Churchill sends a personal letter to Cvetkovic telling him that Hitler and Mussolini faced certain defeat. If Yugoslavia stooped to the fate of Romania, or committed the crime of Bulgaria and became accomplice in the attempted assassination of Greece, her ruin would be certain and irreparable.
Italian Army chaplains climb Monastery Hill under a flag of truce, trying to arrange a cease-fire in order to bury the many dead of the Puglie and Bari Divisions which cover the slopes. The Greeks refuse when the Italians cannot guarantee that the cessation of hostilities will apply to the entire front of the offensive. Fighting in the diminishing Italian Primavera Offensive continues on 22 March 1941 despite an Italian request for a temporary truce. The Puglia and Bari Divisions have lost thousands of men on the slopes of Monastery Hill in the center of the line, and they remain unburied. Italian army chaplains approach the Greek defenders of Monastery Hill under a flag of truce, but the Greeks refuse because the Italians will not or cannot guarantee the cessation of hostilities along the entire front.
Convoy AN.22 (nine ships) departs Alexandria bound for Piraeus. The New Zealand 6th Infantry Brigade arrives at Piraeus.
An Axis convoy of four ships departs from Naples bound for Tripoli.
In East Africa, British troops overran the Italians in Babille Pass. British and Indian troops continued to hold Fort Dologorodoc in Eritrea, Italian East Africa despite repeated Italian counterattacks and shelling. At Keren, the Italians continue to launch fierce attacks to recover Fort Dologorodoc, the fortress to the right of the Dongolaas Gorge. The British troops holding Fort Dologorodoc despite these attacks have got to be wondering why, when the Italians are barely fighting anywhere else, here they are acting like the future of Italy itself depends on this one fort. In the advance west of Jijiga the Allied forces overrun another defensive position at the Babile Pass. Elsewhere, in Abyssinia, Italian troops declared Harar an open city. Further west, Belgian colonial troops occupy Gambela.
The British Minister passes on to London the contents of the secret sections of the Yugoslav agreement to join the Axis. They include opt out clauses so that Yugoslavia does not have to give military assistance to any other Axis power. Yugoslavia would not be required to come into the war against Greece. The opt out clause could be made public if the Yugoslavs thought it necessary ‘for compelling domestic reasons’ such as to calm any unrest about joining the Axis.
Britain agreed to allow American ships to deliver emergency flour to Vichy France. The United States announced today it would send $1,000,000 worth of flour to the short-rationed people of unoccupied France as a gift and informed quarters said the shipments would be a trial by the British of the blockade. This was taken to mean if no benefit accrues to Germany from the shipments, the British might permit additional food to go to the territory governed by Vichy. On that point, however, the British embassy issued a statement saying the British government’s agreement to the shipments did not “imply that under present conditions they would be prepared to issue navicerts for the import into France of other supplies.”
Diplomatic sources said early today if the Turks are forced to fight Germany, now established on their frontier with Bulgaria, Soviet Russia will give Turkey the same help she is giving China. (Russian aid for China has been primarily in supplies.) “This, these sources said, will be the meaning of a common Turkish- Russian declaration reaffirming their treaty of friendship and non-aggression. They said they expected it would be made in general terms within the next few days. The declaration, it is believed, will be published in Moscow and not be signed formally because of the existence already of a non-aggression pact between the two countries, they added.
Informed sources said today that German authorities had indicated that Jay Allen, American newspaper man, would be imprisoned for at least two months on a charge of illegally crossing the demarcation line between the occupied and unoccupied zones of France.
U.S. Navy Captain Thomas C. Kinkaid, naval attaché at the U. S. embassy in Rome for 2 years, said on his arrival home today that conditions in Italy during the past two months had become “much worse.” He meant, he added, that the acquiring of food and ammunition was becoming more difficult and that Italy was hard hit.
Edward Heath, the future British Prime Minister (1970–1974), was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Regiment of Artillery.
HMS Ark Royal re-establishes air patrols in the hope of relocating Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. During the day a catapult malfunction destroys a Fairey Swordfish; flinging the fuselage into the sea ahead of the carrier. Unable to stop, Ark Royal ran over the Swordfish and is overhead when the aircraft’s depth charges detonate. Ark Royal needs to return to Gibraltar for repairs.
Marshal Petain signs a new law authorizing the construction of a Trans-Sahara railway. The work is done by all who had been interned: former Spanish Republican soldiers, Poles, Czechs, Greeks and Jews (See May 1941).
Firefighting men and equipment are sent from all over the southwest of Great Britain to relieve Plymouth’s exhausted firemen. “They are brave people.” That was the simple tribute paid to bomb-shattered Plymouth today by a fireman who worked through the hours of devastation at Drake’s old port which German bombs made a city of fire and destruction Thursday and Friday nights. “When I was firefighting at Coventry,” he declared, “I thought ‘Here are England’s bravest,’ but believe me Plymouth certainly can take it.” “While bombs were raining down,” continued the auxiliary fire service man who was rushed to the raided port for duty during the second attack, “I saw women rush to shelters with babies in their arms. One grandmother snatched a baby from its mother’s breast, ran to a cupboard beneath a stairs, and gave the baby the shelter of her own body. The mother also took shelter and although their house was destroyed, all three were rescued unhurt.”
Plymouth has been devastated by two nights of Luftwaffe attacks. The entire region sends fire equipment and men to assist with recovery efforts. In addition, enlisted sailors from the ships in the harbor clear the streets and fill in bomb craters. Visiting Prime Minister Robert Menzies leaves Plymouth and visits nearby Devonport, but is denied entrance to Plymouth itself:
“Cannot enter city of Plymouth today, public being excluded because of delayed action bombs. Hear that the Astor house [mayor of Plymouth], where we were to stay, was bombed!”
The first production Beaufighter Mark IIF night fighter, R2270, rolls out of the factory and makes its maiden flight. It has dihedral tailplanes, 1,280 hp Merlin XX engines, and is equipped with AI Mark IV radar. It will serve with RCAF No. 406 Squadron.
RAF Bomber Command: Day of 22 March 1941
6 Blenheims on coastal sweep. 1 aircraft attacked a convoy off Holland. No aircraft lost.
It is a very bad day for the British on Malta. At 16:05, a large force of 10 Junkers Ju 88 bombers and 14 Bf 109 fighters cross the island from north to northeast. After bombing from St. Thomas Bay to Grand Harbour, they try to make their escape back to Sicily. The RAF manages to scramble eight Hurricanes to follow them — the most in months, perhaps ever. They attack the Germans about 35 miles north of Malta. A Hurricane and a Bf 109 shoot each other down, and four other Hurricanes disappear completely. No sign of them ever is seen again. The Germans lose another fighter during the raid, but the losses of the dwindling defending fighter force are terrible. Oblt. Mietusch of 7./JG 26 claims two fighters, so apparently, the missing fighters were shot down and didn’t simply get lost and run out of fuel (which is quite possible in such situations). Some accounts state that the British lose seven fighters.
Things are heating up in North Africa in more ways than one. The Luftwaffe attacks a column of 70 British vehicles driving north from Agedabia. Aerial reconnaissance reports British troops in the area of Sollum/Ghemines/Magrum. Three RAF Hurricanes make a strafing attack on Marada.
German battlecruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst were met at sea by torpedo boats Iltis and Jaguar on the 22nd. They arrived in Brest after sinking 22 ships of 115,662grt in the North and Central Atlantic. Escorted by destroyers (which meet them at 03:00) and the Luftwaffe, German heavy cruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst make port at Brest, France. Gneisenau quickly enters dry dock No. 8 for periodic maintenance. Scharnhorst, berthed alongside the Quai de la Ninon, also requires work on the superheater tubes in her boilers which will keep her in Brest until July. Admiral Lütjens begins packing his bags for his next command — that of the two-ship operation that will include battleship Bismarck in May.
Operation BERLIN has been a resounding success, with the two ships sinking or capturing 22 ships totaling about 115,000 tons. While covering 17,800 miles in 60 days, they have terrified Allied convoys throughout the Atlantic and kept the Royal Navy on high alert. If any German Atlantic cruiser proves the value to the Kriegsmarine of surface raiders to wreak destruction and spread out the Allied defenses, Operation Berlin is the one.
The British, despite occasional aircraft sightings of the two ships, remain oblivious of the fact that “Salmon and Gluckstein” (the British nickname for the two German ships, after a tobacco shop) have made port. The Admiralty diverts from another mission four destroyers based at Londonderry (HMS Jackal, Kashmir, Kelly, and Kipling) to search for them, to no avail. Aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is forced to divert to Gibraltar after a catapult malfunction leads to one of its own Fairey Swordfish depth charge exploding under the ship, damaging it. All of this illustrates the value to the Germans of having surface ships on the loose, a huge distraction for the Royal Navy.
The Gneisenau and Scharnhorst are far from the only German ships operating with impunity on the high seas. Kriegsmarine raider Kormoran is in the mid-Atlantic between Brazil and Africa at 2-30N, 25-00W when it spots empty 3552-ton British (Shell) tanker Agnita with gunfire. The British crew becomes POWs and the Kormoran scuttles the Agnita using a torpedo, 105 mm gunfire and demolition charges.
Destroyer HMS Belmont, which departed Liverpool on the 21st, was damaged in a collision with an unknown steamer fifteen miles northwest of Chicken Rock, the Isle of Man. The destroyer was repaired at Liverpool completing on 24 July.
During the night of 22/23 March, destroyers HMS Intrepid, HMS Icarus, and HMS Impulsive, escorted by destroyers HMS Fernie, HMS Tynedale, and HMS Cleveland, laid minefield GN in the English Channel.
British steamer St Fintan (495grt) was sunk by German bombing seven miles north, northwest of Smalls. The crew of nine was all lost.
Norwegian steamer Inger (1418grt) was damaged by German bombing ten miles south of Smalls. The steamer arrived at Plymouth on the 23rd.
British steamer Dashwood (2154grt) was damaged by German bombing in Barrow Deep.
Destroyers HMS Kelly, HMS Kipling, HMS Kashmir, and HMS Jackal, en route from Londonderry to Gibraltar, to escort damaged battleship HMS Malaya, were ordered to the area of Brest in an attempt to intercept the German battlecruisers. No contact was made and the destroyers returned to Plymouth.
Destroyers HMS Fearless, HMS Forester, HMS Velox, and HMS Wrestler departed Gibraltar to escort aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal and battlecruiser HMS Renown to Gibraltar, where they arrived on the 24th.
Italian battleship Veneto was transferred from Spezia to Naples.
Submarine HMS Rorqual arrived at Malta to embark mines for an operation northwest of Sicily. The submarine departed Malta that evening on the operation.
Tug Chabool (58grt) departed Aden on the 15th for Berbera, but never arrived. The tug was presumed to be sunk.
Convoy AN.22 of eight British and one Greek ship departed Alexandria escorted by destroyer HMAS Vendetta and sloop HMS Grimsby. Anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Coventry and destroyer HMS Hereward joined the escort on the 24th. The convoy arrived at Piraeus on the 25th.
President Roosevelt, aboard the yacht Potomac and under the protecting guns of the destroyer Benson, headed for the warm waters off the coast of Florida tonight for 10 days of fishing and relaxation. With the presidential party when it sailed Saturday were Secretary of Interior Harold L. Ickes and Attorney General Robert H. Jackson. The presidential yacht, anchored Friday near the entrance to Port Everglades, was tied up only a few hundred yards from a German merchantman flying the swastika. The ship was the Arauca, which sought haven in the Everglades in December, 1939, when it fled from the pursuing British cruiser Orion, and which now is held in port by maritime libels. The 44-man crew of the German ship generally displays only a small swastika upon the vessel’s stern, but when the Potomac and the Benson arrived they broke out a huge flag.
The Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously reported today the bill carrying the $7,000,000,000 fund President Roosevelt has requested to provide “defense articles for the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” The bill was approved by the House last Wednesday, 337 to 55. The bill approved by the House included, without change, every item contained in President Roosevelt’s message of March 12. In that form, it was unanimously recommended by the Senate subcommittee and the full committee on appropriations, and it was generally conceded that it would pass the Senate on Monday without alteration. Under these circumstances, if they work out, the bill will be flown to President Roosevelt on Tuesday or Wednesday so that he may sign it at sea aboard the Presidential yacht Potomac on which he is making a fishing cruise. Administration leaders attach considerable importance to this legislative form of giving actual substance to the Lend-Lease Act, on which the debate was strung out over weeks, in such a swift manner for psychological reasons which they believe will work against the morale of the people of the totalitarian states and for that of the people resisting Axis aggression.
The U.S. treasury estimated today that the government would buy about 300,000,000 gallons of gasoline during the next fiscal year, approximately double this year’s purchases. The figure did not include aviation gas and fuel oil obtained under navy marine delivery contracts. A tentative list of army, navy and other government requirements for next July, August and September alone called for 60,500,000 gallons, and officials said the list for those months still was growing.
The Opening Ceremony for the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State is held. It is still not complete — that will not happen until 1974 with the installation of a third powerhouse — but two small service generators go online today. These send 10,000 kilowatts of electricity into the Bonneville Power Administration’s transmission network. Some 10,000 attend the ceremony, which is two years ahead of schedule. The dam has been contemplated since William M. Clapp first proposed the idea in 1917, and it has been under construction since 6 December 1935. The small generators today are more for show than meaningful production — that will not begin until 4 October 1941, when the first of the dam’s 18 main generators go into service without notice to the public and begin commercial production. The power generated by this and other western dams (such as the Hoover Dam) will greatly aid the war effort.
Organized labor was called upon today by Senator Norris to condemn the practice of charging exorbitant initiation fees to workers seeking defense jobs. Labor was warned that unless this was stopped a hostile public opinion would result in the enactment of repressive laws that would injure all labor.
The defense production machinery of the Edgewater plant of the Aluminum Company of America will hum again next week. The 3,000 strikers will return Monday and the production of materials vital to the nation’s defense construction will be resumed as the result of a plea made by Sidney Hillman, associate director of the Office of Production Management, to officials of Local 16 of the Aluminum Workers of America and international officials of the C. I. O. union.
Actor James Stewart is inducted into the U.S. Army. James Stewart is inducted into the Army, becoming the first major American movie star to wear a military uniform in World War II. Stewart begins a long military career when he reports for induction at Fort McArthur, California. He begins his career as a private, serial number 0433210. Stewart still has to send his agent in Hollywood 10% of his $21 per month army salary. An accomplished private pilot, Stewart is heading for service in the U.S. Army Air Corps.
The United Press News Agency reports: “The U.S. Credit Commission has published a report which General Marshall read at a secret session on March 5. The report explains that at the end of February the USA received further precise data about the Panzer divisions that Germany deployed last year in its armored drive to the English Channel. The U.S. Army is going to form eight armored divisions of this kind. At the moment it has only two.’
Emergency evacuation of East Base, U.S. Antarctic Service, Marguerite Bay, is carried out. Two R4C-1 Condor flights (Aviation Chief Machinist’s Mate Ashley C. Snow and Radioman First Class Earl B. Perce, naval aviation pilots) bring out the entire complement of 24 people to Mikkelson Island, the emergency landing field 25 miles northeast of Adelaide Island, whence they are taken on board Bear (AG-29), which soon sails for Punta Arenas, Chile, to rendezvous with Interior Department motorship North Star. The Condor is abandoned on the island (the other plane used by the expedition, a Beechcraft D17A, already has been shipped back to the States). The Condor remains buried under ice (or on the seafloor) along with the fabled Snow Cruiser.
Two German naval officers, who escaped across the frozen St. Lawrence River from a Canadian prison camp, were returned to Canada tonight by immigration officers and accompanied by several newspapermen. The two officers, Bernhardt Gohlke and Heinz Rottmann, crossed the international bridge about 8 p.m., less than 12 hours after they had outdistanced Canadian soldiers pursuing them across the frozen river. A board of immigration authorities had ruled, it was learned, that they were taken into custody less than 100 yards from the border, and thus, under United States law, could be deported. It was understood that they would be returned to the Fort Henry internment camp, at Kingston, Ontario.
German raider Pinguin completes its resupply from supply ship Alstertor. Fregattenkapitän (later Kapitän zur See) Ernst-Felix Krüder makes plans to finish his refit and depart within the next few days.
The Battle of Shanggao continues in China. Today, the main action shifts to the air, where the Japanese attack the next Chinese defensive line (the second of three). This attack is successful, leading to the deaths of 100-200 Chinese soldiers. The Japanese 11th Army ground forces then advance through the breach created, using a formula perfected by the Germans: tanks and armored cars first, followed by infantry. However, the Chinese forces on the flanks of the breach are intact, and they rain fire on the Japanese. After losing about half of their vehicles and infantry, the Japanese retreat. The Japanese are not willing to give up and launch a poison-gas attack. The Chinese, however, abandon the second defensive line before the poison gas shells are launched, so the poison gas largely falls in unmanned areas.
Two of the Italian ships that escaped from East Africa before their port, Massawa, was captured arrive in Kobe, Japan. These are auxiliary cruiser Ramb II and Italian colonial sloop Eritrea. Virtually all of the other ships have been captured, scuttled or sunk.
The war in China has cut severely into Japan’s economy and by the end of 1940 had cost Japan $3,680,000,000, the U.S. Commerce Department said today in a survey of the effects of the conflict in the Far East. In addition the European war has adversely affected Japan’s economic life.
“Whatever Roosevelt may say, Japan is not an aggressor country.” Lieutenant General Korichika Anami, Vice War Minister, declared in the House of Representatives today, answering a question from a member of the accounts committee which had met to finish its business before the closing session next Wednesday.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 121.92 (-0.55)
Born:
Jeremy Clyde, English pop singer and guitarist (Chad & Jeremy — “A Summer Song”) and actor (“The Iron Lady”), in Dorney, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom.
Billy Collins, American poet (Poet Laureate of the United States, 2001-2003), in New York, New York.
Bruno Ganz, Swiss actor (“Strapless”, “Wings of Desire”), in Zurich, Switzerland (d. 2019).
Bobby Leiter, Canadian NHL and WHA centre (Boston Bruins, Pittsburgh Penguins, Atlanta Flames, Calgary Cowboys [WHA]), in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Naval Construction:
The Royal Navy LCT (Mk 2)-class landing craft, tank HMS LCT 138 is laid down by Stockton Construction (Thornaby, U.K.).
The Royal Canadian Navy Flower-class corvettes HMCS Calgary (K 231), HMCS Regina (K 234), HMCS Fredericton (K 245) [ex-Fort William], and HMCS Malbaie (K 273) are laid down by Marine Industries Ltd. (Sorel, Quebec, Canada).
The Royal Navy LCT (Mk 1)-class landing craft, tanks HMS LCT 27 and HMS LCT 28 are launched by the John Brown Shipbuilding & Engineering Company Ltd. (Clydebank, Scotland).
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type VIIC U-boat U-332 is launched by Nordseewerke, Emden (werk 204).
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type VIIC U-boat U-653 is launched by Howaldtswerke Hamburg AG, Hamburg (werk 802).
The Royal Navy harbor defence motor launch HMS HDML 1024 is commissioned.
The Royal Navy MMS I class motor minesweeper HMS MMS 15 (J 515) is commissioned.
The U.S. Navy coastal minesweeper USS Crossbill (AMc-9, formerly the yacht North Star) is commissioned.
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type IXC U-boat U-126 is commissioned. Her first commanding officer is Kapitänleutnant Ernst Bauer.
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type VIIC U-boat U-202 is commissioned. Her first commanding officer is Kapitänleutnant Hans-Heinz Linder.
History Diaries 