The big news of 28 June 1941 is the German capture of Minsk. This is the most famous Soviet city taken to date and a key stop on the high road to Moscow.
Italian puppet state Albania declares war on the Soviet Union.
In the Army Group North sector, the Wehrmacht advances across the Dvina River on a railway bridge at Riga. The Red Army is in full retreat and the Dvina River line essentially lost already. Soviet Marshal Timoshenko virtually takes over the Northwestern Front from General Kuznetsov (who technically remains in command) and orders a stand on the Velikaya River. Soviet 21st Mechanized Corps unsuccessfully attacks the German 4th Panzer Group at the Daugavpils bridgehead.
Far behind the front, the fortress of Brest still holds out at Brest-Litovsk. The German 45th Infantry Division (Generalmajor Fritz Schlieper) makes slow progress, but the defenders are resisting every step and the Germans have lost literally hundreds of men. The German infantry units assigned to the task of reducing the east fort and citadel, the only points still in the hands of the Soviets, use captured Soviet and French tanks to blast the defenders. Included among the Soviets is at least one commissar, Yefirm Fomin, would be shot on sight, and about 300 families of Soviet servicemen. Rather than continue pressing forward solely using costly ground attacks or sit through an extended siege, the Wehrmacht finally calls for the Luftwaffe to prepare to soften up the trapped Soviet soldiers on the 29th. The fortress is important because it stands along the main German supply line on the road to Moscow.
In the Army Group Center front, the 2nd (Guderian) and 3rd (Hoth) Panzer Groups, having closed a pincer movement west of Minsk on the 27th, advance east and take the city. The Soviet Western Front under General of the Army Dimitri Pavlov is virtually completely encircled, with the trapped armies including all or large parts of Soviet 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th, and 13th Armies. In addition, the German Fourth and Ninth Armies link east of Bialystok, splitting the Soviet pocket.
A mass panic develops among Soviet troops and civilians alike as they flee eastward in the direction of Moscow. The OKH (German Army headquarters) and Army Group Center commander General Fedor von Bock are unanimously in agreement that the panzers need to head toward the Soviet capital at full speed. However, at his new Wolfschanze headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia, Adolf Hitler is getting nervous about the panzers outrunning the infantry. As at Dunkirk a year earlier, Hitler considers halting the panzers so the infantry can catch up.
Stalin had had enough with General Pavlov. He decides to recall the entire Western Front staff to Moscow and accuse them of intentional disorganization of defense and retreat without a battle. The sentence of death is a mere formality, they are all shot within weeks. The new Acting Western Front commander (not yet chosen at this time) will be Colonel General Andrey Ivanovich Yeryomenko (aka Eremenko and Yeremenko). Eremenko, recalled to Moscow on 30 June, cannot make it to the Front headquarters at Mogilev until 1 July.
In the Army Group South sector, the Battle of Brody continues. It is not going well for the Soviets, who are losing tanks in a series of disjointed attacks. The Germans are most alarmed at an advance by General Nikolai Popel’s powerful force of 300 tanks which has cut 11th Panzer Division’s lines of communications at Dubno. The Germans quickly reshuffle their forces and attack Popel with elements of the 16th Motorized, 75th Infantry Division, two other infantry divisions, and General Hans-Valentin Hube’s 16th Panzer Division. The Wehrmacht quickly surrounds Dubno, stopping Popel’s advance and forcing him onto the defensive.
Soviet troops attempting to follow Popel to Dubno have little success. General Ryabyshev sends his 300 tanks (49 T-34 and 46 KV) against the German 57th Infantry and 75th Infantry Divisions, as well as elements of 16th Panzer Division. The attack fails and Ryabyshev retreats, isolating Popel. Soviet General Andrey Vlasov orders his 4th Mechanized Corps (313 T-34 and 101 KV tanks) to protect the rear of the retreating General I.I. Karpezo’s 15th Mechanized Corps, which has seen little action because Karpezo keeps changing his mind and issuing contrary orders. Soviet 19th Mechanized Corps (General Feklenko) comes within a few miles of Dubno but then is pushed back.
Elsewhere, German forces take Rivne. The Germans intend to make Rivne the administrative center of Reichskommissariat Ukraine. However, first, Rivne must be “cleansed” to German standards. Half of Rivne’s population is Jewish and the SS Einsatzgruppen move into the town quickly to begin liquidations.
A major problem for the Soviets is that their tanks are breaking down in large numbers. Their formidable numerical superiority over the Germans masks the fact that the roads are littered with broken-down tanks, including the most advanced models.
While Finland is at war with Germany, very little fighting has occurred to date. Today, the Finnish General Staff finalizes plans for an offensive into Ladoga Karelia. It is planned for 10 July. In the Salla/Kandalasksha region, Finnish troops prepare for an offensive against the Murmansk railway in conjunction with German forces. At this time, the Finns are ready to invade the historically Soviet territory near Finland and not just recover Finnish territory recently lost during the Winter War.
General Agustin Munoz Grandes is appointed to command the new volunteer Blue Division. It is being formed to support Operation Barbarossa in the Soviet Union.
More rioting broke out in Kaunas, Lithuania. German military authorities stood by and encouraged rioters as 3,800 Jews were beaten with iron bars and killed by the angry mobs, including local police and freed convicts. It is largely carried out by local citizens, though the Germans stand by idly, allowing it to proceed. The extent of German participation is disputed, but there is little question that the German troops at least silently condone and encourage the pogrom.
In newly captured Minsk, the Gestapo quickly immediately all men 15-45 years of age to register at a central collection point. The Germans immediately apprehend the registrants and march them to the Drozdy concentration camp.
The Croatian Ustaše are committing so many atrocities against Serbs that the German representative there signals the OKW that it may cause problems.
A pogrom begins in Jassy (Iassy, Iasi, Yassy), Romania. On 28 June 1941, Romanian and German soldiers, police, and masses of residents participated in an assault on the Jews of Iasi. Thousands were murdered in their homes and in the streets; additional thousands were arrested and taken to police headquarters. The next day, Romanian soldiers shot thousands of Jews who had been held in the police headquarters yard. The approximately 4,300 survivors of the assault and other Jews who had been rounded up from all parts of Iasi, were loaded onto sealed boxcars and deported to Cãlãraşi and Târgu Frumos. Some 2,600 perished en route due to thirst and suffocation.
German and Romanian soldiers kill 11,000 Jews in Kishinev.
The Soviet NKVD begins killing an unknown number of Ukrainian nationalists in Lviv. Those not liquidated are transported to the east.
The Soviet NKVD, NKGB, and the Chief Prosecutor Office signed a top secret joint order to coordinate the investigation of traitors.
The British Habforce in Iraq continues pressing its attack toward the Vichy French airbase at Palmyra. Today, Habforce ally Glubb Pasha takes his Arab Legion to capture the French fort of Seba’ Biyar (Seba Biya, about 60 miles south-west of Palmyra) when the French garrison simply surrenders. Habforce unit 21st Indian Brigade of the 10th Indian Division advances across the Iraq/Syrian border along the Euphrates, but are slowed by French air attacks and supply issues.
Further west, the Vichy French and Australians battle over mountain peaks east of Beirut. The Australian 2/3 Battalion is dislodged from the top of Jebel Mazar, a key position because it controls the road from British-occupied Damascus and French-occupied Beirut. Elsewhere, though, the Australians occupy other peaks abandoned by the French (and Senegalese).
In the air, the battle the Vichy French and RAAF continues with great ferocity. The Australian P-40 Tomahawks claim six victories over the French. Flight Officer Lt. A.C. Rawlinson files three claims.
Off the coast, Australian light cruiser Perth and accompanying destroyers bombard Damur during the afternoon.
Oliver Lyttelton becomes British minister in the Middle East.
Royal Navy submarine HMS Severn torpedoes and sinks 2900-ton Italian freighter Ugo Bassi about five miles off Capo Monte Santu in the Gulf of Orosei (off Orosei, Sardinia).
Force H at Gibraltar executes a quick turnaround at Gibraltar after completing Operation Railway 1. It quickly departs on Operation Railway 2, another supply mission to Malta. Aircraft carrier HMS Furious carries 8 Hurricanes and Ark Royal carries 26 Hurricanes. Following standard practice, the ships first head west from Gibraltar to throw off any shore-based spies.
Italian light cruisers Attendolo and Duca D’Aosta lay mines in the Sicilian Channel.
Scirè’s mission to attack Grand Harbour, Malta was canceled.
Italian submarine Da Vinci torpedoes and sinks 8030-ton British tanker Auris several hundred miles off Casablanca. There are 32 deaths and 27 survivors, picked up by HMS Farndale.
North Atlantic weather war: The German weather ship Lauenburg was intercepted by British warships north of Iceland. A boarding party from the destroyer HMS Tartar seized a large amount of material that would be useful in cracking German codes, and then the Lauenburg was sunk by gunfire.
Well-known British author P.G. Wodehouse (“My Man Jeeves”) begins the first of five broadcasts from Berlin entitled “How to be an Internee Without Previous Training.” They are not political except in the broadest sense and include humorous anecdotes and personal experiences. Wodehouse tells how he was trapped at Le Touquet during the Battle of France, then taken to prisons at Loos (Lille) and then Tost, Upper Silesia before being allowed to return home to Le Touquet. The Gestapo recently has forced Wodehouse to move to the expensive Hotel Adlon in Berlin — at his own expense — through a mixture of coercion and persuasion (they allow him access to his frozen assets in exchange for cooperation). All the British public knows, though, is that he is living in “luxury” while helping the Germans.
The broadcasts over CBS are aimed at the United States but recorded for later rebroadcast to England in August. The original broadcasts continue on 9, 23 and 30 July, and 6 August 1941. They lead to hostility toward Wodehouse throughout Britain (but not in the United States, partly due to the fact that he is not as well known there). The broadcasts also create enduring post-war problems for Wodehouse with the British authorities, though no charges are ever brought against him.
Luftwaffe ace Oblt. Gustav “Mickey” Sprick, Staffelkapitän of 8./JG 26, perishes in an accident when his wing sheers off during a turn over St. Omer. He has 31 victories.
RAF Bomber Command, Day of 28 June 1941
24 Blenheims on a Circus operation to Comines. 18 Blenheims to Bremen turned back. 6 Stirlings to Bremerhaven did not reach the target. 1 Stirling lost in the sea.
RAF Bomber Command, Night of 28/29 June 1941
34 Hampdens minelaying in Elbe and Heligoland areas, no losses.
On Malta, the RAF forms new fighter squadron No. 126 at Ta Qali. Its commander is Wing Commander Alexander C Rabagliati.
U-146, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Otto Ites, sank Finnish steamer Pluto (3496grt) 100 miles NNW of the Butt of Lewis, 59-39N, 8-20W. At 0207 hours on 28 June 1941 the unescorted and unarmed Pluto (Master Fritjof Ejder) was hit in the engine room by one torpedo from U-146 and sank after 30 minutes about 75 miles northwest of Butt of Lewis. Eight days earlier, the ship had been stopped by HMS Suffolk (55) (Capt R.M. Ellis, RN) in the Denmark Strait in position 67°41N/21°52W and was first sent to Iceland with ten Royal Marines on board and then to Kirkwall for contraband control. The master, 25 crew members and the prize crew were rescued by HMS Northern Duke (4.11) (Lt G.C.W. Meldrum, RD, RNR) and landed at Kirkwall on 29 June. The 3,496-ton Pluto was carrying grain, coal, and oil and was headed for Petsamo, Finland.
Italian submarine Da Vinci sank British tanker Auris (8030grt) in 34-27N, 11-57W. Thirty two crewmen were lost on the steamer. Destroyer HMS Farndale departed convoy HG.66 to assist and picked up twenty seven crewmen.
Finnish ship Vetehinen is engaged in minelaying operations along the Estonian coast.
Aircraft carrier HMS Victorious departed the Clyde escorted by destroyers HMS Charlestown, HMS St Marys, and HMS Winchester for Scapa Flow. Destroyer HMS Eclipse departed Loch Alsh at 2330/28th to join the escort. Destroyer HMS Eskimo departed Scapa Flow at 0030/29th to meet the aircraft carrier. The aircraft carrier, escorted by destroyers Eskimo, Eclipse, and Winchester, arrived at Scapa Flow at 1800/29th.
Anti-aircraft ship HMS Alynbank departed Methil at 1130 and joined convoy EC.38 off May Island. The convoy was escorted to Pentland Firth and the ship arrived at Scapa Flow at 1130/29th.
British steamer Barrhill (4972grt) was sunk by German bombing in 52-50N, 1-46E. Five crewmen were lost on the steamer.
Australian light cruiser HMAS Perth and destroyers HMS Kandahar, HMS Griffin, HMS Havock, and HMS Jervis carried out a T.S.D.S. (Two-Speed Destroyer Sweep) sweep of Damur during the night of 27/28 June. The light cruiser, supported by anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Carlisle and destroyers HMS Jervis, HMS Decoy, HMS Havock, HMS Hotspur, and HMAS Nizam, bombarded Damur during the afternoon of 28 June.
Submarine HMS Severn sank Italian steamer Ugo Bassi (2900grt) five miles 24° from Capo Monte Santi in the Gulf of Orosei.
Submarine HMS Osiris unsuccessfully attacked a steamer in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Italian light cruisers Attendolo and Duca D’Aosta and destroyers Pigafetta, Pessagno, Da Mosto, Da Verazzano, and Da Recco laid mines in the Sicilian Channel.
For Operation RAILWAY 2, Aircraft carrier HMS Furious, light cruiser HMS Hermione, and destroyers HMS Fearless, HMS Foxhound, HMS Lance, and HMS Legion departed at 1800/28th to feint to the west as Force A. Destroyer Lance was later moved to the battlecruiser HMS Renown group. As Force B, battlecruiser HMS Renown, aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, destroyers HMS Faulknor, HMS Fury, HMS Forester, HMS Wishart, and HMS Avonvale departed at 0130/29th. Destroyers Wishart and Avonvale were detached after local escort duties. The two groups proceeded to Malta in company. Aircraft carrier Ark Royal flew twenty six Hurricanes off to Malta on 30 May. Furious flew eight Hurricanes off to Malta. The operation did suffer a mishap when one of the aircraft crashed into the bridge structure and started a fire on the flight deck. Two officers and one rating were killed. One other officer and two ratings died of injuries on the 30th.Two officers and four ratings later died of wounds. Ten ratings were seriously injured. From aircraft carrier Furious, A/Sub Lt (A) O.M. Wightman of 807 Squadron and A/Sub Lt (A) J.G. Biddle, P/T/Sub Lt (A)A.F. Hallett RNVR, and Sub Lt (A) C.D. Livingstone of 816 Squadron and one rating were killed. Surgeon Lt D.A. Prothero, MRCS, LRCP, DA, and Sub Lt (A) F.W. Follows of 816 Squadron died of wounds on 1 July. Four RAF officers and four ratings, one of which died of wounds, were injured. The mishap prevented the last six aircraft from being flown off. The force returned to Gibraltar after the operation on 1 July.
Submarines HMS Unique, HMS Upright, HMS Unique, and HMS Upholder departed Malta to intercept French Vichy vessels expected to proceed to support Syria. All, less Upholder, arrived back at Malta without contact on 3 July. Upholder arrived at Malta on 8 July.
Anti-submarine trawlers HMS Lord Irwin and HMS Laertes and whaler Gos 7 departed Gibraltar for Freetown. Norwegian tanker Sildra departed in company and set off for the west.
Soviet destroyer Lenin was scuttled at Libau.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8807 creating the Office of Scientific Research and Development to replace the National Defense Research Committee. The new office would coordinate and supplement scientific research relating to the defense effort. Dr. Vannevar Bush, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, was named the head of the new organization. Dr. James B. Conant, President of Harvard University, replaced Bush at the National Defense Research Committee, which became an advisory body to the Office of Scientific Research and Development.
President Roosevelt, working in the study of his Hyde Park home, today received latest reports of the Russo-German hostilities in a telephone conference with Acting Secretary of State Welles. Ignoring a heat wave which engulfed the Hudson River Valley, Mr. Roosevelt worked steadily through most of the day. The Roosevelt family was welcoming a bride into the “clan” at Old Hyde Park house today. Captain James Roosevelt, the President’s eldest son, brought his wife, the former Romelle Schneider, here to meet his grandmother, the President’s mother, Mrs. Sara Delano Roosevelt.
President Roosevelt decided today that, in view of the national emergency, government employees should not have an extended week-end holiday following July 4. The orders affects 1,478,407 employees.
The Senate in Washington today completed action on the $10,384,821,624 Army appropriation bill, passed the bill authorizing shipping priorities, passed the bill extending and expanding the Commodity Credit Corporation, completed legislation of the bill extending President Roosevelt’s monetary powers, received a bill to prevent price fixing on agricultural products below parity prices and recessed at 3:31 PM until 11 AM Monday. Conferees failed of agreement on the relief appropriation bill. An Interstate Commerce subcommittee approved the bill authorizing oil pipelines to the East Coast.
The House approved the conference report on the Army appropriation bill and the conference report on the District of Columbia appropriation bill, received the Knutson resolution providing for Congressional proclamation of a state of war between Germany and Russia, received the Lanham bill authorizing $300,000,000 additional for defense housing, refused to accept a Senate increase in the Labor-Federal Security appropriation bill and adjourned at 5:50 PM until 11 AM, Monday.
Congress gave final approval today to the biggest cash appropriation bill in the nation’s history, a gigantic $10,384,821,624 item for the army. The total exceeded the largest previous appropriation, a 1919 army bill, by about a billion dollars. The senate sent the measure to the White House as one of many actions taken in the course of a day devoted to clearing the calendars of legislation which had to be disposed of before the fiscal year closes at midnight on Monday.
Congress worked busily today to dispose of legislation needed before the end of the fiscal year and cleared its calendars of some of the most important measures, while laying the groundwork for disposal of the others when it reconvenes Monday. The bills must be passed before the fiscal year ends Monday at midnight, or funds will be lacking for government functions. The Senate, after defeating by a vote of 40 to 22 an amendment to end President Roosevelt’s power to devalue the dollar to 50 percent of its former gold content, passed the bill extending for two years the Chief Executive’s authority to devalue the dollar under terms of the 1934 act. The measure also continues the Treasury’s authority to maintain a $2,000,000,000 currency stabilization fund. Senators Adams and Taft attempted to end the devaluation power, but offered no objection to continuance of the stabilization fund.
The United States Army today — after a year of expansion and preparation — is still months away from adequate combat efficiency. In the opinion of most high-ranking officers not a single division is yet ready for war, although all our organized divisions are already superior in training to the divisions we sent to France in 1917. Only in the physical condition of our soldiers, already hardened to field service and capable of extended effort, considerable endurance and twenty-five-mile marches, can the condition of the Army be considered satisfactory. There are grave deficiencies in equipment, in training and tactics and leadership and to a lesser extent in discipline and morale.
Most serious by far of all the criticisms leveled against the Army is that which relates to its basic tactical concepts and to its leadership. Military lack of vision is freely criticized within the Army itself and some officers say that the only hope of progress is to sweep the Army clean of the “Colonel Blimps” and military reactionaries who, in the past, have blocked and who still are blocking tactical progress. Incompetent officers of all grades, but especially general officers and colonels, must be weeded out, it is held, if we are to have a battle-worthy army.
Senator George, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, led a surprise Democratic attack on the Administration’s “totalitarian methods” today and asked for assurance that “when we are called upon to move into the actual range of fire” the American people, through Congress, would have the ultimate decision.
Colonel Bill “Wild Bill” Donovan, founder of the OSS/CIA, makes a speech broadcast over the CBS radio network. Framing the war as a religious crusade, he concludes:
“We must reassert our belief in a Christian democracy — a democracy whose chief concern is not for human life but for human liberty; not for peace but for the dignity of man in the image of his Master.”
He also states that “we must assume that Germany will defeat Russia,” which is a common view at this time.
Major General Johnson Hagood, retired army coast artillery veteran, asserted today that the bomber had outmoded the railway gun and urged that the war department abandon the weapon entirely. On the basis of tests he said had been carried out in New York harbor and Chesapeake Bay, on the Pacific coast and In the Philippines, Hagood contended that the big mobile guns which fire from their own wheeled platforms were inaccurate and not worth their cost.
All qualified members of the U. S. army’s reserve corps in the ninth corps area who were enlisted before June 1, 1941, will be called to active duty early in August, Major Gen. Ernest D. Peek, commanding general of the ninth corps area, announced tonight. Members of the enlisted reserve corps with dependents may be discharged on application and presentation of an affidavit of dependency, it was said.
The swastika disappeared officially from Los Angeles today as the German consulate closed its doors. Dr. Georg Gyssling, the consul, said that although President Roosevelt’s order closing Germany’s consular offices was not effective until July 10, he had cleaned up his desk in time for a closing at noon today, He said he would go to New York next week, and would sail for Germany July 10.
The Transport Workers Union in New York called off the strike scheduled for Tuesday on the city’s unified transit lines. The C.I.O. affiliate announced that its joint executive committee would act tonight on a peace formula worked out by Mayor La Guardia and Philip Murray, chairman of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, in an exchange of telegrams.
The destroyer USS Madison (DD-425) was damaged when she ran aground on the southeast tip of Moratties Shoal, Placentia Harbor, Argentia, Newfoundland.
Major League Baseball:
Players act as umpires after Casey Stengel receives a telegram from umpire Babe Pinelli that he other the two other umps Al Barlick and Lee Ballanfant are fogbound on a nightboat from New York. Stengel picks Johnny Cooney to ump behind the plate while Brooklyn Manager Leo Durocher picks Freddy Fitzsimmons. There are no beefs in the first inning, though Boston plates one run, and when the regularly assigned umpires finally run on the field just before the second inning, the fans greet them with foghorn imitations. Boston wins, 3–2. There will only be one more instance, in 1978, when players umpire.
The Pirates’ inner defense approached two major league records for activity today, but cracked on two critical plays that allowed the Cubs a 3–2 victory. The Chicagoans scored one run without a hit in the fourth inning — on a pass, a sacrifice and an error by Second Baseman Frankie Gustine. Then they came from behind a 2-1 deficit to win, when Pitcher Max Butcher picked up a bunted ball and threw it into left-center for a two-base error that turned one single, an intentional pass and a couple of outs into two runs. Vince DiMaggio hit his ninth homer as the Pirates totaled eleven hits off Vern Olsen, who went the route for his fifth victory.
White Sox rookie Don Kolloway does it all. He steals 4 bases, including a record-tying 2nd, 3rd, and home in the 9th, and hits 2 home runs and a single in a 6–4 win over the Indians. He came into the game hitting .168.
George McQuinn belted a tremendous two-run homer in the tenth inning today to give the Browns a 3–1 victory over the Tigers after Buck Newsom had wild-pitched the tying run home in the ninth. It was Newsom’s eleventh setback against five victories.
The Phillies, trailing the Giants, 2–1, routed Johnny Wittig in the eighth inning and on the wings of a lusty base hit by Joe Marty tied the score at 2–2. Then in the twelfth, while firmly entrenched behind Tom Hughes’s steady relief pitching, they wrenched a tally from Walter Brown that won them the ball game, 3–2.
Joe DiMaggio has two hits (a single and a double) and a walk off Johnny Babich of the A’s, to extend his streak to 40 games, second longest in the American League. New York wins, 7–4, as Charley Keller homers, the 23rd game in a row the Yanks have gone deep. The 2nd-place Yankees will win their next 13 games.
Bill Zuber, heretofore a relief hurler, pitched the Senators to a 3–1 victory over the Red Sox today with the able support of the Washington infield, credited with five double plays. Zuber gave up nine blows, three of them in the fourth for Boston’s only run. Lou Finney led off with a single and circled the sacks on Ted Williams’s one-base hit and Manager Joe Cronin’s double.
Brooklyn Dodgers 2, Boston Braves 3
Pittsburgh Pirates 2, Chicago Cubs 3
Chicago White Sox 6, Cleveland Indians 4
St. Louis Browns 3, Detroit Tigers 1
Philadelphia Phillies 3, New York Giants 2
New York Yankees 7, Philadelphia Athletics 4
Boston Red Sox 1, Washington Senators 3
German Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop sends a diplomatic request to the Berlin Japanese Embassy. It requests that Japan join Operation Barbarossa from the east. The suggested target for the Japanese attack is Vladivostok, which the Soviets can use at this time as a port of supply from the United States. This would violate the recent Japanese/Soviet Neutrality Pact.
After consideration, the Japanese Government decides not to join the German invasion of the Soviet Union. While this is not required under the Tripartite Pact, which is defensive in nature, the German government has harbored hopes that Japan would “join the party.” The Japanese, however, remember the lesson taught to them in Manchuria by Soviet General Zhukov.
While Nationalist groups and parties are urging the government to “take the right step at the right moment” because of the Russian-German war, Domei, the Japanese news agency, reported from Moscow that Yoshitsugu Tatekawa, the Japanese Ambassador, informed Vyacheslav M. Molotov, the Russian Foreign Commissar, that the Japanese Embassy would look after Italian interests in the Soviet Union during the war. This was taken as additional evidence that for the moment Japan plans to continue the policy of neutrality and watchful waiting that she has pursued since the outbreak of the new hostilities. at least until the trend of events becomes plain.
In the Philippines, U.S. Asiatic Fleet commander Admiral Thomas C. Hart transfers his headquarters ashore from heavy cruiser USS Houston.
Tanizo Koyama, former Japanese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, said today in an interview that when the Philippines received independence they would, of necessity, fall under Japanese leadership in a “co-prosperity sphere.” He described it as peaceful co-operation under which Japan would supply manufactured articles and other Asiatic countries would supply raw material. Mr. Koyama said he was planning “to observe conditions” in Indo-China and the Netherlands Indies.
Whitehall asks Australia to send a division to reinforce Malaya.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 123.4 (-0.06)
Born:
Al Downing, MLB pitcher (All-Star, 1967; New York Yankees, Oakland A’s, Milwaukee Brewers, Los Angeles Dodgers), in Trenton, New Jersey.
Fred Talbot, MLB pitcher (Chicago White Sox, Kansas City A’s, New York Yankees, Seattle Pilots, Oakland A’s), in Washington, District of Columbia (d. 2013).
Len Boehmer, MLB pinch hitter, first baseman, and third baseman (Cincinnati Reds, New York Yankees), in Flint Hill, Missouri.
Joseph Goguen, American computer scientist (professor of Computer Science at the University of California and University of Oxford), in San Diego, California (d. 2006).
David Johnston, 28th Governor General of Canada, in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
Naval Construction:
The U.S. Navy YMS-1-class auxiliary motor minesweeper USS YMS-21 is laid down by the Greenport Basin and Construction Co. (Greenport, Long Island, New York, U.S.A.).
The U.S. Navy YMS-1-class auxiliary motor minesweeper USS YMS-41 is laid down by Robert Jacob Inc. (City Island, New York, U.S.A.)
The U.S. Navy Gato-class submarines USS Wahoo (SS-238) and USS Whale (SS-239) are laid down by the Mare Island Navy Yard (Vallejo, California, U.S.A.).
The U.S. Navy Bogue-class escort aircraft carrier USS Breton (CVE-10) is laid down by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Corp. (Pascagoula, Mississippi, U.S.A.). She is transferred to the Royal Navy under lend-lease and commissions as HMS Chaser (D 32).
The Royal Navy MMS I-class motor minesweeper HMS MMS 44 (J 544) is launched by Richards Ironworks Ltd. (Lowestoft, England, U.K.).
The U.S. Navy Accentor-class coastal minesweeper USS Advance (AMc-63) is launched by the Greenport Basin and Construction Co. (Greenport, Long Island, New York, U.S.A.).
The U.S. Navy 77-foot Elco patrol motor torpedo boat USS PT-38 is launched by the Electric Launch Company Ltd. (Elco), (Bayonne, New Jersey, U.S.A.).
The Вое́нно-морско́й флот СССР (ВМФ) (Soviet Navy) “ShCh” (ShChuka)-class (6th group, Type X-modified) submarines ShCh-413 and ShCh-414 are launched by A. Marti (Leningrad, U.S.S.R.) / Yard 194.
The Regia Marina (Royal Italian Navy)Capitani Romani-class light cruiser Cornelio Silla is launched by Ansaldo, Genoa. She is never commissioned.
The Royal Navy Fairmile B-class motor launch HMS ML 205 is commissioned.
The Royal Navy Higgins 70 foot-type motor gun boat HMS MGB 100 is commissioned.
The Royal Navy Isles-class minesweeping trawler HMS Cava (T 145) is commissioned. Her first commanding officer is T/Lieutenant Andrew Morris Taylor, RNR
History Diaries 