Monday 3 November 1941

"General Sir Archibald Wavell, C-in-C Far East, and Major General F K Simmons, GOC Singapore Fortress, inspecting soldiers of the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, Singapore, 3 November 1941." © IWM (FE 375).

Japanese Government: The leaders of the Japanese government, including Emperor Hirohito and top military commanders, attend a conference to discuss relations with the United States on 3 November 1941. With negotiations having broken down, the discussion is oriented toward how and where to attack, not whether to attack. The outcome of the conference is Top Secret Order No. 1, which directs that in 34 days time, the military forces of Imperial Japan are to attack the United States Fleet in Hawaii, the Philippines, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies.

"A Matilda tank of 6th Armoured Division is put through its paces for members of a visiting delegation of journalists from the West Indies, Eastern Command, 3 November 1941." © IWM (H 15281).

The Japanese plan calls for the Japanese Combined Fleet to occupy Rabaul, Bismarck Islands, which is an Australian naval base per League of Nations mandate, and use it as a Japanese forward base. Admiral Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, formally presents his operational plan for the attack on the United States fleet base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Chief of the Japanese Naval General Staff Admiral Osami Nagano approves the plan.

"HMS BARLOW, one of the Ships that controls the opening and closing of the Hoxa Gate, the main entrance to Scapa from the sea. The Boom can be seen running away to the background." 3 November 1941 © IWM (A 6383).

After the conference with the Emperor, Admiral Chūichi Nagumo, commander-in-chief of the First Air Fleet which comprises the Imperial Japanese Navy's main aircraft carrier force, goes to aircraft carrier Akagi and holds his own conference. He summons his main commanders and informs them of the decision to attack the United States and Great Britain bases, including US protectorate the Philippines, and other targets. This is the first that many commanders learn of the attack plan. Many of Nagumo's subordinates privately grumble that Nagumo, who is frail and elderly, is not the right man to lead the leading Japanese naval forces during such a crucial period.

HMS Kent at anchor at Scapa Flow, 3 November 1941. © IWM (A 6381).

United States Government: US Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew, who of course is unaware of the secret Japanese conference, sends a lengthy secret telegram today to Secretary of State Cordell Hull. He warns that "the view that war probably would be averted... is an uncertain and dangerous hypothesis upon which to base considered United States policy and measures." He notes that "In Japan political thought ranges from the medieval to liberal ideas and public opinion is thus a variable quantity." He concludes:

[I]t would be shortsighted for American policy to be based upon the belief that Japanese preparations are no more than saber rattling, merely intended to give moral support to the high-pressure diplomacy of Japan. Japan may resort with dangerous and dramatic suddenness to measures which might make inevitable war with the United States.

Grew does not know it, but before he even sends this telegram, Japan already has committed to such a dangerous and dramatic path, which Grew further notes would be a "suicidal struggle with the United States."

A Schützenpanzer (Sd.Kfz. 250) and Sturmgeschütz III in Russia, November 1941.

Eastern Front: It is getting very cold in Russia, as General Heinz Guderian pointedly notes in his diary. Despite this, the ground in most places is still too muddy to enable regular truck even panzer traffic. At the juncture of Army Group's Center and South, German forces occupy Kursk - an event which would be much more celebrated in July 1943 than now, when it is little noticed. Guderian's own forces at Tula south of Moscow mount another effort to take the city by attacking a stadium and cemetery on the city's southern outskirts. The Soviet defenders, including a rare deployment of NKVD detachments sent by Lavrentiy Beria, repel the attack. This continues a lengthening stalemate south of Moscow as both sides bring forward reinforcements.

"U.S.A.'s West Point," Life magazine, 3 November 1941.

November 1941

November 1, 1941: Finns Attack Toward Murmansk Railway
November 2, 1941: Manstein Isolates Sevastopol
November 3, 1941: Japan Prepares to Attack
November 4, 1941: German Advances in the South
November 5, 1941: Last Peace Effort By Japan
November 6, 1941: Stalin Casts Blame in an Unexpected Direction
November 7, 1941: Stalin's Big Parade
November 8, 1941: Germans Take Tikhvin
November 9, 1941: Duisburg Convoy Destruction
November 10, 1941: Manstein Attacks Sevastopol
November 11, 1941: Finland's Double Game Erupts
November 12, 1941: T-34 Tanks Take Charge
November 13, 1941: German Orsha Conference
November 14, 1941: German Supply Network Breaking Down
November 15, 1941: Operation Typhoon Resumes
November 16, 1941: Manstein Captures Kerch
November 17, 1941: Finland Halts Operations
November 18, 1941: British Operation Crusader
November 19, 1941: Sydney vs. Kormoran Duel
November 20, 1941: The US Rejects Final Japanese Demand
November 21, 1941: Germans Take Rostov
November 22, 1941: Kleist in Trouble at Rostov
November 23, 1941: Germans Take Klin, Huge Battle in North Africa
November 24, 1941: Rommel Counterattacks
November 25, 1941: HMS Barham Sunk
November 26, 1941: Japanese Fleet Sails
November 27, 1941: British Relieve Tobruk
November 28, 1941: Rostov Evacuated, German Closest Approach to Moscow
November 29, 1941: Hitler Furious About Retreat
November 30, 1941: Japan Sets the Date for its Attack

2020

Tuesday 7 October 1941

A German Sdkfz 250 passes by a Russian Eastern Orthodox Church.

Eastern Front: On 7 October 1941, Joseph Stalin does something that only a few months previously would have been unthinkable: he lifts the ban on religion in order to boost morale. This is one of a series of moves that Stalin makes to reintroduce defunct aspects of Russian Empire ways, such as removing Commissars from the decision-making process at all army headquarters. Due to previous persecution, in 1941 there are only about 500 churches remaining open out of the 54,000 in existence prior to World War I. However, this decision by Stalin permits thousands of Russian Orthodox churches to reopen until there ultimately are 22,000 in the 1950s.

"Mrs. Armitage (left) and Miss Betty Leverton, of the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service, leaving after being decorated by the King at a recent Investiture at Buckingham Palace. Both received the British Empire Medal." 7 October 1941. © IWM (10556138)

The importance of this cannot be overstated. The Russian Empire prior to the 1917 Revolution was a very religious place. The Russian Orthodox Church wielded a great deal of influence and enjoyed official status. The Communist government quickly began suppressing or at least greatly discouraging religion in the 1920s. It founded the League of Militant Atheists in 1925, for instance. Suppression and discouragement of religion was a central tenet of the Soviet State, reflecting Vladimir Lenin's famous comment that:

Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class.

Given this attitude toward religion, Stalin must be very worried to go to the extreme of allowing it again.

A Soviet soldier kissing his Cross just before the Battle of Kursk in July 1943.

Indeed, Stalin has good cause to be worried, even frightened, by the pace of the Wehrmacht advance on 7 October 1941. The German panzers shrug off the light snowfall during the night. It melts quickly but does have the unfortunate effect of making the dirt roads even muddier than before. The panzers make good progress anyway as Soviet resistance falters. German 10th Panzer Division (General Fischer) enters the Vyazma suburbs by 10:30 and completes the city's capture later in the day. Fischer's men continue north and link up with 7th Panzer Division of Panzer Group 3 (Reinhardt). This closes another massive encirclement around more than four Soviet armies (16th, 19th, 20th, 24th and part of the 32nd Army).

"A wounded German prisoner, a walking case, coming ashore from the hospital ship." This photo was taken on 7 October. It shows the end of an attempted prisoner exchange, where wounded German POWs were to be exchanged for similar British ones at New Haven and Dieppe. However, Hitler changed his mind at the last minute and blocked the exchange. The German POWs on board hospital ships HMS Dinard and St. Julian were disembarked back in England, as shown in this photo and sent back to their camps or hospitals. © IWM (A 5687).

The Soviet troops in the new pocket, however, are not beaten yet. General Yeremenko (Eremenko), who was wounded on Monday while at the front but escaped from the fast-moving spearhead of General Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army, arrives in Bryansk only to find panzers outside his headquarters and is forced to flee again. Stalin has called in Georgy Zhukov, his top man, from Leningrad to take over Ivan Konev's critical Western Front and finds there is no continuous Soviet line any longer. Zhukov has to talk Stalin out of finding Konev guilty of incompetence and executing him. Late in the day, with the situation crumbling everywhere, Stalin bows to the inevitable and orders a general withdrawal back toward Moscow.

U-190 was laid down on 7 October 1941. This is a photo taken of U-190 after its surrender on 14 May 1941 at Bay Bulls, Newfoundland. Note the numerous late-war enhancements, including the raised snorkel by the man which has the round Wanz radar warning receiver at the top. Behind it on the bridge is a raised periscope and a longwave antenna (starboard forward corner). The "slimming" of the deck in the foreground is not the end of the submarine but rather a cut-away upper deck which it was felt would reduce time to submerge (John Taylor, RCNVR of Hamilton, Ontario, via Bill Taylor and Uboatarchive.net).

October 1941

October 1, 1941: Germans and Finns Advance in USSR
October 2, 1941: Operation Typhoon Broadens
October 3, 1941: Air Battles Near Moscow
October 4, 1941: Stalin Contemplates Defeat
October 5, 1941: Hoth Goes South
October 6, 1941: First Snowfall After Dark
October 7, 1941: Stalin Gets Religion
October 8, 1941: FDR Promises Stalin Aid 
October 9, 1941: FDR Orders Atomic Bomb Research
October 10, 1941: Reichenau's Severity Order
October 11, 1941: Tank Panic in Moscow
October 12, 1941: Spanish Blue Division at the Front
October 13, 1941: Attack on Moscow
October 14, 1941: Germans Take Kalinin
October 15, 1941: Soviets Evacuate Odessa
October 16, 1941: Romanians Occupy Odessa
October 17, 1941: U-568 Torpedoes USS Kearny
October 18, 1941: Tojo Takes Tokyo
October 19, 1941: Germans Take Mozhaysk
October 20, 1941: Germans Attack Toward Tikhvin
October 21, 1941: Rasputitsa Hits Russia
October 22, 1941: Germans Into Moscow's Second Defensive Line
October 23, 1941: The Odessa Massacre
October 24, 1941: Guderian's Desperate Drive North
October 25, 1941: FDR Warns Hitler About Massacres
October 26, 1941: Guderian Drives Toward Tula
October 27, 1941: Manstein Busts Loose
October 28, 1941: Soviet Executions
October 29, 1941: Guderian Reaches Tula
October 30, 1941: Guderian Stopped at Tula
October 31, 1941: USS Reuben James Sunk

2020