July 3rd, 1941 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: London: Noel Coward brought a pre-war touch back to the West End with last night's opening of his latest play, Blithe Spirit., at the Piccadilly Theatre. Described by its author as "an improbable farce", it contains no references to the war whatsoever. The play stars Kay Hammond, Cecil Parker and Margaret Rutherford.The Mk II, Handley-Page Halifax makes its first flight, it is armed with a two-gun dorsal turret and equipped with more powerful engines.
Minesweeper HMS Rothesay commissioned.
The first Bell P-39Cs supplied under Lend-lease arrive at RAF Colerne.
GERMANY:
U-577 commissioned.
DENMARK: Denmark announced request for United States consular staffs to evacuate by July 15.
GREECE: Rhodes: The last French aerial reinforcements for Syria - 21 Dewoitine D.520 fighters of 3 Squadron, 2 Fighter Group (GC II/3) - land at the German-Italian airbase at Rhodes after coming from Tunis via Brindisi and Athens.
ROMANIA: Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu lectures his staff at the Ministry of Internal Affairs: "We find ourselves at the broadest and most favourable moment for a complete ethnic unshackling, for a national revival and for the cleansing of our people of all those elements alien to its spirit" (264, p161)
BALTIC SEA: Submarine Vesikko sinks 4100-ton ship Vyborg east from Suursaari.
U.S.S.R.: After violent fighting against Soviet tanks, General Nehring's 18th Panzer Division reported the existence if a new kind of Soviet tank, quite different in appearance from the all the known types, which seemed very advanced and was indestructible by German antitank guns.
Panzergruppe 2's 3rd Panzer Division (GL Walter Model) reaches the Dnepr River when it captures Rogachev, south-east of Minsk. (Jeff Chrisman)
Moscow:
Stalin broke his silence today and, calling his people "brothers" and "sisters" rather than "comrades", called on them to fight a total war against the invading Germans not only in the modern sense but also in the grim "old Russian" way.
In a speech broadcast throughout the Soviet Union, he called on the people to lay the land waste before the invader. Everything possible must be removed, he said, and that which cannot by moved must be destroyed..
It was a speech designed to stir the people's ancient love of Russia: "We must not leave a single pound of grain or a single gallon of petrol to the enemy." He called on the people whose ancestors had helped to defeat Napoleon by "scorching the earth" to follow their example and deny Hitler's invaders food and shelter. Crops and villages are to be burnt, livestock killed, dams destroyed. Partisan bands are to be formed "with the launching of guerrilla warfare everywhere, with blowing up bridges and roads, with wrecking telephone and telegraph communications, and with setting forests, depots and trains on fire. It is necessary to create in invaded areas unbearable conditions for the enemy."
Fuel is of special importance in this scorched-earth policy, for the German supply lines are becoming over-stretched and the thirsty tanks and aircraft must rely to a large extent on captured fuel.
The burning of houses is not important at the moment, for the weather is hot and fine, but if this campaign extends into the bitter Russian winter then the lack of shelter will hit the Germans as hard as it did Napoleon's men.
Stalin has demanded a great deal from the people of the Soviet Union. Some of them will
not obey him - in some areas the invading Germans have been welcomed with bread and salt -
but others will do anything for Holy Mother Russia if not for communism.
(Speech in Full)
SYRIA: Survivors of French Foreign Legion in Palmyra (165 men, mostly Germans and Russians) surrender. They have withstood 12 day of attacks by four allied cavalry regiments (including the Arab Legion) and an infantry battalion. Deir ez Zor entered by elements of Slim’s 10 Ind Div, capturing 100 prisoners, nine guns and 50 lorries. However, many French and Syrian troops escape to fight again. 127 Sqn RAF attacks a formation of Leo451s but are driven off by escorting Dewoitine S520s, losing two Hurricanes. (Michael Alexander)
ETHIOPIA: "Mopping up" of the Italian forces in East Africa continues as the Italian garrison at Debra Tabor surrenders to the British; General Gazzera's 7,000 strong army in the south surrenders to a Belgian force.
U.S.A.: Marshall informs Grunert that no further manpower or supplies would be sent.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0436, U-69 began a gun duel with the armed Robert L. Holt NW of the Canary Islands. She had been the ship of commodore Vice-Admiral NA Wodehouse CB RN from the dispersed Convoy OB-337. The ship sank at 0650 after the U-boat had fired 102 high explosive rounds and 34 incendiary rounds from the deck gun, 220 rounds from the 20-mm gun and 400 rounds with the MG34. The master, the commodore, 41 crewmembers and six naval staff members were lost.