Friday, November 20, 2009

Day 82 November 21, 1939

U-33’s captain has developed a taste for small fry. After sinking 3 fishing boats yesterday, he sinks 2 more. SS Sulby is sunk at 8:30 AM after a warning shot, 50 miles north of Ireland in heavy seas. A lifeboat with 7 survivors is rescued the following day but the captain and 4 men are lost. SS William Humphreys is sunk at 9:30 AM; 13 crew take to the lifeboat but they are never found.

Brand-new British cruiser Belfast strikes a magnetic mine in the Firth of Forth. The mine makes only a small hole in the hull but causes severe internal damage, injures 21 crew and keeps her out of action until 3 Nov 1942. Destroyer HMS Gypsy is sunk by a mine in the English Channel off Harwich (30 lives lost).

Battleships Scharnhorst & Gneisenau sail into the Iceland-Faroes passage on their first wartime sortie, with light cruisers Köln & Leipzig.

After 18 days in the Indian Ocean, Graf Spee passes The Cape of Good Hope seeking better hunting back to the Atlantic.

At 12.50 PM, French trawler Les Barges II is sunk by U-41 in the Bay of Biscay. The crew escapes and are picked up by a Spanish trawler. U-41 stops 17 other trawlers; all are neutral Spanish vessels.

No comments:

Post a Comment