November 18th, 1941 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: General Brooke replaces
General Dill and Chief of the Imperial General Staff. General Dill is
assigned to Washington, DC. General Paget becomes C. in C. British Home
Forces. These appointments will become effective in December.
Brooke comes from an Ulster Loyalist family in County Fermanagh. There is a
well-established tradition of having a loyal Irishman as Britain's top
soldier. The list includes Sir Henry Wilson, assassinated by the
IRA in 1922, as well as Brooke's predecessor, Sir John Dill.
General Brooke has a passion for innovation in military mobility, mechanization and gunnery. He commanded II Corps of the BEF in the Dunkirk withdrawal. On his return to took over from Lord Ironside as Chief of the Home Defence Forces, becoming responsible for leading resistance to invasion. Now aged 58, he is described by Dill as "a young man" who should have chance to get on.
Destroyer HMCS Athabaskan launched Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Destroyer HMS Belvoir launched.
Submarine HMS Safari launched.
GERMANY: Alfred Rosenberg, Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, tells German journalists at a confidential briefing that the "Final Solution" has begun; a "biological extermination of all Jews in Europe." No Jew could remain on the continent to the Ural Mountains; they will either be forced beyond the Urals or exterminated. The press is not to write about the extermination in detail, but the reporters could use stock phrases such as the "definite solution" or the "total solution of the Jewish question."
U-704 commissioned.
U.S.S.R.: Fighting near Venev, seriously holds up Guderian's infantry divisions with heavy losses. The Germans commit additional 2nd Panzer Army forces to recover ground lost yesterday when his 112th Infantry Division panicked and broke. The new attacks captured Epifan and Dedilovo south of Moscow.
Strokovo: In an act of tremendous heroism, 11 Red Army engineers hold up 20 German tanks.
Soviet submarine SC-137 commissioned.
LIBYA: German General Erwin Rommel, commander of Panzer Gruppe Africa, dismisses Italian warnings of a possible British attack and destroys Italian reconnaissance photographs revealing a massive increase in British vehicles and men. Rommel states the Italian warnings as "excessive Latin nervousness." Luckily for Rommel, General Ettore Bastico, governor of Libya and commander of all troops on the North African Theatre, convinces Rommel not to deploy his armoured units around Tobruk. General Gastone Gambara, commander of the Manoeuvrable Corps and Lieutenant General Fedele de Giorgis, commander of the 55th Division Savona, place the Ariete, Trieste and Savona Divisions on alert.Operation Crusader begins. This British attack has the XXX Corps cross into Libya from Egypt. With 450 cruiser tanks and 132 infantry models and more in the Tobruk Garrison. The Afrika Korps has 180 Mk III and IV tanks with 220 Italian and other German models. This British attack disrupts Rommel's plan to attack Tobruk on the 21st.
The order was "Get Rommel". In one of the most daring operations of the war, a
small commando unit led by Lieut-Colonel Geoffrey Charles Tasker Keyes (b. 1917)
landed by night on beaches behind enemy lines. Their objective was a villa
several miles inland used by the Germans as headquarters. Rommel - the "Desert
Fox" - was to be captured or killed as the British launched a major offensive.
Several men were drowned in the heavy swell, and they came ashore to rough, rainswept terrain.
As they approached the villa, a sentry who tackled the colonel had to be shot. All surprise was lost.
Opening one door they found 12 Germans preparing for a fight. Keyes opened it again to throw in a grenade. He was shot dead. Most of the survivors were taken prisoner. Colonel Robert Laycock and another commando escaped back to British lines. There they learnt that Rommel had been in Rome at the time of the raid.
Later Keyes was awarded the Victoria Cross.
Part of Crusader includes the Battle of the Omars.
The US M3 Stuart light tank has its first trials in action with the British 8th Army, at the start of Operation Crusader.
JAPAN:
The Japanese Imperial Diet (legislature) secretly approves a "resolution of hostility" against the United States.
Five mother submarines, HIJMS I-16, I-18, I-20, I-22 and I-24, each with a midget sub lashed to the deck, depart Kure Naval Base for Pearl Harbor. The submarines arrive off Oahu, Hawaiian Islands, on 6 December.
Nine submarines from Kwajalein will also sail for their stations.Special emissary Kurusu intimated Japan might do something to "outshine" the Axis Pact.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: MacArthur"> MacArthur tasks FEAF to review the "installation and operation of the Air Force as projected." (Marc James Small)
CANADA:
Corvette HMCS Kitchener (ex-HMCS Vancouver) launched Sorel, Province of Quebec.
Corvette HMCS Oakville commissioned.
HMC ML 050 commissioned.
NEWFOUNDLAND: Corvettes HMCS Dunvegan and Sorel departed St John's escort the 46-ship Sydney to Liverpool convoy SC-55 as far as Iceland. Convoy arrived safely in Liverpool on 05 Dec intact.
U.S.A.: Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. Admiral NOMURA Kichisaburo sends the following message to Tokyo: "On the evening of the 17th, both of us (NOMURA and special envoy KURUSU) went to call on a certain cabinet member and this is what he told us: "The President is very desirous of an understanding between Japan and the United States. In his latest speech he showed that he entertained no ill will towards Japan. I would call that to your attention. Now the great majority of the cabinet members, with two exceptions, in principle approve of a Japanese American understanding. If Japan would now do something real, such as evacuating French Indo-China, showing her peaceful intentions, the way would be open for us to furnish you with oil and it would probably lead to the re-establishment of normal trade relations. The Secretary of State cannot bring public opinion in line so long as you do not take some real and definite steps to reassure the Americans."
NOMURA and KURUSU meet with Secretary of State Cordell Hull at 1030 hours and then sends the following in a message to Tokyo: "In our conversations of today, as a practical means of alleviating the ever worsening front with which we are faced and to quiet the fearful situation, as well as, to bring about a return to the situation existing before the application of the freezing legislation, we suggested the evacuation of Japanese troops stationed in the southern part of French Indochina. During this meeting, Hull brought up the question of the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy and Japan, and KURUSU said ". . . he could not say that Japan would abrogate the Tripartite Pact . . . he desires to emphasize that Japan would not be a cat's-paw for Germany, that Japan's purpose in entering into the Tripartite alliance was to use it for Japan's own purposes, that Japan entered the Tripartite Pact because Japan felt isolated."
Doctor L. A. DuBridge of the Radiation Laboratory reported that the initial design of a 3-centimeter aircraft intercept radar was completed.
Minesweepers USS Sway and Symbol laid down.