22 - 28 November 1941

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22 November 1941

Pacific Ocean : US Navy issued Task Force Ultrasecret Operation Order 1: warships were to proceed to Hawaiian waters in secrecy, with mission to conduct pre-emptive strikes on any potential threats against Hawaii.

Breslau , Germany : Luftwaffe fighter ace and Fighter Arm Inspector General Werner Mölders was killed during a landing accident while traveling as a passenger aboard a He 111 aircraft. Hours later, Jagdgeschwader 51 was christened “Mölders” in his honor.

Leningrad : As the ice on Lake Ladoga reached 20 centimeters in thickness, 60 trucks made the crossing, aiming to bring back food into Leningrad, Russia on their return trip on the next day.
A column of sixty trucks, commanded by Major Porchunov, set off from Kobona and, following the tracks made by horses and sledges on the previous day, crossed the frozen waters of Lake Ladoga to Kokkorevo, with thirty-three tons of flour for the besieged city. One of the drivers, Ivan Maximov, later recalled how: ‘I was with that column. A dark and windy night shrouded the lake. There was no snow yet and the black-lined field of ice looked for all the world like open water. I must admit that an icy fear gripped my heart. My hands shook, no doubt from strain and also from weakness—we had been eating a rusk a day for four days… but our column was fresh from Leningrad and we had seen people starving to death. Salvation was there on the western shore. And we knew we had to get there at any cost’. One truck, and its driver, were lost in the crossing, falling through the ice and disappearing under the freezing waters. Six more crossings were made in the next seven days, bringing eight hundred tons of flour to the city, as well as fuel oil. But, in those same seven days, forty more trucks had gone to the bottom. Along the road to the lakeside, German shelling also took its toll, as did the snow drifts; in three days, 350 trucks were abandoned in drifts near Novaya Ladoga. In all, 3,500 trucks were available, though at any one time more than a thousand were out of service, awaiting repairs. Nevertheless, a lifeline, albeit precarious, had been opened. It could not, however, do much to reduce the daily deaths from starvation; during November, as many as four hundred people were dying every day from starvation.

Baltic Sea : Soviet minelayer Azimut and Soviet minesweeper Menzinsky both struck mines and sank off Hanko , Finland.

South Atlantic : Royal Navy dispatched heavy cruisers HMS Devonshire, HMS Dorsetshire, and HMS Dunedin to the South Atlantic to search for the German armed merchant cruiser Atlantis (which sunk destroyed 22 Allied merchant ships so far and now was operating as a supply ship for U-Boats) and German supply ship Python. After radio interception and triangulation , HMS Devonshire successfully found Atlantis north of Ascension Island, fueling submarine U-126 and intercepted her. When HMS Devonshire appeared on horizon U-126 was able to crash dive and escape. Captain of HMS Devonshire did not make the same mistake his Australian counterpart did aboard HMAS Sydney last week and as soon as he got the range from seven miles , HMS Devonshire opened fire with eight inch guns , scoring several hits on Atlantis and fatally damaging German raider which blew up and sank.

Arctic Ocean : Allied convoy PQ-3 crossed the Arctic Circle west of Norway. Later in the same day, Luftwaffe JU-87 Stuka dive bombers attacked the convoy without success; two German JU-87 dive bombers were shot down during the mission.

Kurile Islands , Pacific Ocean : Six Imperial Japanese Aircraft carriers gathered off Kurile Islands as Mobile Strike force under command of Admiral Chuichi Nagumo

The Japanese Government now hid its preparations behind a flurry of negotiations in both Washington and London. ‘I am not very hopeful,’ Churchill telegraphed to Roosevelt on November 20, ‘and we must all be prepared for real trouble, possibly soon.’

Libya : Operation Crusader continues. On 13th Corps sector in Libyan-Egypt frontier , New Zealand and Italian troops engaged in fighting near Sollum, Egypt while the Indian 7th Brigade captured Sidi Omar, Libya from Italian garrison. Entire Italian Savona infantry division was trapped in Bardia , Halfaya Pass and Sollum (Frontier garrisons) , behind 13th Corps lines.

Further south 30th Corps is in trouble and Operation Crusader is unravelling. Rommel used 21st Panzer Division to strike western flank of British position at Sidi Rezegh , overrunning Support Group of 7th Armored Division. Commander of support group Brigadier Jock Campell formed hasitly ad hoc “Jock Column” mobile combat units , barely stood his ground until afternoon when panzers overwhelmed his positions. This attack caused huge confusion in already weakened and dispensed ranks of 7th Armored Division , leaving total destruction and chaos in its wake. 7th Armored Brigade also badly hit by this attack , almost totally routed and retreated from Sidi Rezegh along with remants of Support Group. Meanwhile already weakened 4th Armored Brigade was defeated and overrun by 15th Panzer Division at south of Sidi Rezegh airfield (even brigade HQ was captured by Germans) and 22nd Armored Brigade arrived too late and only checked total dissolution of British position at south of Sidi Rezegh by uniting with 7th Armored Brigade.

On Tobruk perimeter , General Scobie , commander of 70th British Division breaking out , ordered the captured positions to be consolidated and the corridor widened in the hope that the Eighth Army would link up. The 2nd York and Lancaster Regiment with tank support took Italian strongpoint Tiger and left a 7,000 yd (6,400 m) gap between the corridor and Ed Duda, but efforts to clear Axis strong points Tugun and Dalby Square strong points were repelled. In the fighting on the 22nd, the Tugun’s defenders brought down devastating fire and reduced the strength in one attacking British company to merely 33 all ranks

Italian cruiser Cardona arrived at Benghazi, Libya with fuel badly needed by Axis vehicles on the front line; the journey was made without any escorts due to the pressing need.

Mediterranean Sea : A Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Swordfish torpedo bomber of No. 830 Squadron torpedoed and damaged Italian light cruiser Abruzzi at 0038 hours off Sicily, Italy; the aircraft was shot down in the process, with 1 killed and 1 captured.

USA : The Japanese embassy in Washington DC, United States was instructed that the proposal submitted by Japanese diplomats two days prior would be the final proposal. The deadline for a successful conclusion was pushed back to 29 Nov 1941, upon which date, should the proposal be rejected, the war plans would be executed.

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23 November 1941

Pacific Ocean : Japanese submarine I-68 departed Kwajalein, Marshall Islands for her first war patrol in the Hawaii Islands area.

Kurile Islands : All six Japanese carriers made a rendezvous at Hitokappu Bay, Kurile Islands, Japan in preparation for the Pearl Harbor attack. On the other side of the international date line, Joseph Rochefort reported to his superiors that his cryptanalytic team had detected a Japanese submarine squadron moving into the Marshall Islands

US Army troops arrived in Dutch Guiana and occupied the region on behalf of the Dutch government-in-exile in order to protect bauxite mines.

Tokyo , Japan : The German ambassador in Japan Eugen Ott warned Germany that the Japanese military seemed to be on the verge of a war, its military preparing to move southward. He was not aware of Japan’s plans to attack the United States

Russia : German Army Group Center captured Solnechnogorsk, Russia advanced to within 35 miles of the Soviet capital of Moscow. Further south German forces also captured Istra , a centre of Russian Orthodox pilgrimage known to the faithful as New Jerusalem , closing to server Moscow road and railway lines leading to north

Sidi Rezegh , Libya : The Italian High Command in Rome, Italy agreed to put the Italian XX Mobile Corps, which included the Ariete Division and the Trieste Division, under Erwin Rommel’s direct command.

During the same day, on 30th Corps front at the Battle of Totensonntag (Sunday of Dead) , 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions combined as a whole strike force under command of General Ludwig Cruewell (Rommel gave entire tactical command to him for this maneuver) outflanked British forces south of Sidi Rezegh, Libya, attacked 5th South African Brigade from north and totally routing it (South African Brigade which was 5.700 men strong , lost 3.400 men killed , wounded , captured in this battle and out of action for good) then afterwards turning north inflicting heavy casualties and forcing the British 7th Armored Division to withdraw 20 miles further south. 7th Armored Brigade had only four (yes four !) running tanks left out of 150 tanks at the beginning of operation.

In five days, the Eighth Army had lost 530 tanks; Axis losses had been about 100 tanks. 30th Corps reduced to just 44 running tanks at the end of day , is temporarily out of battle. However during this action Afrikakorps also lost 57 panzers out of entire 164 panzers it had in total due to South African gunners who fought mostly to death during Afrikakorps offensive and engagemnents with 7th Armored Division tanks.

The most memorable action during the North African Campaign of the 3rd Field Regiment (Transvaal Horse Artillery) was during the Battle of Sidi Rezegh, on 23 November 1941. The South Africans were surrounded on all sides by German armour and artillery and were subjected to a continuous barrage. They tried to take cover in shallow slit trenches. In many places, the South African soldiers could dig only to around 9 in (23 cm) deep because of the solid limestone under their positions. The Transvaal Horse Artillery engaged German tanks from the 15th and the 21st Panzer Divisions, the gunners firing over open sights as they were overrun. That continued until many of the officers had died, and the gunners had run out of ammunition. Many of the gun crews were captured. As darkness fell, those who could do so escaped back to Allied lines under the cover of darkness. The gunners of the 3rd Field Regiment managed to save five of their 24 guns from the battlefield and later recovered seven other guns. After the Battle of Sidi Rezegh, Acting Lieutenant General Sir Charles Willoughby Moke Norrie (who is mainly responsible along with army commander Alan Cunningham for whole mess his corps was in) stated that the South African “sacrifice resulted in the turning point of the battle, giving the Allies the upper hand in North Africa at that time”

On 13th Corps sector at frontier , 5th New Zeland Brigade attacked Bir Ghirba, south of Fort Capuzzo and the headquarters of Italian Savona Division but was repulsed.

To the south, the 7th Indian Brigade captured Sidi Omar and most of the Libyan Omar strongpoints, which were the two westernmost strong points of the Axis border defences. Losses in its supporting tank units caused a delay in attacks on the other strong points until replacements had arrived. One of the New Zealand military unit’s historians described the fighting days as the 7th Indian Brigade’s most difficult, with the men of the 4/16th Punjab Battalion having “fought all morning to overcome resistance” and the German 12th Oasis Company having “formed the backbone of the defence of the whole position”.

On 23 November, the 5th New Zealand Brigade continued its advance south-east, down the main road from Fort Capuzzo towards Sollum, and cut off of the Axis positions from Sidi Omar to Sollum and Halfaya from Bardia and its supply route. The 6th New Zealand Brigade Group on the left flank at Bir el Hariga, had been ordered north-west along the Trigh Capuzzo (Capuzzo–El Adem) to reinforce 7th Armoured Division at Sidi Rezegh.

5th New Zealand Brigade arrived at Bir el Chleta, some 15 miles (24 km) east of Sidi Rezagh, at first light on 23 November. It stumbled on the Afrika Korps headquarters and captured most of its staff (Rommel and Crüwell were both absent) , communications personnel and wireless sets. No supplies reached either panzer division that day. Later that day, the 4th New Zealand Brigade Group was sent north of the 6th New Zealand Brigade to apply pressure on Tobruk, and the 5th New Zealand Brigade covered Bardia and the Sollum–Halfaya positions.

Tobruk , Libya : 70th British Division in Tobruk attacked the 25th Italian Bologna Division in an attempt to reach the area of Sidi Rezegh, but elements of the Pavia Division soon arrived and broke up the British attack. British Captain Philip Gardner led two Matilda tanks in the rescue of the crews of two armored cars pinned under enemy fire at Tobruk, Libya, becoming wounded in the process. He was later awarded the Victoria Cross award.

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Here is a site Suriname/Dutch Guiana which was right next to Vichy French Guyana. This was seen as a war provocation by the Nazi’s (like they ever needed one).

And it was a masterstroke as Suriname would provide 60% of the US bauxite need, according to this history site.(in English: name liberation/intercultural)

https://www.bevrijdingintercultureel.nl/bi/eng/suriname.html#wo2

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24 November 1941

Russia : Elements of German 56th Panzer Corps captured Rogachevo, Russia, north of Moscow. To the south of the Soviet capital, 24th Panzer Corps from 2nd Panzer Army captured the road junction at Venyov 30 miles east of Tula.

Ukraine : German Army Group South under command of Field Marshal Von Rundstedt evacuate Rosvov on Don after Red Army probes at the rear of German corridor towards Rostov and recognising extremely weak position of flanks of corridor depite OKW and Hitler’s orders not to retreat a step

South Atlantic : German submarine U-124 torpedoed and sank British light cruiser HMS Dunedin 650 miles east of Natal, Brazil at 1521 hours, hitting her with two torpedoes. 236 were killed; 250 survived the sinking, but only 67 would survive the entire ordeal, succumbing to wounds, drowning, and shark attacks.

Lower Normandy coast , France : Operation Sunstar , British landing ship HMS Prince Leopold landed 90 men of British No. 9 Commando battalion at Butte de Houlgate, France, who captured a German coastal battery and some classified documents and immediately returned to Britain aboard the same ship.

English Channel : German 4th Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla attacked Allied convoy FS.654 off East Anglia, England, United Kingdom, torpedoed and sinking British tanker Virgilia (23 killed, 17 survived) and Dutch cargo ship Groenlo (10 killed)

Mediterranean Sea : Thanks to Enigma intercepts , Royal Navy Force K surface force and Royal Navy submarines from Malta , began to intercept and destroy several supply vessels bringing desperately needed material and fuel to German-Italian Panzer Group Afrika. Force K from Malta made up light cruiser HMS Penelope and destroyer HMS Lively intercepted German cargo ships Maritza and Procida west off Crete and sunk both of them with gunfire. Both German vessels were bringing urgently needed fuel for Luftwaffe and Italian Air Force units in Africa.

Italian salvage vessel Hercules was torpedoed and sunk by Royal Navy submarine HMS Triumph in Hereklion harbour , Crete. Italian cargo vessel Unione was torpedoed and sunk by Free Dutch Navy submarine O-21 off Sicily.

Czechslovakia : The walled city of Terezín (German: Theresienstadt) began its conversion into a ghetto for Jews. Its mission was to serve as a transit camp for Jews en route to concentration camps to the east.

Libya : Rommel (mistakenly assuming that 30th Corps was destroyed which was not) decided to gather all of Afrikakorps (15th and 21st Panzer Divisions plus Italian Arierte Armored Division) and make a “Dash to Wire” east towards rear of 13th and 30th Corps at Egypt and Libyan frontier to reach his frontier garrisons (Sollum , Bardia , Halfya Pass) and complate rout of 8th Army. This decision saved 30th Corps , which had been badly disorganised after three days of intense fighting and now off enemy pressure , got chance to reordering its units , re organising and recovering , repairing many of the tanks and other vehicles abandoned off field.

After leaving a regiment sized German battle group (BattleGroup Botcher) and two Italian divisions at Sidi Rezegh to keep Tobruk garrison besieged , Dash to Wire maneuver of Afrikakorps started on morning of 24th November , caused a huge panic especially in rear echalons of 2nd New Zealand Division which had over extended supply lines across desert all the way to Egypt border and logistics , supply units and vehicles laid exposed to a fast moving armored enemy. Alan Moorehead , war correspondent wrote “Whole day we run and run , if someone had told us Stop , Hold here , we would supress ourt fear though” However during Dash to Wire Afrikakorps panzers missed two huge supply depots belonging 8th Army established in desert despite passing two miles near so thanks to this mistake 30th and 13th Corps managed to pull themselves and sustain operations. Meanwhile 4th New Zealand Brigade captured Axis supply depots at Garbut and 6th New Zealand Brigade captured Point 175 , seven miles east of Sidi Rezegh.

8th Army commander General Alan Cunningham though , realising how badly 30th Corps mauled up , lost his nerve , thinking to abandon Operation Crusader and retreat back to Egypt. Mediterranean Middle East Theater Commander General Auchinleck decided to visit Cunningham in his field HQ at Maddalena same day and with support of other field commanders of 8th Army he ordered Cunningham to continue the offensive. Auchinleck’s order of the day was “the enemy is trying by lashing out in all directions to distract us from our objective , which is to destroy him utterly. We will not be distracted and he will be destroyed” He said of Rommel “he is making a desperate effort but he will not go very far. That column of tanks can not get supplies , I am sure of this.”

Washington , USA : US War Department informed all Pacific commanders that there was a possibility of a ‘surprise aggressive movement in any direction, including an attack on the Philippines or Guam’. No mention was made of Pearl Harbour.

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25 November 1941

Russia : North west of Moscow 2nd Panzer Division was halted by T-34 and British-built Matilda tanks of the Soviet 146th Tank Brigade at Peshki, 35 miles northwest of Moscow. (several Matildas were proven to be unsuited to Russian terrain and climate and constantly malfunction) 30 miles west of Moscow, German 10th Panzer Division and SS Reich Division attacked Istra, which was being defended by Soviet 78th Rifle Division. Finally, German 24th Panzer Corps from 2nd Panzer Army of General Guderian launched a new attack 100 miles south of Moscow, cutting the rail line to Moscow near Tula.

The Russian defenders south of the capital were pushed back through Venev to the village of Piatnitsa, only four miles from the River Oka bridge at Kashira. To the north of Moscow, advance German units crossed the Volga—Moscow canal at Yakhroma and Dimitrov, threatening the capital with encirclement. After the fall of the village of Peshki, east of Istra, and a further Soviet retreat to Kryukovo, the Soviet commanding officer, General Rokossovsky, was given the order: ‘Kryukovo is the final point of withdrawal. There can be no further falling back. There is nowhere to fall back to.’

Sidi Omar , Libya : Operation Crusader , Indian 7th Brigade from 4th Indian Division under command of General Frank Messervy by using heavy gunfire , repulsed an attack by 21st Panzer Division at Sidi Omar, Libya , several panzers were knocked out. 15th Panzer Division went behind the front to refuel at Sidi Aziz depot due to a misundertood wireless order and suffered heavily from RAF Desert Air Force attacks on the way. By the evening of 25 November, the 15th Panzer Division was west of Sidi Aziz (where the 5th NZ Brigade headquarters was based) and down to 53 panzers practically the entire remaining tank strength of the Afrikakorps The Axis column had only a tenuous link to its supply dumps on the coast between Bardia and Tobruk, and supply convoys had to find a way past the 4th and 6th NZ Brigade Groups.

After dark, General Erwin Rommel conducted an inspection of the front, his vehicle got lost in the dark among New Zealand and Indian units (because his car was a previously captured British vehicle he was not challenged) , and was forced to wait until daybreak to find his way back o Afrikakorps HQ in midnight.

Sidi Rezegh , Libya : 2nd New Zealand Division under command of General Bernard Freyberg (ex Crete commander) started active operations early in the morning , captured Axis strong point at Zaffran with Royal Tank Regiment support , then 46th New Zealand Battalion captured Sidi Rezegh airfield unopposed which was full of wreckage from five days of fighting. But further advance towards Sidi Rezegh ridge was checked by German Battlegroup Bottcher and 9th Bersaglieri Regiment defending the ridge , ten miles away from El Duda and Tobruk siege perimeter.

Tobruk , Libya : 70th British Division restarted breakout from Tobruk. On 25 November, in the 102nd Trento Infantry Division sector, the 2nd Battalion Queens Royal Regiment attacked Italian Bondi strongpoint but was repulsed. Italian and German garrison of Tugun strongpoint, down to half their strength and exhausted and low on ammunition, food and water, surrendered on the evening of 25 November after it had defeated a British attack the previous night.

While Battle Gruppe Böttcher contained the British tank attacks in the Bologna sector, a battalion of Bersaglieri from Trieste counterattacked the British breakout from Tobruk but repulsed.

Mediterranean Sea : German submarine U-331 under command of Baron von Tiesenhausen torpedoed 33.000 ton Queen Elizabeth class Royal Navy battleship HMS Barham in the Mediterranean Sea, which exploded and sank after a magazine ignited. Fewer than 400 of her crew of 1,258 survived.

Italian armed merchant cruiser Atilla Deffanu was torpedoed and sunk by Royal Navy submarine HMS Thrasher in Adriatic Sea

German coaster LVII was sunk with gunfire by Royal Navy submarine HMS Thunderbolt in Aegean Sea

Berlin , Germany : In Berlin, there was a celebration on November 25, the fifth anniversary of the drafting of the Anti-Comintern Pact. A considerable array of States were now committed to the overthrow of Communist Russia: Germany, Italy, Hungary, Spain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Roumania and Slovakia.

Hitler’s adjudant Major Engel, noted after a long evening discussion: ‘The Führer explains his great anxiety about the Russian winter and weather conditions, says we started one month too late. The ideal solution would have been the surrender of Leningrad, the capture of the south, and then if need be a pincer round Moscow from south and north, following through in the centre’. Engel added: ‘Time is his greatest nightmare now’.

Dachau , Germany : The first execution of Soviet prisoners of war at the Dachau Concentration Camp took place at the Hebertshausen shooting range.

In Germany itself, the experiments in killing by gas continued; on November 25, at Buchenwald concentration camp, Dr Fritz Mennecke received, as he wrote to his wife, ‘our second batch of 1,200 Jews’, but, he explained to her, ‘they did not have to be “examined”.’ No medical examination was needed, only the taking out of their files, to note down their imminent departure. The 1,200 Jews were then sent to a clinic at Bernburg, a hundred miles away, and gassed. A further 1,500 Jews, citizens of Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt, had been deported from Germany a few days earlier to Kovno. They had been told that they were being sent to a work camp. But instead, after being locked in underground cellars at the Ninth Fort for three days, without food or drink, freezing amid ice-covered walls and icy winds, on November 25 they were led, frozen and starving, to the pits that had been prepared for them, and ordered to undress. In their suitcases were found printed announcements urging them to prepare for a ‘difficult’ winter. ‘They did not want to undress,’ a Kovno Jew, Dr Aharon Peretz, was later told, ‘and they struggled against the Germans.’ But it was a hopeless, unequal struggle, and they were all shot, the Special Task Force recording with its usual precision the day’s death toll: ‘1,159 Jews, 1,600 Jewesses, 175 Jewish children’. Four days later, it was ‘693 Jewish men, 1,155 Jewesses, 152 Jewish children’, described as ‘settlers from Vienna and Breslau’, who were taken to the Ninth Fort and shot; a total death toll in the two ‘actions’ of nearly six thousand people.

Washington , USA : Admiral Harold Stark US Navy Operations Commander i informed Admiral Kimmel that neither Roosevelt nor Cordell Hull would be surprised if the Japanese were to launch a surprise attack. An attack on the Philippines would be ‘the most embarrassing’. Stark thought that the Japanese would probably attack the Burma Road.

American Intelligence knew, from an intercepted Japanese diplomatic message, that the rulers of Japan had set November 25 as their deadline for the working of diplomacy, and for an agreed end to the American economic sanctions against them. If no solution was agreed by then, the intercepted message read, ‘things will automatically begin to happen’.

Hawaii , Pacific Ocean : Admiral Husband Kimmel, in command at the mid-Pacific base at Oahu, of which Pearl Harbour was a part, was at that very moment in discussions with General Short about sending warships away from Pearl Harbour, in order to reinforce Wake Island and Midway island. ‘Could the Army help out the Navy?’ Kimmel asked Short. But it seemed that the army had no anti-aircraft artillery to spare.

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26 November 1941

Russia : Soviet troops re-opened the Tula-Moscow rail line in Russia.

Baltic Sea : German cargo ship Egeran struck a mine and sank off Memel , East Prussia.

Kurile Islands , Hawaii : The Japanese carrier fleet , under complate radio silence , departed Hitokappu Bay, Kurile Islands, Japan for Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii. At Pearl Harbor, Joseph Rochefort sent a report for his superiors that his cryptanalytic team had detected Japanese fleet movements and that the Japanese warships were seemingly staging for actions in the South Pacific.

Washington , US : US intelligence detected Japanese troop movements in Indochina. In response, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull submitted the final proposal to Japanese diplomats for readjustment of US-Japanese relations. As Japanese warships made what was in fact their way towards Pearl Harbour, the United States gave the Japanese negotiators in Washington the American terms for a settlement: Japan must give up the territory she occupied in both China and Indo-China, must end recognition of the Chinese ‘puppet’ Government at Nanking, and must withdraw from the Axis.

Frontier , Libya : Operation Crusader , while 15th Panzer Division tried to refuel at Axis held Bardia , 21st Panzer Division attacked to Fort Capusso to retake it back but it was repulsed by anti tank and field guns of 5th New Zealand Brigade. Italian Arierte Armored Division still did not show up for operations at Egypt-Libya frontier , irritating Rommel. (Arierte Armored Division accidently clashed with 1st South African Division on Bir El Gubi and South African gunners and infantry sucessfully checked Arierte Division for two days before Italian tanks finally disengaged for resupply) Finally Rommel accepted that his Dash to Wire did not achieve anything substantial other than wasting time , unnecessary casaulties Panzer Group Africa can ill afford and meanwhile giving initiative back to 8th Army at Tobruk , Sidi Rezegh sector. On the evening of 26th November he ordered Afrikakorps to turn back west and head to Tobruk sector where things became very dangerous for Axis forces.

Sidi Rezegh , Libya : The reason of Rommel’s order to abandon frontier sector and Axis garrisons in Sollum , Bardia , Halfaya Pass was due to developments in Sidi Rezegh , Tobruk sector. On the morning of 26th , 4th and 6th New Zealand Brigades from General Freyberg’s 2nd New Zealand Division attacked Sidi Rezegh ridge with tank support from Royal Tank Regiment. In the afternoon New Zealand infantry captured almost all Axis strong points with flanking attacks and tank support and defeating German Battlegroup Bottcher and 9th Bersegliari Regiment , therefore opening road to BelAhmed ridge and Tobruk

Tobruk : Meanwhile 70th British Division under command of General Scobie finally launched a last breakthough attack which was entirely successful , capturing two more Axis strong points and bagging 300 more prisoners including commander of Italian Bologna division , a dozen Italian guns and two German 88 mm guns and breaking into El Duda ridge and open desert. Then 32nd Royal Tank Regiment along with 1st Essex Battalion captured all Axis positions on the ridge and 150 Germans prisoner. While leading his men under fire on El Duda ridge , Captain James Jackson commander of Essex battalion was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross , where he was killed by a mortar splinter.

General Scobie realising the oppurtunity directed 32nd Royal Tank Regiment and two infantry battalions towards BelAhmed ridge in southeast to meet up with incoming 2nd New Zealand Division. The link up between Tobruk garrison and 2nd New Zealand Division happened on late afternoon at BelAhmed ridge after both sides fired Very flares to air for mutual identification. Tobruk , after more than eight months of siege , is relieved. And even worse for Axis , their main supply route Trigh Capusso from east to west towards eastern siege perimeter of Tobruk and frontier garrisons was severed.

Meanwhile 8th Army commander General Alan Cunningham was relieved of his duty by Middle East Theater commander General Claude Auchinleck. General Neil Ritchie from Auchinleck’s staff was assigned to the command of 8th Army (who was very young and inexperienced and remained till today a very controversial choice for army command by Auchinleck who was not good at all in picking subordinates) Auchinleck returned back to Cairo but nominally if not officially retained control of 8th Army (which was a great mistake as we shall see in next seven months since Auchinleck was now trying to command a a very fluid army and operation 300 miles behind from Cairo)

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Why was Cunningham relieved? Was he bad at Logistics?

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After Battle of Totensonntag and decimation of 30th Corps armored brigades between 20-23 November in Sidi Rezegh battles , Cunningham lost his nerve and demoralised , began thinking to halt the Operation Crusader and retreat back to Egyptian frontier , not something his superior General Claude Auchinleck wished to hear. (especially considering it was Auchinleck himself in first place who gave command of 8th Army to Cunningham despite objections of his staff. Auchinleck overruled his staff and now when things went awry and Cunningham couldn’t pull it off in a tight situation , Auchinleck was himself embaressed. Auk himself simply constantly picking bad subordinates and giving his trust upon them despite their ineligibility to field command.

Auchinleck’s next pick to lead 8th Army and Cunningham’s successor , Neil Ritchie would prove to be even a more disasterous army commander. Again he was promoted by Auchinleck despite objections of his staff because Ritchie was too young and inexperienced for army command but Auk overruled them again , assuming Ritchie was a safe choice from his staff and he could lead and direct him from Cairo , that is 300 miles behind the front so there goes unity of command of 8th Army.

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27 November 1941

Russia : On Moscow front , German SS Das Reich Division captured Istra west of Moscow while 7th Panzer Division advanced to the banks of Moskva-Volga canal at Yakhroma east of Moscow. To the north , German press declared that they captured Klin but in south 50th Soviet Army still holding Tula and halting advance of 2nd Panzer Army whose commander General Guderian becoming increasingly pessimistic. The forward-most German troops were reported within 25 miles of the Soviet capital, and noted the sighting of the Kremlin. The sound of guns were being heard from Soviet capital.

‘New forces have made their appearance in the direction of the Oka river,’ General Halder noted that November 27. North-west of Moscow, also, ‘the enemy is apparently moving new forces’. These Soviet reinforcements were not large units, Halder added, ‘but they arrived in endless succession and caused delay after delay for our exhausted troops’.

17 year old Russian partisan fighter Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was captured by the Germans and hanged. Her last words to her captors : “You can not hang all 180 million of us”

Ukraine : Rostov-on-Don was recaptured by Red Army

Pacific Ocean : US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold Stark warned commanders of Pacific and Asiatic Fleets that attacks on Malaya, Philippine Islands, and Dutch East Indies were now a possibility.

Hawaii : Admiral Husband Kimmel Commander of US Pacific Fleet met with Joseph Rochefort at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii in the late afternoon to discuss possible moves Japan might take should Japan and United States continued to head toward a military conflict. Rochefort believed that the main Japanese thrust would be toward the South Pacific, and the Hawaiian Islands did not seem to be in direct danger for now.

Tokyo , Japan : Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo rejected the American counter-proposal for peace.

Washington , USA : US Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall warned US Army Hawaii and Philippine Departments that attacks on Malaya, Philippine Islands, and Dutch East Indies were now a possibility.

Arctic Ocean : Allied convoy QP-3 departed Arkhangelsk, Russia and convoy PQ-5 departed Hvalfjörður, Iceland.

Dublin , Ireland : During a raid on the Blackheath Park District of Dublin, Ireland in search of IRA terrorists, the police arrested Abwehr agent Hermann Görtz who had parachuted into Ireland in May 1940. He had been living in hiding after losing his codebooks and currency escaping the police in an earlier raid.

Copenhagen , Denmark : Two day long rioting initiated due to Danish goverments signing Anti-Comitern Pact with Axis.

Mediterranean Sea : German submarine U-559 torpedoed and sank Australian sloop HMAS Parramatta and ammunition ship Hanne 40 miles northeast of Tobruk, Libya at 0046 hours, killing a total of 168.

Abyssinia , East Africa : Last Italian garrison at Gondar, Abyssinia surrendered as the British 12th (African) Division captured two mountain passes overlooking the town , 12.000 Italian and native Abyssinian troops captured

Libya : Operation Crusader : Rommel ordered the 21st Panzer Division back to Tobruk, and the 15th Panzer Division was to attack forces that were thought to besiege the border positions between Fort Capuzzo and Sidi Omar. The 15th Panzer Division first had to capture Sidi Azeiz to provide space for the ambitious manoeuvre. General Neumann-Silkow commander of 15th Panzer Division , felt the plan to have little chance of success and resolved to advance to Sidi Azeiz, where he believed there was a British supply dump, before he headed to Tobruk.

Defending the 5th New Zealand Brigade Headquarters at Sidi Azeiz were a company of the 22nd New Zealand Infantry Battalion and the armoured cars of the New Zealand divisional cavalry, with some field artillery, anti-tank, anti-aircraft and machine gun units. The New Zealanders were overrun early on 27 November by 21st Panzer Division , Rommel congratulated Brigadier James Hargest on the determined New Zealand defence and 700 prisoners were taken although the armoured cars escaped.

The 21st Panzer Division ran into the 5th NZ Brigade 22nd battalion at Bir el Menastir while it was heading west to Tobruk from Bardia. After an exchange lasting most of the day, it was forced to detour south via Sidi Azeiz, which delayed its return to Tobruk by a day. By early afternoon, 8th Army Headquarters had known by radio intercepts that both divisions of the Afrika Korps were heading west to Tobruk, with the Ariete Division on their left.

At mid-day on 27 November, the 15th Panzer Division reached Bir el Chleta and met the 22nd British Armoured Brigade, which had been reorganised as a composite regiment with fewer than 50 tanks. By the afternoon, the 22nd Armoured Brigade was holding on and the 4th Armoured Brigade, with 70 tanks, had arrived on the left flank of the 15th Panzer Division, had dashed over 20 mi (32 km) north-east and was harassing German rear echelons. The 15th Panzer Division was also suffering many losses from bombing. As night fell, the British tanks disengaged to replenish but inexplicably moved south to do so, which left the route west open for the 15th Panzer Division.

On Sidi Rezegh - Tobruk corridor , 4th and 6th New Zealand Brigades , 1st Essex Battalion and 32nd Tank Brigade repulsed several Axis counter attacks by Pavia Division and 90th German Light Division on El Duda , BelAhmed ridges. Axis and Rommel himself actually are desperate to sever Tobruk corridor otherwise they realise that their entire supply route Trigh Capusso would be severed. Several Axis soft skinned supply and staff vehicles were ambushed by Tobruk garrison forces that broke out and 2nd New Zealand Division troops on this route between El Duda and BelAhmed ridges. The corridor still not reinforced and weak though. Once again, the New Zealand Division, engaged in heavy fighting on the south-eastern end of the tenuous corridor into Tobruk, would be under threat from the Afrika Korps. To reinforce it further even 2/13 Australian battalion (last Australian unit left in Tobruk) was put into action a El Duda.

Still By 27 November, the situation of 8th Army had improved since 30th Corps had reorganised after the chaos of the breakthrough, and the New Zealand Division had linked up with the Tobruk garrison (General Godwen Austen 13rh Corps commander remarked "Tobruk and I are both relieved !) but 1st South African Division is moving too slow to reach Sidi Rezegh to reinforce the relief of corridor.

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28 November 1941

Ukraine : Red Army recaptured Rostov-on-Don , German Army Group South is retreating towards Taganrog on west of Mius River

Russia : German 7th Panzer Division crossed the Yakhroma bridge over the Moskva-Volga canal 37 miles north of Moscow, Russia at 0330 hours, but it would be driven back across canal at the end of the day by a Soviet counter attack. Between Dimitrov and Zagorsk, twelve Soviet ski battalions were assembling in reserve, opposite the Germans who now held the whole Moscow—Kalinin road. Southeast of Moscow, despite the German bombing of railway lines, the Soviet Tenth Army was likewise being brought forward, on November 28 from Shilovo to Ryazan. ‘The enemy movements to Ryazan from the south are continuing,’ General Halder noted in his diary on the following day.

Libya : On the night of 27/28 November, Rommel had discussed plans for the next day with General Ludwig Crüwell and indicated that Rommel’s priority was to cut the Tobruk Corridor and to destroy the enemy forces fighting there. Crüwell wanted to eliminate the threat of the 7th Armoured Division tanks to the south, which he felt needed attention first. Rommel overruled Cruwell.

In the morning 4th and 22nd Armored Brigaes clashed with 15th Panzer Division again south of Sidi Rezegh , neither side got a upper hand but 15th Panzer Division lost one more day instead of marching towards Tobruk and could only disengage in the evening. Meanwhile 21st Panzer Division alone attacked to Tobruk corridor but repulsed by 2nd New Zealand Division on BelAhmed and El Duda ridges. Even worse for Germans , commander of 21st Panzer Division , General Johann Von Ravenstein was captured by 4th New Zealand Brigade when his car accidently stumbled into well camauflaged New Zealand positions after dark. (first German general captured by Allies)

Meanwhile Italian Bologna infantry division had regrouped largely in the Bu Amud and Belhamed areas, and the division had stretched out along 8 mi (13 km) from the Via Balbia to the Bypass Road and fought in several places. The Reuters correspondent with the Tobruk garrison wrote on 28 November:

“The division holding the perimeter continues to fight with utmost bravery and determination. They are stubbornly holding small isolated defence pits, surrounded with barbed wire.”

— Reuters

When two Italian motorised battalions of Bersaglieri, with supporting tanks, anti-tank guns and artillery, moved toward Sidi Rezegh, they overran a New Zealand field hospital. The Bersaglieri captured 1,000 patients and 700 medical staff. They also freed some 200 Germans who were held captive in the enclosure on the grounds of the hospital.

Rommel after conferring with General Cruwell again in afternoon , now intends to sever Tobruk corridor with a pincer attack from west and south east with a coordinated attack by both panzer divisions next day on 29th.

Mediterrenean Sea : While being shadowed by German submarine U-95, Free Dutch Navy submarine O-21 fired two stern torpedoes at its stalker 125 miles east of Gibraltar, sinking the German U-Boat; 35 were killed, 12 survived , picked up and captured by Dutch submarine.

Italian cargo ship Priaruggia was bomved and sunk at Benghazi harbour by RAF Wellington bombers

Berlin , Germany : Joachim von Ribbentrop met with Hiroshi Oshima in Berlin, Germany, promising that Germany would declare war on the United States should Japan and the US enter a state of war; Ribbentrop, however, did not know Japan was planning on starting the war soon

Arkhangelsk , Kola Peninsula : Allied convoy PQ-4 arrived at Arkhangelsk, Russia.

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