August 15th, 1941 (FRIDAY)
GERMANY: U-165, U-334 and U-377 launched.
U-233 laid down.
FINLAND:
The troops of Finnish 7th ID (Col. Svensson) are the first to enter recaptured Sortavala. Although the Russians have been able to evacuate most of the defending men, some 540 Red Army soldiers are captured. Sortavala is the first major population centre lost to the Soviet Union in 1940 recaptured. (Sortavala is today (2001) Serdobol in Russian Karelia.In the lands that were lost to Soviet Union in 1940 there lived some 400, 000 people before the Winter War. Practically everybody left rather than stayed to live under the new masters (the fact that everybody left was so embarrassing to the Soviet propagandists that they claimed that the capitalists and their henchmen forcibly evacuated the civilians). Now, when it seems that these lost lands are about to be reconquered, the first civilians are returning. As the recaptured areas are still unsafe, the returnees are warned to have weapons with them and move around with caution. Only people able to take care of themselves are allowed back. Children, elderly and sick have to wait until later date.
U.S.S.R.: The Germans estimate that they have lost
30,000 lives so far in the Russian campaign.
Jews in the German-occupied zone are ordered to wear a yellow star and live in
designated ghettos. The Nazi administration bans them from public places and
transport and forbids the ownership of wireless sets or motor cars.
JAPAN: Tokyo: The Japanese government confirms that it will not invade Russia from the east.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES:
MacArthur ">
MacArthur
convenes a meeting of all senior military personnel assigned to the
Philippines and advises them that he would fight for the islands.
Philippine Air Corps inducted
into federal service at Camp Murphy. (Marc Small)
PALMYRA ISLAND: Naval Air Station, Palmyra, FPO SF 309 is commissioned today. (Gordon Rottman)
U.S.A.: President Franklin D Roosevelt in the presidential yacht USS Potomac (AG-25), fishes while the ship is anchored in Pulpit Harbor, Penobscot Bay, Maine.
- The motion picture "Life Begins for Andy Hardy" is released. Directed by George B. Seitz, this comedy drama stars Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Ann Rutherford and Judy Garland. The plot has Andy Hardy (Rooney) going to New York for a job before he enters college and grows up fast when he is in the real world. This was Judy Garland's third and last Andy Hardy movie.
- In baseball, the Boston Red Sox play the Washington Senators in a game held in Griffith Stadium in Washington. D.C. The Senators are leading 6-3 but they forfeit the game because the ground crew deliberately refuses to cover the field when it started to rain.