September 24th, 1941 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: In London, an announcement is made that the Free French National Council, i.e., a government in exile, was formed yesterday.
Corvette HMS Godetia launched.
U.S.S.R.: The German Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd) begins an offensive against the vital land bridge to the Crimea at Perekop, this is a heavily fortified natural Soviet defensive barrier at the great 'tartar Ditch' ('Tartarengrab') stretching across the narrow 5-7 km wide isthmus of Perekop which seperates the Crimean Peninsula from the Ukraine. The attack is made by elements of Gen. d. Inf. von Manstein's 11. Armee. (John Nicholas, Russ Folsom and Jack McKillop)
A bomb explodes in German headquarter in the Hotel Continental in Kiev.
YUGOSLAVIA: Josip Broz Tito, Commander of the Yugoslav Liberation Army, leading a poorly armed and equipped band of 70,000 partisans, attacks and takes the town of Uzice with it’s rifle factory capable of making 400 weapons a day. Tito and his troops would hold the city for two months.
GIBRALTAR: The first German U-Boat passes Gibraltar today. Over the next two weeks 6 more U-Boats
will pass into the Mediterranean during the next two weeks. The German Submarine Force
will later have about 50% of its active submarine force engaged in the Mediterranean.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Operation Halberd begins today and lasts through the 30th. A major effort to move supplies
from Gibraltar to Malta. The 9 transports are covered by a naval force including 3
battleships, HMS Nelson, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Rodney, one
aircraft carrier (HMS Ark Royal), 5 cruisers and 18 destroyers. This convoy, bringing 50,000 tons of
supplies mostly food, will reach Malta loosing only 1 transport. The British will sink one
Italian submarine and sustain minor damage on HMS Nelson from a torpedo plane. Pantellaria
will also be shelled. (John Nicholas and Jack McKillop)
JAPAN: The following message is
sent to the Japanese consulate in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii:
"Henceforth, we would like to have you make reports concerning vessels
along the following lines
insofar as possible:
1. The waters (of Pearl Harbor) are to be divided roughly into five sub-areas.
(We have no objections to your abbreviating as much as you like.)
Area A. Waters between Ford Island and the Arsenal.
Area B. Waters adjacent to the Island south and west of Ford
Island. (This area is on the opposite side of the Island from Area A.)
Area C. East Loch.
Area D. Middle Loch.
Area E. West Loch and the communicating water routes.
2. With regard to warships and aircraft carriers, we would like to have you
report on those at anchor, (these are not so important) tied up at wharves,
buoys and in locks. (Designate types and classes briefly. If possible we would
like to have you make mention of the fact when there are two or more vessels
along side the same wharf.)"
U.S.A.: London and Washington:
15 countries adhere to the Atlantic Charter formulated
by US President Franklin D Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland in August. The countries are
Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Great Britain, Greece,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, USSR
and Yugoslavia.
With Anthony Eden in the chair, the meeting
began in the ornate Picture Gallery of St James's Palace, with a statement by
Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador, denouncing the "gang of Hitlerite
marauders, armed to the teeth and proclaiming itself to be the master
race." By contrast he spoke of the Soviet Union "guided by the
principle of self-determination of nations" and committed to defending the
territorial integrity of every country and the "right to establish such a
social order and a form of government as it deems opportune and
desirable."
The Atlantic Charter commits the signatories to a postwar world of mutual co-operation and of freedom for countries under Nazi occupation, with no annexations or frontier changes without the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
U-67 sank SS St Clair II in
Convoy SL-87.
U-107 sank SS Dixcove,
John Holt and Lafian in Convoy SL-87.
HMS Lulworth picks
up 5 survivors from SS St. Clair II.
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