Timeline of World War II (1941)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

1941: Soviet defenders at the Battle of Rostov, Commonwealth troops of South Asian descent operate an anti-aircraft gun during the Western Desert campaign, a British torpedo bomber returns from attacking the German battleship Bismarck, an American battleship burns after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

This is a timeline of events that stretched over the period of World War II in 1941, marked also by the beginning of Operation Barbarossa on the Eastern Front.

January

  • 1: Accounting of the next night's bombing of London reveals that the Old Bailey, the Guildhall, and eight churches by Christopher Wren were destroyed or badly damaged.
    : RAF bombs aircraft factories in Bremen, Germany.
  • 2: German bombers bomb Ireland for the second night in a row.
  • 2–4: Bardia is bombed by British bombers and bombarded by naval vessels off shore.
  • 3: RAF bombers attack Bremen and the Kiel Canal in Germany. The Kiel Canal Bridge suffers a direct hit and collapses on Finnish ship Yrsa.[1]
  • 5: Operation Compass: Australian troops of XIII Corps (the re-designated Western Desert Force) capture Italian-held Bardia and 45,000 Italian prisoners are taken.
    : Tobruk, the next target, is 70 miles away.
The leader of Wallonia's fascist party, Léon Degrelle, gives a speech in the German-occupied city of Liège announcing the support of the Rexist Party for German Nazism.

February

  • 1: Admiral Husband Kimmel is appointed the Commander of the US Navy in the Pacific.
  • 3:
    Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel is appointed head of "German Army troops in Africa." This unit is later to be officially designated as the "Afrika Korps".
    : Germany forcibly restores Pierre Laval to office in Vichy
    .
  • 7:
    Italian 10th Army during the Battle of Beda Fomm. The Italians are unable to break through the small blocking force and the British accept the surrender of roughly 130,000 Italians in and to the south of Benghazi
    .
  • 8: US House of Representatives passes the Lend-Lease bill.
  • 9: Mussolini is informed that German reinforcements are on the way to North Africa.
    : British forces reach
    El Agheila, Cyrenaica.
    : British battleships shell Genoa and British aircraft attack Livorno.
    : Churchill again pleads with the US: "give us the tools."
  • 10: Malta's critical period: now through March, it is under heavy daily attack.
  • 11: Elements of the Afrika Korps start to arrive in Tripoli, Tripolitania.
    : British forces enter Italian Somaliland.
  • 14: Rommel arrives in Tripoli.
    : Afrika Korps starts to move eastward towards the advance British positions at El Agheila. The British in North Africa have been weakened by the transfer of some troops to Greece.
  • 15: Deportation of Austrian Jews to ghettos in Poland begins.
  • 19: The start of the "three nights Blitz" of Swansea, South Wales. Over these three nights of intensive bombing, Swansea town centre is almost completely obliterated.
  • 20: German and British troops confront each other for the first time in North Africa—at El Agheila in western Libya.
  • 21: German forces move through Bulgaria toward the Greek front.
  • 24: German U-boat offensive in the Atlantic is now increasingly successful.
    : Admiral Darlan is appointed the head of the Vichy government in France.
  • 25: The British submarine
    East African Campaign
    .
  • 28: RAF planes bomb Asmara, Eritrea.

March

The state of the Allies and Axis powers in March 1941
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease bill to give aid to Britain and China (1941).
  • 1: Hitler gives orders for the expansion of
    Auschwitz prison camp, to be run by Commandant Rudolf Höss.
    : Bulgaria officially signs the Tripartite Pact
    .
  • 4: British commandos carry out an attack on oil facilities at Narvik in Norway.
    : British military force in Libya is thinned down as some men are sent to assist the Greeks in their emerging battle with approaching German troops.
    : Prince Regent Paul of Yugoslavia agrees to join the Axis pact.
  • 7: First British troops land in Greece, at Piraeus.
  • 8: Another bombing of London, notable because Buckingham Palace is hit.
  • 9: The
    Italian Spring Offensive
    in the Albanian front begins.
  • 10: British and Italian troops meet in a brief conflict in Eritrea.
    : Portsmouth suffers heavy casualties after another night of heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe.
  • 11: United States President
    Lend Lease Act
    (now passed by the full Congress) allowing Britain, China, and other Allied nations to purchase military equipment and to defer payment until after the war.
  • 12: German Panzers arrive in North Africa providing heavy armor for the first major German offensive.
  • 13: The Luftwaffe strikes with a large force at Glasgow and the shipping industry along the River Clyde.
  • 17: Huge convoy losses in mid-Atlantic this week.
    : The United States of America converts its Corps Areas to Defense Commands, with the term Corps reassigned as an intermediate field command of a Field Army.
  • 19: The worst bombing of London so far this year, with heavy damage from incendiary bombs; Plymouth and Bristol are bombed again.
  • 20: The Italian Spring Offensive is called off, after heavy losses and virtually no progress.
  • 21: The Yugoslav cabinet resigns in protest against Prince Paul's pact with the Nazis. Street demonstration occurs, expressive of a deep dislike for Germany.
  • 24: Rommel attacks and reoccupies El Agheila, Libya in his first offensive. The British retreat and within three weeks are driven back to Egypt.
  • 25: Italian MTMs of the
    Suda Bay, Crete
    .
  • 27: Crown Prince Peter becomes
    Honolulu, Hawaii and begins to study the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor.
    : Hitler orders his military leaders to plan for the invasion of Yugoslavia.
    : British forces advancing from the Sudan win the decisive Battle of Keren in Eritrea.
    : Battle of Cape Matapan
    : the British navy meets an Italian fleet off southern Greece. The battle continues until the 29th.
  • 31: The , is taken.

April

The state of the Allies and Axis powers in April 1941
  • 1: British retreat after the losses at El Agheila, Libya. Rommel is surprised, then decides to continue his offensive.
    : During this month the heavy bombing of British cities continues, and convoy losses remain heavy.
    : In
    'Abd al-Ilah
    . Rashid Ali names himself Chief of a "National Defence Government".
  • 2: After taking Agedabia, Rommel decides to take all of Libya and moves his troops toward Benghazi. All of Cyrenaic (Libya) seems ready for the taking.
  • 3: A pro-Axis government is installed in Iraq.
    : Bristol, England, suffers another heavy air attack.
    : British troops take Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, from the Italian armies.
    : Rommel takes Benghazi, Libya; Tobruk will remain a threat for the next seven months.
  • 4: Rommel is now about 200 miles east of El Agheila, heading for Tobruk and Egypt.
    : An Atlantic convoy suffers almost 50% losses to U-boat campaign.
  • 6: Forces of Germany, Italy, and Hungary, moving through Romania and Hungary, initiate the invasions of
    Greece.
    : The Italian Army is driven out from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
    : The northern wing of Rommel's forces take Derna, on the Libyan coast. The southern wing moves toward Mechili
    , and takes it on the 8th.
  • 7: The Luftwaffe begins a two-day assault on Belgrade, Yugoslavia; Hitler is infuriated by the Yugoslav resistance.
  • 8: The Germans take
    Salonika
    , Greece.
  • 9: The Palestinian leader Amin al-Husseini issues a fatwa in a radio speech from Baghdad, calling on Muslims to engage in a holy war against Great Britain.[3]
  • 10:
    USS Niblack
    attacks a German U-boat that had just sunk a Dutch freighter. The Niblack was picking up survivors of the freighter when it detected the U-boat preparing to attack. The Niblack attacked with depth charges and drove off the U-boat.
  • 11: Though still a "neutral" nation, the United States begins sea patrols in the North Atlantic.
    : Heavy Luftwaffe raids on Coventry and Birmingham, England.
  • 12: Belgrade, Yugoslavia, surrenders.
    : The Germans defeat Commonwealth forces at the Battle of Vevi.
  • 13: Malta is bombed again; it continues to be a thorn in the side of German supply movements in the Mediterranean.
    : Japan and the Soviet Union
    RAF Shaibah
    .
  • 14: Rommel attacks Tobruk, but is forced to turn back. Other attacks, also failures, occur on the 16th and 30th.
    : The German
    LSSAH Panzer division captures
    the strategic Kleisoura Pass and begins cutting the line of retreat for the Greek army in Albania.
Antwerp pogrom: A collaborationist mob attacks two Jewish synagogues in Antwerp in German-occupied Belgium

May

German paratroopers land in Crete
  • 1: Seven nights of bombing of Liverpool by the Luftwaffe begins, resulting in widespread destruction.
  • 2: British forces at RAF Habbaniya launch pre-emptive air strikes against Iraqi forces besieging them and the Anglo-Iraqi War begins.
  • 3: British forces in Ethiopia begin the investment of
    Duke of Aosta
    have taken up defensive positions.
  • 4: Belfast, Northern Ireland, experiences another heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe.
  • 5: Five years from the day he was forced to flee, Emperor Haile Selassie enters Addis Ababa, his capital, in triumph.
  • 6: With much of the Iraqi air force destroyed and facing regular bombardment themselves, the Iraqi ground forces besieging RAF Habbaniya withdraw.
    : The Luftwaffe arranges to send a small force to Iraq.
  • 7: Between Habbaniya and Fallujah, two Iraqi columns are caught in the open and attacked by roughly forty British aircraft; the Iraqis suffer heavy casualties.
  • 8: Heavy convoy losses in the Atlantic continue; however, one U-boat (U-110) is captured by the British navy and another copy of the "Enigma" machine is discovered and saved. It will help to turn the fortunes in the Atlantic battle.
    : Bombing of Nottingham by the Luftwaffe.
  • 9: A Japanese brokered peace treaty signed in Tokyo ends the
    French-Thai War
    .
  • 10:
    House of Commons is damaged by the Luftwaffe in an air raid. Other targets are Hull, Liverpool, Belfast, and the shipbuilding area of the River Clyde in Scotland. This is close to the end of the Blitz, as Germany shifts its focus toward Soviet Union and the East.
    : The "Strike of the 100,000" begins in Liège in Belgium on the anniversary of the German invasion of 1940. It soon spreads across the whole province until nearly 70,000 workers are on strike.[2]
  • 12: The RAF bombs several German cities, including Hamburg, Emden, and Berlin.
    : The Soviet Union recognizes
    Rashid Ali
    's "National Defence Government" in Iraq.
  • 13: Yugoslav Army Colonel Draža Mihailović summons up the "Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland" which mostly consists of Serbs, but also includes Slovenes, Bosnians, and Croats. Mihailović treks from Bosnia to Ravna Gora in central Serbia, and issues an uprising call promising a struggle against the occupiers and the restoration of the Yugoslavian monarchy. At this point, Josip Broz Tito and the Yugoslav Partisans are aligned with the Soviet Union, which is still friendly with Germany.
    : The bulk of the German "Flyer Command Iraq" (Fliegerführer Irak) arrives in Mosul to support the Iraqi government of Rashid Ali.
  • 14: The RAF is authorized to act against German aircraft in Syria and on Vichy French airfields.
  • 15: First
    conscientious objectors
    in the United States.
  • 16: Rommel defeats a counter-attack, "Brevity", at Halfaya Pass. The two sides trade alternating control of Fort Capuzzo and Halfaya Pass.
  • 17: British forces in the Habbaniya area advance on Iraqi-held Fallujah and, in five days fighting, push the Iraqis out.
  • 18: The Duke of Aosta, Viceroy of Italian East Africa, surrenders his forces at Amba Alagi.
  • 20: German paratroopers land on Crete; the battle for Crete will continue for seven days.
    : The German military mission to Iraq, Special Staff F (Sonderstab F), is created to support of "The Arab Freedom Movement in the Middle East". Sonderstab F is to include Fliegerführer Irak and other elements already in Iraq.
  • 21: The US merchantman SS Robin Moor is sunk by German submarine U-69. The incident startles the nation, and President Roosevelt shortly announces an "unlimited national emergency".
    : The Italian Viceroy in Ethiopia surrenders. Remnants of Italian troops keep on fighting.
British forces survey Baghdad, Iraq in June 1941
  • 22: Iraqi forces unsuccessfully counter-attack the British forces in Fallujah and are rebuffed.
  • 23: German dictator Adolf Hitler issues "Führer Directive No. 30" in support of "The Arab Freedom Movement in the Middle East", his "natural ally against England".
A major outbreak of anti-Jewish rioting breaks out in Gabès in the Vichy-held Tunisia sparked by news of the defeat of the Arab uprising in Iraq. It lasts for three days.[4]
  • 24: British battlecruiser
    HMS Hood is sunk by a powerful salvo from German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic.
    : The Greek government leaves Crete for Cairo
    .
  • 26: In the North Atlantic, Royal Navy Fairey Swordfish aircraft from the carrier HMS Ark Royal fatally cripple the Bismarck in torpedo attack.
  • 27: The German battleship
    Italian
    aircraft arrive at Mosul to join Fliegerführer Irak.
  • 28: British and Commonwealth forces begin to evacuate Crete.
    : By this date, it is clear that operation "Brevity" has failed.
  • 29: Members of the German military mission flee Iraq.
  • 30: The pro-Axis Iraqi leader Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and his supporters, including Amin al-Husseini, flee Iraq as British troops approach Baghdad.[5]
  • 31: Heavy Luftwaffe bombing on neutral Ireland's capital; numerous civilian casualties.
    : The Mayor of Baghdad surrenders the city to British forces and ends the Anglo-Iraqi War.

June

  • 1: Commonwealth forces complete the withdrawal from Crete.
    : Rationing of clothes begins in the United Kingdom.
  • 2: Tuskegee Airmen begin with the formation of the 99th Fighter Squadron.
  • 4:
    Kaiser William II
    , former German Emperor, dies in exile in the Netherlands.
  • 6: More British fighter planes are delivered to Malta; Luftwaffe attacks continue.
  • 8: Vichy French-controlled Syria and Lebanon are invaded by Australian, British, Free French, and Indian forces.
  • 9: Finland initiates mobilisation, preparations against possible attack of Soviet aggressor.
    : The British and Australians cross the Litani River, beating back Vichy French forces. During this battle, Moshe Dayan, leading an Australian unit, loses his eye. He becomes famous when his story is published a day later.[6]
  • 10: Assab, the last Italian-held port in East Africa, falls.
  • 13: The Australians continue to fight through the Vichy French defenses and advance towards Beirut, winning the Battle of Jezzine.
    : Soviets begin deporting Lithuanians to Siberia. Deportations continue for five days and total 35,000 Lithuanians, among them 7000 Jews.[7]
  • 14: All German and Italian assets in the United States are frozen.
    : 10,100 people from Estonia, 15,000 from Latvia and 34,000 (or 35,000, starting a day earlier[7]) from Lithuania are deported to Siberia by the Soviet Union.
  • 15: British Operation Battleaxe attempts and fails to relieve the Siege of Tobruk. The British are heavily defeated at Halfaya Pass nicknamed "Hell-fire pass".
  • 16: All German and Italian consulates in the United States are ordered closed and their staffs to leave the country by July 10.
  • 20: Under the directives of the United States Department of War, the bulk of the personnel of what had been known as the United States Army Air Corps up to this date are brought into what becomes the United States Army Air Forces from this date forward, with General Henry H. Arnold as its first commander. As part of the reorganization, General Headquarters Air Force is renamed Air Force Combat Command; the new Army Air Forces organization consists of Air Force Combat Command (its combat element), with the existing logistics and training element retaining the older "United States Army Air Corps" designation.[8]
Operation Barbarossa began on 22 June 1941, marking the Soviet Union's entry into the war
  • 21:President Roosevelt authorizes $6,000 For Executive Order 8807 (Manhattan Project-Nuclear Weapons)
  • 22: Germany invades the Soviet Union with
    June Uprising against the Soviet Union in Lithuania
    .
  • 23: In the late evening, Hitler first arrives at his headquarters at
    Rastenburg, East Prussia, codenamed "Wolf's Lair" (Wolfsschanze). Between this date and November 20, 1944, Hitler will have spent 800 days at Wolf's Lair.
    : German troops massacre 42 at Ablinga
    .
  • 24: German forces enter Vilnius. Lithuanian militia men go on shooting spree, killing dozens of Jews on the streets, with civilian spectators cheering them on. The Germans kidnap 60 Jewish "hostages" and 30 Poles. Only 6 return.[7]
  • 25: The Soviet Union bombs Helsinki. Finland pronounces a state of war between Finland and Soviet Union.
  • 26: Hungary and Slovakia declare war on the Soviet Union.
  • 27: The occupation of Lithuania starts officially.
  • 28: Italian-occupied Albania declares war on the Soviet Union.
    : Huge German encirclement of 300,000 Red Army troops near Minsk and Białystok.
  • 29: Finnish and German troops begin Operation Arctic Fox against the Soviet Union.
    : Nuremberg Laws imposed on Jews of Lithuania and Vilnius in particular.[7]

July

The state of the Allies and Axis powers in July 1941

August

  • 1: The US announces an oil embargo against "aggressors".
    : Japanese occupy
    Saigon, Vietnam.
    : The Germans declare Galicia as the fifth district of the Generalgouvernement.[9]
  • 2: All civilian radios in Norway confiscated by the German occupation.[1]
    : SS Commander Hans Krueger (alternative spelling, Hans Krüger) orders the registration of hundreds of Jewish and Polish intelligentsia in Stanisławów, who are subsequently tortured and murdered. This is the first implementation of the "one bullet one Jew" method in Galicia.[9]
  • 5: German armies trap Red Army forces in Smolensk pocket and take 300,000 soldiers; Orel is taken.
  • 6: Germans take Smolensk.
    : American and British governments warn Japan not to invade Thailand.
  • 7: Germans reach the Gulf of Finland, cutting the Soviet forces in Estonia into two, with the forces in Tallinn being detached from the rest of Soviet lines.
  • 9: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet at NS Argentia, Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter is created, signed, and released to the world press.
  • 11: Malta is relieved by a convoy.
    : Chungking, the nominal capital of Nationalist China located far up the Yangtze River, suffers several days of heavy bombing.
  • 12: Hitler, against the advice of his generals, shifts some forces from the Moscow front to Leningrad and the Crimean offensives.
  • 17: German forces capture Narva in Northeastern Estonia, leaving the Red Army in control of only its pocket in Northwestern Estonia and the West Estonian archipelago.
  • 18:
    concentration camps
    , where they continued in their trade.
  • 20: German 250th Infantry Division, nicknamed "Blue Division" and consisting of Spanish volunteers, was formed and began to move to Poland.[1]
  • 22: German forces close in on Leningrad; the citizens continue improvising fortifications.
  • 25: British and Soviet troops
    Abadan
    oilfields and the important railways and routes to the Soviet Union for the supply of war material.
  • 27: German U-boat U-570, being forced to surface off Iceland is captured by the British Royal Navy and is later put into combat service as HMS Graph.
  • 28: German forces with the help of Estonian volunteers take Tallinn from the Soviets. The Soviet evacuation from the city inflicts heavy casualties with more than 12,000 dead and dozens of ships sunk in Finnish and German mine fields in the Gulf of Finland. The remaining Soviet forces in Estonia retreat to the West Estonian archipelago.
  • 30: The Shetland bus, a clandestine special operations group that made a permanent link between Shetland, Scotland and German-occupied Norway, begins operations.
    : Beginning of the Yelna Offensive by the Soviet Red Army on the Eastern Front.
  • 31: The first signs appear that a Leningrad "siege" is beginning.
    : "The Great Provocation" in Vilnius – German forces stage an attack on their soldiers by Jews, leading to a 'retaliation' mass arrest of the residents of old Jewish quarter, to be murdered at Ponary, three days later.[7]

September

The yellow Star of David badge, already compulsory in Nazi Germany, was enforced elsewhere in occupied Europe in September 1941
  • 1: With the assistance of Finnish armies in the north, Leningrad is now completely cut off.
    : A pro-German Government of National Salvation formed in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia under Milan Nedić.
    : All Jews under German rule must wear the yellow star of David badge with "Jew" clearly written in it, are forbidden to live with or marry non-Jews, and are forbidden to leave their towns without written consent, in accordance with the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. The decree, signed by Heydrich, is to take effect on September 19.[11]
  • 3: Murder of all 3,700 residents of the old Jewish quarter in Vilnius begins at the Ponary death site along with 10 members of the Judenrat. First written testimony of occurrences at Ponary by a survivor.[7]
    : Vilna Ghetto Jews required to hand over any gold or silver.[7]
  • 4:
    USS Greer
    becomes the first United States warship fired upon by a German U-boat in the war, even though the United States is a neutral power. Tension heightens between the two nations as a result. The U.S. is now committed to convoy duties between the Western Hemisphere and Europe.
  • 6: 6,000 Jews shot at Ponary, a day after the order to form the Vilna Ghetto was issued.
     : Japanese imperial conference decides Japan will go to war with the United States if the oil embargo is not lifted
  • 7: Berlin is heavily hit by RAF bombers.
  • 8: Siege of Leningrad begins – a reasonable date to start measuring "the 900 days". German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad; Stalin orders the Volga Germans deported to Siberia.
  • 10: German armies now have Kiev completely surrounded.
  • 11: Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Navy to shoot on sight if any ship or convoy is threatened.
  • 15: "Self-government" of Estonia, headed by Hjalmar Mäe, is appointed by German military administration.
    : "Moving Aktion" in Vilna Ghetto. Of 3,500 Jews "moved" between ghetto sections, only 550 arrive. The remaining 2,950 Jews are shot at the Ponary massacre death site.
  • 16:
    Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran
    under pressure from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.
  • 19: German capture of Kiev is now formal. The Red Army forces have suffered many casualties in defending this chief city in Soviet Ukraine.
  • 26: The U.S. Naval Command orders an all-out war on Axis shipping in American waters.
  • 27: The first "
    Liberty Ship", the SS Patrick Henry
    is launched. Liberty Ships will prove to be major parts of the Allied supply system.
  • 27: The National Liberation Front (EAM) is founded in Greece.
  • 28: German SS troops kill over 30,000 Jews at Babi Yar on the outskirts of Kiev, Soviet Ukraine, in response to sabotage efforts which the Germans attributed to local Jews.
  • 28–29: The
    Drama Uprising against the Bulgarian occupation in northern Greece
    begins. It is swiftly put down, with about 3,000 people executed as reprisals.

October

  • 1: Majdanek concentration camp (German: Konzentrationslager Lublin) and later to become extermination camp is opened.[10]
    : Vilna Ghetto Yom Kippur Aktions (German annihilation operations) begin. In four separate incidents 3,900 Jews are kidnapped, shot and killed at the Ponary massacre death site, continued with an additional 2,000 Jews kidnapped and killed there, in the next two days.[7]
  • 2:
    Operation Typhoon
    – German "Central" forces begin an all-out offensive against Moscow. Leading the defense of the capital is General Georgi Zhukov, already a Hero of the Soviet Union for his command in the conflict against the Japanese in the Russian Far East and at Leningrad.
  • 3: Mahatma Gandhi urges his followers to begin a passive resistance against British rule in India.
  • 5: German forces capture Saaremaa island in Estonia from the Soviets.
  • 7: Heavy RAF night bombings of Berlin, the Ruhr, and Cologne, but with heavy losses.
  • 8: In their invasion of the southern Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol. However, there are signs that the invasion is beginning to bog down as rainy weather creates muddy roads for both tanks and men.
  • 10: German armies encircle about 660,000 Red Army troops near Vyasma (east of Smolensk); some make a glowing prediction of the end of the war.
In German-occupied Luxembourg, a referendum is envisaged to approve the annexation of Luxembourg into Nazi Germany. As a result of a patriotic propaganda campaign by the Luxembourg Resistance, it does not go ahead.
Soviet troops in action during the Battle of Moscow
  • 19: An official "state of siege" is announced in Moscow; the city is placed under martial law.
  • 19:
    Judenrein
    " ("Cleansed of Jews").
  • 20: Lt. Col. Karl Hotz, the German commander in Nantes, is killed by the Resistance; 50 hostages are shot in reprisal. The incident will become a model for future occupation policies.
  • 21: New Zealand troops land in Egypt and take over Fort Capuzzo.
    : Negotiations in Washington between the US and Japan seem headed toward failure.
  • 22: Odessa massacre begins and continues for two days. 25,000 to 34,000 Jews are led in a long procession and are shot and killed in an antitank ditch, or burnt alive after being crowded into four buildings.
    : The massacre began after, that day, a delayed bomb planted by the Soviets kills 67 people at the Romanian headquarters, including the Romanian commander General Glogojeanu.
    : 35,000 Jews are expelled to the Slobodka Ghetto and are left in freezing conditions for 10 days. Many perish in the cold.
  • 24: In Ukraine, the important mining and industrial centre of Kharkov falls to the German Army Group South forces.
    : Vilna Ghetto Gelbschein I Aktion. 5,500 Jews including 140 old or paralyzed people killed.[7]
  • 27: German Army Group South forces reach Sevastopol in the Crimea, but the tanks of the "Northern" forces are slowed or stopped entirely by mud.
  • 28: Bolekhiv first aktion massacre – 1,000 of the leading Jews rounded up by list, tortured, and on the following day 800 of the surviving Jews, were shot or buried alive at a nearby forest. The re-discovered atrocities and testimony in 1996 lead to Patrick Desbois's research on the German method of "One Bullet, One Jew" extermination in 1941 and 1942.
  • 29: Vilna Ghetto II liquidated. 2,500 Jews killed.[7]
  • 30:
    Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease
    aid to the Soviet Union.
  • 31: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by Erich Topp's U-552 near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It is the first loss of an American "neutral warship".

November

  • 1: President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces that the U.S. Coast Guard will now be under the direction of the U.S. Navy, a transition of authority usually reserved only for wartime.
  • 2: Political conflict in Yugoslavia as leftists under Tito (Josip Broz) are in competition with the more conservative Serbs under Draža Mihailović.
  • 3: Germans take Kursk.
    : Vilna Ghetto Gelbschein III Aktion. 1,200 Jews killed.[7]
  • 4: Hirohito approves the attack on Pearl Harbour
  • 6: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule (the first time was earlier that year on July 2). He states that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, that the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers (a gross exaggeration) and that Soviet victory was near.
  • 7: Heavy RAF night bombings of Berlin, the Ruhr, and Cologne, but with heavy losses.
  • 9: Force K, including the light cruisers HMS Penelope and HMS Aurora and destroyers HMS Lively and HMS Lance, sank 7 merchant ships, a tanker, and 1 destroyer during the Battle of the Duisburg Convoy.
  • 12: Battle of Moscow – Temperatures around Moscow drop to minus 12 °C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
    : HMS Ark Royal delivers a squadron of Hurricane fighter planes to Malta.
  • 13: Germans start a new offensive against Moscow as the muddy ground freezes again.
    : The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is torpedoed by the German submarine U-81 and sinks the following day.
  • 15: The Germans drive on Moscow.
  • 17: Joseph Grew, the United States ambassador to Japan, cables the State Department that Japan had plans to launch an attack against Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (his cable was ignored).
    : Ernst Udet, head of the Luftwaffe's Production and Development, commits suicide over his perceived inability to properly perform his mission.
  • 18: Operation Crusader: British Commonwealth and other Allied troops cross into Libya and at least temporarily relieve the Siege of Tobruk.
  • 19: Australian sink each other off the coast of Western Australia. All 648 crewmen are lost on HMAS Sydney.
  • 21: Battle of RostovRostov-on-Don, an important hub on the southern front, is taken by the Germans.
  • 22: Britain issues an ultimatum to Finland to end war with the Soviet Union or face war with the Allies.
    : Rommel starts a counteroffensive, retaking
    Sidi Rezegh
    (south of Tobruk) which the Allies had taken a few days earlier. British tank losses are heavy.
  • 23: Rommel's attack continues around Sidi Rezegh; Allied losses continue to rise.
    : The United States reaches an agreement with the Dutch government in exile whereby the Americans occupy Suriname to protect the bauxite mines there.
  • 24: The United States grants
    Free French
    .
    : Rommel begins a surprising 15-mile foray into Egypt; he meets no opposition.
  • 25: U-331 sinks the British battleship HMS Barham while covering Mediterranean convoys.
In German-occupied Belgium, the Free University of Brussels is closed on the orders of the occupation authorities.
  • 26: A Japanese attack fleet of 33 warships and auxiliary craft, including six aircraft carriers, sails from northern Japan for the Hawaiian Islands.
    : The Hull note ultimatum is delivered to Japan by the United States.
    : After his brief dash into Egypt, Rommel retreats to Bardia for refuelling; it is during this brief withdrawal that Tobruk is temporarily relieved when the 8th Army meets with the besieged garrison there.
  • 28: Battle of RostovRostov-on-Don is recaptured by the Red Army.
    : Battle of Moscow – German Panzers are on the outskirts of Moscow, near the Moscow-Volga Canal.
    : The last Italian armed forces in East Africa surrender at Gondar.

December

The state of the Allies and Axis powers in December 1941
USS Arizona burned for two days after being hit by a Japanese bomb; the wreck remains as a Pearl Harbor memorial
Infamy Speech
to Congress.

See also

Notes and references

  1. ^ a b c d "1941 Timeline". WW2DB. Retrieved February 9, 2011.
  2. ^ .
  3. ^ "Hajj Amin al-Husayni: Key Dates". The Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
  4. .
  5. ^ "Hajj Amin al-Husayni: Arab Nationalist and Muslim Leader". The Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
  6. Hebrew
    , Artificial Eye website)
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "Chronology - Chronicles of the Vilna Ghetto". vilnaghetto.com. November 21, 2016. Archived from the original on November 21, 2016. Retrieved August 3, 2021.
  8. LCCN 61060979
    .
  9. ^ a b c d e f g "Stanislwow" (Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum website)
  10. ^ a b mouse geek (October 3, 2011). "Majdanek concentration camp - part 1 of 5". Retrieved November 22, 2016 – via YouTube.
  11. ^ Reinhard Heydrich decree (German)
  12. ^ "World War 2 Timelines 1939-1945 - Eastern Europe 1941 - Worldwar-2.net". Worldwar-2.net. Retrieved December 6, 2011.
  13. ^ "The Fur Aktions! Adam Czerniakow Diary Extracts! www.HolocaustResearchProject.org". Retrieved November 22, 2016.

External links