May 19th, 1941 (MONDAY)
GERMANY: In return for greater collaboration from the Vichy regime. 100,000 French PoWs are released.The OKW calls upon soldiers to eliminate all resistance ruthlessly, particularly Bolshevik agitators, partisans, saboteurs and Jews.
CRETE: The last RAF fighters leave for Egypt.
MALTA: Lieut_General Sir William Dobbie appointed Governor and C-in-C.
ETHIOPIA: Sgt Nigel Gray Leakey (b. 1913), King's African Rifles, halted an assault by taking one tank and leading an attack on others before being killed. (VC) [The cousin of Dr.Louis Leakey, the famous anthropologist]
Amba Alagi: The largest Italian army still fighting in Ethiopia formally surrendered
today. 18,000 Italian and colonial troops have marched out of the fortifications into
prison camps. Few Italian troops now remain to be "mopped up" in Ethiopia.
The Duke of Aosta surrenders with 7,000 more Italian troops. Of the 230,000 Italians that started this campaign in East Africa only 80,000 remain.
Many of the prisoners returned to India or Australia or aboard the 'Queens' passenger liners that had taken the commonwealth soldiers to the North Africa and the Middle East. About 20,000 were in Australia. The rest went to other Commonwealth countries. From May 1943 the Italian prisoners were employed as farm labourers without supervision but under the supervision of nearby control centres staffed by the army. They were paid a minimum of one pound and the scheme was generally considered a success by the Government the prisoners and the farmers. The prisoners were not repatriated immediately after the war because of shortages of shipping, but all had returned home by January 1947. (Jim Paterson)
IRAQ: British forces based at Habbaniya capture Fallujah.
Baghdad: Iraqi Headquarters announced:
Our bombers have attacked British tank units, which have suffered substantial losses in men and material. Our reconnaissance flights over Cineldebbana and other locations have proceeded without incident. Enemy aircraft overflew the area surrounding the capital and released several bombs over the base at Rashid without inflicting much damage.
AUSTRALIA: Minesweeper HMAS Pirie laid down.
CANADA: Submarine HMS Talisman departed Halifax to escort Convoy SC-32.
U.S.A.: The New York Times reports an address by Dr. Fritz Reinhardt, German State Secretary of Finance in which states that, "with the German tax and other ordinary revenue estimated at the record sum of 40,000,000,000 marks for 1941 and the war debt considerably smaller than that of Britain, the finances of the Reich are in a healthier condition than ever and there can, therefore, be no question of using the printing press for the financing of the war."
Destroyer USS Murphy laid down.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-69 on her long voyage that paved the way for long-range U-boat operations off the US East Coast, refuelled from German tanker Egerland. At this time several German tankers and supply ships were at sea partly in preparation for the breakout of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen.
At 0324, the Empire Ridge, a straggler from Convoy HG-61, was torpedoed and sunk by U-96 90 miles west of Bloody Foreland. The master, 27 crewmembers and three gunners were lost. One crewmember and one gunner were picked up by destroyer HMS Vanquisher, transferred to HMS Legion and landed at Greenock.