The U.S. Army Air Corps (superseded by the US Army Air Forces effective 20 June 1941) activates the Air Corps Ferrying Command to assist the British in the movement by air of American-built planes from factories in the United States to Britain and the Middle East. Initially, the aircraft were flown to Canada or to bases in the U.S. where British pilots would pick them up. But the command was shortly tasked with delivering aircraft across the Atlantic to the UK and Africa.
In Washington, an Army-Navy planning board draws up a plan for the occupation of the Portuguese Azores Islands in the event that Germany invades Spain and/or Portugal. The joint Army-Marine occupation force will be commanded by Major General Holland M. Smith, USMC, Commanding General 1st Marine Division.
(Jack McKillop)
Destroyer USS Swanson commissioned.
Destroyers USS Carmick, MacKenzie and McLanahan laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The U.S. Navy’s Task Group Three (TG 3) consisting of the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4), heavy cruiser USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) and three destroyers, gets underway from Bermuda for a 4,000+ mile (6,437+ km) neutrality patrol in the Atlantic that will end in Bermuda on 8 June. (Jack McKillop)
SS Tabaristan sunk by U-38 at 06.32N, 15.23W.
At 2043, the Empire Storm, a straggler from Convoy HX-128, was torpedoed and sunk by U-557 south of Cape Farewell. Three crewmembers were lost. The master, 35 crewmembers and four gunners were picked up by the Norwegian merchantman Marita and landed at St John’s on 4 June. (Dave Shirlaw)
Fascinating as always.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_%2891%29
Escorting the Malta convoys
Ark Royal and the ships of Force H returned to Gibraltar on 29 May 1941. Despite the boost in Allied morale from the sinking of the battleship Bismarck, the war in the Mediterranean was going against the Allies. Greece and Crete had fallen to the Axis Powers, and the Afrika Korps was preparing to launch a final push into Egypt. Malta remained an important stronghold in the Mediterranean, but was coming under increased pressure from Italian and German air attacks, and could no longer be supplied from the east since the fall of Crete.[88]
And for those you have been with Homer from the beginning, you might remember this.
My recollection is that he went in by glider. Given that the landing zones were under direct fire, jumping might have been safer.
You have put your finger on the exact problem.
From beginning to end, General Short did just what his boss, General Marshall -- and Marshall's bosses, Stimpson & Roosevelt -- expected of Short.
The question is whether Marshall, Stimpson and FDR knew better, but failed to warn Short?
A lot of evidence suggests they did.
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 637 May 29, 1941
Evacuation of Crete. After leaving Heraklion at 2.45 AM, the steering on British destroyer HMS Imperial fails at 4 AM (damaged by bombing yesterday). Destroyer HMS Hotspur takes off the crew and troops then sinks HMS Imperial with 2 torpedoes. At dawn, the flotilla is an hour behind schedule and still in the Kaso Strait, near airfields on the Italian island of Scarpanto. Destroyer HMS Hereward is bombed at 6.45 and beached on Crete (76 crew killed, 89 taken prisoner). Cruisers HMS Orion & HMS Dido are both hit by bombs which penetrate their decks, exploding among the troops below (Orion, 105 crew and 260 troops killed, 280 troops wounded; Dido, 27 crew and 100 troops killed by fire or water pumped in to prevent the magazine from exploding). Destroyer HMS Decoy is also damaged. The flotilla is attacked until 3 PM, 100 miles from Alexandria, Egypt. They limp into Alexandria at 8 PM.
At 8.43 PM, U-557 sinks British SS Empire Storm in the North Atlantic (3 killed, 36 crew and 4 gunners picked up by Norwegian merchant Marita). At 11.50 PM 250 miles off Sierra Leone, U-38 sinks British SS Tabaristan (21 killed, 36 crew and 3 gunners picked up by British armed trawlers HMS Bengali and HMS Turcoman).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.