January 15th, 1941 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Cruiser minelayer HMS Adventure is damaged for the second time on a mine while on passage from Milford Haven to Liverpool.RAF Bomber Command designates oil targets as the "sole primary targets." Seventeen plants are designated in cities and cities connected with the oil industry. Hanover, Magdeburg, Bremen and Oppau are listed as targets.
London:
The Admiralty announces the promotion of Vice-Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, C-in-C of the Mediterranean Fleet to admiral.
Corvette HMS Godetia laid down.
Minesweeper HMS Felixstowe launched.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Hoxa launched.
LUXEMBOURG: German soldiers loot the ancient monastery of Clairvaux, which was founded in 1115.
GERMANY:
Chancellor Adolf Hitler meets with Romanian Prime Minister General Ion
Antonescu at Salzburg and informs him of his intention to invade the Soviet
Union with Romanian collaboration. Antonescu tells Hitler that first he must
liquidate the Legionary Movement, but neglects to ask for more than just a
promise of additional aid, armaments, and war materials.
During the night of 15/16 January, 96 RAF
Bomber Command aircraft are sent to bomb Wilhelmshaven; 70 actually bomb the
target. This raid is rated as successful.
U-179 is
laid down.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: The Italian motorship Citta di Messina (2,472 BRT), escorted by the torpedo boat Centauro, is torpedoed and sunk by the submarine HMS Regent. It is the first sinking of a supply ship bound for North African in 1941. (Mark Horan)
ETHIOPIA: Five Years after he was forced into exile Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, is home. He was flown over the frontier from Sudan shortly after 11am by the RAF and was greeted by a welcoming party of British officers, native chiefs and troops from the Ethiopian regular army.
The Emperor had been forced into exile by the Italian invasion, pleading in vain for aid at the League of Nations. Today he issued a proclamation urging his people to rebel themselves against the Italian invaders: "Italy is cornered by the grip of Great Britain by sea, air and land power. The Italians will not escape my trusted warriors."
Haile Selassie, who was accompanied by his two sons, thanked the government and people of Britain for their support in his "bitter trials". So the man who had lived in Bath as plain Mr Smith was once more "His Imperial Majesty - Lion of Judah, king of the Kings of Ethiopia." His return is expected to boost even further the momentum of British attacks on Mussolini's faltering empire.
ITALIAN SOMALILAND: British forces from Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Kenya mount a major offensive against Italian East Africa to drive the Italians out of the Horn of Africa.
CHINA: Kiangsi, central CHINA: The growing tension between rival Nationalist and Communist factions, which flared into open violence last week when the 10,000 strong New Fourth Army of the Communists was surrounded and disarmed, is likely to be made worse by the Nationalist Kuomintang ruling that the New Fourth must now be disbanded.
The incident is feared to have severely damaged the Chinese war effort and removed any prospect of further military collaboration between the two rivals against Japan.
Communists are denouncing the disarming as part of a Nationalist-Japanese plot. The Communists fear that 25,000 comrades who are still in Kiangsi, which is Nationalist dominated, face a similar danger. They claim that the original Nationalist order to the New Fourth to cross the Yellow River was always intended to trap it.
CANADA: Minesweepers HMCS Gananoque and Goderich laid down Toronto, Ontario.
Destroyers HMCS Assiniboine, St Francis and Columbia departed Halifax for EG-4 Greenock.
U.S.A.: The House of Representatives' Committee on Foreign Affairs is holding hearings on House Resolution (H.R.) 1776, the Lend-Lease Bill. Secretary of State Cordell Hull testifies and advocates passage of the bill.
Destroyer USS Gwin commissioned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: AMC HMCS Prince Henry arrived Bermuda for workups.