October 27th, 1941 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: 41 year old Lord Louis Mountbatten has been appointed director of Combined Operations and told to put some zip into hit-and-run attacks on German positions on the Continent.
Lord Louis, who is related to most of Europe's royal families, gained his reputation for courage and audacity when, virtually single-handedly, he brought his destroyer HMS Kelly back to port under continuous German air attack after she had been torpedoed in the North Sea.
Lord Louis's father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, who settled in Britain, was forced by anti-German hysteria to resign as first sea lord during the Great War. Lord Louis is determined to erase this slur on his family's reputation; he hopes one day to succeed to his father's old job.
Carroll McColpin, an American flying with 71 Squadron RAF, becomes an ace with his fifth German aircraft victory today. (Skip Guidry)
Monitor HMS Roberts commissioned.
POLAND: Kalisz: Germans kill 290 Jews from an old people's home in the first trial of a van specially adapted to suffocate them with engine exhaust fumes.
U.S.S.R.: Kramatorsk falls to the German forces in Russia who later reach Sevastopol.
Units of 11.Armee force a breakthrough at Perekop, thus opening the gate to the Crimean peninsula. Soviet forces launch desperate attacks against the Germans in front of Moscow. The attacks are bloodily repulsed but do buy some time for the Soviets.
LITHUANIA: Kovno: 9,000 Jews including 4,273 children are massacred by German Einsatzkommandos.
VATICAN: Harold H. Tittmann, assistant to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's special emissary to the Vatican, attempts to get the Pope to issue a public protest against the German's mass shooting of hostages. He is told that this could not be done since it would jeopardize the situation of the German Catholics. (U.S.D.P)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Submarine
HMS/M Tetrarch (N 77) is lost, probably due to mining either in the Sicilian Channel or Cavioli. There are no Axis claims for her sinking.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Hart advises Navy Department that he will keep the Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines and would fight to defend the Islands. This would require modification of Rainbow-5.
MacArthur authorizes USAFFE to conduct site surveys in surrounding territories. The Hawaii Department had sent out teams for this purpose earlier in this month.
(Marc Small)U.S. military officials in the Philippines send the following radio message to Washington, D.C.: "General southward movement of Japanese shipping in western Pacific is reported by British sources two aircraft carriers have been operating among mandated islands, of which Kaga repeat Kaga still present following planes reported based there: Palau repeat Palau, eight flying boats, Saipan repeat Saipan eight fighters, six heavy bombers; Truk repeat Truk, six fighters, six heavy bombers: Jalu repeat Jalu, eight flying boats, twelve flight planes; Wotje repeat Wotje, eight flying boats."
CANADA: The Canadian ‘C’ Force, comprised of two infantry battalions totalling 1,975 men, departed from Vancouver, BC, for Hong Kong to reinforce the garrison. The Canadian troops were embarked in the fast New Zealand passenger liner (turned troopship) Awatea (13,500 GRT). Awatea was advertised in 1936, the year of her launching, as "the fastest ship in the Antipodes." She was escorted by the armed merchant cruiser HMCS Prince Robert, a converted Canadian National Steamships passenger ship, Cdr. F.G. Hart RCN CO. The decision to deploy, and potentially to evacuate, C Force was dictated entirely by the availability of military sealift provided and controlled by the British War Office. The sailing date was fixed by British authorities and could not be altered to accommodate Canadian requirements. The training and logistical support provisions for C Force were dictated by factors entirely outside of either Canadian naval or military control. Unit and individual training was far from complete when the ships sailed. Because the troopship was overcrowded, 109 members of the Royal Rifles of Canada were transported in Prince Robert. The conversion of Prince Robert to an armed merchant cruiser eliminated her cargo holds as an alternate for the large volume of materiel that could not be embarked in Awatea. C Force’s total cargo space requirements totaled 195,000 cubic feet: 125,000 for motor transport and 70,000 for other stores. Awatea had only 45,000 cubic feet of freight capacity. A priority list of transport vehicles was selected for loading. The vehicles were embarked on four rail cars and rushed to Vancouver, but did not arrive until 28 October, by which time the troopship had sailed with two cargo holds practically empty. The Philippine 8˝-knot freighter Don José (10,900 GRT) was contracted to carry C Force’s 212 vehicles and departed Vancouver on 04 Nov. A shipment of automotive spare parts was loaded in the Norwegian 14-knot freighter Fernplant (5,300 GRT) on 22 Nov. Prince Robert and Awatea sailed across the North Pacific at a brisk 20 knots, stopping at Honolulu and Manila for fuel, which Prince Robert also did on the return trip. Don José was routed by American authorities via the Torres Strait and Molucca Passage to Manila, instead of direct to Shanghai and then Hong Kong before proceeding to Manila, as originally intended. Prince Robert and Awatea, escorted by the light cruiser HMS Danae, arrived in Hong Kong on 16 Nov. Fernplant discharged her cargo in Los Angeles on 10 December, several days after the commencement of hostilities, and it was eventually returned to Canada. Don José arrived in Manila on 12 Dec and disembarked C Force’s vehicles for use by the US Army. All of these vehicles were either captured or destroyed by the Japanese. Canadian Chief of the General Staff, General Kenneth Stuart testified at the Duff Commission of Inquiry into the disaster at Hong Kong that "[t]he shortage of shipping, particularly ships equipped to carry personnel, had been a problem since the beginning of the war and had become more of a problem as each month passes." Stuart claimed that "there was no alternative but to accept the course we did," which was "to proceed as directed in the cable received from the United Kingdom." It seems no questions were directed at the RCN during the inquiry over the wisdom of converting the three Prince-class liners into auxiliary cruisers when a national requirement for troopships existed from the first days of the war and was becoming a critical problem of strategic proportions.
Corvette HMCS Shawinigan arrived Halifax from builder Quebec City, Province of Quebec.
U.S.A.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt speaks of German designs on South America and all religions stating, "This map makes clear the Nazi design not only against South America but against the United States itself. . . . All of us Americans, of e between the kind of world we want to live in and the kind of world which Hitler and his hordes would impose upon us."
Escort carrier USS Card laid down.
Minesweeper USS Pilot laid down.
Submarine USS Grouper launched.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The British destroyer HMS COSSACK sinks three days after being torpedoed by U-563.
USN Task Unit 4.1.6 screens convoy ON-28 (U.K. to North America). During the day, destroyers USS DuPont (DD-152) and Sampson (DD-394) each carry out two depth charge attacks against suspected U-boat contacts.