http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/11.htm
June 11th, 1941
GERMANY: The RAF starts a series of raids on the Ruhr and Rhineland industrial areas.
Hitler starts to prepare for the period after Barbarossa, ordering his generals to plan for an assault on Gibraltar and operations in Turkey and Iran.
The Wehrmacht High Command announced:-
German aerial combat formations operating out of newly-won bases in the Mediterranean, have successfully attacked the British fuel tank depots and port installations of Haifa, where they have caused a number of explosions and fires.
U.S.S.R.: Red Army units from the Transbaikal are transferred westwards but are not put on alert.
ERITREA: The port of Assab is captured by Indian troops landed by the Royal Navy yesterday (Operation Chronometer).
JAPAN: At a Liaison conference between army and navy, Naval Chief of Staff Nagano Osami astounded his colleagues be vehemently calling for the Southward Advance. ...He and the navy’s powerful “First Committee” simply were anxious to move before the American navy’s huge “two-ocean” building programme was completed. (201)(Will O’Neil)
U.S.A.: Washington: Roosevelt frees a British division by agreeing to replace the British garrison in Iceland with American troops.
While the Japanese Army wanted to invade the U.S.S.R, it was always going to be the Southern Option. The war in the Pacific was about Indonesia - and the oil the Japanese Navy had to have, once FDR embargoed them.
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/2011/06/day-650-june-11-1941.html
Day 650 June 11, 1941
Indian 3rd Battalion 15th Punjab Regiment captures Assab, Eritrea, clearing the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden coastlines of Italian forces. This will allow President Roosevelt to declare the area a non-combat zone and permit US ships to proceed through the Suez Canal, providing much relief to British forces in the Mediterranean.
Operation Sommerreise. German heavy cruiser Lutzow (repaired after damage from Norwegian shellfire and a British torpedo attack during the invasion of Norway in April 1940) departs Kiel for Norway, escorted by light cruisers Emden and Leipzig plus 6 destroyers.
At 8.51 PM 150 miles West of Iceland, U-79 sinks Norwegian SS Havtor (6 killed). 14 survivors, including 9 wounded, abandon ship in a lifeboat and are picked up by a fishing boat. Able seaman Ole Normann Lorentzen has now survived 3 sinkings in the North Atlantic in 9 months since September 15 1940.
15 miles South of Greek island of Lesbos, British submarine HMS Torbay rams and sinks a Greek fishing boat carrying German troops and supplies. British submarine HMS Taku sinks German steamer Tilly LM Russ in Benghazi Harbour.
Overnight, RAF Bomber Command begins 20 nights of raids on the Germany industrial heartland (Ruhr area and the Rhineland) and the port towns of Hamburg and Bremen.