September 29th, 1941 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Mr Churchill today told British MP's about an historic meeting which began yesterday in Moscow between the USSR, Britain and the USA. He told them that although Allied aid to Russia as only now been formally agreed, many desperately needed supplies have already been dispatched. Russia's relative inaccessibility, hemmed in on all sides by enemies or freezing weather, is a major obstacle.
Destroyer HMS Norman commissioned.
Corvette HMS Montbretia commissioned.
Destroyer HMCS Haida laid down Vickers-Armstrong Ltd. Newcastle-on-Tyne.
GERMANY: Rastenburg: Hitler orders that Leningrad be wiped off the face of the earth and its population exterminated.
RAF bombers raid Stettin and Hamburg overnight.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA: Prime Minister General Alois Elias of Bohemia and Moravia is arrested. This comes two days after the appointment of Heydrich as German Governor. He is tasked with wiping out all opposition to the Nazi occupation. Martial law was declared yesterday and hundreds of Czechs have been rounded up, including, today, the puppet premier Elias. He has been sentenced to death.
GERMANY: Rastenburg: Hitler orders that Leningrad be wiped off the face of the earth and its population exterminated.
RAF bombers raid Stettin and Hamburg overnight.
U.S.S.R.: The attacks by Heeresgruppe Süd (von Rundstedt) to force an entry into the Crimea are halted.
Soviet submarine SC-319 disappeared and never located. All
crew lost.
Ukraine: In the outskirts of Kiev, four strike
squads sent by Henrich Himmler begin killing 33,771 Jews in the Babi Yar ravine
north of the city. Jews were marched in small groups to the ravine, ordered to
strip naked and then were machine-gunned. The massacre is completed tomorrow and
the bodies, living and dead, are covered over with dirt and rock.
Babi Yar is a picturesque ravine situated in the Syrets suburb of the city of Kiev. It is about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) long, over fifty meters (164 feet) deep and separated from the residential area by the local Jewish cemetery and a civilian prison. Soon after the German takeover a series of horrific explosions rocked the city demolishing a number of buildings that housed the German administration and the army hierarchy. On 26 September, the military governor, Major General Friedrich Georg Eberhardt, decides that in retaliation for the atrocity all the Jews in Kiev are to be put to death. Today, the SS Einsatzgruppe C (SS Special Commando C), with the help of the Ukrainian police, herd the whole Jewish population of Kiev and the surrounding area into the ravine and systematically began to slaughter the entire 33,771 people. The killings take two whole days and nights the victims being machine-gunned and their bodies hurled into the ravine. A layer of sand then covers the corpses before the next batch of naked victims are brought in. In the months that follow, thousands of Gypsies and Russian POWs are slaughtered here. In August 1943, as the Soviet Army begins its march westwards the decision is taken to erase all evidence of the mass killings, in fact to efface it from history. Soviet prisoners and 327 men from the nearby slave camp at Syretsk begin the task of digging up the bodies and cremating them. The remains are then burned in pyres, built on slab gravestones taken from the Jewish cemetery, each pyre containing around 2,000 corpses. This gruesome task ended on 19 September1943. Only 14 of the 327 slave laborers survive by escaping from Babi Yar. Later, the SS brings in excavators and bulldozers and the ravine is again filled in. In early October, Moscow informs the outside world of the discovery of the mass graves. The West, mistrustful of the Russians, dismisses the news as “products of the Slavic imagination.” During the 778 days of the German occupation of Kiev, many thousands of Russian POWs, Ukrainians, Gypsies and other nationalities, are murdered at Babi Yar. Of a total population of around 900,000, only 180,000 are living in Kiev at the end of the German occupation. Nobody is ever brought to trial specifically for this atrocity. In 1976, a 15 meter (49 foot) high memorial is unveiled on the site to commemorate the Soviet POWs who were killed there. However, no reference is made to the Jews or number of Jewish dead.
Moscow, United States and British missions confer to determine Russian defence
needs.
CHINA: Relief troops arrive at Changsha, forcing the Japanese to retreat.
JAPAN: The government urges a meeting with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt for the fourth time stating, “if nothing came of the proposal for a meeting between the chiefs of our two Governments it might be difficult for (Foreign Minister) Prince Konoye to retain his position and that Prince Konoye then would be likely to be succeeded by a less moderate leader."
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES:
50
P-40E’s are received at Nichols Field. (Marc Small)
HAWAIIAN ISLANDS:
1. Repair dock in Navy Yard: KS.
2. Navy dock in the Navy Yard (The Ten Ten Pier): KT.
3. Moorings in the vicinity of Ford Island: FV.
4. Alongside in Ford Island: FG. (East and west sides will be differentiated by
A and B respectively."
Corvettes HMCS
Sherbrooke, Chicoutimi, Matapedia and Napanee departed Sydney, Nova Scotia for
Convoy SC-47 to Iceland. Convoy SC-47 arrived safely in Liverpool on 20 Oct 41.
The early corvettes did not have adequate endurance to complete the trip across
the Atlantic and had to divert to Iceland for fuel and stores before returning
with a westbound convoy. This necessitated a complicated system of meeting and
hand over points between the groups conducting the escort. It also required more
escort groups that, as a consequence, were smaller in number. The smaller escort
groups resulted in a weak defensive screen that the U-boats were able to exploit
successfully. Successful convoys of this period were accomplished by evasive
routing that was possible due to intelligence successes. When convoys were
intercepted by U-boats, heavy losses resulted.
U.S.A.: A crowd estimated at one million jams downtown Brooklyn, New York, to cheer the Brooklyn Dodgers, the National League baseball pennant winners, in a parade.
Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower, chief of staff to General Walter Kreuger, Commander Third Army at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, is promoted to brigadier general (temporary).
ICELAND: Convoy PQ-1, the first convoy from Iceland to Northern Russia, leaves Hvalfjord for Archangel, U.S.S.R., with ten merchant ships, escorted by a British heavy cruiser, a destroyer, two minesweepers and a Royal Fleet Auxiliary oiler.. There are no German attacks on this convoy and it will reach Archangel on 11 October. Convoy QP-1 leaves Archangel headed for Scapa Flow.