On this day in 1941 Force K of the Royal Navy, led by the HMS Penelope, devastated the German/Italian convoy Duisburg in the Mediterranean, sinking seven transport and tanker ships headed to resupply the Africa Korps. Two Italian destroyers also went down.
The Penelope would be sunk by a U-boat in 1944, loosing over 400 of her crew.
A lot of British ships of the period bore names from Greek mythology or works of antiquity. Why, I don't know. Given that, Penelope was certainly named after the character from The Odyssey, although the name was one that was used by the Greeks well past that and spread into general use in modern times.
On the same day, the Germans took Yalta, but the Soviets completed the evacuation of 23,000 troops from the Crimea.
All of these events are noted here:
Today in World War II History—November 9, 1941
Another site notes that by this day in 1941 German radio had quite broadcasting that troops would return from the Eastern Front by Christmas. The Germans were certainly still advancing, but they were having a much harder time digesting Soviet territory, and indeed there has always been pockets of stout resistance. The recent massive Soviet parade in Moscow was a demonstration of absolute defiance of German hopes, and even in the south combined German and Romanian troops were slowing down in their advances.
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