August 19th, 1941 (TUESDAY)
FRANCE: Paris: Two demonstrators captured in the 13th are executed, "the Jew Szmul Tyszelman,... Henry Gautherot".
GERMANY:
U-87 commissioned
U-509 launched.
NORWAY: A joint Anglo-Canadian-Norwegian expedition lands on Spitzbergen to sabotage the coal mines and bring the miners back to Britain.
U.S.S.R.: Submarine M-121 launched.
WAKE ISLAND: The Wake Detachment, 1st Marine defence Battalion, arrives in the cargo ship USS Regulus (AK-14) to begin work on defensive positions.
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Sorel commissioned.
U.S.A..: In baseball, Pittsburgh Pirates manager Frankie Frisch is ejected by umpire Jocko Conlan from the second game of a doubleheader when he appears on the field with an umbrella to protest the playing conditions at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field. The rainy argument is later portrayed in a famous oil painting by artist Norman Rockwell.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The British liner AQUILA is sunk by a U-boat.
USS Hopewell (DD-181), commissioned as HNoMS Bath (I-17) (LtCdr Frederick Melsom) on 23 Sep. 1940; while escorting her sixth convoy (OG71) between Liverpool and Gibraltar, as part of the 5th Escort Group about 400 miles southwest of Ireland Bath is torpedoed by U-204 and sank rapidly today at 02.05 hours. The commander and 88 crewmembers were lost. (Ron Babuka and Dave Shirlaw)
U-201 sank
SS Aguila and Ciscar in Convoy OG-71.
U-559 sank SS Alva in Convoy
OG-71.
The surviving crew members from the British merchant ship Alva sunk by
U-559 were picked up by
corvette HMS Campanula and transferred to destroyer HMS Velox and landed at
Gibraltar on 25 August 1941.
ICELAND: The first convoy leaves
Iceland for the USSR. The carrier HMS Argus is ferrying Hurricanes, complete with pilots,
to Russia.