May 17th, 1941 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:London:
The prisoner in the Tower of London today is Rudolf Hess, brought by train from Scotland after his "peace flight" from Germany. he is kept in a room neat the White Tower and spends much of his time watching guardsmen drilling. he will remain in the Tower until a Hampshire country house has been fortified for his detention.
Hess has been examined by army psychiatrists who say that they believe that he sane, but his condition is deteriorating. He claims that attempts are being made to poison him. He dresses in his Luftwaffe uniform and insists that he should be given diplomatic status.
In Germany, Hitler has ordered the arrest of Willi Messerschmitt; Hess took off from the company airfield at Augsburg, but the aircraft chief knew nothing of his plan. Hess's aides have also been arrested. Everybody, British and German alike, remains baffled by Hess's flight to Scotland.
London: The Reuters News Agency reports:
As was made clear in a report on foreigners in the British armed services, approximately 10,000 US citizens are fighting under the British flag. Most of them are attached to the RAF as pilots, observers and aerial gunners, or assigned to the training camps. Some US citizens have joined the ranks of General de Gaulle's Free French.
GERMANY:
Berlin: The German News Bureau reported:
Sollum, Capuzzo and Sidi Azeiz are once again in the hands of German and Italian troops.
U.S.S.R.:
Moscow: The Soviet TASS News Agency stated:
Foreign reports that the Soviet Union has authorised the recruitment of volunteer pilots for the Iraqi army, are completely false.
GREECE:
Athens-Tatoi airfield: During an RAF bombing attack the one remaining Junkers G38 transport of Lufthansa the 'Generalfeldmarschal von Hindenburg' is destroyed.
EGYPT:
Cairo: General Wavell announced:
On Thursday the RAF bombed the three Syrian airfields at Palmyra, Damascus and Rayak. Three German Junkers and two other unidentified German aircraft, as well as an Italian Caproni 42, were sighted at Palmyra airfield. We succeeded in seriously crippling three of these machines; a fourth was demolished with incendiary bombs. Regarding General Dentz's communiqué, Wavell Headquarters has learned that one morning, 17 German aircraft landed at one Syrian airfield, and 5 at another field, and flew on in the direction of Iraq after refuelling. There is no question of the machines having been forced to make an emergency landing because the German aircraft were in impeccable condition. It is remarkable that General Dentz's communiqué makes no mention of the results of the British raid on the airfield at Palmyra.
Cairo: The British Middle East Air Force in Egypt announced:
German aircraft have been fired on by machine guns at Mosul (Iraq). One German plane went up in flames, the others were damaged. We have set oil warehouses on fire at Al Amarah (Iraq). The RAF base of Habbaniya has been attacked by German aircraft, but damage was insignificant and the toll of victims was low. Our operations in Abyssinia were confined to reconnaissance flights and the bombardment of fortified positions.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES:
First shipment of P-40's (31 P-40B’s) arrives.
No Prestone was included. These
planes were unflyable. (Marc Small)
CANADA:
Corvette HMCS Summerside launched Quebec City, Province of Quebec.
Corvette HMCS Dauphin commissioned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0036, the unescorted Marisa was hit in the engine room by one torpedo from U-107. The U-boat had followed the tanker since 12.49 hours on 16 May. The explosion killed the fourth engineer C Kandel and a Chinese donkeyman and the remaining crewmembers abandoned ship in three lifeboats. The tanker was hit at 0115 by a coup de grâce in the stern, but did not sink. 15 minutes later, the U-boat opened fire with the 105-mm deck gun and hit the ship with 20 rounds, but the next grenade burst in the barrel and made the deck gun useless. The burning tanker settled by the stern, but the bow remained afloat. At 0217, the 20-mm Anti-Aircraft gun was used to shoot holes in the empty tanks, until the weapon was damaged by a round that exploded in the barrel. A part of the barrel hit a man on the conning tower, but fell off without wounding him. Hessler wrote in the KTB - What kind of weapons and munitions do we have, we must be afraid of it. On 20 May, one lifeboat was found by HMS Columbine and a second by HMS Surprise. The third lifeboat with the master landed at the coast of French-Guinea on 23 May. The Marisa had arrived Freetown with a full cargo of oil on 11 May from Abadan, via Capetown.