November 22nd, 1941 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
Corvette HMS Borage launched.
Destroyer HMS Catterick launched.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Jura launched.
FRANCE: Paris: A hand grenade is thrown into a Wehrmacht canteen.
GERMANY: Breslau: The Luftwaffe air ace Werner Molders, flying to Udet's funeral, dies when his plane hits a factory chimney.
FINLAND: Third evacuation of Soviet troops from Hanko.
U.S.S.R.: The first column of trucks started on the ice of Lake Ladoga to get flour for the inhabitants of besieged Leningrad. The road across the lake was called "The Road of Life". It was the main artery connecting the encircled city with Big Land.
Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin presents a plan to the British to pull Finland out of the war. The British give Finland two weeks time to cease their offensive operations or it will declare war on Finland.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: During the night, British torpedo planes attack a German supply convoy bringing supplies to Africa sinking one of the escorting cruisers.
A British submarine sinks another cruiser. British naval forces from Malta sortie, but are unable to make contact.
NORTH AFRICA: Operation Crusader, a bold new assault on Rommel, is now in its fifth day with the heaviest fighting in the Desert War so far at Sidi Rezegh.
Extensively re-equipped and re-inforced for the new campaign, the Allied forces now have more than 700 tanks against Rommel's 320 and nearly 700 aircraft against 320 Axis planes. To Churchill's annoyance the new Commander-in-Chief, General Claude Auchinleck, refused to begin the offensive until all the new supplies had arrived.
The aim of Crusader is to pin down Axis troops on the frontier, outflank them in the desert, and smash through Rommel's forces to link up with the Tobruk garrison 70 miles north of the frontier.
At the start of the campaign the Allies had surprise on their side, and caught Rommel unawares planning his own attack on Tobruk. But yesterday British and South African forces setting out from Sidi Rezegh for Tobruk were savagely hit from the south and east by two panzer divisions. At midday today the 21st Panzer Division struck at the western flank of the British position, over-running the airfield and leaving devastation and confusion by nightfall.
At the end of this battle, British units withdraw away from Tobruk.
Separately the British 4th Armoured Brigade is mauled by the German 15th Panzer
Division. The initiative passes to the Germans.
EAST AFRICA: The last sortie flown by the Regia Aeronautica in AOI is flown by the remaining CR-42 which strafes a British artillery position, killing the regimental commander. (Mike Yared)(284)
JAPAN: The Foreign Ministry sends a message to Ambassadors NOMURA Kichisaburo and special envoy KURUSU Saburo in Washington, D.C.; the message contains the following statement: "There are reasons beyond your ability to guess why we wanted to settle Japanese-American relations by the 25th, but if within the next three or four days you can finish your conversations with the Americans."
The Japanese First Air Fleet arrives in Hitokappu Bay, Etorofu Island, Kurile Islands. This fleet consists of six aircraft carriers (HIJMS Akagi, Hiryu, Kaga, Shokaku, Soryu and Zuikaku), two battleships (HIJMS Hiei and Kirishima), two heavy cruisers (HIJMS Chikuma and Tone), a light cruiser (HIJMS Abukuma) and ten destroyers. This is the force that will attack Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii.
AUSTRALIA: Minesweeper HMAS Deloraine commissioned.
U.S.A.: Washington: The secretary of state, Cordell Hull, says that all differences with Japan could be resolved if he could be convinced that their intentions were peaceful. Hull tells Japanese representatives Ambassadors NOMURA Kichisaburo and special envoy KURUSU Saburo that there might be a relaxation of economic pressures. Secretary of State Hall "said that he had called in the representatives of certain other governments concerned in the Pacific area and that there had been a discussion of the question of whether things (meaning Japanese peaceful pledges, et cetera) could be developed in such a way . . . these representatives were interested in the suggestion and there was a general feeling that the matter could all be settled if the Japanese could give us some satisfactory evidences that their intentions were peaceful."
Destroyers USS Aaron Ward and Buchanan launched.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: On the way home after 622 days of patrol, the German raider HK Atlantis, ship 16 known to the British as Raider C, meets the German submarine U-126 to refuel her north of Ascension Island. During that operation, a lookout reports a warship that turns out to be the British heavy cruiser HMS Devonshire (39) that arrives due to an intelligence report on the rendezvous. Devonshire fires from 17,000 yards (8.4 nautical miles or 16 kilometers), out of range of German guns. The second and third salvoes hit the German raider, her magazine explodes and Atlantis sinks quickly about 328 nautical miles (607 kilometers) northwest of Ascension Island in position 04.20N, 18.29W. As U-126 submerges, Dorsetshire makes off at high speed, leaving it to the German submarine to pick up the survivors; only eight crewmen of the raider are lost.. The raider's operations in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans have cost the Allies 22 merchantmen of 145.968 tons.
Heavy cruiser HMS Devonshire sinks the German raider Atlantis (Ship 16) off the West Coast of Africa, near Ascension Island. She was caught replenishing U-126 which escapes.
The "Atlantis" survivors take to their lifeboats which are then towed behind U-126. Only 7 of the "Atlantis" crew of 360 are lost in this action. (Alex Gordon)