Today in WWII History

November 17, 1887

Monty is born
On this day in 1887, Bernard Law Montgomery, British general and one of the most formidable Allied commanders of the war, as well as one of the most disliked, is born in London.

A graduate of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, Montgomery fought in World War I with distinction, leading an infantry platoon in an attack at Ypres, Belgium, the site of three major battles and many British casualties. Between wars, Montgomery stayed in the army as an instructor, rising in reputation as a tough-minded leader.

During the Second World War, Montgomery took command of the 3rd Army Division as part of the British Expeditionary forces in France, but had to be evacuated at Dunkirk. Two years later, in August 1942, Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave Montgomery command of the British 8th Army, which had been pushed across North Africa into Egypt by German General Erwin Rommel. Needless to say, British morale was low-but not for long. "We will stand and fight here. If we can't stay here alive, then let us stay here dead," Monty declared in his typical braggadocio style, and proceeded to push Rommel into retreat at the Battle of el-Alamein--all the way to Tunisia. Rommel was finally recalled to Europe, and the Germans surrendered their position in North Africa altogether in May 1943.

It was during preparations for Operation Overlord, the D-Day invasion of France, that Montgomery's prickly personality ran straight into Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of the operation. Montgomery and his 21st Army Group performed admirably in France, keeping the Germans turned in one direction as American forces attacked from the other. But Eisenhower often rejected many of Monty's strategic proposals, deeming them overly cautious (he was unwilling to move until all the resources and men necessary for optimum results were in place). Ike also thought Montgomery unable and unwilling to strain every last bit of advantage from every strategic gain.

Monty, for his part, did little to hide a haughty disdain for Eisenhower-not to mention his desire to take complete control of land forces. After receiving the surrender of the German northern armies in 1945, Monty held a press conference in which he all but took credit for salvaging a disintegrating American-led operation. He was almost removed from his command for this outrageous, and groundless, contention. By war's end, virtually no American commanding officer, including Generals Omar Bradley and George Patton, was speaking to Montgomery.

After the war, Monty was made a viscount and a knight of the garter. Among the offices he held was deputy commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers in Europe. He also went on to write a number of treatises on warfare, as well as his Memoirs (1958). He died in 1976 at the age of 88. He would be remembered as one of the most gifted British commanders of the war-but more by his troops than by his American counterparts.

 

USS McKEAN (November 17, 1943)

US destroyer sunk at the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay by a direct hit from a Japanese torpedo plane. The after magazine, containing the depth charges, exploded and ruptured the fuel tanks. Minutes later the forward magazine blew up and the ship began to sink by the stern. The destroyer (Lt. Comdr. Ralph L. Ramsey) was transporting 185 Marines from Gaudalcanal to Bougainville when she was attacked. A total of 64 crew members and 52 marines were killed. Survivors were picked up by rescue ships.

 

November 18, 1940

Hitler furious over Italy's debacle in Greece
On this day in 1940, Adolf Hitler meets with Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano over Mussolini's disastrous invasion of Greece.

Mussolini surprised everyone with a move against Greece; his ally, Hitler, was caught off guard, especially since the Duce had led Hitler to believe he had no such intention. Even Mussolini's own chief of army staff found out about the invasion only after the fact!

Despite being warned off an invasion of Greece by his own generals, despite the lack of preparedness on the part of his military, despite that it would mean getting bogged down in a mountainous country during the rainy season against an army willing to fight tooth and nail to defend its autonomy, Mussolini moved ahead out of sheer hubris, convinced he could defeat the inferior Greeks in a matter of days. He also knew a secret, that millions of lire had been put aside to bribe Greek politicians and generals not to resist the Italian invasion. Whether the money ever made it past the Italian fascist agents delegated with the responsibility is unclear; if it did, it clearly made no difference whatsoever-the Greeks succeeded in pushing the Italian invaders back into Albania after just one week. The Axis power spent the next three months fighting for its life in a defensive battle. To make matters worse, virtually half the Italian fleet at Taranto had been crippled by a British carrier-based attack.

At their meeting in Obersalzberg, Hitler excoriated Ciano for opening an opportunity for the British to enter Greece and establish an airbase in Athens, putting the Brits within striking distance of valuable oil reserves in Romania, which Hitler relied upon for his war machine. It also meant that Hitler would have to divert forces from North Africa, a high strategic priority, to Greece in order to bail Mussolini out. Hitler considered leaving the Italians to fight their own way out of this debacle-possibly even making peace with the Greeks as a way of forestalling an Allied intervention. But Germany would eventually invade, in April 1941, adding Greece to its list of conquests.

 

November 19, 1940

Hitler urges Spain to grab Gibraltar
On this day in 1940, Adolf Hitler tells Spanish Foreign Minister Serano Suner to make good on an agreement for Spain to attack Gibraltar, a British-controlled region. This would seal off the Mediterranean and trap British troops in North Africa.

Spain had just emerged from a three-year (1936-39) civil war, leaving Gen. Francisco Franco in dictatorial control of the nation. Although Franco had accepted aid for his Nationalist forces from the fascist governments of Germany and Italy during his war against the left-wing Republicans, he had maintained a posture of "neutrality" once the Second World War broke out. Two factors led the Caudillo, or chief of state, to reconsider this stance: (1) the fact that early Italian victories in Africa and German victories in Europe made a fascist victory more than just a possibility, and (2) his own desire to regain control of Gibraltar, a tiny peninsula south of Spain and a British colony. Toward this end, Franco began manipulating his own people to the point of exercising frenzied mobs to demand war against England to retake Gibraltar, which Spain lost during the War of Spanish Succession in 1704.

Gibraltar was a key strategic region, the only point of access to the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean and long a significant air and naval base for the United Kingdom. If Spain could occupy Gibraltar, it would cut Britain off from its own troops in North Africa and frustrate plans to drive back Rommel and his Afrika Korps, as well as stop any British plans to invade Italy. Hitler was keen on pushing Spain in this direction. But when the Fuhrer emphasized the need to move quickly, the Spanish foreign minister, on orders from Franco, insisted that Spain would need 400,000 tons of grain before it could wage war against Britain. Hitler knew this was merely a delaying tactic; Franco did not want to commit his country to the war, even as he allowed German subs to refuel in Spanish ports and German spies to keep tabs on British naval forces in Gibraltar.

But as the war began to turn against the Axis powers, so did Franco, who saw a future of negotiating trade deals with the Western democracies. The Caudillo began to cooperate with the Allies in a variety of ways, including allowing Free French forces to cross Spain from Vichy France to Resistance bases in North Africa. But the Allies saw Franco as a mere opportunist, and Spain was not allowed into the United Nations until 1955.

 

HMAS SYDNEY (November 19, 1941)

Launched in 1940 under the name HMS Phaeton. Transferred to the Australian Navy under her new name HMAS Sydney. The cruiser of 7,000 tons, captained by Captain John Burnett, set sail from Fremantle in Western Australia on her way home for a refit, when she became engaged in a fire fight off the coast of Western Australia with the German raider Kormoran disguised as a Dutch merchantman, and commanded by Theodor Detmers. The Kormoran was one of the ten armed merchantmen employed by the German Navy during the war. Badly damaged and on fire, the Sydney disappeared into the night, never to be seen again. All of her crew of 645 men were lost in this, Australia's worst World War II sea tragedy. The Kormoran also sank with the loss of 85 men but 315 of her crew made it to the Australian shore. Controversy raged for decades as to whether there was a cover up by the Australian Government as to the circumstances of the ships disappearance. Will the truth ever be known? The only piece of wreckage found was a life-raft which can be seen in the Australian National War Memorial in Canberra.

 

November 20, 1945

Nuremberg war-crimes trials begin
On this day in 1945, a series of trials of accused Nazi war criminals, conducted by a U.S., French, and Soviet military tribunal based in Nuremberg, Germany, begins. Twenty-four former Nazi officials were tried, and when it was all over, one year later, half would be sentenced to death by hanging.

These trials of accused war criminals were authorized by the London Agreement, signed in August 1945 by the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the provisional government of France. It was agreed at that time that those Axis officials whose war crimes extended beyond a particular geographic area would be tried by an international war tribunal (a trial for accused Japanese war criminals would be held in Tokyo). Nineteen other nations would eventually sign on to the provisions of the agreement.

The charges against the 24 accused at Nuremberg were as follows: (1) crimes against peace, that is, the planning and waging of wars that violated international treaties; (2) crimes against humanity, that is, the deportation, extermination, and genocide of various populations; (3) war crimes, that is, those activities that violated the "rules" of war that had been laid down in light of the First World War and later international agreements; and (4) conspiracy to commit any and all of the crimes listed in the first three counts.

The tribunal had the authority to find both individuals and organizations criminal; in the event of the latter, individual members of that organization could then be tried. Each of the four original signatories of the London Agreement picked one member and an alternate to sit on the tribunal. The chief prosecutor was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, who was asked by President Harry S. Truman to create a structure for the proceedings. The defendants were arrayed in two rows of seats; each of the indicted listened to a simultaneous translation of the arguments through a headset.

There were 216 court sessions. On October 1, 1946, verdicts on 22 of the 24 defendants were handed down (two were not present; one had committed suicide in his prison cell, another was ultimately deemed mentally unfit): 12 of the defendants were sentenced to be hanged, including Julius Streicher (propagandist), Alfred Rosenberg (anti-Semitic ideologue and minister of the occupied eastern territories), Joachim von Ribbentrop (foreign affairs minister), Martin Bormann (Nazi Party secretary), and Herman Goering (Luftwaffe commander and Gestapo head). Ten of the 12 were hanged on October 16. Bormann was tried and sentenced in absentia (he was thought to have died trying to escape Hitler's bunker at the close of the war, but was only declared officially dead in 1973). Goering committed suicide before he could be hanged. The rest of the defendants received prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life. All of the defenses offered by the accused were rejected, including the notion that only a state, not an individual, could commit a war crime proper

 

November 21, 1941

Nazi chief architect requests POWs to labor for a new Berlin
On this day in 1941, Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler's chief architect and minister for armaments and war production, asks for 30,000 Soviet prisoners of war to use as slave laborers to begin a massive Berlin building program.

Speer was born March 19, 1905, in Mannheim, Germany. At the age of 22, he received his architectural license, having studied at three German technical schools. He became an ardent Nazi after hearing Hitler orate at a rally in late 1930, and joined the party in January 1931. Hitler, always impressed by academic credentials and any kind of artistic or technical talent, made Speer his personal architect. Among the projects with which the Fuhrer entrusted Speer was the design of the parade grounds for the Nuremberg Party Congress in 1934, which Leni Riefienstahl made famous in her famous propaganda film Triumph of the Will.

As minister of armaments and munitions, Speer's job description expanded to include not only armament production and transportation, but also the direction of raw material use and finally the conscription of slave labor, culled from concentration camps, for war material production. These slave laborers would come in handy for Hitler's "new" Berlin. Speer wanted to begin construction even as the war waged. Despite the drain on resources Hitler agreed. Speer beguiled the Fuhrer with models of a Great Hall for the Chancellery and a grand office for Goering.

But as the war turned against Nazi Germany, the rebuilding plans were scrapped. When the war was over, Hitler was dead, and Speer was tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg, the site of his grand parade, and sentenced to 20 years in Spandau prison in Berlin.

 

URAKAZE (November 21, 1944)

The Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Urakaze had an excellent record of Allied tonnage sunk. In company with the destroyers Hamakaze, Yukikaze and Isokaze, the three were escorting the home-bound damaged warships, Kongo, Nagato and Yamato from Brunei to Kure, Japan, when attacked by the USS Sealion in the Formosa Strait. As the Sealion gradually caught up with the battle fleet her commander, Captain Eli Reich, launched three stern torpedoes at the battleship Nagato. All missed but one carried on and hit the Urakaze on her port side. After a series of explosions the Urakaze simply blew apart and in less than two minutes the vessel sank. Her entire crew of fourteen officers and 293 men were lost.

 

KONGO (November 21, 1944)

Built in Britain by Vickers & Son at Barrow. On October 25th, 1944, the 36,601 ton Japanese battleship Kongo was badly damaged by air attacks during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. A gash on her starboard side opened up fifteen oil tanks, the contents of which poured into the sea. The damage forced the Kongo to attempt a return voyage to Japan for repairs. While plowing through rough seas in the Formosa Strait she was attacked by the American submarine USS Sealion (Captain Eli Reich). Two torpedoes hit the battleship causing a list of 20 degrees. Heading for the nearest port of Keelung on Formosa, some sixty-five nautical miles distant, the list increased to 45 degrees. It became obvious to the captain and crew that the Kongo was sinking and the order to abandon ship was given. When the list accelerated past 60 degrees, tragedy struck. Her forward 14-inch magazine exploded with horrifying results and the Kongo rolled over and slipped under the waves. Some 1,250 officers and men were lost. Her escorts, the destroyers Hamakaze and Isokaze rescued survivors. The Hamakaze picking up seven officers and 139 men, the Isokaze rescued six officers and 85 men, a total of 347 survivors. A third escort, the destroyer Urakaze, was also sunk by the Sealion taking all hands, 307 men, to their deaths.

 

November 22, 1942

Soviets encircle Germans at Stalingrad
On this day in 1942, a Soviet counteroffensive against the German armies pays off as the Red Army traps about a quarter-million German soldiers south of Kalach, on the Don River, within Stalingrad. As the Soviets' circle tightened, German General Friedrich Paulus requested permission from Berlin to withdraw.

The Battle of Stalingrad began in the summer of 1942, as German forces assaulted the city, a major industrial center and a prize strategic coup, if it could be occupied. But despite repeated attempts, the German 6th Army, under Paulus, and part of the 4th Panzer Army, under Ewald von Kleist, could not break past the adamantine defense by the Soviet 62nd Army, commanded by Gen. Vasily I. Chuikov, despite having pushed the Soviets almost to the Volga River in mid-October and encircling Stalingrad.

Diminishing resources, partisan guerilla attacks, and the cruelty of the Russian winter began to take their toll on the Germans. On November 19, the Soviets made their move, launching a counteroffensive that began with a massive artillery bombardment of the German position. The Soviets then assaulted the weakest link in the German force-inexperienced Romanian troops; 65,000 were ultimately taken prisoner by the Soviets.

The Soviets then made a bold strategic move, encircling the enemy, launching pincer movements from north and south simultaneously, even as the Germans encircled Stalingrad. The Germans should have withdrawn, but Hitler wouldn't allow it. He wanted his armies to hold out until they could be reinforced. By the time those fresh troops arrived in December, it was too late. The Soviet position was too strong, and the Germans were exhausted. It was then only a matter of time before the Germans would be forced to surrender

 

November 23, 1940

Romania becomes an Axis "power"
On this day in 1940, Romania signs the Tripartite Pact, officially allying itself with Germany, Italy, and Japan.

As early as 1937, Romania had come under control of a fascist government that bore great resemblance to that of Germany's, including similar anti-Jewish laws. Romania's king, Carol II, dissolved the government a year later because of a failing economy and installed Romania's Orthodox Patriarch as prime minister. But the Patriarch's death and peasant uprising provoked renewed agitation by the fascist Iron Guard paramilitary organization, which sought to impose order. In June 1940, the Soviet Union co-opted two Romanian provinces, and the king searched for an ally to help protect it and appease the far right within its own borders. So on July 5, 1940, Romania allied itself with Nazi Germany-only to be invaded by its "ally" as part of Hitler's strategy to create one huge eastern front against the Soviet Union.

King Carol abdicated on September 6, 1940, leaving the country in the control of fascist Prime Minister Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guard. Signing the Tripartite Pact was now inevitable. Originally formulated in Berlin on September 27, the pact formally recognized an alliance between Germany, Italy, and Japan, termed the "Axis." As more European nations became subject to fascist domination and invasion, they too were drawn into the pact, albeit as unequal partners (Hungary was made an Axis "power" on November 20). Now it was Romania's turn.

While Romania would recapture the territory lost to the Soviet Union when the Germans invaded Russia, it would also have to endure the Germans' raping its resources as part of the Nazi war effort. Besides taking control of Romania's oil wells and installations, Hitler would help himself to Romania's food crops, causing a food shortage for native Romanians.

 

RAWALPINDI (November 23, 1939)

P&O liner on the London, Bombay and Far East routes. At the outbreak of World War 11 the ship was taken over and converted to an armed merchant cruiser. While on patrol between Iceland and the Faroes she was attacked by the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Hopelessly outmatched she attempted to escape into a nearby fog bank. With her bridge and wireless-room destroyed and completely at the mercy of the enemy ships it was decided to abandon the vessel. The casualties on board the Rawalpindi amounted to 275 dead including her commander Captain Kennedy and 39 other officers. Twenty-two crewmembers were taken prisoner by the German warships. The blazing Rawalpindi drifted for three hours before sinking.

 

November 24, 1944

U.S. B-29s raid Tokyo
On this day in 1944, 111 U.S. B-29 Superfortress bombers raid Tokyo for the first time since Capt. Jimmy Doolittle's raid in 1942. Their target: the Nakajima aircraft engine works.

Fall 1944 saw the sustained strategic bombing of Japan. It began with a reconnaissance flight over Tokyo by Tokyo Rose, a Superfortress B-29 bomber piloted by Capt. Ralph D. Steakley, who grabbed over 700 photographs of the bomb sites in 35 minutes. Next, starting the first week of November, came a string of B-29 raids, dropping hundreds of tons of high explosives on Iwo Jima, in order to keep the Japanese fighters stationed there on the ground and useless for a counteroffensive. Then came Tokyo.

The awesome raid, composed of 111 Superfortress four-engine bombers, was led by Gen. Emmett "Rosie" O'Donnell, piloting Dauntless Dotty. Press cameramen on site captured the takeoffs of the first mass raid on the Japanese capital ever for posterity. Unfortunately, even with the use of radar, overcast skies and bad weather proved an insurmountable obstacle at 30,000 feet: Despite the barrage of bombs that were dropped, fewer than 50 hit the main target, the Nakajima Aircraft Works, doing little damage. The upside was that at such a great height, the B-29s were protected from counter-attack; only one was shot down.

One Distinguished Flying Cross was awarded as a result of the raid. It went to Captain Steakley.

 

November 25, 1941

A "war warning" is sent to commanders in the Pacific
On this day in 1941, Adm. Harold R. Stark, U.S. chief of naval operations, tells Adm. Husband E. Kimmel, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, that both President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull think a Japanese surprise attack is a distinct possibility.

"We are likely to be attacked next Monday, for the Japs are notorious for attacking without warning," Roosevelt had informed his Cabinet. "We must all prepare for trouble, possibly soon," he telegraphed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Kimmel's command was specifically at the mid-Pacific base at Oahu, which comprised, in part, Pearl Harbor. At the time he received the "warning" from Stark, he was negotiating with Army Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, commander of all U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor, about sending U.S. warships out from Pearl Harbor in order to reinforce Wake and Midway Islands, which, along with the Philippines, were possible Japanese targets. But the Army had no antiaircraft artillery to spare.

War worries had struck because of an intercepted Japanese diplomatic message, which gave November 25 as a deadline of sorts. If Japanese diplomacy had failed to convince the Americans to revoke the economic sanctions against Japan, "things will automatically begin to happen," the message related. Those "things" were becoming obvious, in the form of Japanese troop movements off Formosa (Taiwan) apparently toward Malaya. In fact, they were headed for Pearl Harbor, as was the Japanese First Air Fleet.

Despite the fact that so many in positions of command anticipated a Japanese attack, especially given the failure of diplomacy (Japan refused U.S. demands to withdraw from both the Axis pact and occupied territories in China and Indochina), no one expected Hawaii as the target

 

KUMANO (November 25, 1944)

Japanese heavy cruiser, a survivor of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. (in which Japan lost 26 ships, the US, 6 ships) The badly damaged vessel lost 56 officers and men killed and 99 wounded. The Kumano (Captain Hitomi Soichiro) managed to escape to Manila for repairs. On her next sortie she was hit by torpedoes from a US submarine but again made it home. Dubbed the 'ship with nine lives' her luck finally ran out on 25th November when, en route to Formosa, she was attacked by Avenger planes of Air Group 80 from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. Four direct hits by 500 lb bombs slowed the ship down but next came an attack with aerial torpedoes scoring 5 hits on the disabled ship. Listing at an angle of 45 degrees the order to abandon ship was given. The Kumano then turned turtle, her hull showing above the water. Survivors clinging to the hull and swimming in the water were subjected to strafing by the American planes. At 5:15pm she slid under the waves taking 440 men including her captain, out of a complement of 1,036, with her. In all, she had absorbed a total of eight torpedoes and six bombs before sinking

 

November 26, 1941

Japanese task force leaves for Pearl Harbor
On this day in 1941, Adm. Chuichi Nagumo leads the Japanese First Air Fleet, an aircraft carrier strike force, toward Pearl Harbor, with the understanding that should "negotiations with the United States reach a successful conclusion, the task force will immediately put about and return to the homeland."

Negotiations had been ongoing for months. Japan wanted an end to U.S. economic sanctions. The Americans wanted Japan out of China and Southeast Asia-and to repudiate the Tripartite "Axis" Pact with Germany and Italy as conditions to be met before those sanctions could be lifted. Neither side was budging. President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull were anticipating a Japanese strike as retaliation-they just didn't know where. The Philippines, Wake Island, Midway-all were possibilities. American intelligence reports had sighted the Japanese fleet movement out from Formosa (Taiwan), apparently headed for Indochina. As a result of this "bad faith" action, President Roosevelt ordered that a conciliatory gesture of resuming monthly oil supplies for Japanese civilian needs canceled. Hull also rejected Tokyo's "Plan B," a temporary relaxation of the crisis, and of sanctions, but without any concessions on Japan's part. Prime Minister Tojo considered this an ultimatum, a!

nd more or less gave up on diplomatic channels as the means of resolving the impasse.

Nagumo had no experience with naval aviation, having never commanded a fleet of aircraft carriers in his life. This role was a reward for a lifetime of faithful service. Nagumo, while a man of action, did not like taking unnecessary risks-which he considered an attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor to be. But Chief of Staff Rear Adm. Isoruku Yamamoto thought differently; while also opposing war with the United States, he believed the only hope for a Japanese victory was a swift surprise attack, via carrier warfare, against the U.S. fleet. And as far as the Roosevelt War Department was concerned, if war was inevitable, it desired "that Japan commit the first overt act."

 

ROHNA (November 26, 1943)

Seventeen year old British liner/troopship of 8,602 tons, carrying 2,193 passengers including 1,988 US troops, 7 Red Cross personnel and a crew of 198, sailed from Oran, Algieria, bound for Bombay, India, via the Suez Canal. She joined the convoy KMF 26 which consisted of 24 ships in six columns, four ships in each column and escorted by seven British destroyers. Between Algiers and Phillopville the convoy was attacked by around 30 Heinkel 177 bombers of 11/KG-40. The Rohna was hit by a HS 293 'glider bomb' (the world's first guided missile) The troopship, crewed by Indian seamen under British officers and captained by an Australian naval officer, was owned by the British India Steam Navigation Company. The ship sank in less than 30 minutes taking 1,015 US troops and 102 crew members to a watery death. This was the largest loss of American lives at sea during WW11. Between 10.30 PM and midnight, rescue ships, including the minesweeper SS Pioneer, the Red Cross ship Clan Campbell and the Rohna's sister ship HMT Rajula, reported 'sailing through a sea of floating bodies'. Just over 900 survivors were rescued. Eight of the Heinkel 177s were shot down during the attack. Survivors were landed at Phillopville and taken care of by a British army unit. For reasons of national security details of this tragedy were kept secret for many years.

For more on the Rohna survivors, see the The Rohna Survivors Memorial Association's website at The Rohna Survivors Memorial Association.

 

November 27, 1942

French scuttle their fleet
On this day in 1942, French Admiral Jean de Laborde sinks the French fleet anchored in Toulon harbor, off the southern coast of France, in order to keep it out of German hands.

In June 1940, after the German invasion of France and the establishment of an unoccupied zone in the southeast, led by Gen. Philippe Petain, Adm. Jean Darlan was committed to keeping the French fleet out of German control. At the same time, as a minister in the government that had signed an armistice with the Germans, one that promised a relative "autonomy" to Vichy France, Darlan was prohibited from sailing that fleet to British or neutral waters. But a German-commandeered fleet in southern France, so close to British-controlled regions in North Africa, could prove disastrous to the Brits, who decided to take matters into their own hands by launching Operation Catapult: the attempt by a British naval force to persuade the French naval commander at Oran to either break the armistice and sail the French fleet out of the Germans' grasp-or to scuttle it. And if the French wouldn't, the Brits would.

And the British tried. In a five-minute missile bombardment, they managed to sink one French cruiser and two old battleships. They also killed 1,250 French sailors. This would be the genesis of much bad blood between France and England throughout the war. General Petain broke off diplomatic relations with Great Britain.

But two years later, with the Germans now in Vichy and the armistice already violated, Admiral Laborde finished the job the British had started. As the Germans launched Operation Lila, the attempt to commandeer the French fleet, Laborde ordered the sinking of 2 battle cruisers, 4 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, 1 aircraft transport, 30 destroyers, and 16 submarines. Three French subs managed to escape the Germans and make it to Algiers, Allied territory. Only one sub fell into German hands. The marine equivalent of a scorched-earth policy had succeeded.

 

HMAS PARRAMATTA (November 27, 1941)

Australian Navy sloop, launched in June 1939, engaged in escort duties in the Mediterranean, was torpedoed and sunk 64 kilometres east-northeast of Tobruk, Libya, by the U-559 (Kptl. Hans Heidtmann). The destroyer was escorting a munitions ship 'Hanne' from Tobruk to Alexandria when attacked. Hit amidships by the torpedo and causing an explosion in the magazine, the sloop sank within minutes. Lost with the Parramatta were 138 crewmembers including her captain, Lt. Cdr. J. H. Walker. There were 49 survivors rescued by the destroyer HMS Avon Vale. The Parramatta carried a complement of 164 men. (The U-559 was sunk by depth charges from British destroyers on October 30, 1942, about 153 kilometres north-east of Port Said, Egypt. Seven men were killed, 38 survived)

 

November 28, 1954

Enrico Fermi, architect of the nuclear age, dies
On this day in 1954, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi, the first man to create and control a nuclear chain reaction, and one of the Manhattan Project scientists, dies in Chicago at the age of 53.

Fermi was born in Rome on September 1, 1901. He made his career choice of physicist at age 17, and earned his doctorate at the University of Pisa at 21. After studying in Germany under physicist Max Born, famous for his work on quantum mechanics, which would prove vital to Fermi's later work, he returned to Italy to teach mathematics at the University of Florence. By 1926, he had been made a full professor of theoretical physics and gathered around him a group of other young physicists. In 1929, he became the youngest man ever elected to the Royal Academy of Italy.

The theoretical became displaced by the practical for Fermi upon learning of England's Sir James Chadwick's discovery of the neutron and the Curies' production of artificial radioactivity. Fermi went to work on producing radioactivity by means of manipulating the speed of neutrons derived from radioactive beryllium. Further similar experimentation with other elements, including uranium 92, produced new radioactive substances; Fermi's colleagues believed he had created a new, "transuranic" element with an atomic number of 93, the result of uranium 92 capturing a neuron while under bombardment, thus increasing its atomic weight. Fermi remained skeptical, despite his fellow physicists' enthusiasm. He became a believer in 1938, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for "his identification of new radioactive elements." Although travel was restricted for men whose work was deemed vital to national security, Fermi was given permission to go to Sweden to receive his prize. !

He and his wife, Laura, who was Jewish, never returned; both feared and despised Mussolini's fascist regime.

Fermi left Sweden for New York City, Columbia University, specifically, where he recreated many of his experiments with Niels Bohr, the Danish-born physicist, who suggested the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction. Fermi and others saw the possible military applications of such an explosive power, and quickly composed a letter warning President Roosevelt of the perils of a German atomic bomb. The letter was signed and delivered to the president by Albert Einstein on October 11, 1939. The Manhattan Project, the American program to create its own atomic bomb, was the result.

It fell to Fermi to produce the first nuclear chain reaction, without which such a bomb was impossible. He created a jury-rigged laboratory, complete with his own "atomic pile," in a squash court in the basement of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. It was there that Fermi, with other physicists looking on, produced the first controlled chain reaction on December 2, 1942. The nuclear age was born. "The Italian navigator has just landed in the new world," was the coded message sent to a delighted President Roosevelt.

The first nuclear device, the creation of the Manhattan Project scientists, was tested on July 16, 1945. It was followed less than a month later by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war, Fermi, now an American citizen, became a Distinguished Service Professor of Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago, consulting on the construction of the first large-particle accelerator. He went on to receive the Congressional Medal of Merit and to be elected a foreign member of the Royal Society of London.

Among other honors accorded to Fermi: The element number 100, fermium, was named for him. Also, the Enrico Fermi Award, now one of the oldest and most prestigious science and technology awards given by the U.S. government, was created in his honor.