Posted on 11/03/2010 5:49:29 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
News of the Week in Review
Twenty News Questions 10
The War Takes a New Turn on the Mediterranean Front (map) 11
Greeks Play Star Role in the Mediterranean 12
Answers to Twenty News Questions 14
I have an old “Wilkie for President” lapel pin. I believe I'll wear it today.
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/nov40/f03nov40.htm
Italians bomb Salonika
Sunday, November 3, 1940 www.onwar.com
Over Greece... Italian aircraft bomb Salonika.
Over Britain... This is the first night since September 7th that there is no raid on London. There have been 57 consecutive nights of attack and after tonight 10 more will follow. An average of 165 planes has attacked each night dropping 13,600 tons of high explosive and many incendiaries.
In the North Atlantic... Two British armed merchant cruisers, the Laurentic and the Patroclus are sunk by Kretschmer’s U-99.
Elections are sobering reminders that we live in historic times, then and now.
Thanks to Homer for doing these postings each day!
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 430 November 3, 1940
The tide turns on Italian forces in Greece. In the Pindus Mountains, Greek Pindus detachment begins a counterattack against the Italian Julia Division, retaking the villages of Samarina and Vovousa. Further West in Epirus, Italians bring up light L3/35 tankettes and medium M13/40 tanks to attack the Greek defenses on the Kalamas River. The tanks get stuck in the hilly, marshy terrain and are unable to support the infantry, who are slaughtered in front of the Greek machineguns. http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?122512-October-28-1940
At 9.40 PM, U-99 sinks British SS Casanare (carrying 1500 tons of bananas) 150 miles West of Ireland (9 crew killed). Casanare send a distress messages which brings British armed merchant cruisers HMS Laurentic and HMS Patroclus to their doom. U-99 hits HMS Laurentic with 3 torpedoes at 10.50, 11.10 and 11.30 PM (49 killed) but Laurentic does not sink. HMS Patroclus picks up 368 officers and ratings who have abandoned ship from HMS Laurentic, instead of hunting the submarine.
British submarine HMS Sturgeon sinks small Danish steamer Sigrun in the Oslofjord, Norway.
After 57 consecutive nights of bombing, London is not attacked. An average of 165 German planes each night has dropped a total of 13,600 tons of high explosive plus many incendiary bombs.
Later he pushed the Italian invasion as a hitting the 'soft-underbelly' of the Axis. After that his strategic advice went into General Marshall's 'circular files'.
I like the article exposing Communist (and Dem VP candidate) Henry A. Wallace’s hypocrisy of questioning the patriotism of Willkie, who enlisted as a private in WWI and rose by merit to Captain, while Wallace himself, able-bodied and 29, got military deferrments so he could write his farm newsletter.
Oh, and the $1 cologne ad too!
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/03.htm
November 3rd, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM: London: Today brings a halt to the series of 57 night raids that began on the 5th/6th of September, and that had averaged 200 bombers each.
RAF Bomber Command: 2 Group: RAF Wattisham again raided by a Do17 and 2 Ju88s flying low at dusk. A hangar is set alight.
ALBANIA: Greek forces surround the Italian base at Koritsa.
Near the village of Vouvousa, Greek evzone regiments trap the III Alpini Division and take 5,000 prisoners. (Steven Statharos)
GREECE: A RAF bomber squadron arrives to help to fight the Italians.
MALTA: Sgt Raymond Mayhew Lewin (1915-41), RAF, despite injuries, rescued his co-pilot from the blazing wreck of their plane, dragging him to safety before the bombs exploded. (George Cross)
CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS Miramichi laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: 23:37: Armed merchant Cruisers Laurentic is lost to the west of Ireland as she returns from patrol, to Kapitanleutnant Otto Kretschmer’s U-99.
At 2140 U-99 torpedoed the unescorted Casanare west of Bloody Foreland. Her distress messages brought the armed merchant cruisers HMS Laurentic (Capt EP Vivian) and HMS Patroclus to the scene and the U-boat began a dramatic battle at 22.50 hours when the first torpedo struck the HMS Laurentic from a distance of 1500 meters. After 30 minutes, a second torpedo struck the vessel, but she remained afloat. A third torpedo was fired at 23.30 hours from a distance of 250 meters into the hole opened by the first torpedo, at this time the lookouts spotted the U-boat on the surface and Kretschmer had a hard time in evading the gunfire. In the meantime, HMS Patroclus began picking up survivors instead of participating in the fight against the U-boat and her lookouts did not see U-99 only 300 meters away. A first torpedo struck the ship at 0022, a second at 00.44 hours and a third at 0118, but then the lookouts spotted the U-boat and Kretschmer had again to evade the gunfire. After that, U-99 searched for the Casanare, but only found two lifeboats at her position, the vessel had foundered in the meantime. Suddenly, a Sunderland flying boat appeared over the U-boat, which had to dive, but no bombs were dropped. Kretschmer used the time and reloaded the torpedo tubes under water. At 0330, the U-boat surfaced, went back to the auxiliary cruisers and fired a at 0435 a coup de grâce from a distance of 250 meters at the HMS Laurentic. The torpedo struck the stern and ignited the depth charges stored there; this caused the ship to sink by the stern at 0453. Around this time a destroyer was spotted and Kretschmer had to sink the HMS Patroclus in a short time. A fifth torpedo at 0516 had no significant effect, but the sixth torpedo at 0525 caused the vessel to sink immediately. After that, U-99 was heavy attacked by the British destroyer HMS Hesperus with depth charges, but the destroyer soon left the U-boat to pick up the survivors. NOAVI’s illustrious Maritime Affairs expert, the late Bill Kinsman, was serving in Hesperus at the time of the incident as an ‘HO’ Ordinary Seaman manning ‘A’ 4.7 inch mounting. He explained to me that the reason why Patroclus was so slow to sink was that she had been loaded with a cargo of empty oil drums to provide flotation in case she was torpedoed. In 1963, Bill attended the NATO Defense College then at Paris, and found himself in the same syndicate as Kretschmer, then a Captain in the West German Navy. Inevitably, they reminisced about this event and Kretschmer told Kinsman that before Hesperus had obtained a sonar contact on U-99, he had been tracking the slowly moving destroyer by periscope — but had no torpedoes left! (Dave Shirlaw)
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