Posted on 05/01/2011 6:49:25 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/may41/f01may41.htm
Iraqis attack British outpost
Thursday, May 1, 1941 www.onwar.com
In Iraq... Fighting begins when Iraqi soldiers make a small attack on the British outpost at Rutba (west of Baghdad, about 125 miles from the Transjordan border). Iraqi forces are also established in positions around the Habbaniyah airfield. The Iraqi forces amount to about four divisions in total. Two are in the Baghdad area.
In North Africa... Rommel’s attack on Tobruk continues. He attempts to widen and deepen the gap already won in the defenses but the Australian forces fight fiercely and largely contain the attacks.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/01.htm
May 1st, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: Westminster: Frederick Leathers, an industrialist who started work as an office boy in the coal trade, was tonight appointed head of a new ministry of wartime communications by Mr Churchill. He will amalgamate the ministries of shipping and transport, and gets a peerage on joining the government. Another change is the move of Lord Beaverbrook to be Minister of State - a rank without precedent. Lord Brabazon now takes over a Minister of Aircraft Production.
Liverpool: The Luftwaffe raids the city and continues for the next 7 nights. 76,000 people are made homeless and 3,000 killed or injured. 69 out of 144 berths are put out of action, and for a while the tonnage landed was down 75%.
Destroyer HS Adrias (ex-HMS Border) laid down.
Destroyer HMS Haydon laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: Day and night fighter interceptor controls are united under a single command post. German flak units remain under the control of the individual air district headquarters (Luftgaukommandos), but in other respects German air defence now makes up a single unified military organisation.
U-163, U-164 launched.
U-568 commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Around this time two submarines operating our of Malta are lost, possibly due to mines - HMS Usk in the Strait of Sicily area and HMS Undaunted off Tripoli, Libya. HMS Usk may have been sunk by Italian destroyers west of Sicily while attacking a convoy.
MALTA: In one of their almost daily attacks, Axis aircraft raid Valetta; the destroyer HMS Jersey sinks after hitting a mine in the harbour entrance.
LIBYA: The British Reuters News Agency reported from the headquarters of General Wavell:
An extremely violent battle ignited Wednesday night around Tobruk. After a vigorous bombardment lasting several hours, German and Italian infantry attacked the Tobruk fortifications, deploying heavy tanks and flamethrowing tanks simultaneously. Early this morning another attack ensued by large numbers of German Stuka dive bombers which dropped heavy calibre bombs on the defence installations. Until 10:00 A.M. the British garrison succeeded in preventing any breach in the Tobruk defenses. After that, a strong panzer force successfully penetrated the outer perimeter along a 2-mile front. British and Australian troops are at this moment engaged in hand-to-hand fighting in the defensive installations outside the city.
Mike Yaklich adds: The flamethrower tanks were Italian flamethrower L3’s. These had already been in service for a couple of years by 1941, and the Italian Ariete armored division was heavily involved in many of the Axis assaults on the Tobruk perimeter in April- early May ‘41. Confusion is often generated by the reference to “Ansaldo cars” or “armored cars,” no doubt a too-literal translation of the “carro armato,” the Italian word for “tank” (often further shortened to simply “carro”). The small size of the L3, and its lack of a turret, helped further this confusion, as it was something of a stretch to call the L3 a tank in the conventional sense. The flamethrower L3 was a rather distinctive vehicle. The flame projector (maximum range about 100 meters) replaced the twin machineguns mounted in the left side of the hull, and flame fuel came directly from a special two-wheeled trailor which the tank pulled behind it when in action.
IRAQ: Iraqi forces attack British forces at Rutba west of Baghdad.
CANADA: Examination vessels HMCS Marvita and Shulamite commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: Joint Army-Navy Board completes Rainbow-5 calling for abandonment of the Philippines upon the outbreak of war and the sacrifice of the garrison.
Hart advised by Navy Department that he would be given at least four days’ notice prior to the start of hostilities. Hart instructs his staff to base all plans on a two days’ warning.
Commander H D Linder, RNethN, joins Hart in Manila as a liaison officer. (Marc Small)
Admiral Ernest J. King assumes command of the USN’s Atlantic Fleet.
The fifth Lake class US Coast vessel, USCGC Chelan (CGC-45), is transferred to the Royal Navy under Lend Lease and is renamed HMS Lulworth. (Jack McKillop)
The motion picture “Citizen Kane” is released in the U.S. Directed by Orson Welles, this drama stars Welles, Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, Agnes Moorehead and a bit part by Alan Ladd. The film has been rank Number 1 on the American Film Institute’s list of Top 100 films. The plot centers on the rise of a William Randolph Heart-like newspaper publisher and was Welles first and best film. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won the award for original screenplay, crediting Welles and Herman Mankiewitz. (Jack McKillop)
Submarine USS Grenadier commissioned.
Destroyers USS Bancroft, Beatty, Endicott, Kendrick, Laub, McCook and Tillman laid down.
Light fleet carrier USS Independence laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 1834, the unescorted Samsø was hit near the aft mast by one torpedo from U-103 SW of Freetown and sank slowly in 50 minutes. One crewmember was lost. The master and 18 crewmembers in three lifeboats landed at Los Island, French Guinea on 3 May and were taken to Conakry and thence to Freetown on 16 May.
At 0027, the Nerissa, a straggler from Convoy HX-121, was torpedoed and sunk by U-552 SE of Rockall. The master, 82 crewmembers and 124 passengers were lost. 23 crewmembers, six gunners, three stowaways and 51 passengers were picked up by HMS Veteran, transferred to HMS Kingcup and landed at Londonderry. (Dave Shirlaw)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 609 May 1, 1941
Libya. Rommel’s attack at Tobruk peters out as early morning fog confuses both sides. At 7.15 AM, Panzers move forward but stumble into a newly-laid minefield where they are pinned down by 2-pounder anti-tank guns (12 tanks immobilised). British tanks and artillery are sent in to contain the breach (2 Matilda and 2 Cruiser tanks destroyed). In the evening, counterattack by Australian 2/48th Battalion is repelled with heavy casualties. Rommel had expected to take the town of Tobruk. Instead, he has a salient 2 km deep and 3 km wide, won at heavy cost (1240 casualties, only 35 out of 81 Panzers serviceable with 12 destroyed). RAF bombs Benghazi sinking an Italian freighter. British submarine HMS Upholder sinks freighters Arcturus and Leverkusen (in an empty Afrika Korps convoy returning from Tripoli) near the Tunisian island of Kerkenah.
Italian Duke of Aosta (Viceroy of Italian East Africa) and 7,000 troops are trapped at Amba Alagi, Ethiopia. 5th Indian Division has arrived from Eritrea in the North, while 1st South African Brigade is pushing up from Dessie in the South.
Iraqi force overlooking RAF Habbaniya increases to 9,000 troops with 50 artillery pieces, 12 British Crossley armoured cars and some Italian Fiat light tanks. Despite being on a ‘training exercise’, they demand that all flying from RAF Habbaniya cease immediately. RAF continues reconnaissance flights while Air Vice Marshall Harry Smart seeks advice from London. Unsurprisingly, Churchill’s response is to defend British interests vigourously (”If you have to strike, strike hard. Use all necessary force.”).
At 00.27 AM 100 miles North of Ireland, U-552 sinks British liner Nerissa (83 crew & 124 passengers lost, 29 crew & 54 passengers picked up by destroyer HMS Veteran). At 6.34 PM 200 miles off Sierra Leone, U-103 sinks British SS Samsø. 400 miles North of the Azores, Italian tanker SS Sangro is captured by British ocean boarding vessel HMS Cavina and then escorted to Britain by another ocean boarding vessel HMS Camito.
Overnight, Luftwaffe begins a 7-day blitz on Liverpool. The first bomb falls on the Wirral at 10.15 PM.
His estimates of Allied causalities are pretty close to what they turned out to be. He also makes note of the little known fact that the Germans have been transiting troops through Finland (and Sweden) with the supposed object of reinforcing their troops in Norway. The major reason, which he couldn't know, was to prepare for the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Russians had petulantly watched the Germans moving into Finland but aside from sending a note to Germany protesting the fact, there was little they could do. While Baldwin pays lip service to Churchill's banality of a 'moral victory' in Greece he is realistic enough to know that the loss of so much valuable equipment, especially armor and artillery, could not come at a worse time what with Rommel again causing trouble and Crete being next on Hitler's menu.
One thing many people were not aware of at the time was just how important Swedish high-grade steel was to the German war economy. It was once explained to me by a Swedish representative of Sandvik that it was the quality of Swedish tool steel that made all the difference and it is questionable, by some, whether Germany could have continued the war after 1943 without that steel.
Italian troops march into captivity after the surrender of the Italian stronghold of Amba Alagi May 1941. The resolute defence of this position earned the Italian garrison the respect of British and Commonwealth forces.
A part of the Italian stronghold at Amba Alagi, showing the rugged, mountainous terrain fought across by both sides in the campaign
FDR truly was petty and dishonorable.
Yesterday I made a mildly derogatory remark about Baldwin's failure to predict an airborne assault on Crete. On further thought I realized that is taking unfair advantage of 20/20 hindsight. At this point in history I don't believe a major airborne assault comparble to the upcoming Crete attack had ever been attempted. (I'm sure I will be corrected on this if I am wrong.) Even an expert military analyst can be forgiven for not predicting an historical first like that. Especially since the British supposedly control the sea of the eastern Med.
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