February 5th, 1941 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: The US politician Wendell Wilkie's morale-boosting visit to Britain ends.The war is now costing Britain GBP11 million a day.
ASW trawler HMS Tourmaline sunk by German aircraft off North Foreland, Kent.
EIRE: A Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf Fw 200C-1 Condor of Kampfgeschwader 40 is returning to its base in France when it crashes near Bantry, County Cork. The only survivor is a gunner who is pulled from the blazing wreckage by a young Irish nurse who later receives a medal and citation signed by Adolf Hitler.
DENMARK: The Royal Danish Navy is
constrained to hand over 6 newer Torpedo Boats to the German Occupation Force.
As the Torpedo Boats leave the Naval Dock in Copenhagen, King Christian X order
the Sovereign Flag at the Naval base lowered to half mast.
GERMANY: German dictator Adolf Hitler scolds his Axis partner, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, for his troops' retreat in the face of British advances in Libya, demanding that the Duce command his forces to resist.
U-563 launched.
LIBYA: Due to the bad terrain they are trying to negotiate the tank regiments of 7th Armoured Div. are slowed to the point where they decide to send the faster vehicles and infantry of the Rifle Brigade forward in Bren gun carriers to join the 11th Hussars are now ranging far ahead. This composite forces is under Colonel Combe and hence called "Combeforce". It comprises some 2,000 men of 11 Hussars, a squadron of the Kings Dragoon Guards and the RAF Armoured Car Squadron.
Combeforce reaches Msus, north-east of Beda Fomm late in the morning and hits the coast road near the village of Sidi Saleh about noon. At 14.30 hrs the first column of Italian lorries came fleeing down the road from the north to find their way blocked by 'A' company of the Rifle Brigade. As the Italian traffic is brought to a halt and begins to pile up, the Italians fan out west of the road towards the sea and probe south to engage the rest of Combeforce. Fighting continues throughout the day in spite of a growing shortage of ammunition.
EGYPT: Cairo: British Headquarters in Egypt announced:
Our westward advance inside Libya is continuing. On Monday, forward British units marched into Cyrene. In Eritrea, Italian troops have continued their retreat beyond Agordat. Our troops are approaching Keren. British troops have left Barentu and are pursuing the enemy toward the south. The exact number of Italian prisoners taken has not yet been determined. In Abyssinia our advance has continued east of Gallabat [Anglo-Egyptian Sudan] on the road from Metemma to Gondar. Patrol activity is continuing in Italian Somaliland.
AUSTRALIA: At a meeting of
the Advisory War Council in Canberra, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. John
Curtin, states that Japan’s policy is one of opportunism and since Great
Britain is fully engaged in Europe, the Japanese may attack Australia.
Another member of government who has just returned from Malaya and Singapore
relates the inadequate defenses of both.
Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson, Australian poet widely credited as the
author of "Waltzing Matilda," dies in a private hospital in Sydney, New
South Wales, after a two-week illness.
Boom defence vessel HMAS Karangi laid down.
MARIANA ISLANDS:
USN Chief Nurse Marion B. Olds and
Nurse Leona Jackson, arrive on Guam.
U.S.A.: Submarine USS Finback laid down.
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau enter the
Atlantic through the Denmark Strait, and refuel from tanker Schlettstadt some
150 miles south of Cape Farewell. (Navy News)