Posted on 03/21/2011 5:35:52 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/mar41/f21mar41.htm
Italians retreat in Abyssinia
Friday, March 21, 1941 www.onwar.com
In East Africa... Troops of the 11th African Division attack Italian positions in the Marda Pass west of Jijiga. After some resistance the Italians fall back despite the strength of their positions.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/21.htm
March 21st, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM:
Opening of the Luftwaffe’s spring blitz on London: Buckingham Palace targeted; St Paul’s Cathedral survives.
Plymouth was also bombed. So many incendiaries were dropped during the city’s fiercest raid of the war that they sounded like hail bouncing off the roofs. The bombers arrived shortly after the King and Queen had completed a visit to the shipyards. The bombs wrought havoc in residential areas and shopping streets. Many fires are started and Plymouth is still burning the next day.
Clydeside: Two men are rescued after being buried for a week in a wrecked tenement.
London:
Prime Minister to Minister of Food:
I hope the term “Communal Feeding Centres” is not going to be adopted. It is an odious expression, suggestive of Communism and the workhouse, I suggest you call them “British Restaurants”. Everyone associates the word “restaurant” with a good meal, and they may as well have the name if they cannot get anything else.
Prime Minister to First Lord of Admiralty:
...No effort to destroy the Focke-Wulfs should be spared. If we could employ Radar methods to find their positions and direct long-range fighters or ship-borne aircraft to the attack. ...Might it not be feasible to place a Radar station on Rockall?
Minesweeping trawler HMS Asama Sunk by German aircraft off Plymouth.
Corvette HMS Dahlia commissioned.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Fluellen commissioned.
(Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY:
U-205, U-569, U-570 launched.
U-562 commissioned.
U-258 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
YUGOSLAVIA: Belgrade: Prince Paul’s decision to sign up with the Axis powers led to a major cabinet crisis tonight, when three ministers resigned and a fourth threatened to do so.
Paul, the regent of Yugoslavia, tried to refuse the resignations; but the ministers were adamant that in no circumstances would they accept Germany as an ally or agree to German military rail transports crossing Yugoslavia.
The cabinet crisis threatens to delay the signing of the pact. Ministers who were due in Vienna today to meet Hitler have postponed the visit.
GREECE: 1st Armoured Brigade reaches its forward positions in the plain between the river Axios and the Olympus-Vermion mountain range, with orders to fight a delaying action there, and to cover the preparation of demolition’s.
Mussolini flies back to Italy from the Albanian front. (Mike Yaklich)
Cruiser HMS York is attacked by Italian MT explosive torpedo boats in Suda Bay harbour, Crete which blow open the side of the ship and flood both engine and boiler rooms. Settling in 1,5 metres of water, she is subsequently damaged repeatedly by German air attacks and by 22 May is beyond salvage. (Alex Gordon)(108)
LIBYA: Jarabub: the longest siege so far in this desert war came to a quiet, though abrupt, end at this tiny outpost in the very heart of the Libyan desert today. For political reasons - Jarabub is sacred to the Senussi sect - neither the Italian garrison nor the British besiegers were anxious to upset the Arab people by desecrating the shrine. After 15 weeks of observation by a small detachment of British and Australian troops, the Allies moved in and took Jarabub with little or no resistance. No damage was done to either the shrine or the sacred relics, according to Allied sources.
Italian General Italo Gariboldi is named Governor-General of Libya and Commander in Chief of Italian forces in North Africa replacing General Rodolfo Graziani. Graziani had asked Mussolini on 8 February 1941 to be replaced. (Jack McKillop)
BRITISH SOMALILAND: Troops of the 11th African Division attack Italian positions in the Marda Pass west of Jijiga. After some resistance the Italians fall back despite the strength of their positions. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: The motion picture “The Sea Wolf” premieres aboard the SS America cruising off the California coast. Directed by Michael Curtiz, the psychological drama based on a Jack London novel stars Edward G. Robinson, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Gene Lockhart and Barry Fitzgerald. (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-106 damaged SS Meerker in Convoy SL-68. (Dave Shirlaw)
A Fairey Fulmar from HMS Ark Royal comes across Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at Sea. Because of a radio malfunction, the crew have to return to Ark Royal to report, by which time the German ships have escaped under fog.
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 568 March 21, 1941
At 0.46 AM 500 miles west of Cap Blanc, French West Africa, U-105 resumes her attack on convoy SL-68 sinking British steamers Clan Ogilvy (61 killed, 24 survivors) and Benwyvis (34 killed, 21 survivors including 1 man rescued after 28 days in an open boat). At 10 PM, U-105 returns to SL-68 and sinks British SS Jhelum (8 killed, 49 survivors who float 650 miles Southeast and land in Senegal are taken prisoner by Vichy French). In 5 days, U-105 and U-106 have sunk 7 freighters and damaged 1 freighter & battleship HMS Malaya. Convoy SL-68 continues on unmolested.
Convoy AS.21 from Piraeus, Greece, to Alexandria, Egypt, is bombed by Luftwaffe 60 miles South of Crete. Greek steamer Embiricos Nicolaos is sunk (2 killed). Norwegian tanker Solheim is damaged by near misses and abandoned (1 man lost). Greek destroyer takes survivors from both ships back to Piraeus.
At noon, Nigerian Brigade of the 11th African Division attacks prepared Italian defenses at the Marda Pass, 8 miles West of Jijiga, Eastern Ethiopia, on the road to the capital Addis Ababa. They are held all day by fire from dug-in Italian machineguns and artillery, but the Italians abandoned this strong defensive position and withdraw overnight.
In preparation for the German invasion of USSR, Alfred Rosenberg is appointed head of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories.
Germans bomb shipping near Plymouth (sinking British minesweeping trawler HMT Asama), Bristol (sinking steamer Millisle, 10 killed) and Swansea (sinking steamer London II, 4 killed).
At 7 PM, German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are met by torpedo boats Iltis and Jaguar, providing anti-submarine escort on the final leg of the voyage to Brest, France.
Overnight, Luftwaffe bombers rain incendiary canisters on Plymouth which torch residential and shopping areas.
It also opens at the Strand Theatre in New York. We'll have Crowther's report tomorrow.
Good fight tonight:
Joe Louis v.Abe Simon at Olympia Stadium in Detroit for The
World Heavyweight Championship
The only fight I really covered thoroughly was way back in 1938. That was back when I was still transcribing the articles for posting so the look is a little different. Still, the thread drew a lot of interest as I recall.
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