September 9th, 1941 (TUESDAY)
GERMANY: The Wehrmacht is getting help from a group of allies in its assault on Russia. Mussolini has sent an expeditionary corps, the Romanian army is engaged in the drive on Odessa, the Hungarians are supporting the thrust through the Ukraine and Franco has sent a contingent of Spanish "volunteers". The Slovaks too, have soldiers fighting for the Germans, and volunteers from Holland, Denmark, Belgium and Norway have been formed into legions of the Wehrmacht. The Finns are a disappointment to the Germans, doing no more than holding the northern line round besieged Leningrad.
U-162 is commissioned.
U-702 chief engineer killed during an accident in Kiel. The boat was undergoing trials at the time.
FINLAND: The Finnish advance in Karelian Isthmus is stopped. The troops have reached the outermost defences of Leningrad and dig into defence. Three years of trench warfare follows here, until the Soviet attack in June 1944.
Meanwhile the Karelian Army advances into eastern Karelia north of Lake Ladoga. The first signs of war weariness are already showing in the men. There have been instances of men declining to follow orders to cross the pre-1939 border; the common opinion is that the war is fought to reconquer the territory lost in the Winter War, not to annex new 'living space' from east. However, the majority of men are content with grumbling, and the serious cases of insubordination are few.
The official explanation for crossing the old border is to get as short lines of defence as possible. Tactically this is true, but the Finnish leadership is already discussing what shape the post-war 'Greater Finland' shall take. The most favoured option is the so-called 'border of three isthmuses': Karelian Isthmus (between Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga), Onega Isthmus (between Lakes Ladoga and Onega) and the isthmus between Lake Onega and White Sea, of which English name I don't have a clue ("Maaseln Kannas" is the Finnish name). The status of Kola Peninsula is still unclear; whether is will be claimed by Finland or Germany has not been decided yet.
If all this sounds preposterous, well, there were also some nutcases who thought that the Ural Mountains were Finland's 'natural' eastern border.
One wonders what these people (who were very few and belonged to the lunatic ultra-right-wing fringe) would have done with the 150 million-strong Russian minority... No-one in the Finnish military or political leadership entertained this notion.
U.S.S.R.: A volunteer Spanish "Spanish Division" arrives on the Leningrad Front to begin service with German forces against the Soviet Union.
Reconnaissance elements of Generalleutnant Walter Model's 3 Pz.Div. (XXIV Pz.K.) discovered a gap in Soviet defenses east between Konotop and Baturin.
Marshal of the Soviet Union Semen Budyenny, Commander in Chief Southwestern Theater, makes his first request to abandon Keiv. Premier Josef Stalin denies the request.
ROMANIA: Marshall Ion Antonescu fires the commander of the 4th Army, General Cuiperca. It comes after the first two rounds of bloody fighting, in which the Romanians failed to completely breach the Russian defences (backed up by prodigious quantities of artillery and mortar fire) at Odessa. Cuiperca frankly reported to Antonescu that his troops lacked the strength, both physically and in terms of morale, to successfully resume the assault. Antonescu, known for his frank speaking himself in a command culture where direct talk was often perceived as impolite and insulting, did not respond well to this analysis.
Antonescu claims that Cuiperca lacks "faith in the battle capacity of the Romanian Army." Antonescu has brought in his own defence Minister, Iacobici, to replace Cuiperca at 4th Army - a man considered one of the great academic brains of the Romanian staff. (Michael F. Yaklich)
ARCTIC OCEAN: In the Svalbard Islands in the Norwegian Sea, British, Canadian, and Norwegian troops land on Spitsbergen Island to destroy coal mines the Germans Nazis might use for fuel.
IRAN: Tehran: Iran expels German and Italian "tourists" and
diplomats. She accepts the Anglo-Soviet armistice terms.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES:
MacArthur ">
MacArthur
complains to Grunert
that the training of the mobilized Philippine troops is not going well.
Marshall advises
MacArthur that he had “the
highest priority” for supplies and for the filling of the “authorized defence reserve” of 50,000 men. (Marc Small)
CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS
Port Hope laid down Toronto, Ontario.
Corvette HMCS Dunvegan
commissioned.
U.S.A.: The USN's Bureau of Aeronautics requests that the National defence Research Committee and the Naval Research Laboratory to develop an interceptor radar suitable for installation in a single-engined, single-seat fighter, e.g., the F4U Corsair.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: In the North Atlantic, Convoy SC-42 (Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, to the U.K.), consisting of 65 merchant ships escorted by the Canadian destroyer HMCS Skeena (D 59) and the three corvettes, HMCS Kenogami (K 125), Alberni (K 103) and Orillia (K 119), comes under attack by German Wolfpack Gruppe Markgraf of 14 boats. The first ship sunk is straggler from the convoy, a 5,591 ton British freighter, which is struck at 2140 hours GMT by a torpedo fired by U-81. The ship sinks off the east coast of Greenland about 532 nautical miles (985 kilometers) west of Reykjavik, Iceland, in position 61.38N, 40.40W. At 2130 hours GMT, a 5,525 ton British freighter is struck by a torpedo fired by U-432 and sinks in the same general area. (Dave Shirlaw & Jack McKillop)