September 1st, 1941 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: A Consolidated Liberator Mk. I, RAF s/n AM915, operated by British Overseas Airways (BOAC), crashes into a hillside near Campbeltown, Argyll, England; all ten aboard are lost.
FRANCE: An Air France Bloch 220, msn 12, registered F-AQNL, crashes into a lake after an engine failed on takeoff at Bollemont. Only 2 of the 17 aboard survive.
GERMANY: Berlin: All Jews over the age of six are ordered to wear, from 19 September, a yellow star of David with the word Jude [Jew] written on it.
FINLAND: Yesterday Finnish troops encircled two Soviet divisions (43rd and 115th) in Porlammi - Ylä-Somme area south of Viipuri in the Karelian Isthmus. Today the Soviet units caught in the encirclement begin to surrender, although many men are able to break out, leaving their equipment behind. Finns capture a large amount of booty (including 306 artillery pieces, 246 mortars and 55 tanks) together with some 9000 POWs, among them commander of the 43rd Division, Major-General Kirpitshnikov. More than 7000 dead Red Army soldiers are buried in the field, but some 12 000 succeeded breaking out before the surrender.
LITHUANIA: Karl Jäger, commander of an SS Eisatzgruppe operating around Vilnius reports that day they killed "1,404 Jewish children, 1,763 Jews, 1,812 Jewesses, 109 mentally sick people, one German woman who was married to a Jew, and one Russian woman."
Jäger notes the essential help of local Lithuanians and says that 4,000 Jews were liquidated by pogroms and executions at the hands of Lithuanian partisans.
U.S.S.R.: German forces are now within artillery range of Leningrad. East of the city their advance nears the south edge of Lake Ladoga.
German forces recapture Mga. The important rail hub would be held for nearly three years. As General Heinz Guderian commander of the 2nd Panzer Army, launches his forces south to encircle Kiev, General Semen Timoshenko, commander of the Southwestern Front, begins a major counter attack at Gomel.
Vladivostok: A Japanese fishing trawler strikes a mine and sinks near the Soviet port of Vladivostok. Japan demands a guarantee of safety for their ships and reparations for the lost ship. The Russians tell Japan they would pay for nothing and they should stay clear of Soviet ports.
Soviet submarine SC-135 commissioned.
CHINA: In Shanghai, the US Consul General, the Commander of the USN's Yangtze Patrol and the Commanding Officer of the 4th Marine Regiment, recommend that all US naval forces in China, i.e., river gunboats and US Marines, be withdrawn.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES:
First
12 Filipino infantry regiments are inducted into Federal service.
CANADA: Corvettes HMCS Kenogami and Orillia departed St. John's with Convoy SC-42.
U.S.A.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt pledges every effort to defeat Germany stating "our fundamental rights-including the rights of labor-are threatened by Hitler's violent attempt to rule the world."
Marshall assesses Hawaii as adequately defended and wishes all additional
men and materiel sent to the Philippines.
The First issue of Intelligence Bulletin is published. (Bill Howard)
First production order for 150 Northrop P-61 night fighters is placed.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The US Navy forms a Denmark Strait patrol with units of the ATLANTIC Fleet with 2 heavy cruisers and four destroyers. US escorts are now allowed to
convoy ships of any flag provided there is at least one ship with a US
flag.
The USN assumes responsibility for escorting convoys from a point off Argentia,
Newfoundland to Iceland.