3 November 1941

Destroyers HMS Wheatland and Beaufor commissioned.

Escort carrier HMS Tracker laid down.

U-755 commissioned.

FINLAND: Finnish forces occupy the Baltic naval base of Hango, a base Finland was forced to lease to the Soviets as part of the peace accords ending the Winter War in 1940.

U.S.S.R.: German attacks continue in the Leningrad sector. Their goal is Tikhvin, 100 miles east of Leningrad. The Soviet counterattacks will be aimed at some of the strongest German positions.
The port city of Feodosia is captured by the German 46th and 170th Infantry Divisions.

Units of Panzergruppe 2 (Guderian) of Heeresgruppe Mitte (von Bock) capture Kursk.

JAPAN: Tokyo: Japan has one good reason for expansion in the Far East: oil. The country has been starved of oil since the USA decided in July, following the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, to extend the licensing of exports to Japan. It was not intended to ban oil exports to Japan, but US officials refused all applications to export oil and gas.

Roosevelt felt that to reverse the refusals would be a sign of weakness; since then the USA has operated a de facto embargo. With virtually no oil supplies of its own, Japan's eyes are now firmly set on the oil-rich Dutch East Indies.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Joseph C. Grew warns the U.S. that Japan might "resort with dangerous and dramatic suddenness to measures which might make inevitable war with the United States." He says, ". . . underestimating Japan's obvious preparations to implement a program in the event the alternative peace program fails, would be short-sighted. Similarly it would be short-sighted for American policy to be based upon the belief that Japanese preparations are no more than saber rattling, merely intended to give moral support to the high pressure diplomacy of Japan."

The Combined Japanese Fleet receives Top-Secret Order No. 1: In 34 days time, Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, is to be bombed, along with Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, and the Philippine Islands.

PACIFIC OCEAN: The evacuation of women and children from the U.S. Pacific islands of Guam, Midway and Wake begins.

Lt Latham Brereton ‘Yogi’ Jenson, RCN, was appointed to HMCS Ottawa, a River-class destroyer. ‘Yogi’ lived a charmed life during the Second World War: three times leaving ships, including the battlecruiser HMS Hood, just before their loss. He had many other harrowing combat experiences as well. His writing and drawings about life in the RCN during the inter-war and wartime eras are excellent descriptive works. His most recent work, Tin Hats, Oilskins, and Seaboots, was published in the summer of 2001.

U.S.A.: A Joint Board meeting is held in Washington. Marshall states that there would only be sufficient B-17's in the Philippines to “have a deterrent effect on Japanese operations.” The Joint Board concurred in opposing the State Department’s hard line towards Japan and advocated the US making minor concessions to buy time. (Marc Small)

Secretary of State Cordell Hull releases to the press the correspondence of June and September detailing the German refusal to pay reparations for sinking the U.S. freighter SS Robin Moor on 21 May.

WEST INDIES: HMS Indomitable (92) is accidentally damaged when she runs aground off Kingston while training. This carrier was scheduled to join HMS Prince of Wales (53) and HMS Repulse (34) as the British Far East Fleet but she must be repaired and misses the movement with these two ships.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: USN destroyer USS Upshur (DD-144), escorting convoy HX-157 (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to U.K.), depth charges a sound contact (later determined to be most likely a whale or blackfish) about 577 nautical miles (1 069 kilometers) north of St. John's, Newfoundland, in position 56.56N, 49.21W.

USN PBY-5 Catalinas of Patrol Squadron Seventy Three (VP-73) based at Skerja Fjord, near Reykjavik, Iceland, provide air coverage for convoy ON-31 (U.K. to North America).

U-202 sank SS Flynderborg and Gretavale in Convoy SC-52.

U-203 sank SS Gemsbuck and Everoja in Convoy SC-52.