12 August 1941
USSR : The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party ordered the security forces to deport the entire population of the Volga German Autonomous Republic to destinations in Central Asia and Siberia.
The Soviet Politburo also granted thousands of Polish prisoners of war amnesty for the formation of a Polish unit under General Wladislaw Anders to fight against Germany.
Ankara , Turkey : Britain and Russia assured Turkish goverment in the event of any attack by Axis , they will come to aid Turkey
Roumainia : All Jews were registered for forced labour
Rastenburg , East Prussia : From his Wolfâs Lair field HQ , Hitler orders increased efforts to capture Leningrad in north and Kharkov and Crimea in south , suspending the drive on Moscow temporarily.
Germany : Before dawn, RAF Bomber Command attacked railway yards at Hanover, Germany. After sundown, 78 British Bleinheim bombers, escorted by 485 fighters, conducted the heaviest daylight attack against Germany to date, targeting the powerplants near Köln (Fortuna Power Station in Knapsack and Goldenburg Power Station in Quadrath) and other targets in a wide area. The Germans were only able to scramble few fighters, but anti-aircraft fire was heavy. The Germans suffered four fighters shot down (plus five likely shot down) and heavy damage to both powerplants; the British suffered 12 British Blenheim bombers shot down and 10 escorting British fighters shot down. Meanwhile 24 Wellington bombers attacked Munchen-Gladbach in Ruhr area during nighttime using GEE guidence system successfully first time to locate and hit their targets
North Atlantic : While escorting convoy ON5 , Royal Navy corvette HMCS Picotee was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-586
Black Sea : Soviet cargo ship Novorissisk was bombed and sunk by Kuftwaffe JU-87 dive bombers
Vichy France : French Marshal Philippe PĂ©tain appointed Anglophobic Admiral François Darlan as Minister for War, the Navy, the Air and the Colonies. General Maxime Weygand was thus placed under Darlanâs orders. In Paris , demostrations prostesting German occupation proved a violent crackdown by French and German military police. All political activity has been suspended and all political meetings were baned in entire France.
Washington , USA : The United States Congress passed a modification to the Selective Service Act, which extended the service period of draftees as requested by Franklin Roosevelt, by a single vote.
While Churchill was still with Roosevelt off Newfoundland, two squadrons of British fighters, forty aircraft in all, commanded by a New Zealander, Wing Commander Ramsbottom-Isherwood, left Britain on Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Argus for Russian ports Murmansk and Archangel. Even before the British fighters reached Murmansk, two British submarines, HMS Tigris and HMS Trident , had managed to make their way to the Soviet naval base at Polyarnoe, near Murmansk. There, they at once began operations against German troop transports and coastal shipping off the northern Norwegian and Finnish coastlines.
For as long as the Russian front âremained in beingâ, Churchill explained to his War Cabinet on his return to London, âwe might have to make some sacrificesâ as far as British supplies from the United States were concerned. He had âthought it rightâ, he said, to give Roosevelt a warning âthat he would not answer for the consequences if Russia was compelled to sue for peace and, say, by the spring of next year, hope died in Britain that the United States were coming into the warâ.