Posted on 09/24/2011 5:41:08 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/sep41/f24sep41.htm
Germans only 40 miles from Kharkov
Wednesday, September 24, 1941 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... Near Leningrad, after four days of Luftwaffe attacks on the Soviet Baltic Fleet, the battleship Marat is sunk, the Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya has been hit by 6 bombs and 2 cruisers a damaged. Meanwhile, panzers from German Army Group South penetrate to within 40 miles of Kharkov.
In the Mediterranean... The first German U-boat passes Gilbraltar, entering the Mediterranean Sea. Also, Operation Halberd is launched on this day, by the Allies, to carry supplies to Malta. The initial convoy is nine transports with an escort of three battleships, one carrier, five cruisers and eighteen destroyers.
In London and Washington... Representatives from 15 Allied countries sign the Atlantic Charter, including the UK, USA and USSR, as well as several Commonwealth countries and the European governments-in-exile.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/24.htm
September 24th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: Corvette HMS Godetia launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
GIBRALTAR: The first German U-Boat passes Gibraltar today. Over the next two weeks 6 more U-Boats will pass into the Mediterranean during the next two weeks. The German Submarine Force will later have about 50% of its active submarine force engaged in the Mediterranean.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Operation Halberd begins today and lasts through the 30th. A major effort to move supplies from Gibraltar to Malta. The 9 transports are covered by a naval force including 3 battleships, HMS Nelson, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Rodney, one aircraft carrier (HMS Ark Royal), 5 cruisers and 18 destroyers. This convoy, bringing 50,000 tons of supplies mostly food, will reach Malta loosing only 1 transport. The British will sink one Italian submarine and sustain minor damage on HMS Nelson from a torpedo plane. Pantellaria will also be shelled. (John Nicholas and Jack McKillop)
U.S.S.R.: The German Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd) begins an offensive against the vital land bridge to the Crimea at Perekop, this is a heavily fortified natural Soviet defensive barrier at the great ‘tartar Ditch’ (’Tartarengrab’) stretching across the narrow 5-7 km wide isthmus of Perekop which seperates the Crimean Peninsula from the Ukraine. The attack is made by elements of Gen. d. Inf. von Manstein’s 11. Armee. (John Nicholas, Russ Folsom and Jack McKillop)
JAPAN: The following message is sent to the Japanese consulate in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii: “Henceforth, we would like to have you make reports concerning vessels along the following lines
insofar as possible:
1. The waters (of Pearl Harbor) are to be divided roughly into five sub-areas. (We have no objections to your abbreviating as much as you like.)
Area A. Waters between Ford Island and the Arsenal.
Area B. Waters adjacent to the Island south and west of Ford Island. (This area is on the opposite side of the Island from Area A.)
Area C. East Loch.
Area D. Middle Loch.
Area E. West Loch and the communicating water routes.
2. With regard to warships and aircraft carriers, we would like to have you report on those at anchor, (these are not so important) tied up at wharves, buoys and in locks. (Designate types and classes briefly. If possible we would like to have you make mention of the fact when there are two or more vessels along side the same wharf.)” (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: London and Washington: 15 countries adhere to the Atlantic Charter formulated by US President Franklin D Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland in August. The countries are Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Great Britain, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, USSR and Yugoslavia. (Jack McKillop)
With Anthony Eden in the chair, the meeting began in the ornate Picture Gallery of St James’s Palace, with a statement by Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador, denouncing the “gang of Hitlerite marauders, armed to the teeth and proclaiming itself to be the master race.” By contrast he spoke of the Soviet Union “guided by the principle of self-determination of nations” and committed to defending the territorial integrity of every country and the “right to establish such a social order and a form of government as it deems opportune and desirable.”
The Atlantic Charter commits the signatories to a postwar world of mutual co-operation and of freedom for countries under Nazi occupation, with no annexations or frontier changes without the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-67 sank SS St Clair II in Convoy SL-87.
U-107 sank SS Dixcove, John Holt and Lafian in Convoy SL-87. (Dave Shirlaw)
HMS Lulworth picks up 5 survivors from SS St. Clair II.
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