Yesterday   Tomorrow

October 16th, 1941 (THURSDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Destroyer HMS Chiddingfold commissioned.

FRANCE: Marshal Petain orders the arrest of Daladier, Reynaud, Mandel and Blum, former Prime Ministers of France, together with General Gamelin. They are charged with the French defeat. All three are captured and tried in February 1942. The powerful defense put up by the three so greatly discomfited the Vichy authorities and so irritated the Germans that in April the hearings are suspended indefinitely and the three are handed over to the Germans and held until the end of the war.

GERMANY:

U-638 laid down.

U-600 launched.

U-160, U-592, U-703 commissioned.

U.S.S.R.: Moscow: Over half a million men, women and children complete building new defences around the city - 5,000 miles of trenches, 60 miles of anti-tank ditches and 177 miles of barbed wire.

Molotov has told the foreign embassies that they are to be evacuated to Kuybishev. The streets are full of charred paper as secret documents are burnt. Party members are tearing up their cards. Pictures of Stalin are being taken down.

There is panic in the air as rumours spread that German tanks are in the suburbs. There is no transport; the buses and taxis have been commandeered to take troops to the front. Some officials and policemen, fearful of what will happen to them if the Germans arrive, are fleeing the city, and looters are taking advantage of their departure. General Zhukov, recalled from Leningrad, is working feverishly to organize a new line of defence. He has ordered the setting up of artillery and anti-tank strongpoint to ambush the German Panzers on their approach routes.

Reinforcements are being rushed to Moscow from other sector. Workers battalions, armed by Moscow's own factories, are taking their places in the front line. In the midst of all this feverish activity, the Associated Press correspondent has been asked to write a story on Lenin's tomb. He had time to send one message - "Tomb closed" - before he joined the exodus to Kuybishev.

The Romanian and Germans who have been besieging the Black Sea port of Odessa since August finally marched into the city only to find it empty and burning.

Its defenders had sailed for Sevastopol during the night in a secret evacuation involving 30 ships and 35,000 men. The rearguard was taken on board at 4am. The last man to leave was Captain Makarenko, the commander of the port.

Most of the garrison and party officials had already been evacuated, along with several thousand prisoners. All the material that had to be left behind was burnt. The big guns of the 95th Rifle Division were dumped into the harbour.

The Romanians, after suffering 98,000 casualties in the siege, are making the most of the Soviet withdrawal: "Troops of our Fourth Army marched into Odessa this afternoon. The last nests of resistance are being cleared up in street fighting. The population greeted German and Romanian forces with enthusiasm." In fact the Romanian dictator, Ion Antonescu, is so angry at the Russian escape that he has sacked the army's commander.  (Michael F. Yaklich)

SPAIN: U-204 entered the Spanish harbour of Cadiz to take on supplies from the German tanker Thalia.

JAPAN: Prime Minister Konoye Fumimaro resigns, following Roosevelt's refusal to grant him a summit meeting and division in the Japanese cabinet over negotiation with the USA. General Tojo Heidiki (Japanese order) will tomorrow be appointed Prime Minister, War Minister and Home Affairs Minister. In Prince Konoye's cabinet he had been War Minister. Although the decision to go to war has not been finally taken, these changes show the rise of those wishing to go to war. (Tim Lanzendörfer)

U.S.A.: The Chief of Naval Operations sends the following message to the fleet commanders: "The resignation of the Japanese Cabinet has created a grave situation X If a new Cabinet is formed it will probably be strongly nationalistic and anti American X If the Konoye Cabinet remains the effect will be that it will operate under a new mandate which will not include rapprochement with the US X In either case hostilities between Japan and Russia are a strong possibility X Since the US and Britain are held responsible by Japan for her present desperate situation there is also a possibility that Japan may attack these two powers X In view of these possibilities you will take due precautions including such preparatory deployments as will not disclose strategic intention nor constitute provocative actions against Japan X Second and third addressees (in the Pacific) inform appropriate Army and Naval district authorities X Acknowledge XX (John Nicholas and Jack McKillop)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: The battle to protect convoy SC 48 continues. German submarines U-502 and U-568 re-establish contact before retiring upon arrival of the USN's Task Unit 4.1.4 (Captain Hewlett Thebaud). Destroyer USS Livermore (DD-429) sweeps ahead of the convoy, and depth-charges U-553; destroyer USS Kearny (DD-432), sweeping astern, drops charges to discourage tracking submarines. Later, U-502 and U-568, augmented by U-432, U-553, and U-558 renew attack upon SC 48. The U-boats commence a determined assault on SC 48 during the night of 16-17 October. (John Nicholas and Jack McKillop) 

Flower class corvette HMS Gladiolus disappears. Early the following morning a very loud explosion is heard behind the convoy, which may have, been Gladiolus following an attack by U-568, but there is no conclusive evidence of this loss, or any survivors. Possible location Atlantic, 67N 25W. (Alex Gordon)(108)