Tuesday April 14, 1942. A Naval First.

 

USS Roper.

Today in World War II History—April 14, 1942: Off North Carolina, destroyer USS Roper sinks U-85 in the first US naval victory over a German U-boat (all 46 killed).

From Sarah Sundin's blog.  A U.S. Navy victory in the Battle of the Atlantic.  The U-85 was the first casualty for the Germans in Operation Drumbeat.   The U-252 went down the same day in the Atlantic when attacked by ships of the Royal Navy.  The British submarine Upholder was sunk, however, by the Italians in the Mediterranean.

On the same day, Philippe Petain reinstated Pierre Laval as Vice Premier of France due to German pressure to do so.

Sunday, February 22, 1942. Harris takes command.

February 22, 1942: Air Marshal Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris takes command of RAF Bomber Command. President Roosevelt orders Gen. Douglas MacArthur to leave Bataan for Australia.

So states the opener of Sarah Sundin's blog for the day.

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naïve theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”  Harris.

 

An unrelenting advocate of the RAF's Area Bombing Directive, he remains an extremely controversial figure, perhaps the most controversial British figure of the Second World War.

Harris was born and raised in England, but moved to Rhodesia at age 18.  While just about to enter ranching in that country in 1914, he reluctantly joined the 1st Rhodesian Regiment.  He transferred to the RAF as a pilot in 1916.  He remained in the RAF after the war and never returned to Rhodesia even though he considered it to be his country, although for a time after his retirement from the RAF he managed a mining company in South Africa.

As also discussed by Sundin, Douglas MacArthur was ordered by Franklin Roosevelt to leave the Philippines.

The Admiral Scheer and Prinz Eugen arrived at Bergen, Norway.  Later that day, the left for Trondheim.

Friday, February 13, 1942. Deciding to build the AlCan.

As we noted in our companion blog for this day, Today In Wyoming's History: February 13: 1942, it was a day of some momentous and long-lasting events.   

African American engineers working on the Alcan.  Note the very high boots.

1942  US and Canada agree to construct the Alcan Highway.  This is, of course, not directly a Wyoming event, but it is significant in that it represents the ongoing expansion of road transportation.  A highway of this type would not have even been conceivable just 20 year prior.  It also is a feature of the arrival of really practical 4x4 vehicles, all Army vehicles at that time, which were capable of off-road and road use for the first time. Such vehicles would become available to the public at the conclusion of World War Two, and would provide widespread, easy winter access to much of Wyoming for the very first time.

1942  All Japanese nationals employed by the Union Pacific Railroad were dismissed.

The AlCan is still with us, of course.  It was once one of my goals to drive it, and while that desire has waned over the years, I'd still like to.

The impetus for building the road was the fear that the Japanese would attack Alaska, which was accessible only by sea and air from the lower 48 states and which had no long roads connecting it in any fashion to the lower Canadian provinces.  If attacked, it was featured, it was not possible to supply the state.

Linking up the road as it was built in both directions.

Construction commenced on March 9, 1942 and was completed on October 28, 1942, an amazingly short amount of time, but then it was hardly a highway in the modern sense.  Being completed in the fall, as it was, use of the highway didn't start until 1943.

Alaska was incredibly remote at the time.  With a population of only 73,000, half its residents at the time were natives, many who had very little contact with European culture.  Prior European penetration into Alaska had come from Russians interested in furs, Canadians interested in furs, and then Americans interested in furs and gold.  Logging had commenced, and during the Great Depression an intentional effort had been made to resettle some displaced farmers to those regions of Alaska temperate enough to engage in crop agriculture.  Fishing was also an industry.  Oil was not, having not yet been discovered there.  It was not a conventional tourist destination.

In context, fears that the Japanese would land in Alaska were accordingly not as farfetched as they would seem to today, and likewise fears that they would land in Australia were not either.  Indeed, the Japanese did land within air striking distance of parts of Australia, and they did land in the Aleutians, albeit only as a diversion.

Fear of the Japanese had obviously also extended to the point where employers felt free to fire Japanese nationals in the country.

On the same day, the Germans completed the Channel Dash successfully, although both of their battleships had been damaged by mines.

The Battle of Palembang began on Sumatra and the Battle of Pasire Panjang began in the struggle for Singapore.

Wednesday, February 11, 1942. The Channel Dash.

On this day in 1942 the Germans commenced the "Channel Dash" in an effort to run two battleships from the port of Brest to their home ports in Germany.  The battleships were the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, accompanied by the cruiser Prinz Eugen.  They'd been enduring bombing by the RAF in Brest.

The German effort commenced under the cover of night on February 11 and with radio jamming which precluded British agents from radioing about the ship's departure.  It was covered by the Luftwaffe, so the ensuing battle was an air and sea battle.

Both sides sustained damage and casualties in the effort, but the German objective was successful.  Given that the Germans did in fact run the channel, albeit partially at night, it was a bit of an embarrassment to the British.

According to Sarah Sundin's blog, there were riots in Montreal over conscription plans on this date.

I'm not aware of the 1942 riots, although I am of 1944 riots. At any rate, conscription had been in place since 1940, but at that time conscripted troops could not be required to serve overseas unless they so volunteered, resulting in an enduring Canadian controversy.  Troops who would not volunteer were termed "zombies" by those who resented it.  Resistance to conscription was particularly strong in Quebec, where Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis had called a snap election in 1939 to oppose the war only to lose his seat to Adelard Godbout, who had the support of the Federal government in the election.

French Canadian resistance to conscription has been an ongoing matter of controversy in Canada.  Simply put, the Québécois were largely disinterested in the war, although 20% of those who volunteered to fight overseas were in fact Québécois.  This makes for a complicated legacy in obvious ways.

US forces arrived to help defend the Dutch islands of Curacoa, Bonaire and Aruba with permission of the Dutch government in exile.

Also, according to Sundin, the US took over Dupont's supply of nylon, a critical war material used for a variety of things, including parachutes.

The documentary Our Russian Front was released on this date in 1942.

Friday, February 6, 1942. The USDA discusses sharing, the Graf Zeppelin is photographed by the RAF, the HMS Utmost in Holy Loch, and members of the 6 AGH.

 The USDA delivered a Friday message on sharing.

Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, arrived in Italy with Iraqi politician Rashid Ali al-Gaylani.  They had both been in Germany, and they obtained an audience with Benito Mussolini.

Both men, in this regard, were bad judges of history, although it would oddly not impact them as much as might be supposed.  They both lived out their natural lives, with Al-Hamdani even managing to avoid a death sentence via pardon, which was given to him due to a post World War Two attempts to affect a coup in Iraq.

The German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin was photographed from the air.

The German aircraft carrier was in the category of pointless resource wasting endeavors by this point, although that may not have been as obvious as it now appears.  Part of a German effort to build two carriers, which would have gone on to more, the German Navy had not anticipated the war starting in 1939. It was planning for war in 1943.  At this point, the thought probably still lingered, however, that such ships would be useful in a future anticipated offensive against the United Kingdom as the war with the Soviet Union, launched partially in the belief that the USSR could be quickly defeated and all hope would be lost to the British, still held out hopes for a German victory.  

By August, the vessel would be the target of British air raids.

The ship came into the possession of the Soviets after the war, who considered finishing it off, but who ultimately sank as a target.  Its fate was not, however, known for decades outside of the USSR.

The British submarine HMS Utmost made a port call to Holy Loch.  The happy crew's luck would run out in November when she'd be sunk off of Sicily, probably by hitting a mine, and all of these young men would perish.

Troops of the 6th Australian General Hospital were photographed.

Blog Mirror: cruiser Nürnberg: post-WWII service

 Excellent article on the titled topic, and other German ships that went on to Soviet service.

cruiser Nürnberg: post-WWII service

Wednesday January 14, 1942. Canadian Internment, Operation Drumbeat, Operation Posmaster and Executive Order on Enemy Aliens.

On this day in 1942, the Arcadia Conference concluded.

Canada began a Japanese internment program

As discussed here:

Today in World War II History—January 14, 1942

Canada designates a 100-mile security zone in British Columbia; all males of Japanese ancestry ages 18-45 are ordered to vacate; 23,000 men will be sent to labor camps; women and children are deported to six inner BC towns; Japanese-Canadians also banned from fishing and using shortwave radios.

While this story is well known in Canada, it is not in the United States.  It's significant to Canadian history for a lot of reasons, but also to US history in regard to the atmosphere at the time.

The US had not yet begun internment of Japanese residents, but it did commence registration of enemy aliens on this day in 1942.

President Roosevelt issued an order requiring the registration of enemy aliens.

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation 

Whereas section 21 of title 50 of the United States Code provides as follows: 

Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies. The President is authorized in any such event, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed, on the part of the United States, toward the aliens who become so liable; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public safety. 

Whereas by sections 22, 23, and 24 of title 50 of the United States Code further provision is made relative to alien enemies; 

Whereas by Proclamation No. 2525 of December 7, 1941, and Proclamations Nos. 2526 and 2527 of December 8,1941, I prescribed and proclaimed certain regulations governing the conduct of alien enemies; and 

Whereas I find it necessary in the interest of national defense to prescribe regulations additional and supplemental to such regulations: 

Now, Therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, acting under and by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution of the United States and the aforesaid sections of the United States Code, do hereby prescribe and proclaim the following regulations, additional and supplemental to those prescribed by the aforesaid proclamations of December 7, 1941, and December 8, 1941: 

CERTIFICATES OF IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED; DUTIES AND AUTHORITY OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL 

All alien enemies within the continental United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands are hereby required, at such times and places and in such manner as may be fixed by the Attorney General of the United States, to apply for and acquire certificates of identification; and the Attorney General is hereby authorized and directed to provide, as speedily as may be practicable, for the receiving of such applications and for the issuance of appropriate identification certificates, and to make such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary for effecting such identifications; and all alien enemies and all other persons are hereby required to comply with such rules and regulations. The Attorney General in carrying out such identification procedure, is hereby authorized to utilize such agents, agencies, officers, and departments of the United States and of the several states, territories, dependencies, and municipalities thereof and of the District of Columbia as he may select for the purpose, and all such agents, agencies, officers, and departments are hereby granted full authority for all acts done by them in the execution of this regulation when acting by the direction of the Attorney General. After the date or dates fixed by the Attorney General for completion of such identification procedure, every alien enemy within the limits of the continental United States, Puerto Rico, or the Virgin Islands shall at all times have his identification card on his person.

The British pulled off Operation Postmaster, an SOE operation, which involved hijacking three ships in a port in Spanish Guinea.  While military insignificant, it boosted the reputation of the SOE in particular, and the British in general, for eclectic raiding.

German U-boats began to make some successful strikes off of the near US and Labradorean/PEI/Newfoundland coast as part of a new submarine offensive, Operation Drumbeat.  The U-123 sank the Panamanian tanker MV Norness off of Long Island.  Across the Atlantic, the U-43 sank the three vessels, including the Panamanian flagged SS Chepo.

Saturday, November 22, 1941. Advances and Reversals.

On this day in 1941 the Germans captured Klin on their advance towards Moscow.

The Atlantis.

On the same day, the German surface raider Atlantis was sunk off of Ascension Island by the HMS Devonshire, ending her surface raiding career.  The commander of the U126 which had been with her was left on board the Atlantis when the Devonshire appeared.

With the Atlantis sinking the Devonshire left the area and the U126 resurfaced and picked up 300 German survivors and one American prisoner.  She then towed the survivors in rafts towards Brazil until they were taken on board the refueling ship Python, which in turn was surprised by a British vessel on December 1 and scuttled.  It too left the area, and the survivors were then picked up by a collection of German and Italian submarines.

This interesting event gives us a window into the state of naval combat at the time. The Atlantis, a converted merchant ship, had been an effective surface raider, which is something that was on its way out.  And the Royal Navy didn't linger on station after the sinking, no doubt for good reasons, but with the results that survivors of sinkings were twice left to the Axis to pick up themselves.  Finally, the Italian navy participated in that recovery, even though their role in the Battle of the Atlantic is nearly forgotten.

Also, on this day German Luftwaffe squadron leader Werner Mölders was killed when a HE 111 he was a passenger in crashed while landing in a thunderstorm.  The plane was carrying him and other Luftwaffe figures to the commemorations for Ernst Udet.  Mölders was the first pilot in history to claim 100 aerial kills, a tally that dated back to his service in the Spanish Civil War.

Mölders was an enigmatic character who in some ways bests presents the myth of Luftwaffe pilots as somehow being above the taint of Nazism, although his service in the Spanish Civil War should cause and has a person to question that.  His father was killed in World War One when he was just a boy, and he thereafter was very much influenced by a family friend who was a Catholic Priest and was in contact to some degree with Westphalian Bishop Graf Von Galen during the war.  He was devoutly religious in spite of his German military service being 100% within the context of the Nazi regime.  When he was shot down over France early in the war he asked to meet the pilot who had brought him down, only to learn that the pilot had been killed.  He was at first somewhat mistreated as a Prisoner Of War, until a French airman intervened on his behalf, and then he later intervened with Goering to keep one of his former captors from being executed.

At the time of his death he'd only been married for a few months, with the Catholic ceremony having been preformed by his Priest friend and having been disapproved of by the Nazi regime.  Indeed, the Priest was under suspicion from the authorities.  His wife was pregnant at the time of his death.

West Germany honored him after the war with the naming of a ship and other military fixtures for him, although they were later reversed when the honors rescinded due to his service in the Spanish Civil War. At least one street remains named for him.  His grave was destroyed by East German authorities with the destruction of a graveyard, but it was restored in 1991.

At the time of his death he had been appointed Inspector of Fighters, a ground role, in part because the Nazi regime felt that it didn't wish to risk his combat death due to publicity reasons.  It's interesting to speculate what rule he may have played, if any, in the July 1944 plot had he still been living, given his strong Catholic nature, something he shared with several of the plotters of that attempted coup.

The 2nd New Zealand Division captured the Italian Fort Capuzzo in the Commonwealth drive to relieve Tobruk.

Discussions with the Japanese legation continued.

The Japanese Ambassador and Mr. Kurusu called at the Secretary's apartment by appointment made at the request of the Ambassador. The Secretary said that he had called in the representatives of certain other governments concerned in the Pacific area and that there had been a discussion of the question of whether things (meaning Japanese peaceful pledges, et cetera) could be developed in such a way that there could be a relaxation to some extent of freezing.

The Secretary said that these representatives were interested in the sug gestion and there was a general feeling that the matter could all be settled if the Japanese could give us some satisfactory evidences that their intentions were peaceful.

The Secretary said that in discussing the situation with the representatives of these other countries he found that there had arisen in their minds the wine kind of misgivings that had troubled him in the course of the conversations with the Japanese Ambassador. He referred to the position in which the Japanese Government had left the Ambassador and the Secretary as they were talking of peace when it made its move last July into Indochina. He referred also to the mounting oil purchases by Japan last Spring when the conversations were in progress, to the fact that he had endured public criticism for permitting those shipments because he did not wish to prejudice a successful outcome to the conversations and to the fact that that oil was not used for normal civilian consumption.

The Secretary went on to say that the Japanese press which is adopting a threatening tone gives him no encouragement and that no Japanese statesmen are talking about a peaceful course, whereas in the American press advocacy of a peaceful course can always get a hearing. He asked why was there not some Japanese statesman backing the two Ambassadors by preaching peace. The Secretary pointed out that if the United States and other countries should see Japan coming along a peaceful course there would be no question about Japan's obtaining all the materials she desired; that the Japanese Government knows that.

The Secretary said that while no decisions were reached today in regard to the Japanese proposals he felt that we would consider helping Japan out on oil for civilian requirements only as soon as the Japanese Government could assert control of the situation in Japan as it relates to the policy of force and conquest. He said that if the Ambassador could give him any further assurances in regard to Japan's peaceful intentions it would help the Secretary in talking with senators and other persons in this country.

Mr. Kurusu said it was unfortunate that there had been a special session of the Diet at this time, as the efforts of the Government to obtain public support had brought out in sharp relief the abnormal state of the present temper of the Japanese people who had been affected by four years of war and by our freezing measures.

The Secretary asked to what extent in the Ambassador's opinion did the firebrand attitude prevail in the Japanese army. Mr. Kurusu said that it took a great deal of persuasion to induce the army to abandon a position once taken, but that both he and the Ambassador had been pleasantly surprised when the Japanese army acceded to their suggestion in regard to offering to withdraw the Japanese troops from southern Indochina. He said he thought this was an encouraging sign, but that nevertheless the situation was approaching an explosive point.

The Secretary asked whether it was not possible for a Japanese statesman now to come out and say that Japan wanted peace; that while there was much confusion in the world because of the war situation Japan would like to have a peace which she did not have to fight for to obtain and maintain; that the United States says it stands for such ideas; and that Japan might well ask the United States for a show?down on this question.

The Ambassador said he did not have the slightest doubt that Japan desired peace. He then cited the popular agitation in Japan following the conclusion, of the peace settlement with Russia in 1905, as pointing to a difficulty in the way of publicly backing a conciliatory course.

The Secretary asked whether there was any way to get Japanese statesmen to approach the question before us with real appreciation of the situation with which we are dealing including the question of finding a way to encourage the governments of other powers concerned in the Pacific area to reach some trade arrangement with Japan. He pointed out that Japan's Indochina move, if repeated, would further give a spurt to arming and thus undo all the work that he and the Ambassador had done. He suggested that if the United States and the other countries should supply Japan with goods in moderate amounts at the beginning those countries would be inclined to satisfy Japan more fully later on if and as Japan found ways in actual practice of demonstrating its peaceful intentions. He said that one move on Japan's part might kill dead our peace effort, whereas it would be easy to persuade the other countries to relax their export restrictions if Japan would be satisfied with gradual relaxation.

Mr. Kurusu said, that at best it would take some time to get trade moving. The Secretary replied that he understood this but that it would be difficult to get other countries to understand until Japan could convince those countries that it was committed to peaceful ways. Mr. Kurusu said that some immediate relief was necessary and that if the patient needed a thousand dollars to effect a cure an offer of three hundred dollars would not accomplish the purpose. The Secretary commented that if the Japanese Government was as weak as to need all that had been asked for, nothing was likely to save it.

Mr. Kurusu said that Japan's offer to withdraw its forces from southern Indochina would set a reverse movement in motion.

The Secretary said that the Japanese were not helping as they should help in the present situation in which they had got themselves but were expecting us to do the whole thing.

Mr. Kurusu asked what was the idea of the American Government.

The Secretary replied that although the Japanese proposal was addressed to the American Government he had thought it advisable to see whether the other countries would contribute and he found that they would like to move gradually. The effect of an arrangement between these countries and Japan would be electrifying by showing that Japan had committed herself to go along a peaceful course.

Mr. Kurusu asked what Japan could do. The Secretary replied that if, for example, he should say that he agreed to enter into a peaceful settlement provided that there should be occasional exceptions and qualifications he could not expect to find peaceful-minded nations interested.

The Secretary then asked whether his understanding was correct that the Japanese proposal was intended as a temporary step to help organize public opinion in Japan and that it was intended to continue the conversations looking to the conclusion of a comprehensive agreement. Mr. Kurusu said yes.

Mr. Kurusu asked whether the Secretary had any further suggestions. The Secretary replied that he did not have in mind any suggestions and that he did not know what amounts of exports the various countries would be, disposed to release to Japan. He said that Japan made the situation very difficult, for if Japan left her forces in Indochina, whether in the north, east, south or west, she would be able to move them over night, and that therefore this would not relieve the apprehensions of neighboring countries. The British, for example, would not be able to move one warship away from Singapore. .

The Ambassador argued that it would take many days to move troops from northern Indochina to southern Indochina, and he stated that the Japanese desired the troops in northern Indochina in order to bring about a settlement with China. He said that after the settlement of the China affair Japan promised to bring the troops out of Indochina altogether.

The Secretary emphasized again that he could not consider this, that also uneasiness would prevail as long as the troops remained in Indochina, and commented that Japan wanted the United States to do all the pushing toward bringing about a peaceful settlement; that they should get out of Indochina.

Mr. Kurusu observed that the Japanese Foreign Minister had told Ambassador Grew that we seemed to expect that all the concessions should be made by the Japanese side.

The Secretary rejoined that Mr. Kurusu had overlooked the fact that in July the Japanese had gone into Indochina. He added that the United States had remained from the first in the middle of the road, that it was the Japanese who had strayed away from the course of law and order, and that they should not have to be paid to come back to a lawful course.

Mr. Kurusu said that this country's denunciation of the commercial treaty had caused Japan to be placed in a tight corner.

The Secretary observed that Japan had cornered herself; that we had been preaching for the last nine years that militarism was sapping everybody and that if the world were to be plunged into another war there would not be much left of the people anywhere. He said that in 194 he had told Ambassador Saito that Japan was planning an overlordship in East Asia. The Secretary added that he had tried to persuade Hitler that participation by him in a peaceful course would assure him of what he needed. The Secretary said it was a pity that Japan could not do just a few small peaceful things to help tide over the situation.

Mr. Kurusu asked what the Secretary meant. The Secretary replied that the major portion of our fleet was being kept in the Pacific and yet Japan asked us not to help China. He sand we must continue to aid China. He said it was little enough that we were actually doing to help China. The Ambassador commented that our moral influence was enabling Chiang to hold out.

The Secretary said that a peaceful movement could be started in thirty or forty days by moving gradually, and yet Japan pushed everything it wanted all at once into its proposal. The Ambassador explained that Japan needed a quick settlement and that its psychological value would be great.

The Secretary said that he was discouraged, that he felt that he had rendered a real contribution when he had called in the representatives of the other countries, but that he could only go a certain distance. He said he thought nevertheless that if this matter should move in the right way peace would become infectious. He pointed also to the danger arising from blocking progress by injecting the China matter in the proposal, as the carrying out of such a point in, the Japanese proposal would effectually prevent the United States from ever successfully extending its good offices in a peace settlement between Japan and China. He said this could not be considered now.

There then ensued some further but inconclusive discussion of the troop situation in Indochina, the Secretary still standing for withdrawal, after which the Ambassador reverted to the desire of the Japanese Government to reach a quick settlement and asked whether we could not say what points in the Japanese proposal we would accept and what points we desired to have modified.

The Secretary emphasized that there was no way in which he could carry the whale burden and suggested that it would be helpful if the Japanese Government could spend a little time preaching peace. He said that if the Japanese could not wait until Monday before having his answer there was nothing he could do about it as he was obliged to confer again with the representatives of the other governments concerned after they had had an opportunity to consult with their governments. He repeated that we were doing our best, but emphasized that unless the Japanese were able to do a little there was no use in talking.

The Ambassador disclaimed any desire to press the Secretary too hard for an answer, agreed that the Secretary had always been most considerate in meeting with the Ambassador whenever an appointment had been requested, and said that the Japanese would be quite ready to wait until Monday.

The Secretary said he had in mind taking up with the Ambassador sometime a general and comprehensive program which we had been engaged in developing and which involved collaboration of other countries.

The Ambassador said that the Japanese had in mind negotiating a bilateral agreement with us to which other powers could subsequently give their adherence.

The U.S. Navy launched the USS Aaron Ward, a Gleaves class destroyer.  Her service would be brief, as she was sunk by the Japanese in 1943 off of Guadalcanal.

Wednesday November 19, 1941. British Commonwealth in Action.

It was a day for British news, albeit news spread all over the globe, just like the British Empire and Commonwealth.

HMAS Sydney

Off the coast of Australia the Australian light cruiser engaged the German auxiliary cruiser Komoran in surface action, something that people tend to imagine didn't occur during World War Two, but which in reality occurred a fair amount.  Both ships were so heavily damages that they were both lost.  The action occurred in the Indian Ocean off of the western coast of Australia.

The loss is a bit odd, however, in that the Sydney was sunk in the engagement but the Komoran had to be scuttled.  This is explained by the Komoran running as a disguised merchant ship and having the jump on the Syndney as its identity was about to be discovered.

It was an Australian tragedy.  All hands were lost from the over 600 man crew.

In North Africa, the British took Sidi Rezegh, ten miles south of besieged Tobruk.  On the same day Sir John Dill retired from his position as Chief of the General Staff and was replaced by Sir Alan Brooke.

Sir John Dill.

Dill was a remnant of the Chamberlin administration and was not a favorite of Churchill's.  Churchill promoted him uphill to remove him as Chief of Staff, at which point he was assigned to the British diplomatic mission in the United States, which he proved to be very adept at.  Well liked and well respected in the United States, he died of aplastic anemia in Washington in 1944.

Brooke would remain as Chief of the Imperial Staff through the rest of the war and into 1946.

Thursday November 13, 1941. The HMS Ark Royal Torpedoed

I have this on our companion blog for this date in 1941:

Today In Wyoming's History: November 13, 1941

1941  The United States Congress amends the Neutrality Act of 1935 to allow American merchant ships access to war zones.

This is a bit confusing as it's otherwise been noted here already, but I think that's explained by the two separate houses working on the legislation prior to this date.   This is the correct date.

The HMS Ark Royal, was torpedoed by the German U-boat U-81. She'd sink the following day.

While the torpedo strike by a U-boat was hardly the fault of the captain, he was tried and found guilty of two counts of negligence by a British naval board for failing to adequately control the damage, although it noted that he was primarily concerned with the safety of the crew.  He would go on to significant later service.

Thursday September 4, 1941. The Greer Incident.

On this day in 1941 the USS Greer chased the German U-boat U-652 for 3.5 hours before the U-boat finally fired torpedoes upon the destroyer.  The Greer then attacked the U-boat unsuccessfully, pursuing it for another 2 hours.

The presence of the submarine was made known to the Greer by a British aircraft which has sighted it, after which the Greer and two other American escorts closed on it, the Greer gaining sonar contact.  About two hours later a British aircraft attacked the submarine unsuccessfully.  Following that, the Greer continued to pursue it, expecting the arrival of a relief plane.

After about 3.5 hours of this, the submarine fired two torpedoes on the Greer, after which it went after the submarine with a depth charge run.  A British destroyer arrived but lost contact with the submarine.  The Greer then regained sonar contact and made another depth charge run on the submarine.

The matter was inaccurately reported at first in the United States as if the U-boat had simply fired upon the Greer.  An October report by the Navy to Congress in October would make it plain that the opposite was true.  Moreover, to a submarine of the era the combined effort by three surface ships to keep it submerged was a hostile act.  

By that time of the October report the Administration, declaring the German response "an act of piracy" had issued a "shoot on sight" order.  Effectively this meant that in waters patrolled by the U.S. Navy ships were authorized to attack U-boats immediately upon sighting them.  This was effectively an act of war on the part of the United States, although an undeclared one, to which Germany also did not respond with a declaration of war.

The entire episode revealed how close the US was to war already.  The Greer was effectively participating, but not shooting, in a Royal Navy effort to destroy the submarine. The U.S. was, of course, protecting convoys, so the Greer was acting in accordance with its instructions.  The U-boats ultimate reaction, having been depth charged by aircraft and pursued by a surface vessel, was not unreasonable in context, however.

On the same day, the Yankees took the American League Pennant, the earliest in the season that has ever occurred.

Thursday,, August 28, 1941. The Office of Price Administration Created, Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic Loses Favor, The Soviet Dunkirk, Slaughter at Kamianets-Podilsky

The Office of Price Administration was crated by the Roosevelt Administration to combat inflationary trends caused by the massive boost in employment caused by World War Two and the countries efforts to get ready for it.

Stalin issued  a Decree of Banishment exiling Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic which had previously been an ethnic German Soviet enclave.  

The VGASSR would be officially disestablished on September 7.  It'd been created in the 1920s when the Soviets still attempted o placate local ethnic groups on the hopes that they'd come to like the Communist regime. 

Volga Oblast in yellow at bottom of map.

The fate of Volga Germans, in the country since the time of Catherine the Great, proved to be grim. The war would permanently impact their position in the country and while conditions improved for them after the death of Stalin, many emigrated to Germany under the German Law of Return, a trend that reached near totality in the 1980s and 1990s.  By that time it had reached a state of pathos and irony in that the remaining Volga Germans retained much of their early rustic nature, while also having lost the ability to speak German to a very large degree.  Their retained cultural attributes tended to shock modern Germans, while their inability to speak the language of their ancestors made it difficult for them to fit seamlessly into modern Germany.

While his action is regarded as one of the great atrocities of the Stalin era, and the Soviets have since apologized for it, at least in this instance Stalin's paranoid brutality was not without some reason to fear that they'd become a fifth column during the war given that anti Communist sentiments were strong in various Soviet ethnic groups.  Having said that, large numbers of Volga Germans volunteered for Soviet service in the Red Army during the war, although their services were not always accepted or wanted.

Emigrating to North America, it should be noted, had been a trend in the region for decades, and was accelerated when the Imperial Russian Government in later years rescinded exemption for the population from conscription.  In an interesting development, resistance to conscription, which in some Anabaptist German communities in Imperial Russia lead to North American emigration, did not tend to repeat itself in North America.

Today in World War II History—August 28, 1941

The Soviet Navy suffered a serious disaster when it lost several ships to mines while evacuating Tallinn, Estonia, in what has been called the "Soviet Dunkirk".   The Germans occupied the city on this day.  Meanwhile, the Germans lost a U boat to capture in Iceland. The boat would be returned to service in the Royal Navy as the HMS Graph.

The Germans also slaughtered 23,600 Jews in Kamianets-Podilsky on this day, as their campaign of slaughter reached new regions in the Soviet Union.

Thursday July 21, 1921. A big stage.

Personnel of The Tercentenary Pageant, "The Pilgrim Spirit," Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1921.

The landing of the passengers of the Mayflower was apparently celebrated with a large pageant in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in July, 1921. These photographs were taken of the very large cast of that play.

Grand finale.

On the same day, David Lloyd George presented the British peace proposal to the Irish delegation.  It featured, as noted  yesterday, Dominion status for Ireland along the same lines as that had been granted to Canada and Australia, among others, with the United Kingdom retaining control of Irish foreign policy and military matters.

The Army Air Corps completed sinking the Ostfriesland.

In the Black Sea another ship went down, but due to a submarine, as the Soviet submarine Trotsky sank the Soviet ship Sawa as it attempted to make a run to defect to the Whites.  The Civil War was not yet over and sailors were changing their minds.

At some point, although I don't know when, somebody would have changed the name of the Trotsky, assuming she was still in service, as he'd fall out of favor with Stalin after Lenin's death and eventually a Soviet agent would put an ice pick into his head in Mexico.

Russell Stover and Christian Kent Nelson launched Nelson's I-Scream Bar, which later became famous as the Eskimo Pie, and which is now sold as Edy's Pie.  The chocolate covered ice cream bar was rebranded this year as Eskimo is regarded as a derogatory term.

People were experimenting with motor travel:

ALONZO’S DIARY ENTRY, 21 JULY 1921

Saturday July 5, 1941. The Ecuadorian-Peruvian War commences.

Border disputes between Ecuador and Peru erupted into full scale war.  Who started full scale combat is disputed, but the war generally went Peru's way during the month long fighting.

Ecuador was very outmatched in the fighting and has always maintained that it was invaded by Peru, which Peru has always denied.  At any rate, Peru's military was much more advanced than Ecuador's and this showed in the short war.

In 1942 Ecuador declared war on Japan, but not Germany, in order to improve its international position and in order to receive American military material support, which it did receive.  Peru declared war on the Axis powers in 1945.

The countries would fight two more border wars in the 20th Century.

This war was the first South American war to feature paratroopers, which Peru used in the war.

The Battle of Damour commenced in Lebanon. Damour was the French seat of government in Lebanon and is located to the south of Beirut.  The battle was fought principally by Australians on the British side.

On the same day, Auchinleck assumed his duties as the British Commander in Chief in the Middle East.

Auchinleck would be initially successful but would prove to be one of several British commanders in the Middle East who was unable to bring about a British victory.  He achieved early success against the Africa Korps after being assigned as CoC in the Middle East, but then suffered setbacks that Churchill felt merited a replacement.

Auchinleck had a major role in preparing the British Empire in that he modernized the Indian Army between the wars.  During that time, he met and married American Jessie Stewart who was regarded as a great beauty. She was 16 years his junior.

Jessie would in turn have an odd role in the British command during the war in that she commenced an affair with Auchinleck's friend, RAF commander Sir Richard Peirse.  The affair caused Peirce to be regarded as neglecting his duties and caused him to be recalled to the UK, with Mrs. Auchinleck going with him.  Peirse would be accordingly retired during the war, his career ending in a type of disgrace during the war itself.  Auchinleck never recovered from the divorce and carried Jesse's photograph in his wallet for the rest of his life,   That he genuinely adored Jesse is clear, and that the divorce also changed him is clear, but there remains a scholarly debate on whether Auchinleck himself my have had homosexual inclinations.  His biographer maintains that these rumors are false, but another writer asserts the opposite, citing "moral aversion" for Montgomery's inability to get along with him.

And as detailed here, German U-boats began patrolling in the Arctic.

Today in World War II History—July 5, 1941

Saturday, June 21, 1941. Revealing open secrets

On this day in 1941 mine layers of the German navy, the Kreigsmarine, deployed from Finland's Archipelago  Sea and deployed to large marine minefields across the Gulf of Finland, followed by the Luftwaffe mining Leningrad's harbor that night. 

While German troops would not commence operations until 0300 the following morning, Operation Barbarossa was effectively on, although Finland itself would not commence offensive operations until July, and after the Soviets had conducted air operations against Finnish targets.

Finnish troops in July 1941.

Earlier in the day in 1941 Hitler informed Mussolini that Germany would invade the Soviet Union the following day, although he claimed that the decision would be held until 7:00 p.m. Berlin time.  In doing so, he stated:

I earnestly beg you, therefore, to refrain, above all, from making any explanation to your Ambassador at Moscow, for there is no absolute guarantee that our coded reports cannot be decoded. I, too, shall wait until the last moment to have my own Ambassador informed of the decisions reached

Mussolini seems to have already known somehow, probably due to Italian intelligence and certainly on troop movements, that a German invasion of the Soviet Union was immanent.  None the less, one can only image what he must have felt knowing that his only solid ally was about to commit to an invasion that, historically, had a bad chance of working out.

Italy would also sustain a loss of its consulates in the US, a reprisal for it joining Germany in closing its, which was in reaction to the US closing of German consulates.

On the same day, the Vichy forces were defeated at Damascus.  Vichy, however, also limited its Jewish university population to 3% of the overall total.

Churchill relieved Wavell and replaced him with Auchinleck.  Wavell went to India, replacing Auchinleck there.

Tuesday, June 21, 1921. Sinking

On this date in 1921, the U.S. Army Air Corps and the U.S. Navy sunk the captured German U117 as a demonstration of air power.

The target U117.

In an event much more impressive then, than now, the undefended unmanned submarine was sunk by three Curtis flying boats.

Curtis F5L flying boat of the type used in the demonstration.

While submarines would prove to be very vulnerable to aircraft, the utility of a demonstration in which the boat could not react was questionable.

The State of Wisconsin passed an equal rights bill affording women the same rights as men in many areas.  It was the first such bill in the United States.

June 13, 1941. The Lutzow damaged, the Resistance receives supplies from the air, Vichy arrests Jewish residents

The Royal Air Force commenced dropping supplies to the French Resistance.

Today in World War II History—June 13, 1941

The Australians defeated the French in the Battle of Jezzine in Lebanon.  

On the same day, the French announced the commencement of a campaign to arrest 12,000 Jews for "plotting to hinder Franco-German cooperation".

In spite of a Luftwaffe escort, the RAF torpedoes and damages the German battleship Lutzow, which then returns to port.

The Lutzow torpedoed by Coastal Command

The Lutzow would return to service and end up being sort of emblematic of the German surface navy.  In 1943 she was involved in a failed effort to intercept a convoy off of Norway which so enraged Hitler that he ordered the surface navy broken up for scrap. That event lead Admiral Raeder to resign his position.  Raeder therefore missed the last two years of the war, but was convicted of war crimes in any event, serving prison time until 1955.

His successor, Karl Doenitz, convinced Hitler not to scrap the navy, and the Lutzow went on to serve for the remainder of the war, subsequently being damaged by the RAF in an air raid, and then her fate remained undetermined for years.  It turned out that the ship had been sunk as a target by the Soviets in 1947.

The name of the ship itself is interesting in that the ship had originally been named the Deutschland, after the nation whose service she was in, but Hitler had required the name to be changed.  The German navy had a cruiser by the name of Lutzow which was slightly newer than the Deutschland.  Indeed, the ship was incomplete when the Soviets asked to buy her in 1940 and she was, bizarrely, sold to the USSR.

May 27, 1941. An Unrestricted Emergency.

President Roosevelt delivering a fireside chat.  His address of May 27, 1941, obtained the largest share of a radio audience, 65%, of all time.

President Franklin Roosevelt, in his 17th Fireside Chat, declared an unlimited national emergency on this day in 1941.

I am speaking tonight from the White House in the presence of the Governing Board of the Pan American Union, the Canadian Minister, and their families. The members of this Board are the Ambassadors and Ministers of the American Republics in Washington. It is appropriate that I do this for now, as never before, the unity of the American Republics is of supreme importance to each and every one of us and to the cause of freedom throughout the world. Our future independence is bound up with the future independence of all of our sister Republics. 

The pressing problems that confront us are military and naval problems. We cannot afford to approach them from the point of view of wishful thinkers or sentimentalists. What we face is cold, hard fact. 

The first and fundamental fact is that what started as a European war has developed, as the Nazis always intended it should develop, into a world war for world domination. 

Adolf Hitler never considered the domination of Europe as an end in itself. European conquest was but a step toward ultimate goals in all the other continents. It is unmistakably apparent to all of us that, unless the advance of Hitlerism is forcibly checked now, the Western Hemisphere will be within range of the Nazi weapons of destruction. 

For our own defense we have accordingly undertaken certain obviously necessary measures: 

First, we have joined in concluding a series of agreements with all the other American Republics. This further solidified our hemisphere against the common danger. 

And then, a year ago, we launched, and are successfully carrying out, the largest armament production program we have ever undertaken. 

We have added substantially to our splendid Navy, and we have mustered our manpower to build up a new Army which is already worthy of the highest traditions of our military service. 

We instituted a policy of aid for the democracies -- the Nations which have fought for the continuation of human liberties. 

This policy had its origin in the first month of the war, when I urged upon the Congress repeal of the arms embargo provisions in the old Neutrality Law, and in that message of September 3, 1939, I said, "I should like to be able to offer the hope that the shadow over the world might swiftly pass. I cannot. The facts compel my stating, with candor, that darker periods may lie ahead." 

In the subsequent months, the shadows deepened and lengthened. And the night spread over Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. 

In June, 1940, Britain stood alone, faced by the same machine of terror which had overwhelmed her allies. Our Government rushed arms to meet her desperate needs. 

In September, 1940, an agreement was completed with Great Britain for the trade of fifty destroyers for eight important offshore bases. 

And in March, 1941, the Congress passed the Lend-Lease Bill and an appropriation of seven billion dollars to implement it. This law realistically provided for material aid "for the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States." 

Our whole program of aid for the democracies has been based on hard-headed concern for our own security and for the kind of safe and civilized world in which we wish to live. Every dollar of material that we send helps to keep the dictators away from our own hemisphere, and every day that they are held off gives us time to build more guns and tanks and planes and ships. 

We have made no pretense about our own self-interest in this aid. Great Britain understands it -- and so does Nazi Germany. 

And now -- after a year -- Britain still fights gallantly, on a "far-flung battle line." We have doubled and redoubled our vast production, increasing, month by month, our material supply of the tools of war for ourselves and for Britain and for China- and eventually for all the democracies. 

The supply of these tools will not fail -- it will increase. 

With greatly augmented strength, the United States and the other American Republics now chart their course in the situation of today. 

Your Government knows what terms Hitler, if victorious, would impose. They are, indeed, the only terms on which he would accept a so-called "negotiated" peace. 

And, under those terms, Germany would literally parcel out the world -- hoisting the swastika itself over vast territories and populations, and setting up puppet governments of its own choosing, wholly subject to the will and the policy of a conqueror. 

To the people of the Americas, a triumphant Hitler would say, as he said after the seizure of Austria, and as he said after Munich, and as he said after the seizure of Czechoslovakia: "I am now completely satisfied. This is the last territorial readjustment I will seek." And he would of course add: "All we want is peace, friendship, and profitable trade relations with you in the New World." 

Were any of us in the Americas so incredibly simple and forgetful as to accept those honeyed words, what would then happen? 

Those in the New World who were seeking profits would be urging that all that the dictatorships desired was "peace." They would oppose toil and taxes for more American armament. And meanwhile, the dictatorships would be forcing the enslaved peoples of their Old World conquests into a system they are even now organizing to build a naval and air force intended to gain and hold and be master of the Atlantic and the Pacific as well. 

They would fasten an economic stranglehold upon our several Nations. Quislings would be found to subvert the governments in our Republics; and the Nazis would back their fifth columns with invasion, if necessary. 

No, I am not speculating about all this. I merely repeat what is already in the Nazi book of world conquest. They plan to treat the Latin American Nations as they are now treating the Balkans. They plan then to strangle the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada. 

The American laborer would have to compete with slave labor in the rest of the world. Minimum wages, maximum hours? Nonsense! Wages and hours would be fixed by Hitler. The dignity and power and standard of living of the American worker and farmer would be gone. Trade unions would become historical relics, and collective bargaining a joke. 

Farm income? What happens to all farm surpluses without any foreign trade? The American farmer would get for his products exactly what Hitler wanted to give. The farmer would face obvious disaster and complete regimentation. 

Tariff walls -- Chinese walls of isolation -- would be futile. Freedom to trade is essential to our economic life. We do not eat all the food we can produce; and we do not burn all the oil we can pump; we do not use all the goods we can manufacture. It would not be an American wall to keep Nazi goods out; it would be a Nazi wall to keep us in. 

The whole fabric of working life as we know it -- business and manufacturing, mining and agriculture -- all would be mangled and crippled under such a system. Yet to maintain even that crippled independence would require permanent conscription of our manpower; it would curtail the funds we could spend on education, on housing, on public works, on flood control, on health and, instead, we should be permanently pouring our resources into armaments; and, year in and year out, standing day and night watch against the destruction of our cities. 

Yes, even our right of worship would be threatened. The Nazi world does not recognize any God except Hitler; for the Nazis are as ruthless as the Communists in the denial of God. What place has religion which preaches the dignity of the human being, the majesty of the human soul, in a world where moral standards are measured by treachery and bribery and fifth columnists? Will our children, too, wander off, goose-stepping in search of new gods?

We do not accept, we will not permit, this Nazi "shape of things to come." It will never be forced upon us, if we act in this present crisis with the wisdom and the courage which have distinguished our country in all the crises of the past. 

Today, the Nazis have taken military possession of the greater part of Europe. In Africa they have occupied Tripoli and Libya, and they are threatening Egypt, the Suez Canal, and the Near East. But their plans do not stop there, for the Indian Ocean is the gateway to the farther East. 

They also have the armed power at any moment to occupy Spain and Portugal; and that threat extends not only to French North Africa and the western end of the Mediterranean but it extends also to the Atlantic fortress of Dakar, and to the island outposts of the New World -- the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. 

The Cape Verde Islands are only seven hours' distance from Brazil by bomber or troop -- carrying planes. They dominate shipping routes to and from the South Atlantic. 

The war is approaching the brink of the Western Hemisphere itself. It is coming very close to home. 

Control or occupation by Nazi forces of any of the islands of the Atlantic would jeopardize the immediate safety of portions of North and South America, and of the island possessions of the United States, and, therefore, the ultimate safety of the continental United States itself. 

Hitler's plan of world domination would be near its accomplishment today, were it not for two factors: One is the epic resistance of Britain, her colonies, and the great Dominions, fighting not only to maintain the existence of the Island of Britain, but also to hold the Near East and Africa. The other is the magnificent defense of China, which will, I have reason to believe, increase in strength. All of these, together, are preventing the Axis from winning control of the seas by ships and aircraft. 

The Axis Powers can never achieve their objective of world domination unless they first obtain control of the seas. That is their supreme purpose today; and to achieve it, they must capture Great Britain. 

They could then have the power to dictate to the Western Hemisphere. No spurious argument, no appeal to sentiment, no false pledges like those given by Hitler at Munich, can deceive the American people into believing that he and his Axis partners would not, with Britain defeated, close in relentlessly on this hemisphere of ours. 

But if the Axis Powers fail to gain control of the seas, then they are certainly defeated. Their dreams of world domination will then go by the board; and the criminal leaders who started this war will suffer inevitable disaster. 

Both they and their people know this- and they and their people are afraid. That is why they are risking everything they have, conducting desperate attempts to break through to the command of the ocean. Once they are limited to a continuing land war, their cruel forces of occupation will be unable to keep their heel on the necks of the millions of innocent, oppressed peoples on the continent of Europe; and in the end, their whole structure will break into little pieces. And let us remember, the wider the Nazi land effort, the greater is their ultimate danger. 

We do not forget the silenced peoples. The masters of Germany have marked these silenced peoples and their children's children for slavery- those, at least, who have not been assassinated or escaped to free soil. But those people -- spiritually unconquered: Austrians, Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians, Frenchmen, Greeks, Southern Slavs -- yes, even those Italians and Germans who themselves have been enslaved -- will prove to be a powerful force in the final disruption of the Nazi system. 

All freedom- meaning freedom to live, and not freedom to conquer and subjugate other peoples-depends on freedom of the seas. All of American history—North, Central, and South American history -- has been inevitably tied up with those words, "freedom of the seas." 

Since 1799, 142 years ago, when our infant Navy made the West Indies and the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico safe for American ships; since 1804 and 1805 when we made all peaceful commerce safe from the depredations of the Barbary pirates; since the War of 1812, which was fought for the preservation of sailors' rights; since 1867, when our sea power made it possible for the Mexicans to expel the French Army of Louis Napoleon, we have striven and fought in defense of freedom of the seas for our own shipping, for the commerce of our sister Republics, for the right of all Nations to use the highways of world trade -- and for our own safety. 

During the first World War we were able to escort merchant ships by the use of small cruisers, gunboats, and destroyers; and that type, called a convoy, was effective against submarines. In this second World War, however, the problem is greater. It is different because the attack on the freedom of the seas is now fourfold: first -- the improved submarine; second -- the much greater use of the heavily armed raiding cruiser or the hit-and-run battleship; third -- the bombing airplane, which is capable of destroying merchant ships seven or eight hundred miles from its nearest base; and fourth -- the destruction of merchant ships in those ports of the world that are accessible to bombing attack. 

The Battle of the Atlantic now extends from the icy waters of the North Pole to the frozen continent of the Antarctic. Throughout this huge area, there have been sinkings of merchant ships in alarming and increasing numbers by Nazi raiders or submarines. There have been sinkings even of ships carrying neutral flags. There have been sinkings in the South Atlantic, off West Africa and the Cape Verde Islands; between the Azores and the islands off the American coast; and between Greenland and Iceland. Great numbers of these sinkings have been actually within the waters of the Western Hemisphere itself. 

The blunt truth is this -- and I reveal this with the full knowledge of the British Government: the present rate of Nazi sinkings of merchant ships is more than three times as high as the capacity of British shipyards to replace them; it is more than twice the combined British and American output of merchant ships today. 

We can answer this peril by two simultaneous measures: first, by speeding up and increasing our own great shipbuilding program; and second, by helping to cut down the losses on the high seas. 

Attacks on shipping off the very shores of land which we are determined to protect, present an actual military danger to the Americas. And that danger has recently been heavily underlined by the presence in Western Hemisphere waters of a Nazi battleship of great striking power. 

You remember that most of the supplies for Britain go by a northerly route, which comes close to Greenland and the nearby island of Iceland. Germany's heaviest attack is on that route. Nazi occupation of Iceland or bases in Greenland would bring the war close to our own continental shores, because those places are stepping-stones to Labrador and Newfoundland, to Nova Scotia, yes, to the northern United States itself, including the great industrial centers of the North, the East, and the Middle West. 

Equally, the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands, if occupied or controlled by Germany, would directly endanger the freedom of the Atlantic and our own American physical safety. Under German domination those islands would become bases for submarines, warships, and airplanes raiding the waters that lie immediately off our own coasts and attacking the shipping in the South Atlantic. They would provide a springboard for actual attack against the integrity and the independence of Brazil and her neighboring Republics. 

I have said on many occasions that the United States is mustering its men and its resources only for purposes of defense- only to repel attack. I repeat that statement now. But we must be realistic when we use the word "attack"; we have to relate it to the lightning speed of modern warfare. 

Some people seem to think that we are not attacked until bombs actually drop in the streets of New York or San Francisco or New Orleans or Chicago. But they are simply shutting their eyes to the lesson that we must learn from the fate of every Nation that the Nazis have conquered. 

The attack on Czechoslovakia began with the conquest of Austria. The attack on Norway began with the occupation of Denmark. The attack on Greece began with occupation of Albania and Bulgaria. The attack on the Suez Canal began with the invasion of the Balkans and North Africa, and the attack on the United States can begin with the domination of any base which menaces our security—north or south. 

Nobody can foretell tonight just when the acts of the dictators will ripen into attack on this hemisphere and us. But we know enough by now to realize that it would be suicide to wait until they are in our front yard. 

When your enemy comes at you in a tank or a bombing plane, if you hold your fire until you see the whites of his eyes, you will never know what hit you. Our Bunker Hill of tomorrow may be several thousand miles from Boston. 

Anyone with an atlas, anyone with a reasonable knowledge of the sudden striking force of modern war, knows that it is stupid to wait until a probable enemy has gained a foothold from which to attack. Old-fashioned common sense calls for the use of a strategy that will prevent such an enemy from gaining a foothold in the first place. 

We have, accordingly, extended our patrol in North and South Atlantic waters. We are steadily adding more and more ships and planes to that patrol. It is well known that the strength of the Atlantic Fleet has been greatly increased during the past year, and that it is constantly being built up. 

These ships and planes warn of the presence of attacking raiders, on the sea, under the sea, and above the sea. The danger from these raiders is, of course, greatly lessened if their location is definitely known. We are thus being forewarned. We shall be on our guard against efforts to establish Nazi bases closer to our hemisphere. 

The deadly facts of war compel Nations, for simple self-preservation, to make stern choices. It does not make sense, for instance, to say, "I believe in the defense of all the Western Hemisphere," and in the next breath to say, "I will not fight for that defense until the enemy has landed on our shores." If we believe in the independence and the integrity of the Americas, we must be willing to fight, to fight to defend them just as much as we would to fight for the safety of our own homes. 

It is time for us to realize that the safety of American homes even in the center of this our own country has a very definite relationship to the continued safety of homes in Nova Scotia or Trinidad or Brazil. 

Our national policy today, therefore, is this: 

First, we shall actively resist wherever necessary, and with all our resources, every attempt by Hitler to extend his Nazi domination to the Western Hemisphere, or to threaten it. We shall actively resist his every attempt to gain control of the seas. We insist upon the vital importance of keeping Hitlerism away from any point in the world which could be used or would be used as a base of attack against the Americas. 

Second, from the point of view of strict naval and military necessity, we shall give every possible assistance to Britain and to all who, with Britain, are resisting Hitlerism or its equivalent with force of arms. Our patrols are helping now to insure delivery of the needed supplies to Britain. All additional measures necessary to deliver the goods will be taken. Any and all further methods or combination of methods, which can or should be utilized, are being devised by our military and naval technicians, who, with me, will work out and put into effect such new and additional safeguards as may be needed. 

I say that the delivery of needed supplies to Britain is imperative. I say that this can be done; it must be done; and it will be done. 

To the other American Nations- twenty Republics and the Dominion of Canada—I say this: the United States does not merely propose these purposes, but is actively engaged today in carrying them out. 

I say to them further: you may disregard those few citizens of the United States who contend that we are disunited and cannot act. 

There are some timid ones among us who say that we must preserve peace at any price- lest we lose our liberties forever. 

To them I say this: never in the history of the world has a Nation lost its democracy by a successful struggle to defend its democracy. We must not be defeated by the fear of the very danger which we are preparing to resist. Our freedom has shown its ability to survive war, but our freedom would never survive surrender. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." 

There is, of course, a small group of sincere, patriotic men and women whose real passion for peace has shut their eyes to the ugly realities of international banditry and to the need to resist it at all costs. I am sure they are embarrassed by the sinister support they are receiving from the enemies of democracy in our midst the Bundists, the Fascists, and Communists, and every group devoted to bigotry and racial and religious intolerance. It is no mere coincidence that all the arguments put forward by these enemies of democracy -- all their attempts to confuse and divide our people and to destroy public confidence in our Government -- all their defeatist forebodings that Britain and democracy are already beaten -- all their selfish promises that we can "do business" with Hitler -- all of these are but echoes of the words that have been poured out from the Axis bureaus of propaganda. Those same words have been used before in other countries -- to scare them, to divide them, to soften them up. Invariably, those same words have formed the advance guard of physical attack. 

Your Government has the right to expect of all citizens that they take part in the common work of our common defense take loyal part from this moment forward. 

I have recently set up the machinery for civilian defense. It will rapidly organize, locality by locality. It will depend on the organized effort of men and women everywhere. All will have opportunities and responsibilities to fulfill. 

Defense today means more than merely fighting. It means morale, civilian as well as military; it means using every available resource; it means enlarging every useful plant. It means the use of a greater American common sense in discarding rumor and distorted statement. It means recognizing, for what they are, racketeers and fifth columnists, who are the incendiary bombs in this country of the moment. 

All of us know that we have made very great social progress in recent years. We propose to maintain that progress and strengthen it. When the Nation is threatened from without, however, as it is today, the actual production and transportation of the machinery of defense must not be interrupted by disputes between capital and capital, labor and labor, or capital and labor. The future of all free enterprise -- of capital and labor alike -- is at stake.

This is no time for capital to make, or be allowed to retain, excess profits. Articles of defense must have undisputed right of way in every industrial plant in the country. 

A Nation-wide machinery for conciliation and mediation of industrial disputes has been set up. That machinery must be used promptly -- and without stoppage of work. Collective bargaining will be retained, but the American people expect that impartial recommendations of our Government conciliation and mediation services will be followed both by capital and by labor. 

The overwhelming majority of our citizens expect their Government to see that the tools of defense are built; and for the very purpose of preserving the democratic safeguards of both labor and management, this Government is determined to use all of its power to express the will of its people, and to prevent interference with the production of materials essential to our Nation's security. 

Today the whole world is divided between human slavery and human freedom—between pagan brutality and the Christian ideal. 

We choose human freedom—which is the Christian ideal. 

No one of us can waver for a moment in his courage or his faith. 

We will not accept a Hitler-dominated world. And we will not accept a world, like the postwar world of the 1920's, in which the seeds of Hitlerism can again be planted and allowed to grow. 

We will accept only a world consecrated to freedom of speech and expression—freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—freedom from want—and freedom from terror. 

Is such a world impossible of attainment? 

Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Emancipation Proclamation, and every other milestone in human progress -- all were ideals which seemed impossible of attainment -- and yet they were attained. 

As a military force, we were weak when we established our independence, but we successfully stood off tyrants, powerful in their day, tyrants who are now lost in the dust of history. 

Odds meant nothing to us then. Shall we now, with all our potential strength, hesitate to take every single measure necessary to maintain our American liberties? 

Our people and our Government will not hesitate to meet that challenge. 

As the President of a united and determined people, I say solemnly: 

We reassert the ancient American doctrine of freedom of the seas. 

We reassert the solidarity of the twenty-one American Republics and the Dominion of Canada in the preservation of the independence of the hemisphere. 

We have pledged material support to the other democracies of the world -- and we will fulfill that pledge. 

We in the Americas will decide for ourselves whether, and when, and where, our American interests are attacked or our security is threatened.

We are placing our armed forces in strategic military position. 

We will not hesitate to use our armed forces to repel attack. 

We reassert our abiding faith in the vitality of our constitutional Republic as a perpetual home of freedom, of tolerance, and of devotion to the word of God. 

Therefore, with profound consciousness of my responsibilities to my countrymen and to my country's cause, I have tonight issued a proclamation that an unlimited national emergency exists and requires the strengthening of our defense to the extreme limit of our national power and authority. 

The Nation will expect all individuals and all groups to play their full parts, without stint, and without selfishness, and without doubt that our democracy will triumphantly survive. 

I repeat the words of the signers of the Declaration of Independence -- that little band of patriots, fighting long ago against overwhelming odds, but certain, as we are now, of ultimate victory: "With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

The US was now really rapidly rolling towards war with the Germans having issued what amounted to a warning only days prior that US escort actions were an act of war.  German restraint, oddly enough, was keeping a full declared war from breaking out as at this point the Germans were still afraid of what that would mean, and moreover, were getting ready to attack the Soviet Union.  Hitler had officially taken the position that Germany would not enter into a war with the US until the Soviet Union was defeated, something he was confident would shortly occur.

On this day in 1941 the Bismarck was sunk by the Royal Navy off of Ireland.

Today in World War II History—May 27, 1941

The end of the Bismarck

The story is literally famous in story and song, and has been made into movies as well.  It was a real victory for the Royal Navy.

It was also an airborne victory as British torpedo bombers, haplessly obsolete biplanes at the time, had damages the ships rudder the day prior, and the day prior to that its location had been spotted by a Catalina flying out of Northern Ireland, with the spotting done by a U.S. Navy officer on a training assignment to the Royal Navy.

The Bismarck and Prinz Eugen had broken out into the North Atlantic to act as surface raiders, a threat the British took seriously, as they needed to, but which was frankly an odd use for the small battleship.  Indeed, the enter episode was an anachronistic.

Surface raiding had been done extensively in World War One and would be done in World War Two as well, in much the same fashion.  But advances in radar and the development of long range aircraft, and indeed aircraft alone, we're rapidly making it a thing of the past.  The engagement that brought the Bismarck to its end in some ways closed the episode out, showing that the ship could not run from a concentrated air and sea search.  As the entire event was mere months away from Pearl Harbor, the obvious final dominance of aircraft was about to occur.

Indeed, sometimes missed by those who look back on the Battle of the Atlantic, the British were about to deploy the first Escort Carrier, a class of ship that would make submarine attacks much riskier.

While the battle was a victory for the British, on the same day the British Army reported Crete lost and recommended evacuation. The British would temporarily halt German advances on the island in the Battle of 42nd Street, fought this day, but the obvious end was in sight.

The British took the last Italian position in Ethiopia, thereby conclusively ending the Italian presence in that region.  They lost, however, Halfaya Pass in Libya to the Germans. They were advancing on Baghdad.