October 28th, 1940 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Battle of Britain:The weather is misty in northern France with fog over the Thames Estuary and Straits clearing later. During the morning Luftwaffe aircraft are active on a small scale over East Anglia. In the afternoon Kent and East Sussex are the areas affected and in the evening a large scale attack is attempted on London which fails, but bombs are dropped in Surrey and Kent. Night activity commences at about 1840 hours and is widespread during the early part of the night with Birmingham and London appearing to be the main objectives. In Birmingham, the city again receives a fierce attack and there are altogether 230 incidents reported about 32 of which involve damage by high explosive bombs, the remainder being fires caused by incendiary bombs including several oil bombs. The most serious fire is New Street Railroad Station and the whole station is enveloped in flames. From midnight onwards the concentration is on the London suburbs and South East England. During the day, RAF Fighter Command claims 4-7-8 aircraft and antiaircraft batteries claim 0-0-1 aircraft. During the night, the RAF claims 1-0-0 aircraft. The RAF does not lose any aircraft.
RAF Fighter Command: Losses: Luftwaffe, 11; RAF, 2.
A new type of bomb made of brass 2.75 inches (7,0 centimeters) long and 2 inches (5,1 centimeters) in diameter is dropped by aircraft on the night of 28/29 October.
VICHY FRANCE: Pierre Laval is appointed Foreign Minister. Regarding the Italian invasion of Greece, the first Italian Communiqué reads: "At dawn on the 28th October our forces stationed in Albania crossed over the Greek border and gained entrance at several places. Our advance continues." (Steven Statharos)
ITALY: Hitler meets with Mussolini in Florence. Commenting on his recent meeting with Generalissimo Franco he says he would prefer to have three or four teeth extracted rather than meet with him again. (Marc James Small)
GREECE: Athens: At 5:30 AM Mussolini's army invaded Greece. In the firm belief that they would meet little resistance from the dictator General Metaxas's forces, Italian tanks and infantry crossed from occupied Albania into the mountains of Epirus before dawn. Hitler heard the news on his train 'Amerika' between Munich and Florence. When the arrived, the Italian leader was delighted to tell him, in German: "Fuhrer, we are on the march!" Hitler conceals his fury at news of the Italian invasion of Greece and pledges military support if Mussolini requires it.
In Hitler's opinion Mussolini is making a critical strategic blunder. To Hitler the capture of Gibraltar, with assistance from Franco and Italy's conquest of Egypt, especially the great naval base at Alexandria, would ensure Britain's collapse.
Mussolini in turn was convinced that the pro-German Metaxas - who has based his Asfalia secret police on the Gestapo and abolished most democratic institutions in Greece - would succumb quickly offering little resistance.
Metaxas, however, has rejected the Italian ultimatum - which he
received in his bed from an Italian envoy at six in the morning - half an hour after
Italian troops crossed the border.
The first Greek communiqué reads: As of 5:30 am today, the Italian armed
forces are attacking our troops protecting the Greek Albanian border. Our
forces are defending our native territory.
The first Italian Communiqué reads: "At dawn on the 28th October our forces stationed in Albania crossed over the Greek border and gained entrance at several places. Our advance continues" (Steven Statharos)
General Visconti-Prasca, the Commander-in-Chief of the Italian aerial forces has not blocked the road to the north, thus allowing three newly-mobilised Greek divisions to move quickly to the front. The Italians are moving slowly, and the Greeks are mobilising quickly.
After only two weeks preparation, Italian generals are outraged at dictator Benito Mussolini's hasty plan.
Approximately 60,000 weathered Italian troops are pulled out of Albania to assist in the fall harvest in Italy. The majority of Italians who conduct this invasion are recruits. Seven divisions of the 9th and 11th Armies are used in the attack under General Visconti-Prasca. To make matters worse, Mussolini never authorizes the use of the Navy or the Air Force to assist in this attack. This invasion coincides with the Greek rainy season when the weather drops below freezing and many Italian soldiers do not possess winter boots. From the onset it is apparent that the Greeks intend to fight. The Italians advance in a four pronged attack up to 25 miles (40 kilometers) into Greek territory. In every turn there seems to be an ambush or a destroyed bridge.
EGYPT: Cairo: Air Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore Air Officer C-in-C, Air HQ Middle East (an Australian) orders 3 squadrons of Blenheims and one of Gladiators to Greece.
Wavell is ordered to send also two A.A. batteries to Athens and an infantry brigade to Suda Bay, in Crete, to assist in the defence of the Greek islands.
SUDAN: Khartoum: The British Secretary of State for War, Anthony Eden, the C-in-C, General Sir Archibald Wavell, the South African Premier, General Jan Smuts and the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie meet to try to reconcile their different war aims in Africa.
CANADA: Convoy HX-84 sailed from Halifax.
Corvette HMCS Nanaimo launched Esquimalt, British Columbia.
UNITED STATES: The USN Chief of Naval Operations reports that aircraft with some form of armor and fuel protection are just beginning to go into service use, and that within a year all fleet aircraft, except those assigned Patrol Wing 2 in the Territory of Hawaii, would have such protection.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The 42,350 ton British troopship HMT Empress of Britain, a former Canadian Pacific passenger ship of the same name, is attacked by a Luftwaffe Fw 200C-1 Kondor on 26 October about 181 nautical miles (336 kilometers) northwest of Galway, County Galway, Éire, (q.v.). The ship is set on fire and abandoned and then taken under tow by the Polish destroyer ORP Burza (H 37) and the two rescue tugs HMS Marauder (W 98) and Thames and headed for the U.K. Today, the German submarine U-32 sights her off the southwest coast of 'ire and sinks her with two torpedoes about 63 nautical miles (117 kilometers) southwest of Cork, County Cork, 'ire, in position 51.16N, 09.50W. This is the largest passenger liner/transport sunk in World War II. U-32 was sunk 30 October 1940 northwest of Ireland, in position 55.37N, 12.19W, by depth charges from the Royal Navy destroyers HMS Harvester and HMS Highlander. 33 of the 42 U-boat crewmen survived.
The Reuters News Agency in London reported:-
The Admiralty has announced that the English steamship Empress of Britain has gone down. The vessel was attacked by enemy aircraft and caught fire so that it had to be evacuated. Salvage manoeuvres were instituted at once, but when the steamer was taken in tow, it reared up and sank. Of a total 643 persons on board, 598 survivors were brought to land by British war vessels. They included the families of military men and a small number of military personnel. The energetic and effective action of the steamer's anti-aircraft defence was largely responsible for the fact that so many people were saved.
The vessel was a 42,000 ton luxury steamer. The King and Queen sailed home on her last year from their trip to Canada and the United States.
Luftwaffe Front-Line Bulletin No. 26
On 26 October 1940, a FW-200 on armed reconnaissance and weather-scouting patrol over North-West Ireland sighted a large vessel with 3 smokestacks. Despite powerful Anti-Aircraft fire which inflicted serious hits on the attacking aircraft, the German plane made 2 hits on the ship in a total of 4 low-level attacks. As the plane was flying away, the ship showed a slight list and was burning along its whole length. The assaulted ship burned for 24 hours and the following day its wreck was sunk by a U-boat. The vessel in question was the passenger steamer Empress of Britain, which at 42,000 tons was the tenth largest ship in the international merchant fleet.