April 17th, 1941 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Chartier, French Consul-General, is expelled from Britain.London: Lt. Ernest Oliver Gidden (1910-61), RNVR, spent six hours chiselling molten metal from the highly sensitive fuse of a bomb on Hungerford Bridge, and putting in a gag to stop the mechanism. (George Cross) Hungerford Bridge carries an electrified railway line with the live current on a third rail. This had caused the bomb to weld itself to the rail.
The Luftwaffe drop 170 HEs, 32 parachute mines and 5,400 incendiary bombs on a decoy installation on Hayling Island in Hampshire.
London: Churchill agrees to a secret appeal from General Papagos, the Greek C-in-C for British and Empire forces to evacuate mainland Greece in order to save it from further destruction, but insists that Crete must be held with force.
London: The War Office announced:
No confirmation has been received from the Greek of British high commands in Greece of the German-spread rumour that the enemy has broken through Allied lines at the Mount Olympus sector of the front [northeastern Greece] and that German troops are already advancing into the Larissa area.
GERMANY: Berlin: The Wehrmacht High Command announced:
In retaliation for the British air raid on the residential and cultural centre of the German capital on the night of 9th-10th April, the German Luftwaffe last night carried out a grand assault on the British capital. A great number of German bomber wings released countless high-explosive bombs of all calibres, and incendiary bombs, uninterruptedly throughout the entire night. Ground visibility was good and the bomb detonations and their effects could be observed with absolute clarity. Large fires had sprung up in the harbour districts, a well as in other city areas, by the time the first German formations flew away; some of the fires joined together to form wide-scale conflagrations. The glow from these huge fires was visible as far away as the Channel and some of them even from the Belgian coast. In future, any British air raid on residential quarters of Germany will be answered by increased retaliation.
YUGOSLAVIA: Belgrade: After 12 days of resistance the Yugoslav government signed the act of surrender to the triumphant Germans today. In Sarajevo remnants of the army gave themselves up; around 6,000 officers and 335,000 men were marched off to PoW camps. King Peter and Prime Minister, General Simovich have escaped to Greece.
From the outset the Yugoslav General Staff was committed to fighting an unwinnable
campaign. The bitter divisions between the country's many nationalities - especially
between Croats and Serbs - meant that an attempt had to be made to defend the whole
country.
The Yugoslav forces were thus strung out along the frontier without depth or necessary
reserves. The Germans jumping off from Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria plunged into
Yugoslavia along the mountain passes accompanied by dive-bombers. Within a week German
forces were in Belgrade.
Many Yugoslav units never saw battle and they remain in remote areas still with their weapons, where some intend to fight on as partisans.
GREECE: By midnight the Anzac Corps' four forward brigades had left their positions, embussed and driven south, leaving the 6th NZ and the 16th and 17th Australian Brigades astride the 3 main roads converging on Larisa. (Anthony Staunton)
Savige force withdraws from the Kalabake area during the night.
Athens: A group from the Joint Planning Staff in Cairo arrive to plan the evacuation of 'Lustre', the Allied expeditionary force.
U.S.A.: Igor Sikorsky lifts his VS-300 helicopter off the water for the first time near the plant in Sikorsky plant in Stratford, Connecticut.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The German raider Atlantis sinks the
Egyptian liner Zamzam and takes passengers prisoner.
She carried 202 passengers (including 109 women and children) of various
nationalities - 138 US (including the Editor of "Fortune" magazine), 26
Canadians, 25 British with the remainder composed of four other
nationalities. No one was killed but there were some wounded. The captain of
the ATLANTIS claimed to have mistaken ZAMZAM for a British ship in the
pre-dawn darkness and fired six salvos at her at 9000 yards obtaining six
hits. She was an ex British Bibby liner. Egypt was technically neutral at
the time.
These passengers included "Life" magazine photographer David Scherman. Scherman
was aboard the "Zamzam" heading toward Cape Town on Apr.17, 1941. He said one
passenger on deck late at night saw flashing lights winking from a dark hulk, and then
heard two ear-shattering explosions. The fire was coming from the German raider
"Atlantis." The passengers aboard the Zamzam had to take to the lifeboats as
their ship was attacked, and Scherman got photographs of the Atlantis before being taken
aboard it. He secreted the film in tubes of toothpaste and shaving cream.
He passed inspection by two German officers and was put ashore two weeks later on the coast of Portugal. He returned to the USA, and "Life" published his photos. They were used by the Royal Navy in their hunt for the raider, which was eventually sunk.