http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/aug41/f19aug41.htm
RAF fighting on the Eastern Front
Tuesday, August 19, 1941 www.onwar.com
In the Arctic... There are various British naval operations to the end of the month. The population of Spitsbergen is evacuated and the Norwegians taken to Britain and the Soviets to the USSR. The first small supply convoy is sent from Iceland to the Soviet Union. The carrier Argus also brings a cargo of Hurricanes to the Soviet Union, complete with RAF pilots who will fly them in combat for the first few weeks.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/19.htm
August 19th, 1941
FRANCE: Paris: Two demonstrators captured in the 13th are executed, “the Jew Szmul Tyszelman,... Henry Gautherot”.
GERMANY: U-87 commissioned
U-509 launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
NORWAY: A joint Anglo-Canadian-Norwegian expedition lands on Spitzbergen to sabotage the coal mines and bring the miners back to Britain.
U.S.S.R.: Submarine M-121 launched.
WAKE ISLAND: The Wake Detachment, 1st Marine defence Battalion, arrives in the cargo ship USS Regulus (AK-14) to begin work on defensive positions. (Jack McKillop)
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Sorel commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A..: In baseball, Pittsburgh Pirates manager Frankie Frisch is ejected by umpire Jocko Conlan from the second game of a doubleheader when he appears on the field with an umbrella to protest the playing conditions at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field. The rainy argument is later portrayed in a famous oil painting by artist Norman Rockwell. (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The British liner AQUILA is sunk by a U-boat.
USS Hopewell (DD-181), commissioned as HNoMS Bath (I-17) (LtCdr Frederick Melsom) on 23 Sep. 1940; while escorting her sixth convoy (OG71) between Liverpool and Gibraltar, as part of the 5th Escort Group about 400 miles southwest of Ireland Bath is torpedoed by U-204 and sank rapidly today at 02.05 hours. The commander and 88 crewmembers were lost. (Ron Babuka and Dave Shirlaw)
U-201 sank SS Aguila and Ciscar in Convoy OG-71.
U-559 sank SS Alva in Convoy OG-71.
The surviving crew members from the British merchant ship Alva sunk by U-559 were picked up by corvette HMS Campanula and transferred to destroyer HMS Velox and landed at Gibraltar on 25 August 1941. (Dave Shirlaw)
ICELAND: The first convoy leaves Iceland for the USSR. The carrier HMS Argus is ferrying Hurricanes, complete with pilots, to Russia.