http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/2011/06/day-662-june-23-1941.html
Day 662 June 23, 1941
Operation Barbarossa. German Panzers penetrate 40-50 miles into Soviet territory while Luftwaffe destroys another 1200 Soviet aircraft, mainly on the ground.
At 6.54 AM, U-144 sinks Soviet submarine M-78 in the Baltic Sea 9 miles West of Vindava, Latvia (all 15 crew lost including commander of the 4th Submarine-Division, Klt Matveev Stepan Ionovich). 3 other Soviet submarines (Ronis, Spidola and S-1) are scuttled at in the Latvian port of Libau to prevent capture by the Germans. 2 Soviet destroyers hit mines and sink (Gnevniy in the Baltic Sea off Estonian island of Hiiumaa, Bystry in the Black Sea off Sevastopol).
I’m again on the road, this time in a large moving truck. Homer again has been so kind to post my weekly LIFE magazine.
Also from my notes today:
Lost in the news of the German invasion of the Soviet Union there is also some news on the atomic development front. G. P. Thompson drafts a final report on the MAUD Committee's determination of the possibility of a fast neutron bomb.
But enough of that, back to the war in Russia.
L.Z. Mekhlis is appointed Chief of the Red Army's Main Political Directorate, a position of political watchdog over the Soviet officer corps.
Lieutenant-General K.D. Golubev's 10th Army tries to make a counter attack against German forces, but to no avail. Within days, the 10th Army would no longer exist.
Major-General Karpezo's 15th Mechanized Corps manages to commit only a weak forward detachment from his 10th Tank Division to attempt to counterattack Kleist’s forces.
Upon war with Germany, the Soviets quickly formed a wartime national command structure from its existing Peoples' Commissariat of Defense [Narodnyi komissariat oborony - NKO] and the Red Army General Staff [General'nyi shtab Krasnoi Armii - GshKA] by forming headquarters [Stavka] of the Main Command [ Stavka Glavnogo Komandovaniia - SGK].
>>> U-144 sinks Soviet submarine M-78 in the Baltic Sea 9 miles West of Vindava, Latvia (all 15 crew lost
A sub killing another sub was rare enough to look up.
In three patrols U-144 sank one submarine for a total of 206 tons. The Soviet submarine M-78 was torpedoed and sunk, west of Widawa in position 57°28′N 21°17′E.
Seems though it wasn't however quite rare enough for the Germans. "U-144 was sunk on 10 August 1941 in the Gulf of Finland north of Dagö, in approximate position 59°N 23° Coordinates: 59°N 23°E, by torpedoes from the Soviet submarine SC-307. All 28 men inside were killed"
M Class
