September 10th, 1941 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Submarine HMS Stubborn laid down.
FRANCE: Paris: The collaborationist newspaper, L'Oeuvre
describes the burgeoning black market for food. "Nothing has been settled
about how to feed Paris. .... indispensable vegetables
are swept off the board and only the minority who can pay through the nose
enjoy them. People of average means are .. deprived, ...and have not the wherewithal to take the time
to go and eat in Normandy or Brittany. Potatoes are
.. unfindable. But
the Black Market manages to infiltrate enormous quantities for restaurants or
customers willing to pay 8 or 9 francs a kilo."
GERMANY: U-525 laid down.
NORWAY: Oslo: Guards with Tommy guns are patrolling the streets of Oslo tonight after a savage crackdown by Josef Terboven. Hitler's commissioner for Norway. Two trade union leaders have been executed after a summary court martial and four others have been sent to gaol.
An 8pm to 5am curfew is in force. Dance halls are closed and the sale of alcohol is forbidden. Newspaper editors have been sacked and all meetings, indoors and outdoors have been banned. Terboven declared martial law after reports that the Norwegian unions were calling a general strike in opposition to the Nazi regime. Terboven accused "communist elements" in the unions of "disturbing the industrial peace in a criminal manner."
The underground anti-Nazi newspaper Fri Ragbevegelse has called on the people to remain calm, but to fight "with all secret means for their rights."
U.S.S.R.: General Heinz Guderian, Commanding Second Panzer Army, attacks south, and east of Kiev. The First Panzer Group begins the breakout of their bridgehead over the Dniepr River around Kremenchug. Both Army Groups Centre and South are aimed at Kiev. Generalleutnant Walter Model’s 3 Pz. Div. (XXIV Pz.K) captures Romny 30 miles to the south. (Jeff Chrisman)
The Luftwaffe raids Leningrad hitting the cities dairy and starting dozens of fires. Two hundred citizens are killed in the night’s raid.
Soviet submarines SC-407 and SC-408 commissioned.
CANADA: Minesweepers HMCS
Cowichan and Wasaga arrived Halifax from builder Esquimalt, British Columbia.
Patrol boat HMCS Nenamook
launched Victoria, British Columbia. Corvette HMCS
Charlottetown launched.
In Edmonton Alberta , the provincial government orders all schools closed due to the epidemics of infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis) and encephalitis.
U.S.A.: Charlie Chaplin was accused today of using the cinema to "poison the minds of the American people to go to war". Senator Bennett Champ Clark, a leading isolationist, told a Senate sub-committee investigating propaganda charges against Hollywood that United Artists was dominated by Chaplin and Alexander Korda, two British subjects, who were using it to make pro-war propaganda. United Artists made The Great Dictator.
Chaplin, he said, had made his fortune in America, but never thought well enough of it to become a US citizen. He claimed that British propaganda had dragged America into the last war.
The hull of the second USS Satterlee (DD-626) is laid down.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The German submarine U-501 (KptLt Hugo Förster CO) is sunk at 2330 hours in the Straits of Denmark south of Angmagsalik, Greenland, in position 62.50N, 37.50W, by depth charges and ramming from the RCN corvettes HMCS Chambly (Cdr. James Douglas "Chummy" Prentice RCN Commanding Officer) and HMCS Moosejaw (Lt. Frederick Ernest Grubb RCN, CO).
The Canadian ships had been proceeding to the assistance of escort of convoy SC-42 when they made an ASDIC contact and Chambly immediately depth charged. After the first depth charge run U-501 surfaced right next to HMCS Moose Jaw during her turn. The commander of U-501 leaped about 9 feet (2.7 meters) from his boat and onto the bridge of the corvette without even getting his feet wet! Fearing another boarding attempt the corvette opened the range and, as the U-boat passed her bows, rammed the U-boat and then straddled her with gunfire preventing the German crew from manning their deck armament and causing enough damage to cause her to start sinking.
A boarding party from Chambly, led by Lt Edward Theodore Simmons, then boarded the U-boat and once inside found the lighting system and instrumentation wrecked and heard the tell tale sound of rushing water, all of the boarding party except one were able to clear U-501 before she sank. Stoker William Irvin Brown of Chambly and 11 members of U-501's crew were lost as she sank. Of the sub crew, 37 of the 48 men aboard survived.
Retired Commodore Jan Drent's
translation of 1999 statement by two former U-501 crewmembers: "The
truth concerning the loss of U-501..."
based on a statement by Fritz Weinrich, Chief Mechanican, 1st Class, U-501 "...I was then
ordered by the engineer officer to use a ready-use hammer to smash the torpedo
firing calculator in the conning tower. He went to the radio room and started
wrecking its equipment....I went up to the bridge and observed Chambly's boat.
It came alongside and the heavily-armed Canadian boat's crew climbed on
boat...One of the boat's crew secured the bow line to U-501's rail. It later turned
out that this was Stoker W.I. Brown... "...I observed all...from the
bridge...Three Canadians, armed with pistols, started to climb up. I was about
to clear the bridge when I was blocked. I was ordered to go down into the boat,
but was unwilling to comply. I could now see that U-501 was sinking fairly
quickly. I could also observe that Stoker Brown had dived under the surface to
let go the bow line...He succeeded. Using all the facial gestures at my command
and excuses I attempted to argue with the orders to go back down into the boat
given by the leader of the prize crew, Lieut. Simmons. Among other expressions,
I said: "No good, boat alles kaput!" Lieut.
Simmons did not react to my protests and, using a dawn pistol, was forcing me
to go down. (N.B. Simmons' renacted all this in the
NFB film/video, "Corvette Port Arthur") When I went to pull a
flashlight out of my blouse pocket this immediately triggered the order:
"Hands Up!!" I was frisked thoroughly by the three Canadians....A sea
coming from astern washed into the bridge before I could descend into the boat.
Everyone on the bridge was lifted by the wave...The boat then sank by the
stern...The Canadians now attempted to swim towards the boat...The Canadian
W.I. Brown was swimming alongside me in the water and was also trying to reach
the boat. He was about two or three meters away from me. He had secured a
bicycle inner tube around his upper body as a life jacket. Suddenly there was a
gurgling sound and he sank below the surface." "As is customary among
seafarers, our treatment in Chambly was fair and comradely... "All other
versions in general circulation about the sinking of U-501 are not in accordance with
what actually happened and therefore incorrect and fabrications! U-501 was not sunk by depth
charges, gunfire, or by being rammed. There was also no internal explosion. The
Canadians were never inside U-501.
The Canadian rating W.I. Brown did not go down with the boat but drowned in the
sea...In my judgement he became hypothermic because of his light clothing"
U-111
sank SS Marken.
U-432 sank SS Muneric, SS Winterswijk and SS Stargard in Convoy SC-42
U-652 damaged SS Baron Pentland and SS Tahchee in Convoy
SC-42
U-81 sank SS Sally Maersk in Convoy SC-42
U-82 sank SS Empire Hudson in
Convoy SC-42
U-85 sank SS Thistleglen in Convoy SC-42.