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April 10th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: The war cabinet agrees to send troops serving in India under General Auchinleck to Iraq.
GERMANY: Daily Keynote from the Reich Press Chief:
Next the Minister calls our attention to reports about Belgrade. Expression like “The city is one single heap of rubble, its streets covered with corpses of women and children” are naturally to be omitted before publication.
YUGOSLAVIA: Zagreb falls to the German 2nd Army.
Also, Croatia declares independance and proclaims the “Independant State of Croatia” (Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska - NDH). One week later Croatia declares war on Britain and thereby joins the Axis.
GREECE: The Germans attack the Florina gap, held by a force known as the Amynteion Detachment and including the 27th New Zealand Machine Gun Battalion (less two companies), the 64th Medium Regiment, Royal Artillery, and the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment along with units of the 6th Australian Division.
The attack is halted by artillery fire and the RAF bombing the enemy columns on the roads.
At Vevi the German and British guns exchang fire in the valley and Mackay is ordered to hold until the night of 12 April before withdrawing. Mackay’s infantry is commanded by Brigadier Vasey who has 3 battalions spread across ten miles of front much of which is covered with snow; the 2/8th Australian Battalion on the east, the 1st Rangers in the centre and the 2/4th Australian Battalion on the hills to the west.
The 16th Australian Brigade, having established itself on the Veria Pass, is ordered to march back through the snow covered mountains to fill a gap on the New Zealand front west of Servia. (Anthony Staunton)
MAP
LIBYA: Rommel lays siege to the Australian 9th Division, which has retreated to Tobruk.
MALTA: A striking force of four destroyers under Captain Mack in HMS Jervis are sent to Malta to operate against Rommel’s convoys.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Germany and the US have their first military encounter when the US destroyer USS Niblack engages a U-boat.
In March 1941, Hitler declared that Iceland and surrounding waters were to be considered as war zones. Admiral Stark received orders from Roosevelt to ‘reconnoitre’ the approaches to this strategic island. USS Niblack (DD-424) was dispatched for this mission.
Approaching Iceland on April 10, Niblack sighted three lifeboats of survivors from a torpedoed Dutch merchantman. As the crew of the DD completed this rescue, sonar contact was made on an approaching submarine.
LtCdr E. Durgin called for General Quarters and a depth charge salvo was ordered by Commander D.L.Ryan (ComDesDiv 13). The attack sent the submarine scurrying away and USS Niblack continued on to Iceland. (55)
U.S.A.: Ickes repeats his request to Roosevelt to be placed in charge of Philippine defence. (Marc Small)
The actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr has been commissioned as a junior-grade lieutenant in the US Navy.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorizes the transfer of ten Lake-Class US Coast Guard cutters to the Royal Navy. Coast Guardsmen will train the RN crews in the waters off Long Island, New York. (Jack McKillop)
Washington:
All ships of alien flags are to be commandeered for purveying war materials to Great Britain and the Suez Canal.
The USN’s heavy cruisers USS Chicago (CA-29) and USS Portland (CA-33) and destroyers USS Clark (DD-361), USS Conyngham (DD-371), USS Reid (DD-369), USS Cassin (DD-372) and USS Downes (DD-375) arrive at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, thus winding up the Australia-New Zealand good-will cruise. (Jack McKillop)
President Roosevelt orders 10 Coast Guard cutters transferred to the Royal Navy.
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Day 588 April 10, 1941
Overnight, RAF bombs Berlin destroying the Opera House (Deutsche Staatsoper built in 1743). It will be restored by 1943 and then bombed out again in February 1945.
At 3.45 AM, U-107 sinks British tanker Duffield carrying 11,700 tons of fuel oil to Gibraltar (25 crew lost, 28 survivors make land at Hierro Island, Canary Islands). At 7.55 PM 500 miles Southwest of Iceland, U-52 sinks Dutch SS Saleier carrying coals from Newcastle to Port Said, Egypt. All 63 crew abandon ship in 3 lifeboats and are picked up next day by American destroyer USS Niblack (which is en route to Reykjavik, Iceland, and not a convoy escort). USS Niblack makes a false sonar contact and drops 3 depth charges (first “shot fired in anger” against Germany).
Kriegsmarine orders the construction of 60 U-boats.
In Yugoslavia, German troops capture the Croatian capital of Zagreb. Further South, 9th Panzer Division and Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Regiment move through the Monastir gap and capture the town of Florina 8 miles across the Greek border.
East Africa. Although most of Italian Somaliland, Ethiopia and Eritrea is in British hands, pockets of Italian resistance still hold out (Assab in Eritrea; in Ethiopia, Amba Alagi in the North, Jimma in the South and Gondar in the West). In Ethiopia, Nigerian troops (11th African Division) moving Southwest down the road from Addis Ababa towards the Italian stronghold at Jimma reach the Omo River crossing at Abalti, to find the bridge blown and Italian troops dug in on the far side. In Eritrea, 5th Indian Division moves back from Massawa to Amara to pursue the Italians South to Amba Alagi in Ethiopia. Italians anticipate the arrival of British forces at Assab and seek to deny them use of the port facilities, scuttling 7 freighters in the harbour.
Rommel orders probing attacks on the defenses at Tobruk but they are turned back by Australian in fantry and British artillery. General von Prittwitz, commander of 15th Panzer Division (which will soon come from Italy to join the Afrika Korps), has been flown to Libya with an advanced party of 3500 troops as reinforcements. He is killed when his reconnaissance group of armoured cars is hit by anti-tank fire on the Tobruk perimeter.
Overnight, RAF again bombs German battlecruisers at dock in Brest, France. Gneisenau is badly damaged by 4 bombs and will be under repair at Brest until December. Luftwaffe bombs Birmingham, England, for a second night. 206 aircraft drop 246 tons high explosive bombs and 1,183 incendiary canisters.