April 12th, 1941 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Bomber Command: 2 Group: During a raid on Flushing Docks, Holland, three Blenheims are caught by two Bf109s and an air gunner is killed.Operations Order 27 expands the anti-shipping campaign from Bordeaux to Norway.
Bristol: In his role as Chancellor of Bristol University, Churchill confers an honorary degree on Mr. Winant, the US ambassador, Dr J.B. Conant of Harvard and Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia. Many of the academics are still covered in the grime from fighting the previous nights air raid.
GERMANY: Daily Keynote from the Reich Press Chief:
The Minister has ordered that the music of the grand Prince Eugen Fanfare and the German national anthem should no longer be played every time a special announcement is made, because then we would have no way left to intensify [the people's mood]. He has reminded us that our broadcast for the ceasefire with France moved the people most profoundly, precisely because [the music played] was unique. Thus the grand Prince Eugen Fanfare and the German national anthem must be played only two or three times throughout the whole Balkan campaign.
Russ Folsom adds: The march was composed in 1853 by Andreas Leonhardt inspired by a much earlier melody, (c.1717), the "Prinz Eugen Lied", which was the traditionsmarch of the k.u.k. Dragoon regiment NR. 13 "Prinz Eugen von Savoy." (See here for PrinzEugenmarsch.mp3.)
NORWAY: Hammerfest: A British raiding party on a Norwegian destroyer attacks a fish-oil factory.
U.S.S.R.: Moscow: Stalin has now issued a secret directive for the strengthening of the western frontier fortified zones. Some 150,000 construction workers have been drafted in, but work is held up by shortages of such materials as timber and cement.
BALKANS: Croatia is proclaimed as a sovereign state, with Ante Pavelich as head of the puppet Axis state.
GREECE: The British and Imperial forces, deployed along the rugged terrain from the Gulf of Salonika to Edhessa in the Vermion mountains, have been pulled back to Mount Olympus, the next defensible line, some hundred kilometres to the south. The Allied C-in-C, General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, decided he had no other choice when he learnt that the Germans were pouring into Greece through the Monastir Gap and Yugoslav resistance was crumbling.
The 53,000 strong British and Imperial forces have had little or no time to prepare their defences, and their strength is insufficient to organize a defence in depth. If the Germans are not stopped at Monastir they will soon be turning the British left flank.
At Vevi the Germans thrust back the Rangers but the Royal Horse Artillery and Australian anti-tank gunners held back German infantry and tanks. By dusk German tanks were among the forward posts of the 2/8th and it was out of touch with Brigade Headquarters. It withdrew but the men reached the vehicles further south and on the west the 2/4th withdrew except for a company which walked into the German lines and was captured. After two successful rearguard actions by the armoured brigade the force was extricated and the infantry reached the Olympus-Aliakmon Line.
With the Australian and New Zealand units fighting side by side, Blamey as commander of 1 Australian Corps, renames it the Anzac Corps. (Anthony Staunton)
The Luftwaffe carry out a heavy raid on Kozani behind the position of the Amynteion Detachment. There was virtually no opposition to the raiding aircraft and the town was severely damaged.
The Greek Albanian forces in the Northern sector begin their withdrawal from Albania today, 6 days after the initial German thrust into north-eastern Greece. Steve Stathros' grandfather's unit pulls out of Beragozhde (Pragosda) blowing up the road behind them to slow the Italians. The Italians, in fact, do not respond to the Greek withdrawal by advancing themselves until the following day. (Steve Stathros)
YUGOSLAVIA: Yugoslavian Headquarters announced:
In the northern sector, the superior enemy forces have crossed through Drvar (Yugoslavia) and reached the Save river; they have also occupied Kragujevac. German troops have marched into Zagreb unopposed by our troops.
NORTH AFRICA: Bardia falls to the Germans.
U.S.A.: Washington: the United States has decided to establish air and naval bases in
Greenland, under an agreement concluded here yesterday between Henrik Kauffman, the Danish
minister, and the US secretary of state, Cordell Hull. Kauffman has been disowned by Danish
leaders in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen, but he said he was acting in the name of the Danish
king. In terms of war, if not law, it will ease the ferrying of aircraft to Britain and
enable the US Navy to patrol further eastwards to protect Allied convoys.
The code name for Greenland was BLUIE. Bases on the west coast of Greenland were coded "Bluie West numeric," e.g., Bluie West 1, or BW-1, was Narsarssuak while BW-8 was Sondre Stromfjord. BW-1 was located about half way between Goose Bay, Labrador and Reykjavik, Iceland making it an ideal emergency field. BW-8 was planned as a backup but the flying weather proved to be better through BW-8 and across the Greenland ice cap.
The Army Airways Communication System (AACS) had stations in operation at both of these bases on 7 December 1941; the USAAF's Airways and Air Communications System (AACS) still had the two stations in operation when I was in Iceland in 1956-57.
Bases on the east coast of Greenland were coded Bluie East numeric. The USAAF could not find a suitable site on the east coast and never built a landing field there. I know that US military installations existed on the east coast but I am not familiar with them; they may have been US Coast Guard weather stations.
The CBS radio show "The Life of Riley" commences its run.