27 September - 03 October 1941

27 September 1941

Eastern Front : The first rains fell on Eastern Front of the European War; mud began to become an issue for the attacking German forces.

Ukraine : German Army Group South captured Perekop , cutting Crimea from rest of Russian mainlaind.

South Atlantic : German submarine U-201 attacked Allied convoy HG-73 600 miles north of the Azores islands, sinking two merchant ships and the anti-aircraft ship HMS Springbank; 32 were killed, 201 survived. Another German submarine U-124 torpedoed and sank Norwegian cargo ship Siremalm from same convoy.

US : 14 Liberty Ships were launched in the United States; they were to be transferred to the United Kingdom via the Lend-Lease program.

Mediterranean Sea : Convoy Halberd inbound to Malta comes under heavy Italian air attack. An Italian torpedo bomber hit and damaged British battleship HMS Nelson in the bow with a torpedo in the Mediterranean Sea between Sardinia, Italy and Tunisia; HMS Nelson was escorting the Operation Halberd convoy for Malta , forced to retuen back to Gibraltar. One of the troopships in the convoy , Imperial Star was also hit by an Italian aerial torpedo but she was evacuated safely , all crew and troops abroad were taken by other ships before she sank.

Meanwhile Royal Navy submarine HMS Upright torpedoed and sank Italian torpedoboat Albatros between Sicily and mainland Italy. German submarine U-371 rescued 42 survivors. Royal Navy submarine HMS Tetrarch torpedoed and sank Italian cargo ship Citta di Bastia and then sank Italian coaster Kromottos in Aegean Sea. British minelaying cruiser HMS Abdiel and destroyers HMS Kandahar, HMS Jaguar, and HMS Griffin departed Alexandria, Egypt after sundown with supplies for Tobruk, Libya. This would be the final supply run for besieged city.

Abyssinia , East Africa : The Italian garrison at Wolchefit Pass in Abyssinia surrendered to British King’s African Rifles regiment.

Hawaii : Joseph Rochefort warned US commanders at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii that the Japanese communication codes were being changed

Archangel , Kola Peninsula , USSR : HMS London arrived in Archangel, Russia with Lord Beaverbrook and Averell Harriman aboard for First Moscow Conferance to organise Lend Lease supplies to Russia

Ukraine : 23,000 Jews were massacred at Kamenets-Podolsk, Ukraine by SS Einsatzgruppen and Ukranian SS auxilaries

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28 September 1941

Moscow , USSR : US and British representatives traveled to Moscow, Russia to discuss the matter of western aid to the Soviet Union. First Moscow Conferance began.

Iceland : First Allied convoy code named PQ-1 (infamous PQ series) with eleven cargo ships full of supplies and war material escorted by one cruiser , three destroyers and four minesweepers sailed away inbound to Archangel , Russia. ( By the end of the year five other convoys had followed it, landing 120,000 tons of supplies at Murmansk, Russia, including 640 tanks, 800 aircraft and 1,400 motor vehicles. It was somewhat embarrassing to the Germans that, between 29 Sep and 31 Dec 1941, all 55 vessels of these first six convoys reached their destination without loss)

Leningrad , USSR : Georgy Zhukov announced to his troops that family members of those who become captured by the enemy would be arrested and shot.

Malta , Mediterranean Sea : The Allied Operation Halberd convoy arrived in Malta amid a huge celebration and fanfare from local Malta population and garrison and began to disembark 70,000 tons of supplies and 2.600 extra reinforcement troops aboard its ships.

Meanwhile Royal Navy submarine HMS Tetrarch torpedoed and damaged German ship Yalova 20 miles south of Naples, Italy; Yalova was beached to prevent sinking and declared total loss. Royal Navy corvette HMS Hyacinth shelled and sank Italian submarine Fisala on the surface 35 miles west of Palestine.

Kiev , Ukraine : A notice was posted in Kiev, Ukraine, requiring all Jews in the region to gather at Dorogozhitshaya Street at 0700 hours the next day.

29 September 1941

Berlin : SS Security Chief Reinhard Heydrich was named Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. Hitler and Hydrich intended to turn Bohemia into a German province. Czech universties closed , German became the mandatory language to learn and to teach in schools and thousands of Czechs were evacuated from their homes and farms to make room for German settlers.

Ukraine : SS Einsatzgruppen C shot and massacred somewhere between 50,000 and 96,000 Ukrainians, 33,771 of whom Jews, at the Babi Yar ravine outside Kiev and threw their bodies off cliff. (Children were mostly not shot and just thrown off cliff alive since SS did not wish to waste bullets on non adults) Then any survivors and wounded at the bottom of cliff were finished off by SS troops by pistol shots with a sadistic precision. Many SS or German military personnel (some officers even brought their wives and girlfriends ) and even Ukranian militia , symphatisers witnessed the atrocity.

Moscow , USSR : Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, British Minister of Supply Lord Beaverbrook, and American envoy Harriman met in Moscow, Russia to discuss lend-lease aid to the Soviet Union.

Crimea : Heavy Soviet resistance in Perekop Istmus reinforced with defensive lines and bunkers prevented the Germans from moving from southern Ukraine into the Krym (Crimea) region of Russia.

Leningrad Front : Finnish troops broke through to the Soviet positions at Petrozavodsk, on Lake Onega but Finnish advance stopped on Karelian - Russian pre war frontier.

Baltic Sea : Soviet submarine ShCh-319 struck a mine and sank off Latvia

Germany : After sundown, ten bombers of RAF Bomber Command No. 102 Squadron were launched from RAF Topcliffe, North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom for an attack on Stettin, Germany; the anti-aircraft fire was reported to be heavy. Another group of bombers took off to attack Hamburg, Germany.

Mediterranean Sea : Italian coastal tanker Fluvior struck a mine and sank off Tripoli , Libya.

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30 September 1941

Russia : The German Operation Typhoon got an unofficial start when Guderian’s Panzer Group 2 attacked two days ahead of the rest of the operation towards Orel and Bryansk to reach Moscow. Fifteen Soviet Armies positioned in five defensive lines east of Moscow from Orel , Bryansk to Vyazma to Soviet capital. Meanwhile General Von Kleist’s 1st Panzer Group headed towards Donts industrial basin and Rostov.

France : Vichy Foreign Minister Pierre Laval was discharged from the hospital after recovering from the wounds sustained during the unsuccessful assassination attempt against him on 25 Aug 1941.

Mediterranean Sea : Italian submarine Adua attacked British ships sailing for Malta to Gibraltar (having just completed escorting the Operation Halberd on the previous day) 250 miles east of Gibraltar. British destroyers HMS Gurkha and HMS Legion counterattacked with depth charges, sinking the Italian submarine, killing all 46 aboard.

Ukraine : The leadership of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet began to consider evacuating forces in Odessa, Ukraine to the Crimean region of Russia (now also in Ukraine).

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1 October 1941

Moscow , USSR : Moscow Agreement between UK , US and USSR signed. The protocol produced at the end of the US-UK-USSR aid conference determined immediate and long-term deliveries to the Soviet Union, with the agreement subject to annual review. US and UK guaranteed to send 500 tanks and 400 aircraft , 1.256 anti tank guns , various motorised vehicles from armored cars to jeeps to trucks , destroyers ,modern Anti Submarine Warfare equipment and 400.000 pairs of boots , winter clothing , medical supplies and machine tools and vast amounts of raw material for Soviet war industries including aluminium (which Stalin confessed they needed desperately) and wool. The final agreement has mercurial Stalin as Lord Beaverbrook remarked , beaming like sunshine after rain.

Leningrad : Finnish troops reached Petrozavodsk, the capital of Soviet Republic of Karelia, further cutting off Leningrad in northern Russia.

Rastenburg , East Prussia : Wilhelm Keitel ordered that, in regards to the hostages the German military had been holding and executing in retaliation of partisan attacks, choice of victims would be important, as well-known victims would have greater effect in keeping the occupied peoples in line.

Russia : The Soviet NKVD ordered the release of 51,257 Polish prisoners of war for the formation of a Polish unit under General Wladislaw Anders to fight against Germany

Vilna , Baltics : 3.000 Jews were rounded up and massacred in Ponary woods

Atlantic Ocean : British tanker San Florentino , straggled behind her convoy , was torpedoed and sunk by German submartine U-94.

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02 October 1941

Russia : The remainder of the German Army Group Center launched Operation Typhoon, the attack on Moscow, Russia. Meanwhile, the German Panzer Group 2 under General Guderian was split into two pincers at Sevsk, Russia; the northern pincer moved toward Bryansk while the northeastern pincer moved toward Orel.
As the Germans approached each day closer to the capital, Russian peasants set fire to their already harvested crops, drove away their livestock, and blew up the main buildings in their villages. This was the pre-arranged and self-inflicted scorched earth policy. Invading German forces would be denied everything.

Ukraine : 1st SS Panzer Division “Leibstandarte” began to advance towards Sea of Azov

Leningrad : First deaths from starvation reported.

Zagare , Lithuania : SS Einsatzgruppen killing squads machine gunned 2.146 Jews to death. SS Special Task Force had also organized a ‘spectacle’, placing benches at the execution site so that the local Lithuanians could have a ‘good view’.

UK : After sundown, in England, United Kingdom, German bombers attacked the Tyneside and Tees-side areas in northern England (50 were killed, 250 buildings were destroyed, shipbuilding and repairing facilities at South Shields severely damaged) and Dover area in southeastern England (10 killed).
The keel of Britain’s last battleship, HMS Vanguard, was laid down at Clydebank, Scotland, United Kingdom.
As German forces prepared to launch Operation Typhoon against Moscow, Churchill read the German secret messages giving details of the assault. ‘Are you warning the Russians of the developing concentrations?’ he asked the head of the Secret Intelligence Service , and he added: ‘Show me the last five messages you have sent….’

Paris , France : In Paris, on October 2, the SS chief, Helmut Knochen, ordered the destruction of seven synagogues. Six of them were dynamited that night; the seventh, where the fuse had failed, was blown up on the following day ‘for safety reasons’.

Atlantic Ocean : Battle of Convoy ON19 started. 250 miles east of Iceland at 0652 hours, German submarine U-562 sank British catapult armed merchant ship Empire Wave; 29 were killed, 31 survived. German submarine U-431 torpedoed and sunk British cargo ship from same convoy. At 0709 hours, west of Ireland, German submarine U-575 sank Dutch merchant ship Tuva; 1 was killed, 34 survived.

Mediterranean Sea : Royal Navy submarine HMS Perseus torpedoed and sank German cargo ship Castellon 60 miles west of Benghazi, Libya.

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03 October 1941

USA : The official copy of the British Military Application of Uranium Detonation (MAUD) Committee Report, written by James Chadwick, reached Vannevar Bush.

Russia : In Russia, Panzer Group 2 of the German Army Group Center captured Orel 220 miles south-southwest of the Soviet capital in Moscow. Orel was captured, so quickly that there was no time for the Russians to destroy its remaining factories. Elsewhere German troops attempted to encircle the Soviet Bryansk Front.

Mediterranean Sea : Royal Navy submarine HMS Talisman sank the already beached German ship Yalova south of Naples, Italy. Dutch submarine O.21 sank Vichy French ship Oued Yquem off Sardinia, Italy.

Black Sea : Soviet passanger ship Dniepr was torpedoed and sunk by Luftwaffe DO-217 bombers off Odessa. 40 people aboard perished.

Norwegian Sea : A Royal Norwegian Navy motor torpedo boat MTB56 sank German tanker Borgny off Bergen, Norway.

South Atlantic : A British Walrus reconnaissance aircraft from Royal Navy cruiser HMS Kenya spotted German U-boat supply ship Kota Pinang 300 miles northeast of the Azores islands. HMS Kenya closed in and sank Kota Pinang by gunfire.

India : Mahatma Gandhi calls all subjects of British India to start a campaign of passive resistance

Australia : Labour leader John Curtin became new Australian Prime Minister

Berlin , Germany : At the Berliner Sportpalast in the German capital, Adolf Hitler announced during a rally that the Germans had captured 2,500,000 Soviet prisoners of war, destroyed or captured 22,000 guns, destroyed or captured 18,000 tanks, destroyed 14,500 aircraft, and since 1939 had expanded Germany by an area four times as large as Britain. He stressed that the Soviet Union had been broken and would never rise again.

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Sadly there still is a dark side to this still as the German courts still refuse the evidence provided by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and let the veterans of the SS live their lives. Having said this a lot of Germans also don’t like the post-war policy of refusing to give stolen art back or even the refusal to extradite or convict most war criminals. Like some people say instead of doing something politicians after the war rather be laying wreaths in front of the cameras or have people polish “stolpersteine” which are placed in front of houses from where the minorities were murdered.

“The Simon Wiesenthal Center says that under recent changes to German law there is enough evidence to place him on trial.” The recent changes became way too late but if the legal system has too many defenders of evil?

This pertains to the WAH so I think it is appropriate to post. In my view it tells something about the blind nationalismus in some which sadly trumps any facts about the holocaust!

Last member of Babyn Yar SS murder squad ‘must be put on trial’ - The Jewish Chronicle (thejc.com)