July 23rd, 1941 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Bomber Command: 2 Group: 21 Sqn. attack a 4,000-ton tanker escorted by four flak ships off Ostend. Four aircraft are shot down by flak and the tanker is undamaged.Reconnaissance detects that the Scharnhorst has left her consorts Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen in Brest, and has slipped south to the small port of La Pallice. An attempt has been made to conceal her absence by the substitution of a large tanker, covered with camouflage netting. Fearing that she might be about to attempt an Atlantic raid, six Bomber Command Stirlings brave the German defenses in an unsuccessful evening attack; one failed to return.
Corvette FS Aconit commissioned.
GERMANY: Berlin: The German News Bureau announced:
The initial reports about the air assault on Moscow reveal that the German air crews
who reached Moscow in the second assault wave, could see the sea of flame in the Russian
capital while they were still almost 85 miles from Moscow. One of the pilots reports that
the conflagrations were as huge and wide-reaching as those he had already viewed in
Manchester or Sheffield. He spoke of the strong air defence and said that the incessant
muzzle flashes from the anti-aircraft artillery could be observed amidst the houses even
after they had begun to burn.
FINLAND: The defending forces on the Finnish island of
Bengtskär are reinforced by a 20 mm Madsen cannon with a crew of three. (Cris Wetton)
U.S.S.R.: Moscow: Following the heavy air attacks, the Communist Party and STAVKA start to evacuate the families of government members and high-ranking military men from Moscow.
General S. M. Shtemenko, the Soviet chief of operations, reports that bombs were frequently dropped near his offices at night, and that consequently the Red Army general staff headquarters was always shifted to the Byelorosskaya subway station in the evening so that the Soviet officers could get on with their work in peace. Later the general staff are moved to the Kirovskaya subway station, which had been specially remodelled for the purpose.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: One destroyer,
HMS Fearless, in the convoy of Operation Substance, from Gibraltar to Malta, is
hit aft by an air dropped torpedo and completely disabled. As nothing can be
done to save her, the crew are taken off and she is scuttled by HMS
Forester, south of Sardinia at 37 40N, 08 20E. There are 27 casualties.
(Alex Gordon)(108)One
cruiser and three destroyers are also damaged in Italian air attacks.
Andrea Galliano adds: Airplanes from Sardinia attacked the convoy starting from 9.42, they
were part of the 283 and 280 Sqd AS (SM79 torpedo bombers), 32 Stormo BT (SM79 level
bombers) and 51 Gruppo BT (Cant Z1007).
A plane from the 283 Sqd hit and damaged the cruiser Manchester, while a SM79 of the 280 Sqd badly damaged the DD Fearless, which was later scuttled.
In the afternoon SM79 bombers damaged with a near-miss the DD Firedrake, which is forced to return to Gibraltar.
During the night MAS 532 and MAS 533 hit and damaged the freighter Sidney Star.
EGYPT: Cairo: The Syrian armistice is again changed to allow the Free French to contact Vichy troops; the captured war material was French property and the Syrian and Lebanese troops would be placed under Free French command.
AUSTRALIA: Minesweeper HMAS Mildura commissioned.
CANADA: Small craft ordered for RCN: HC 1,
HC 2, HC 3 and HC 4.