http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/11.htm
October 11th, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM:
Battle of Britain:
Losses: Luftwaffe, 7; RAF, 9.
The first production Handley Page Halifax I (L 9485) makes its maiden flight.
Submarine HMS Usk is commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
VICHY FRANCE: Petain tells Frenchmen that they must abandon traditional ideas of who is their ally and who their foe.
GERMANY: Daily Keynote from the Reich Press Chief:
The Minister has once again specified the wishes of the Luftwaffe staff leaders that we issue formal denials in all cases where the English claim to have hit military targets, unless the English have hit the corresponding mock installations. ... the Luftwaffe has repeatedly raised objections to the use of expressions like “air pirates” or “night pirates,” but on the other hand the Reich Chancellery desires that these expressions be used: Therefore the Wehrmacht High Command [the OKW] should take up the matter with the Fuhrer.
U-156, U-705 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
FINLAND: The Finnish-Soviet convention agrees to the demilitarization of the Åland Islands.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: HMS Ajax, which had served with distinction the previous year at the River Plate against the German “pocket battleship” Graf Spee, encountered three Italian destroyers in a night action in the Mediterranean. She sank Airone and Ariel, and badly damaged Artigliere, which was finished off by HMS York on 12 October. (Dave Shirlaw)
AUSTRALIA: General election results, giving Robert Menzies another term as Prime Minister, are announced.
U.S.A.: The motion picture “Down Argentina Way” opens at the Roxy Theater in New York City. Directed by Irving Cummings, this musical stars Don Ameche, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda and J. Carrol Nash. This is Grable’s first Technicolor film and Miranda’s first U.S. film. (Jack McKillop)
In New York City, Glenn Miller and his Orchestra record “Make Believe Ballroom Time” for Bluebird Records at the Victor Studios in New York City. This song becomes the theme song for the radio program “Make Believe Ballroom” on radio station WNEW (”Eleven three oh in New York”), in New York City. The show is hosted by Martin Block, America’s first disc jockey.Block creates the aura of doing a “live” radio program, complete with performers (on records) like Harry James or Frank Sinatra, from the ‘Crystal Studios’ at WNEW. His daily program was known to everyone who grew up in the New York City metropolitan area in the 1940s and 1950s (I’ll attest to that). Miller had been so taken with the show’s concept that he actually paid for the “Make Believe Ballroom Time” recording session himself and hired the Modernaires to join in.
The motion picture “Down Argentine Way” is released today. Directed by Irving Cummings, this musical comedy stars Don Ameche, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, Charlotte Greenwood, J. Carrol Naish and the Nicholas Brothers. The plot has American woman Grable (in the movie that boosted her to stardom) on vacation in Argentina and falling for Argentinean horse breeder Ameche. This was Carmen Miranda’s first American movie. The film is nominated for a best music and two technical Academy Awards. (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-48 sank SS Port Gisborne and Brandanger in Convoy HX-77. (Dave Shirlaw)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 407 October 11, 1940
Battle of Britain Day 94. Fair weather brings a very busy day. Luftwaffe mounts reconnaissance fights, patrols in the English Channel and small raids (less than 10 aircraft) over Southeast England all day. From 10.20 AM until 4 PM, there is a steady stream of larger raids (25-90 aircraft, mostly fighter-only but some have 25% medium bombers), causing damage to towns in Southern England but not penetrating to London. Germans lose 1 Do17 bomber and 4 Bf109s. RAF loses 8 fighters (3 pilots killed). There are overnight bombing raids on London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol and the Tyne and Tees areas, but these are halted at midnight by fog. 3 Dornier bombers are shot down by No 611 Squadron over Anglesey after bombing Liverpool (1 RAF fighter shot down, pilot wounded).
Operation Medium. From 3.33 to 3.51 AM, battleship HMS Revenge and destroyers Javelin, Jaguar, Jupiter, Kashmir, Kelvin & Kipling bombard Cherbourg. They are screened by a number of motor torpedo boats, cruisers and destroyers, which see off an attack by German torpedo boats.
Overnight, in the English Channel off the Isle of Wight, German torpedo boats Falke, Greif, Kondor, Seeadler & Wolf sink British anti-submarine trawler HMT Warwick Deeping (no lives lost), French submarine chasers CH.6 (9 killed, 12 taken prisoner) and CH.7 (12 killed, 8 taken prisoner) and French armed trawler Listrac (12 killed, 25 wounded). http://www.bevs.org/diving/wkwdeep.htm
The convoy of 4 merchant ships arrives safely at Malta from Alexandria, escorted by 4 battleships, 2 aircraft carriers, 6 cruisers, 16 destroyers and 6 submarines. At 11.05 AM, 15 miles South of Delimara, Malta, destroyer HMS Imperial hits a mine (1 killed) and is badly damaged (under repair at Malta until April 28). British Mediterranean Fleet begins the return journey to Alexandria but is spotted by an Italian civilian plane 100 miles Southeast of Malta. Italian destroyers and torpedo boats set out to intercept the British warships.
At 9.20 AM, British destroyer HMS Zulu detonates an acoustic mine in the Firth of Forth, Scotland. There are no casualties but Zulu is badly damaged and will be under repair at Rosyth until January 1941.
250 miles Northwest of Ireland, U-48 attacks convoy HX-77 in gale force conditions. At 9.50 PM, Norwegian MV Brandanger is sunk (6 killed, 16 survivors in a lifeboat and on a raft picked up next morning by corvette HMS Clarkia, 8 survivors in another lifeboat picked up on October 16 by British SS Clan Macdonald). At 10.09 PM, British MV Port Gisborne is sunk and the crew abandons ship (26 lost in a lifeboat that capsized). 38 crew are rescued by tug HMS Salvonia on October 22 and by British steamer Alpera on October 24.
British sloop HMS Auckland, escorting convoy BS.6, is bombed by Italian bombers in the Red Sea, 50 miles off the coast of Italian-held Eritrea.