Sunday, November 21, 2010

Day 449 November 22, 1940

Greek 3rd Army Corps finally takes Korçë, 10 miles inside Albania, after a week of heavy fighting against Italian 9th Army. They take 2000 prisoners and capture 135 field guns and 600 machineguns. However, the Greeks are poorly motorised and have no armour, allowing the Italians to withdraw and regroup.

On the coast of Morocco near the Spanish-held city of Melilla, British destroyers HMS Faulknor and HMS Forester approach Vichy French destroyer Boulonnais and freighter MV Charles Plumier. Boulonnais withdraws allowing MV Charles Plumier, which was a French armed merchant cruiser from 1939 until the surrender in May 1940, to be captured. She will be renamed HMS Largs, commissioned into the Royal Navy in November 1941 and will serve as Command Ship for almost every major Allied amphibious landing in Europe including Operations Torch, Husky and Overlord.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Freefrench_british_captured_hms_CHARLES_PLUMIER.jpg

Just after midnight 365 miles West of Ireland, U-123 torpedoes British SS Cree. Cree is carrying 5500 tons of iron ore from Freetown, Sierra Leone, and sinks immediately with all 45 hands lost. http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/662.html

British motor launch ML.127 sinks on a mine in the Thames Estuary (all 11 hands lost).

Italian aircraft bomb Alexandria damaging British tanker Zahra.

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