November 15th, 1941 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Minelayer HMS Apollo laid down.
The de Havilland Mosquito Mk. IV light bomber enters service with No. 105 Squadron at RAF Swanton Morley, Norfolk, England.
BALTIC SEA: U-583 sank at 2148hrs in the Baltic, near Danzig, in position 55.23N, 17.05E after a collision with U-153. 45 dead (all hands lost).
U-752 sank Soviet minesweeping trawler T-889/No 34 (ex-RT-3).
U.S.S.R.: The German offensive toward Moscow starts again. Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group attacks south from around Tula. North of the city attacks are made by the 3rd and 4th Panzer Groups. The Soviets have built up reserves and brought forces from Siberia. They will allow the Germans to advance while building up forces on the outer flanks.Moscow: On the night of 6-7 November the frost which heralds the arrival of the Russian winter gripped the steppes of western Russia. The temperatures plummeted, but overnight the mud which had bogged down the German thrust on Moscow for the past month vanished. Today, with light snow on the ground but under clear skies, the Germans were able to resume their offensive. Winter has restored the mobility of the German armies, but it has also brought a host of problems which are bound to grow worse.
The cold, far more intense than in western Europe - with temperatures of -28 degrees Fahrenheit (-40C) - affects everything. Tank and truck engines can only be started if fires are kept in lit under the vehicles. Guns and vehicles become frozen in and can only be freed by chipping away at the ice with pickaxes. Weapons seize up because the oil in them freezes. Worse, only a small proportion of the German troops have been issued with winter clothing - a sign of the dangerous over optimism with which Hitler and his generals were imbued at the start of the campaign. The result is that frostbite is rapidly increasing the sick list.
Soviet troops, on the other hand, especially the Siberian divisions passing through the Moscow to the front, are used to these conditions. "General Winter" is an ally of the USSR, not Germany, and may yet deny Hitler Moscow.
EGYPT: Cairo: A "Special Air Service Brigade" which was formed in the summer has lost 32 out of 55 men in an attempted para-drop in a sandstorm. The targets - Rommel's airfields - are untouched. The leader - Captain David Stirling, who proposed the idea of the SAS Brigade in July, was retrieved by another special force, the Long Range Desert Group. The LRDG, formed 14 months ago, comprises pre-war desert explorers practising deep reconnaissance with special vehicles. Stirling wants a partnership with it after this debacle.
HONG KONG: The converted passenger liner Awatea arrived here this evening, carrying 2,000 Canadian troops under Brigadier J Lawson.
The Canadians will boost the garrison in Hong Kong, but, as Churchill himself has pointed out, two semi-trained battalions are unlikely to deter Japan from war, but will merely increase the numbers of prisoners the Japanese can take. The Canadians seem only too aware of this. "Oh God, another Dunkirk," Signalman William Allister said when he heard where he was going. "No fella," another voice added, "at Dunkirk they had somewhere to go."
CANADA: Patrol vessel HMCS Talapus commissioned.
U.S.A.:
Saburo Kurusu, an experienced diplomat, arrives in
Washington to make a last-ditch effort to reach a compromise with the US.
Minesweepers USS Portent and Prevail laid down.
Marshall holds a press conference at which he stated that V Bomber Command constituted the "greatest concentration of heavy bomber strength anywhere in the world"; when queried over the inability of the B-17's in the Philippines to bomb Japan and to return to Clark AAF, Marshall stated that the USSR would allow the airplanes to refuel at Vladivostok.
Army GHQ maneuvers begin in North and South Carolina. Two U.S. Navy squadrons [Bombing Squadron Eight (VB-8) and Scouting Squadron Eight (VS-8)] and two Marine Corps squadrons [Marine Fighting Squadron One Hundred Eleven (VMF-111) and VMF-121) take part in the large-scale war games.