November 13th, 1941 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Submarine HMS Tactician laid down.
The Air Ministry drops a bombshell to Bomber Command's Air Officer Commander-in-Chief, Air Marshal Sir Richard Pierse, that the bomber offensive in its present form is to be stopped whilst the future shape and tactics of Bomber Command are debated. With the exception of a few minor raids in the following months this is exactly what happens and, by early January, Pierse had been reassigned as Air Officer Commander-in-Chief, Air Forces in India.
GERMANY: U-596 commissioned.
ROMANIA: Transnistria: (i.e. east of the Dniester, or Nistru River as it is known in Romanian) In the department of Golta, under the control of Colonel Modest Isopescu [while unable to confirm this, I suspect he was a Jandarmi officer rather than regular Army], Bogdanovca was a small village chosen by Isopescu, upon his appointment as prefect in early October 1941, as one of those "controlled localities" as a depository for the Jews in the department. Shortly after collection of the local Jewish populace commenced, nine thousand Jews arrived on foot, having been deported from Odessa. Overcrowding quickly produced lethally unhealthy conditions, with a dispatch from Colonel Isopescu to Governor Alexianu today reporting no fewer than eight thousand Jews having died with another eleven thousand crammed into the village's pigsties. (Greg Kelley)
U.S.S.R.: Moscow: The Germans today resumed their attack on Moscow. Taking advantage of the frost-hardened ground, they have launched one of their customary pincer movements in a final attempt to capture the city before the winter strikes the exposed German army with all its severity.
The plan is for Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group to take Tula, to the south of the Russian capital, and then sweep up behind Moscow to Kolemna. Hoth's 3rd Panzer Group is to form the northern arm of the pincer with the task of driving eastwards to the Volga Canal and then wheeling towards Moscow while Hopner's 4th Panzer Group attacks in the centre.
This may well be the Germans' last chance to take Moscow before "General Winter" takes an icy hand in this war. The Germans are happy that the frost has made the ground hard enough for their tanks and horses and men to operate, but if they cannot reach the shelter of Moscow within the next few weeks they will be forced to go onto the defensive. The initial reports of the fighting show that it is going to be much harder for them to take Moscow than seemed possible last month when panic gripped the city.
Tula has been turned into a strongpoint, and unless the Germans take this communications centre and its airfield they cannot complete their pincer movement. Stalin has put heart into the people of Moscow, and Zhukov has created an effective defence. With both sides desperately weary and apparently short of men and machines, Moscow's fate now hangs in the balance.
The temperatures in Moscow dips to -22C overnight.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: HMS Argus (D 49) and HMS Ark Royal (91) flew 24 Hurricanes to MALTA yesterday. Today they are attacked by U-81 and U-205. At 0506hrs, U-205 fired three torpedoes at HMS Ark Royal, but all missed.
Friedrich Guggenberger's U-81 had received a report that Force H (battleship HMS Malaya (01), light cruiser HMS Hermione (74) and seven destroyers) was returning to Gibraltar. At 15:40 hours the sonar operator aboard HMS Legion detects un unidentified sound, but assumes it is the propellers of a nearby destroyer. One minute later Ark Royal is struck amidships by a torpedo [268, pp.329] between the fuel bunkers and bomb store, and directly below the bridge island. [268, pp.332]The explosion causes Ark Royal to shake, hurled loaded torpedo-bombers into the air and killed Able Seaman Mitchell. [269, pp.332]A 130 feet long by 30 feet deep hole is created on the starboard side, causing flooding. HMS Legion moves alongside the damaged and listing Ark Royal to off survivors.
Immediately after the torpedo strike, Captain Maund attempted to order the engines to full stop, but had to send a runner to the engine room when it was discovered communications were down.[269, pp.338] The hole in the hull was enlarged by the ship's motion, and by the time Ark Royal stopped she had taken on water and begun to list to starboard, reaching 18° from centre within 20 minutes.[269, pp.338] Considering the lean of the carrier, as well as the fates of other carriers, including HMS Courageous and HMS Glorious, which had sunk rapidly with heavy loss of life, Maund gave the order to abandon ship. The crew were assembled on the flight deck to determine who would remain onboard to save the ship while HMS Legion came alongside to take off the rest; as a result, comprehensive damage control measures were not initiated until 49 minutes after the attack. The flooding spread unchecked, exacerbated by covers and hatches left open during evacuation of lower decks.[269, pp.338-340]
Water spread to the centreline boiler room, which started to flood from below, and power was lost shipwide when the boiler uptakes became choked; Ark Royal had no backup diesel generators. [268, pp.345] About half an hour after the explosion, the carrier appeared to stabilise. Admiral Somerville, determined to save Ark Royal, ordered damage control parties back to the carrier before taking the battleship HMS Malaya (01) to Gibraltar to organise salvage efforts. The damage control parties were able to re-light a boiler, restoring power to the bilge pumps. The destroyer HMS Laforey came alongside to provide power and additional pumps, while Swordfish aircraft from Gibraltar arrived to supplement anti-submarine patrols.[269, pp.342] The tug Thames arrived from Gibraltar at 20:00 hours and attached a tow line to Ark Royal, but flooding caused the list to reach 20° between 02:05 and 02:30 hours, and when 'abandon ship' was declared again at 04:00 hours, had reached 27°.[269, pp.346] Ark Royal's complement had been evacuated to Legion by 04:30 hours; with the exception of Mitchell, there were no fatalities. The 1,487 officers and crew were transported to Gibraltar.[270, pp. 136] The list reached 45° before Ark Royal capsized and sank at 06:19 hours on 14 November.[269, pp. 348] Witnesses reported the carrier rolling to 90°, where she remained for three minutes before inverting. Ark Royal broke in two, the aft sinking within a couple of minutes, followed by the bow.[268, pp. 375-6] (Web455)
JAPAN: A message from the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo to the Japanese Ambassador in Washington, D.C., includes the following: "Judging from the tone of these talks, the United States is apparently still assuming that they are of a preliminary nature. We pleaded with the U. S. Ambassador (to Japan) again on the 12th to try and see the seriousness of the situation. Will you, too, do everything in your power to make them realize this in accordance with the lines contained in my various instructions on this subject."
U.S.A.: Washington: The House of Representatives voted here tonight by 212 votes to 194 to revise the Neutrality Act of 1939 to allow US merchant ships to unload munitions in British ports.
The roll was called in tense silence. As soon as it was over, the Speaker, Sam Rayburn of Texas, who immediately before the vote went on to the floor and read a letter from the president urging passage, happily signed it. The president will sign it on Monday.
The bill's history was a notable demonstration not only of the declining, though still formidable, power of the isolationists but also of President Roosevelt's political skill. Realizing that he did not at first have the votes for revising the Neutrality Act so drastically as to allow American ships to enter war zones, he first sent a bill allowing US merchantmen to be armed to the House. Polls suggested that most Americans were in favour, and the bill was passed by the House by almost two votes to one on 17 October. Then, after making a speech in which he claimed that the Nazis were planning to subjugate Central and South America, he sent the more ambitious bill allowing ships to go into war zones to the Senate, where it passed by 50 to 37. That was close.
Senator Hiram Johnson, a leading isolationist, told his son that it was a good result, given that "the bundles to Britain crew and all the Anglophiles were pulling and hauling and doing everything they could". But only then did the president send the stronger bill to the House of Representatives.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-125 sank SS Peru.
USN destroyer USS Edison (DD-439), screening convoy ON-34 (U.K. to North America) southwest of Iceland, depth charges a sound contact. Destroyer USS Decatur (DD-341), screening convoy HX-159 (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to U.K.), depth charges a sound contact; although it is regarded as a good contact, the ensuing search yields no evidence of a submarine.