October 11th, 1941 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Destroyer HMS Albrighton launched.
GERMANY: Berlin: Don't listen to foreign broadcasts the German people are warned today by Goebbels. He is reported by Berlin Radio to have said: "It is not a question of being afraid to here what they say. It is simply a preventative measure. Germs are treacherous enemies, even of a healthy people." One result, he adds, is too much grumbling.
U-439 launched.
U-209 commissioned.
U.S.S.R.: Kaluga falls to the Germans in their advance on Moscow. Bryansk is evacuated by the Russians as the German pincers contract.
Rumors of an impending capture of Moscow by the German Army cause thousands of civilians to flee the city.
Archangel: PQ-1, the first convoy bringing much-needed supplies to help the Russian war effort here, arrived today. It sailed from Hvalfjord in Iceland on 28 September escorted by the cruiser HMS Suffolk, two destroyers and an anti-submarine group. Depending on the ice conditions, convoys using this route may have to travel up to 2,000 miles, frequently on stormy seas and in freezing temperatures.
Convoys on this route have to take an oil tanker along with them to fuel the escorts. This means working to a complicated schedule so that the tankers can return safely with the westbound convoys which will be designated QP. Efforts were made to establish a refuelling base for the route on the Norwegian island of Spitzbergen.
Rear-Admiral Philip Vian took two cruisers and two destroyers there on 27 July, but he found it too exposed to German air attack to be safe as a port of call.
The second PQ convoy is due to leave next week. By the time it arrives here the winter freeze will have begun. The Russians are hoping to keep the port open throughout the winter, but the Allies are nervous of risking valuable ships sailing hazardously through the narrow channels in the ice. They may have to divert to Murmansk.
Soviet submarine SC-322 reported missing. All hands lost.
CANADA: Corvettes HMS Nanaimo and Lethbridge departed as close escort for the Sydney, Nova Scotia to Liverpool 31-ship convoy SC-49 as far as Iceland. Both ships were Flower-class corvettes. SC-49 arrived safely in Liverpool, on 27 Oct 41.
U.S.A.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt privately proposed to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that the countries pool their resources and research facilities to develop an atomic bomb.
Les Brown and his Orchestra's record of "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio" with vocal by Betty Bonney makes it to the Billboard Pop Singles chart. This is the first of his records to make the charts and it stays there for 3 weeks and rises to Number 16.