Reza Shah Pahlavi was arrested and force to abdicate in favor of the Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi after the Allies decided that he had not cooperated in expelling Axis nationals from the country. Reza Shah Pahlavi would be sent into exile in South Africa. Reza Shah abdicated under pressure as Shah of Iran in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. “I have spent all my power and energy in the service of the country,” his abdication letter read. “I am no longer able to continue in the same vein. I feel the time has come for a younger and more energetic power to take charge of the affairs of the nation, which require constant attention, and to work for the happiness and welfare of the people. Therefore, I resign, bequeathing the crown to my heir and crown prince..”
Iran broke diplomatic relations with Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy and Romania.
The Wehrmacht scores a major success on 16 September 1941. German General Hans-Valentin Hube’s 16th Panzer Division (General von Kleist’s 1st Panzer Group) meets 3rd Panzer Division (General Guderian’s 2nd Panzer Group) at Lokhvista, Ukraine, 125 miles (201 kilometers) east of Kiev. While the German line still needs to be strengthened, this meeting is the first major step in trapping four Soviet armies (5, 21, 26 and 37) and over 600,000 soldiers at Kiev.
Marshal Budyenny, in command of the Southwest Direction, already has asked for permission to retreat. Joseph Stalin has denied that request. General Timoshenko of the Stavka does authorize a withdrawal by Budyenny today. However, the order must be ratified by Stalin, and he does not do so for 48 more hours.
As most military historians would agree, major encirclements generally require the cooperation of both the attacker and the attacked. The Soviets are cooperating in this encirclement of Kiev.
The Germans make more symbolic progress toward another major objective. Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, commander of Army Group Center, gives the upcoming attack on Moscow the code name “Unternehmen TYPHOON.” This is in accordance with Adolf Hitler’s recent Führer Directive authorizing the attack.
On the Black Sea coast, Romanian troops make a little progress in their attack on Odessa. They capture the heights northwest of the Gross-Liebenthal district of Odessa, Ukraine. The Soviets quickly send troops by sea from Novorossisk in the Caucasus to reinforce the reeling defense of Odessa.
At Leningrad, the news is a little better for the Soviets. The following day, Recently arrived General Georgy Zhukov manages to halt his troops’ withdrawals at Uritsk despite continued fierce fighting in the city’s suburbs. Army Group North Commander Field Marshal von Leeb now has run out of time, as he is under orders to transfer his panzer troops south for the upcoming Operation TYPHOON.
Accordingly, General George-Hans Reinhardt, commander of XLI Corps, begins pulling the 1st Panzer and 36th Motorized out of the line. He makes plans to move his corps headquarters to move with the 6th Panzer to deploy for Operation TYPHOON. Panzer Group 4 Headquarters also prepares to move southeast for the offensive. This brings to a close the Germans’ attempt to take Leningrad by force. Now, the only option is to starve the city into submission. Leningrad has been saved, but its worst days lie ahead.
The German XXXXI Armeekorps (motorized) successfully cut off the Soviet 8th Army in the Oranienbaum Pocket southwest of Leningrad, Russia after two days of fighting. XLI Panzer Corps occupied Strelna, cutting off the Soviet 8th Army from Leningrad.
German forces capture the town of Pushkin, a suburb of Leningrad. The Germans capture several trams filled with workers returning home from factories in Leningrad before the service is shut down. This would mark the “high water” mark for German advances toward Leningrad. They would get no closer.
Rumanian troops captured the heights northwest of Gross-Liebenthal district of Odessa, Ukraine.
General Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Armed Forces High Command, in response to the growing threat of partisan bands attacking his lines of communications establishes standing orders that for every German soldier killed by “bandits”, 100 civilians are to be executed.
Hauptmann (Captain) Scheben is shot dead on the boulevard de Strasbourg, 12 hostages are shot in consequence. Attacks on German military property result in another ten French hostages being executed.
During the month of September, 1941, German Action Group A, consisting of around 800 men, and commanded by SS General Otto Ohlendorf, is operating on the Russian southern front. In the period, 16 to 30 September, in the area around Nikolaev, and including the town of Cherson , they rounded up and massacred 35,782 Soviet citizens, mostly Jews. This is the figure reported to Hitler from the SD office, dated 2 October 1942.
German troops massacred Jews en masse in Vinnitsa, Ukraine.
Italian submarine Smeraldo, which departed on a patrol on 15 September 1941, is not heard from after 16 September 1941. It is presumed that Smeraldo hit a mine and sank at some point between 16 and 26 September 1941, the latter date being its scheduled return to port.
Without authorization, Hans-Joachim Marseille flew over an Australian airfield in Libya, amidst anti-aircraft fire, to deliver a message that pilot Lieutenant Pat Byers, whom he shot down two days prior, was being treated at a German hospital in Libya.
U-98 (Kptlt. Robert Gysae), on its fourth patrol out of St. Nazaire, torpedoes and sinks 4392-ton British freighter MV Jedmoor, which is traveling with Convoy SC.42 in the Western Approaches. There are 32 deaths and five survivors. Among those lost in the Jedmoor is Merchant Navy Able Seaman Percy Wilfred Turner, age 55, the son of Captain William Thomas Turner, the captain of the Lusitania when it was sunk in 1915. Turner had died in 1933.
German authorities were reported from the Hague today to have ordered confiscation of the property of members of the House of Orange-Nassau, the royal family headed by Queen Wilhelmina. The confiscation decree, issued by the General Commissar for Security, was based on regulations laying open to such action any property of persons maintaining a hostile attitude toward Germany, the official D. N. B. news agency said in reporting the procedure.
Free France acting in agreement Great Britain terminated its mandate and granted Syria the status of an independent sovereign State and agreed to guarantee the new State by treaty.
RAF Bomber Command, Day of 16 September 1941
18 Blenheims on sweep of Dutch and German coasts. 1 ship sunk near Den Helder. No aircraft lost.
RAF Bomber Command, Night of 16/17 September 1941
Karlsruhe
55 Wellingtons; only 37 bombed the Karlsruhe area, in conditions of ‘intense darkness’. No aircraft lost.
10 Wellingtons to Le Havre; no losses.
Axis planes bombed Cairo, capital of Egypt and holy city of the Muslims last night, killing thirty-nine persons, injuring ninety-three others and touching off speculation as to whether Rome would be raided in reprisal.
U-98, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Robert Gysae, sank British steamer Jedmoor (4392grt) in 59N, 10W. At 1359 hours on 9 September 1941, U-85 (Greger) had fired three single bow torpedoes and one stern torpedo at the convoy SC.42 in approx. 61°N/40°W. All torpedoes missed, their tracks were observed by the Jedmoor. Between 2311 and 2316 hours on 16 September 1941, U-98 fired four single torpedoes at the convoy SC.42 northwest of St. Kilda and heard two detonations. Gysae reported one ship sunk and another damaged. In fact, only the Jedmoor (Master Robert Clifford Collins) was hit and sunk. The master, 25 crew members and five gunners were lost. Three crew members were picked up by the Norwegian steam merchant Knoll and two other crew members by the British steam merchant Campus. The 4,392-ton Jedmoor was carrying iron ore and was headed for Glasgow, Scotland.
Heavy cruiser HMS Suffolk departed Scapa Flow for the Clyde to boiler clean, and arrived on the 17th.
An Albacore of 827 Squadron from aircraft carrier HMS Victorious crashed landed in the sea thirteen miles off Brough Head, Orkneys. P/T/A/Sub Lt (A) M. A. Lambert RNVR, and P/T/A/Sub Lt (A) J. H. C. Ashworth RNVR, were drowned. The pilot Midshipman W. G. R. Beer was saved by heavy cruiser HMS Shropshire’s Walrus aircraft and transferred to Dutch ship Amarapoora.
Destroyers HMS Ashanti, HMS Bedouin, HMS Matabele, HMS Punjabi, HMS Impulsive, HMS Anthony, HMS Vivacious, HMS Lamerton, and HMS Badsworth departed Scapa Flow at 1630 to assist in escorting convoy SC.42. Destroyer HMS Eskimo, en route from the Clyde to Scapa Flow, joined this force off the Butt of Lewis. Convoy SC.42 was not joined as its position was uncertain, but the force was ordered to join convoy ON.16 in the same area. On the 17th, destroyers Lamerton and Badsworth were ordered to join the escort of convoy ON.16 for twenty four hours. Rest of the destroyers were detached on the 17th and arrived at Scapa Flow at 0130/18th, less destroyer Vivacious, which had been detached to sink a floating mine en route and arrived at 0400. Destroyers Lamerton and Badsworth arrived at Scapa Flow on the 19th.
Destroyer HMS Escapade departed Vestmannaeyjar at 2100 escorting the 4th Motor Launch Flotilla to Stornoway. The Motor Launches were detached at the North Minch. Destroyer Escapade arrived at Scapa Flow at 0830/19th. The Motor Launch Flotilla arrived at Stornoway at 0930/19th.
Minelayer HMS Port Quebec, escorted by destroyer HMS Newark, laid minefield SN.23B.
Swedish steamer Yarrawonga (4900grt) was sunk by British bombing at Hamburg. The steamer was salved and taken to Gothenburg for repairs.
German light cruisers Emden and Leipzig and torpedo boats T.7, T.8, and T.11 bombarded the Sworbe Peninsula on 16 and 17 September in the Baltic.
Light cruiser HMS Naiad departed Alexandria to reinforce the Red Sea Escort Force. The cruiser arrived at Suez on the 17th.
Destroyers HMS Hero and HMS Griffin departed Haifa to conduct an anti-submarine sweep on the Port Said — Haifa shipping route. The destroyers returned to Haifa on the 17th.
Italian submarine Smeraldo was lost to an unknown cause in the Central Mediterranean.
Destroyer HMS Highlander arrived at Gibraltar from Freetown, departing on the 11th and coming via Bathurst.
Ocean boarding vessel HMS Maron arrived at Gibraltar from patrol.
Anti-submarine trawlers HMS Lady Hogarth and HMS Arctic Ranger departed Gibraltar escorting tanker Inverlee westwards. They returned with tanker Benedick, arriving on the 28th.
Lt (A) CB Lamb and T/A/Sub Lt (A) J. E. Robertson RNVR, were interned after they crashed landed their Swordfish of 830 Squadron near Sousse. Despite the crash, they had successfully delivered an agent to the area.
Dutch submarine HNLMS O.24 arrived at Gibraltar from patrol in the Mediterranean.
Submarines HMS Ursula, HMS Unbeaten, HMS Upholder, and HMS Upright departed Malta to intercept a fast Italian convoy east of Tripoli. Submarine HMS Triumph departed Malta for special service and patrol in the Adriatic.
Convoy HX.150 departed Halifax, escorted by destroyer HMCS Annapolis and corvettes HMCS Algoma and HMCS Brandon. The destroyer was detached on the 17th. On the 17th in 46N, 55W, this convoy became the first trans-Atlantic convoy to be assisted by the USN. when Captain M. L. Deyo relieved the Canadian escorts with his force of destroyers USS Ericsson, USS Eberle, USS Upshur, USS Ellis, and USS Dallas. Corvettes HMCS Algoma and HMCS Brandon were detached on the 18th. On the 20th, destroyer Eberle rescued the crew of British steamer Nigaristan which has an engine room fire. The American group was relieved on the 25th by destroyers HMS Blankney, HMS Churchill, and HMS Witch and corvettes HMCS Arrowhead, HMS Camellia, HMS Celandine, and HMS Honeysuckle. Destroyer HMS Badsworth joined on the 26th for the day only. Destroyer Blankney was detached on the 27th. The destroyers and corvettes Camellia and Celandine were detached on the 28th. Corvette HMCS Arrowhead was detached on the 29th. The convoy arrived at Liverpool on the 30th with corvette Honeysuckle.
The “two-ocean” Navy which will give the United States the greatest fleet ever built by any country reached the point today where every contract involved has been awarded. Years will elapse before the building program is completed, but an official resumé indicated that the work would reach a peak by July 1, 1942, and that meanwhile scores of ships of the smaller classes would be produced with increasing frequency, particularly with the extension of standardization even to large ships of the line. While most of the Navy expansion program exists as yet only on paper, it became evident that this “paper” now includes several tons of construction blueprints. Under Navy methods of cataloguing, a ship must pass the blueprint stage before it is listed as under construction. Yet the Navy today listed seventeen battleships in that. category. In addition, among 968 ships now “building,” it included. twelve aircraft carriers, six large cruisers, eight heavy cruisers, forty light cruisers, seventy-four submarines and 197 destroyers. The figures made public on naval building do not include small boats, and various items being supplied to Great Britain under the lend-lease program, according to a Navy spokesman. The smallest craft on the list was a harbor tug 65 feet long.
Possibility that a corridor of steel ships, planes and navy guns has been laid out in the north Atlantic to protect lend-lease deliveries to Great Britain was considered in the capital tonight. The speculation was raised by President Roosevelt’s warning, at his press conference, that amateur strategists should not think that naval convoys were the only means of guaranteeing deliveries of cargoes to friendly powers. Under Secretary Knox’s declaration yesterday that, beginning today, naval vessels would give every protection within their power and would “capture or destroy” raiders encountered between North America and Iceland, the view had been accepted widely here that the navy had undertaken actual convoy duty. While the president did not make specific denial of such a long-expected development, it was considered that his deprecatory comment might mean, instead, the establishment of a “safety lane” to Iceland.
President Roosevelt today made Edward R. Stettinius Jr. his special assistant and delegated to him greatly expanded powers to administer the lease-lend program, a move calculated to speed the transfer of war supplies to Great Britain and her allies.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes has lunch with Bernard Baruch and asks him why Edward Stettinius, who he says has been a failure at every job he has held so far, has been moved up by the President to the important position of Administrator of the Lend Lease Act. Baruch tells him that he believes it is a ploy to protect Harry Hopkins. Baruch says he believes that Hopkins is now, in effect, Assistant President, but that his standing on the (Capitol) Hill is such that he needs someone to front for him. “So Stettinius has been given that title, but he can be depended upon to do whatever Harry (Hopkins) tells him to do.
The House by a voice vote approved and sent to the Senate today the conference report on the record $3,553,400,000 revenue bill. Meanwhile, Representative Dough-
ton, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and Representative Treadway, the ranking, Republican member, disclosed that the House probably would be called upon to consider another revenue bill this year.
Officials are seriously considering asking Congress for the authority to extend a munitions-purchase loan of several hundred millions to Russia, presumably out of the funds of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. This became known today as the Administration surveyed the problem of increasing aid to Russia and anticipated, meanwhile, the possible political repercussions from attempting to bring the Soviet Union under the benefits of the lend-lease program. Officials approached the problem in a most gingerly fashion, lest undue opposition be provoked for the new lease-lend appropriation, which is scheduled to be recommended to Congress Thursday in a special Presidential message.
President Roosevelt agreed today to accept as a gift a huge African gorilla, presented by Free French authorities as a symbol of the ferocity of their fight against Nazism.
President Roosevelt stated today that neither he nor, to his knowledge, any of his aides, had exerted pressure on the motion picture industry for the production of “propaganda” movies. Incidentally, he ridiculed the Senate investigation of war propaganda in films.
Herbert Hoover asserted tonight that the United States should build an impregnable defense, give material aid to democracies, bulwark freedom at home and reserve its strength to help in reconstruction and stabilizing peace when Hitler collapses of his own overreaching.” He mentioned these points in outlining a “constructive policy” for America and contended that neither isolation nor intervention was wise or possible.
Sales of defense savings stamps jumped 30 percent to a new record in August. The treasury announced that sales of stamps in denomination from 10 cents to $5 totaled $4,453,748 in August, compared with $3,288,283 in July and $3,475,070 in May, which was the first month of the sales.
Sufficient steel to complete the huge underground Union Square garage in the heart of San Francisco was granted today by the priorities board in Washington, an official for the $1,450,000 project announced. Timothy Pflueger, who went east several weeks ago seeking the release of steel from the Office of Production Management, reported the action by telephone from Washington. He said there would be no interruption of work on the structure which is designed to house 1,700 automobiles and possibly serve as a bomb shelter.
5 PBM Mariner aircraft and 1 PBY Catalina aircraft received radar to help these American aircraft conduct their neutrality patrols.
CBS radio debuted “The Arkansas Traveler.” The program is later renamed “The Bob Burns Show.” Burns played a very strange musical instrument called the “bazooka”. The U.S. Army chose the name to identify its rocket launcher, because it looked so much like Burns’ bazooka, believe it or not…
Major League Baseball:
The Boston Braves unleashed a 15-hit attack today to defeat the Chicago Cubs, 8–5, in the final meeting of the teams this season. The Cubs got 12 hits off Al Javery, but he kept them well scattered. Boston pummeled Claude Passeau for five runs in the first five innings and kept the lead thereafter.
National League President Ford Frick warns the Reds and Dodgers that any repeat of the slowdown of yesterday will result in fines. The two teams play normally and the Reds come away with a 4–3 eleven-inning win over the league leaders. Werber drives in all Reds runs.
Chet Laabs’s twelfth-inning home run, his second of the game, gave the Browns a 9–8 victory over the Athletics today. It gave them a sweep of the four-game series and their second extra-inning conquest in two days. A’s rookie Elmer Valo hits his first homer, off Johnny Niggeling of the Browns. The Czech-born Valo, who hit .348 in six games last year, will improve to .420 in 50 at bats this September to earn a starting job for 1942.
The Cardinals-Giants game ends in a 1–1 tie called on account of darkness. The Cardinals picked up half a game on the Dodgers by playing a tie with the Giants in ten innings today, but the outcome was a distinct disappointment to them. Going into the ninth with a 1–0 lead, the Redbirds held high hopes of making the pennant race even closer until the New Yorkers dashed them with a tying rally.
The Tigers made their hits count for runs as they defeated the Senators by 4–2 today behind the effective hurling of Schoolboy Rowe and Buck Newsom. Rowe allowed only four hits until the eighth, when Washington produced a pair of runs on three hits and a walk. Newsom took over with one out and Senators on first and third and quelled the uprising.
Boston Braves 8, Chicago Cubs 5
Brooklyn Dodgers 3, Cincinnati Reds 4
St. Louis Browns 9, Philadelphia Athletics 8
New York Giants 1, St. Louis Cardinals 1
Detroit Tigers 4, Washington Senators 2
Japan is withholding further representations against the shipment of United States oil to Russia by Way of Vladivostok “pending more fundamental developments in current Japanese-American negotiations,” the chief government spokesman said yesterday. The first phase of Japanese-American conversations, looking toward a general understanding regarding the Far East, appears to have been completed and it is believed a lull may ensue until Kaname Wakasugi, Minister attached to the embassy in Washington, returns to his post.
With Japan’s foreign trade with the outside world virtually at a standstill, the cabinet decided today to shift that trade as far as possible toward the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” especially to China and Manchukuo on the basis of increasing self-sufficiency.
The IJN aircraft carrier Akagi arrives at Ariake Wan (Bay); departs later for Yokosuka.
The 24th Pursuit Group (Interceptor) is formed on the Philippine island of Luzon, effective October 1, 1941, the Bombers in the Philippines remained within the 4th Composite Group.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 127.43 (+0.23)
Born:
Joe Butler, American rock vocalist and drummer (Lovin’ Spoonful), in Glen Cove, New York.
Richard Perle, American political advisor, in New York, New York.
Tommy Carberry, Irish jockey (Grand National 1975, Cheltenham Gold Cup 1970, 71 [L’Escargot]) and trainer (Grand National 1999 [Bobbyjo]), in Ratoath, Ireland (d. 2017).
Bob Rowley, NFL and AFL linebacker (Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Jets), in Somerset, Pennsylvania (d. 2013).
Naval Construction:
The Regia Marina (Royal Italian Navy) Animoso-class torpedo boat Aliseo is laid down by Navalmeccanica (Castellammare di Stabia, Italy).
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type VIIC U-boat U-306 is laid down by Flender Werke AG, Lübeck (werk 306).
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type VIIC U-boat U-417 is laid down by Danziger Werft AG, Danzig (werk 118).
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type VIIC U-boat U-666 is laid down by Howaldtswerke Hamburg AG, Hamburg (werk 815).
The U.S. Navy Gleaves-class destroyers USS Butler (DD-636) and USS Gherardi (DD-637) are laid down by the Philadelphia Navy Yard (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.).
The U.S. Navy 77-foot Elco patrol motor torpedo boat USS PT-54 is launched by the Electric Launch Company Ltd. (Elco), (Bayonne, New Jersey, U.S.A.). She is transferred to the Royal Navy before completion and commissions as HMS MTB 312.
The Royal Navy harbor defence motor launch HMS HDML 1085 is commissioned.
The U.S. Navy Aloe-class net tender USS Buckthorn (YN-9; later AN-14) is placed in service. Her first commanding officer is Lieutenant Lewis Williams, USNR.
The U.S. Navy Aloe-class net tender USS Ebony (YN-10; later AN-15) is placed in service. Her first commanding officer is Ensign Sandrup Bernsen, USNR.
The U.S. Navy Aloe-class net tender USS Gum Tree (YN-13; later AN-18) is commissioned. Her first commanding officer is Lieutenant Commander George H. Burrows, USNR.
Les Forces Navales Françaises Libres (Free French Naval Forces) Flower-class corvette Commandant Detroyat (K 183) (ex HMS Coriander) is commissioned.
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