Posted on 03/28/2011 4:49:05 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/mar41/f28mar41.htm
British and Italian fleets do battle
Friday, March 28, 1941 www.onwar.com
In the Mediterranean... Battle of Cape Matapan. There is a long-range engagement between Pridham-Wippell’s force and some of the Italian cruisers. The Italians suspect that a large British force is present and begin to retire. In the afternoon Swordfish aircraft from the Formidable attack the Italian ships, hitting the battleship Vittorio Veneto and the cruiser Pola. The Vittorio Veneto is able to proceed at reduced speed but the Pola is stopped. In the evening Iachino sends the cruisers Zara and Fiume and for destroyers back to help the Pola. The British ships are pressing on in pursuit hoping to come up with the damaged Vittorio Veneto when, during the night, they find the three Italian cruisers and their escorts on radar. The British approach to close range, without being sighted in return, and in a brief gun battle the cruisers and two destroyers are sunk before they can return fire.
In Belgrade... The British Chief of Staff, General Dill, is in Belgrade for talks with the Yugoslav authorities, but there is little he can offer them and no agreements of any importance are reached.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/28.htm
March 28th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: The RAF declares its “Eagle” Squadron, crewed by US volunteers, to be operational.
Lewes, East Sussex: The novelist and essayist Virginia Woolf (born Adeline Virgina Stephen) drowns herself in the River Ouse because she fears another breakdown from which she might not recover.. She was 59. She suffered mental breakdowns in 1895 and 1915. (Jack McKillop)
YUGOSLAVIA: Belgrade: The Italian Stefani News Agency reported:
This morning at 10:00 A.M., the members of Yugoslavian Premier Simovic’s new government were presented to the king. Shortly after that, King Peter Swore his fealty to the constitution in the presence of the Patriarch and high dignitaries of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
King Peter’s motorcade from the royal palace to the cathedral, and the return trip to the palace, had the air of a genuine triumphal procession.
British Field Marshal Sir John Dill, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, flies to Belgrade to determine the intentions of the new government headed by Air Force General Dusan Simovic. There is little Dill can offer the Yugoslavs and no agreements of any importance are reached. (Jack McKillop)
GERMANY: Daily Keynote from the Riech Press Chief:
Yugoslavia is not kindly disposed toward Germany. When you report events there, your news captions should be shaded so as to make this somewhat clearer but without taking on the form of a threat. Offer no commentary at any time.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA:The Battle of Cape Matapan. (Cape Matapan is the southern extremity of the Greek mainland, projecting into the Ionian Sea.) This naval battle pits the Italian fleet under Vice Admiral Angelo Iachino, consisting of the battleship Vittorio Veneto, the heavy cruisers Bolzano, Fiume, Pola Trento, Trieste and Zara, the light cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi and 17 destroyers, vs. the Royal Navy fleet under Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, consisting of the battleships HMS Barham, Valiant and Warspite, the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable, the light cruisers HMS Ajax, Gloucester and Orion and HMAS Perth, plus 11 RN and two RAN destroyers. The battleships never were in range of each other, but Formidable’s aircraft and RAF bombers began attacking the Italian fleet once in range.
Around 08.30, south of Crete, Adm Pridham-Wippell is in action with an Italian cruiser squadron. Just before noon he finds himself between them and the battleship ‘Vittorio Veneto’ which has now come up. An attack by Swordfish from HMS Formidable fails to hit the Italian battleship, but enables the RN cruisers to extricate themselves. The Mediterranean Fleet heavy units arrive, but their only chance is to slow down the Italians before they can reach Italy.
The battleship Vittorio Veneto is hit by one torpedo at about 1510 hours, but is still operational. The cruiser Pola is hit and immobilized by a Swordfish bomber and left behind as the Italian squadron turned about to return to base. Admiral Iachino then sent two heavy cruisers and four destroyers back to pick up survivors. The British Battle Fleet continued steaming towards the Italian and picked up the damage cruiser Pola on radar.
At 19.30 a third strike southwest of Cape Matapan stops heavy cruiser ‘Pola’. All this time RAF aircraft are attacking but without success.
Later this evening, two more heavy cruisers - ‘Fiume’ and ‘Zara’ with four destroyers are detached to help ‘Pola’.
At about 2230 hours, the Battle Fleet is about 1,300 yards (1188 meters) from the Pola and the other six ships who do not suspect that the British are there. Before they reach the Pola, Admiral Cunningham’s ships detect them. The three RN battleships open fire with their 15-inch (38,1 centimeter) guns crippling the ‘Fiume’, ‘Zara’ and the destroyers ‘Alfieri’ and ‘Carducci’. They are finally sunk by four destroyers led by HMAS Stuart. The battleship Vittorio Veneto escapes and arrives at its base in Italy tomorrow. The Italians lose 2,303 in this battle. (Jack McKillop)
Cutlasses are used for the last time by the Royal Navy when the Italian heavy cruiser POLA is boarded by the gunners from ‘A’ Turret, HMS JERVIS, board the battle-damaged Italian ship and rescue the remaining 257 of her bemused crew before sinking the ship. (Bernard de Neumann)
Italian torpedo boat ‘Chinotto’ sinks on a mine laid by HMS Rorqual.
ETHIOPIA: The Italians abandon Diredawa, a town northwest of Harar, and withdraw towards Addis Ababa. (Jack McKillop)
SOUTH AFRICA: A South African Airways Lockheed Model 18-08 Lodestar, msn 18-2034, registered ZS-AST, crashes into a mountain at Elands Bay. All ten aboard are killed. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: A team of physicists reports the discovery of a new isotope of uranium which it calls plutonium-239.
[This turns out to be an entirely different element. (Tom Hickcox)]
Republic Pictures releases the first episode of “The Adventures of Captain Marvel.” This serial is the first featuring a comic strip or comic book hero. (Jack McKillop)
The Commanding Officer of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) after five months operational experience with the CXAM radar, reported that aircraft had been tracked at a distance of 100 miles (160 km) and recommended that friendly aircraft be equipped with electronic identification devices and carriers be equipped with separate and complete facilities for tracking and plotting all radar targets. (Jack McKillop)
Hart informed by the Navy Department that he would be retained in command of the Asiatic Fleet beyond his retirement age: Hart turned 64 on June 12, 1941.
Construction of Ford’s Willow Run, Michigan, Plant begins. Before the war, Henry Ford had boasted nonchalantly that Ford could produce 1,000 airplanes per day provided there was no interference from stockholders or labor unions. So when Ford was asked to build subassemblies for the Consolidated B-24 Liberator, it was no surprise that Ford pushed for a deal that would allow Ford to construct the entire bomber. The contract included US$200 million toward the construction of a new production facility. (With inflation, US$200 million in 1941 is equal to US$2.5 trillion in 2003 dollars.) Production got off to a slow start but by the middle of 1944, Willow Run churned out a B-24 every 63 minutes and by the end of the war, Willow Run had produced more than 8,500 B-24s. (Jack McKillop)
The Commanding Officer of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) after five months operational experience with the CXAM radar, reported that aircraft had been tracked at a distance of 100 miles (161 kilometres) and recommended that friendly aircraft be equipped with electronic identification devices and carriers be equipped with separate and complete facilities for tracking and plotting all radar targets. (Jack McKillop)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 575 March 28, 1941
Battle of Cape Matapan 150 miles West of Crete. At 6.35 AM, Italian Ro43 seaplane spots Allied cruisers HMS Ajax, Gloucester, Orion & HMAS Perth. Italian cruisers Trieste, Trento & Bolzano close in and open fire at 8.12 AM from 22km without success, then battleship Veneto joins in at 10.55 from 23km (shell splinters cause slight damage to all 4 Allied cruisers). Torpedo bombers from HMS Formidable attack Veneto at noon and again at 3.09 PM, hitting a propeller & causing flooding which stops her for 90 minutes (1 Albacore is shot down, all 3 crew killed). Admiral Cunningham immediately orders Mediterranean fleet to close on the damaged Italian battleship. Torpedo bombers from HMS Formidable and from Crete (815 Squadron) attack at 7.36 PM, crippling Italian cruiser Pola. Cruisers Zara and Fiume remain to help Pola while Vittorio Veneto and the other ships run for cover at Taranto. After dark, battleships HMS Barham, Valiant & Warspite close to 3.5km unnoticed by the Italian ships (which have no radar). They open fire at 11.30 PM, sinking 2 Italian cruisers Fiume & Zara and 2 destroyers Alfieri & Carducci while destroyer Oriani escapes with heavy damage (2,303 Italian sailors killed).
Ethiopia, East Africa. Indian Pattern Carriers and armoured cars of Indian 4th & 5th Divisions pursue Italians East from Keren (2000 Italian stragglers taken prisoner). Italians mount a fighting retreat where the road towards the capital Asmara twists for several miles along the side of a valley, sloping steeply away into a gorge. They will hold the British and Indian advance with rocks blasted from the hillsides and hidden artillery, using guns withdrawn from Keren.
Italian torpedo boat Chinotto sinks in minefield off Palermo, Sicily, laid by British submarine HMS Rorqual on March 25. British submarine HMS Utmost torpedoes German steamers Heraklea (sinks) and Ruhr (damaged) off the coast of Tunisia.
Interesting stuff on the coup in Yugoslavia that threw out the new pro-Nazi govt.
I wasnt aware that had happened. It’s gonna be extra interesting to read the news events for the next few days to read the Nazi response. I think I know the end result.
Der Fuehrer has insecurity issues. He doesn't deal well with rejection.
I wonder many times as I read the news from 1941, what did the average reader understand - let me elaborate a bit. If I pickup a NYT and read it today, I know I am getting bias information and I filter it with that bias in mind. This filtering goes for the Washington Post, St. Pete Times, Politico, Free Republic, etc. Did the FOLKS do the same? What did they understand?
I know that so many people today who do read the NY Times see no bias in it at all. I find it very hard to believe so many either refuse to admit the bias or are just so lacking intelligence to understand.
Sorry for the rant, just thinking out loud.
I agree. In addition, there is a large segment of our population who dont even have a clue on what's really going on in our own country - much less the international arena.
Nice to know there’s still “nothing of importance” to report from Libya for the Brits.
I’ve been watching that. It’s kind of funny really. If memory serves the big push starts in about three days. I’ll be interested to see what the war communiques say then.
Glenn T. Seaborg who has been working with the tranmuted element of Neptunium which he recently determined was element 94 (to be named Plutonium next year) discovers that the new element undergoes fission with slow neutrons. This is important since it makes it more readily fissionable just like the difficult to obtain Uranium 235. Seaborg recorded the following:
This morning Kennedy, Segrè and I made our first test for the fissionability of 94239 using Sample A…Kennedy has constructed during the past few weeks a portable ionization chamber and linear amplifier suitable for detecting fission pulses…Sample A (estimated to contain 0.25 micrograms of 94239) was placed near the screened window of the ionization chamber embedded in paraffin near the beryllium target of the 37-inch cyclotron. The neutrons produced by the irradiation of the beryllium target with 8 MeV deuterons give a fission rate of 1 count per minute per microampere. When the ionization chamber is surrounded by a cadmium shield, the fission rate drops to essentially zero…
This give strong indication that 94239 undergoes fission with slow neutrons.
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