1 - 7 November 1941

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1st November 1941

Baltics : After sundown, the Red Army evacuated the first group, 4,230 men, of the 28,000 men from the Hanko Peninsula, Finland to Leningrad, Russia via naval vessels. On the return trip to Hanko, Soviet minelayer Marti and minesweeper T-210 were damged by mines, and submarine Kalev was lost, probably to a mine as well.

Atlantic Ocean : German submarine U-68 sank British ship Bradford City 300 miles off German South-West Africa at 0654 hours; all 45 aboard survived in 2 lifeboats.

Pacific Ocean : On this date, Japan time, the Combined Fleet Order No. 1 was issued for additional radio communications to be generated to make US cryptanalytic efforts more difficult. Meanwhile, on the other side of the international date line, Joseph Rochefort’s cryptanalytic team of the US Navy in Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii reported that all Japanese Navy call signs had changed.

Tokyo , Japan : Joseph C. Grew US Ambassador in Japan , sent a telegram to State Department Washington , warning that Japan might be preparing to attack a high profile US target

Crimea : Troops of the German 11th Army captured Simferopol, Russia. To the southwest in Sevastopol, the Soviet 30th Coastal Battery bombarded the German 132nd Infantry Division at 1230 hours near the village of Bazarchik, slowing its preparations for an assault.

Ukraine : German Army Group South started to attack from Donbass to Rostov and eastern edges of Caucaus

Rastenburg , East Prussia : On 1 November, snow stayed on the ground all day at Rastenburg. Hitler was undeterred. ‘If Russia goes under in the war,’ he told his guests on November 2, ‘Europe will stretch eastwards to the limits of Germanic colonization. In the Eastern territories, I shall replace Slav geographical titles by German names. The Crimea, for example, might be called Gothenland.’

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2 November 1941

North Atlantic : German submarine U-208 torpedoed and sank British cargo ship Larpool 250 miles southwest of Cape Race, Newfoundland at 0526 hours; 26 were killed, 17 survived.

North Sea : British cargo ship Marie Dawn was bombed and sunk by Luftwaffe JU-88 bombers off Yorkshire

Mediterranean Sea : Royal Navy submarine HMS Proteus made the first successful radar attack by a submarine as she damaged Italian tanker Tampico off Andros 50 miles southeast of Athens, Greece. Italian torpedo boats Monzambano and Castelfidardo counterattacked and chased off the British submarine.

Italian cargo ship Balilla was torpedoed then shelled and sunk by Polish submarine Sokol and Royal Navy submarine HMS Utmost in northwest of Sicily

Poland : Over 2,000 enslaved Jews from Zagare, Poland attacked their Lithuanian guards, wounding seven. As reprisal, 150 of them were shot on the spot, and the rest were executed later.

Yugoslavia : Rival resistance forces , Mihailovich’s Chetniks and Tito’s partisans clashed in Uzice

Himalaya Mountains (China-India) : Hugh Woods and William L. Boyd of the China National Air Corporation (CNAC) made the first flight over the Hump, the China-Burma air supply route.

Novorossisyk , Black Sea : Soviet light cruiser Voroshilov was damaged by two 250-kilogram bombs from German HE-111 aircraft, flooding a magazine, causing a fire in turret No. 3, and jamming the rudder. Her reairs would go till March 1942

Crimea : German 132nd Infantry Division attacked toward Sevastopol, Russia and was halted at Bakhchisaray by Soviet 8th Naval Brigade. Nearby, ships of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet evacuated troops from Yalta, Yevpatoria, and Feodosiya, transporting them to Sevastopol; cruiser Voroshilov was damaged by German aircraft during this effort.

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3 November 1941

North Atlantic : Battle of Convoy SC-52 (Slow Convoy) started. German submarine U-202 torpedoed and sank British cargo ships Flynderborg (3 were killed, 21 survived) and Gretavale (38 were killed, 6 survived) of Allied convoy SC-52 200 miles northeast of Newfoundland at 0500 hours. At 1828 hours, U-203 attacked the same convoy, sinking British cargo ships Everoja (all 41 aboard survived) and Empire Gemsbuck (all 43 aboard survived) U-569 also torpedoed and sank British cargo ship Rosa Schiaffino from same convoy.

English Channel : German cargo ship Batavier V was torpedoed and sunk by Royal Navy motor torpedoboat MTB 34

Baltic Sea : German coaster Anneliese struck a mine off Pomerenia and sank

USSR : In Russia, German Panzer Army 2 attacked Tula while other German units from 2nd Panzer Army captured Kursk 180 miles to the southwest to protect the southern flank of the assault toward Moscow.

General Heinz Guderian noted in his diary that the first cold wave had hit Russia, bringing temperature to the freezing point.

Leningrad Front : East of Leningrad, German Army Group North cut the railway line to Vologda and moved towards Tikhvin, a centre for the flying in of supplies to Leningrad.

Kiev : Ukraine : In a further measure of Germanization, Kiev’s Cathedral of the Dormition was blown up by German military engineers

Tokyo , Japan : Chief of the Japanese Naval General Staff Admiral Osami Nagano approved the draft plan for the attack on Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii. On the other side of the international date line, Joseph Rochefort’s cryptanalytic team of the US Navy in Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii was realizing that the Japanese were inflating the amount of radio traffic.

The Japanese plan to occupy Rabaul, Bismarck Islands and to transform it into a forward base was presented to Emperor Showa.

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4 November 1941

Baltics : Before dawn, Soviet destroyers Smetlivy and Surovy evacuated troops from the naval base at Hanko in southern Finland; Smetlivy was damaged by coastal artillery during the process and would sink en route to Leningrad, Russia, killing several hundred passengers. At the end of the day, Finnish troops recaptured Hanko.

Black Sea : Soviet submarine M-34 was lost somewhere off Constanza, Romania in the Black Sea; she was presumed to have struck a mine.
Soviet submarine M-58 was sunk by a mine

Ukraine : German 170th Division captured Feodosiya, Ukraine.

Atlantic Ocean : American cruisers USS Omaha and USS Memphis, accompanied by three destroyers, sortied to hunt for German surface raiders.

Indian Ocean : A mixed British Royal Navy and South African Navy task force (cruisers HMS Devonshire and HMS Colombo , armed mechant cruiser HMS Carnarvon Castle and six South African minesweepers) intercepted and captured a Vichy French convoy consisting six Vichy French cargo ships coming from IndoChina inbound to Occupied France carrying contraband material (copper , tin , rubber) for war use. All Vichy French vessels surrendered and were captured intact by British before any scuttling and their cargoes impounded by Allies. Vichy French goverment protested to no avail.

Phillipinnes : A day after this final Japanese decision to go war against US and Britain , that General MacArthur, commander of the American and Philippine forces, received a letter from US Army Chief of Staff , General Marshall in Washington, reporting on the attitude of the United States Congress. ‘They are going to give us everything we asked for,’ MacArthur’s Chief of Staff exclaimed, delighted. But a careful reading of Marshall’s letter showed that the tanks, guns and soldiers MacArthur had asked for, while approved in principle, would not be fully in place until April 1942.

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5 November 1941

Tokyo , Japan : At a conference with Emperor Showa, Japanese miltary and political leaders decided to go to war with the United States, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands in early Dec 1941 should diplomatic relations with the US did not improve by 1 Dec. Meanwhile Japanese goverment sent Suburu Krusu as a full diplomatic envoy to Washington to exhaust all options for a diplmatic solution

Washington , USA : Cordell Hull had learned, via Magic intercepts of Japanese messages to Kichisaburo Nomura, that 25 Nov 1941 was Japan’s final deadline for the decision on war

Detroit , USA : While touring war production plants , Lord Halifax British ambassador in USA and his envoy were attacked by anti war activists “The Mothers of USA” and peeled with eggs and tomatos. Only one aimed egg hit Lord Halifax who commented “at least they have good aim though I wonder they would be indeed this wasteful when in England and most of the world did not have this much food to throw at”

Mediterranean Sea : Italian cargo ship Anna Zippetelli was bombed and sunk by RAF Martin Maryland bombers

Baltic Sea : Soviet submarine ShCh-324 was lost in the Baltic Sea off Tallinn, Estonia; she had presumably hit a mine. All 38 aboard were killed.

Black Sea : Soviet submarine ShCh-214 torpedoed and sank Italian tanker Torcello in the Black Sea.

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6 November 1941

South Atlantic : American light cruiser USS Omaha and destroyer USS Somers intercepted and captured German blockade runner Odenwald before scutled, which was disguised as the American freighter Willmoto, off Permanbuco, Brazil. Odenwald was transporting rubber from Japan to Germany. All of her cargo and ship itself was impounded by US Navy.

Russia : Frostbite began to make its appearance among German troops fighting in the Soviet Union.

Moscow , USSR : The twenty-fourth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, Stalin addressed a rally of Moscow Party workers, held underground, in the ornamental marble hall of the Mayakovskaya Metro station. The Germans were ‘men with the morals of beasts’, he said. ‘If they want a war of extermination, they shall have one.’

Leningrad : The Finnish advance into Russia was halted.

Mediterranean Sea : A small number of RAF Wellington bombers based in Malta conducted an attack on Naples, Italy after dark.

Hawaii , Pacific Ocean : Joseph Rochefort’s cryptanalytic team in US Territory of Hawaii continued to encounter a great deal of dummy radio traffic being sent by the Japanese Navy.

Japan : Japanese warplanes, flying from their aircraft carriers, carried out a two hundred mile practice run on a Japanese equivalent of Pearl Harbour, Kagoshima Bay. The attack methods which they followed were those which they would use on the day itself.

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7 November 1941

Black Sea : Soviet hospital ship Armenia departed Yalta, Ukraine at 0800 hours with 7,000 civilians and wounded troops aboard, against orders forbidding sailing during daylight hours. At 1129 hours, despite the Red Cross marking, she was attacked and sunk by a Luftwaffe He 111 bomber from KG26. Only 8 people survived.

Baltic Sea : German cargo ship Frauenburg struck a mine and sank off Latvia

North Atlantic : British merchant ship Nottingham, on her maiden voyage, spotted German submarine U-74 in the North Atlantic and attempted to ram her. At 2234 hours U-74 counterattacked, torpedoed sinking Nottingham. All 62 aboard escaped in lifeboats, but they were never seen again.

Russia : Heinz Guderian noted in his diary that his troops were beginning to suffer severe frostbite in Russia.

Germany : After dark, 160 British RAF bombers attacked Berlin, Germany. 20 bombers were shot down by German air defences. The Germans reported minimal damage

Moscow , USSR : Joseph Stalin made a speech during the October Revolution anniversary celebration predicting that even though German troops were less than 100 miles from Moscow, they were facing disaster. He called all Russians to defend Holy Russia. Thousands of Red Army soldiers in full battle kit and parade formation passed in front of Soviet leader and straight to defences outside Moscow. Meanwhile, in Berlin, the German Army High Command (OKH) was determined to continue the advance on Moscow in spite of up to 80 Soviet Army divisions in front of them.

Minsk , Russia : 12.000 Jews were slaughtered by SS Einsatzgruppen and buried in mass graves outside the city.

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