Thursday, December 2, 2010

Day 460 December 3, 1940

The attack on convoy HX-90 continues despite escort vessels. At 10.58 AM, U-99 sinks the abandoned hulk of British MV Conch, damaged yesterday morning by torpedoes from U-47 & U-95. British SS W. Hendrik, stopped by her captain who believes she had been hit by a torpedo, is bombed & sunk by a Focke-Wulf Fw-200 (5 killed). The final victim in convoy HX-90 is British SS Victoria City, sunk by U-140 at 9.42 PM (all 43 hands lost).

Greeks push Italians back 15 miles along the Ionian coast past the archeological site at Butrint & capture the Albanian Riviera town of Sarandë. Suda Bay is now an active British naval base for the defense of Crete & as a staging post for movements through the Mediterranean. At 3.40 PM, Italian torpedo bombers attack Suda Bay, badly damaging British cruiser HMS Glasgow with 2 torpedoes (3 killed, 3 wounded). HMS Glasgow will be patched up at Alexandria, Egypt, until February 1941 but not fully repaired until August 1942 in New York, USA.

Destroyer HMS Campbeltown, one of the first 8 destroyers transferred from the US Navy in September, is damaged in collision with British tanker Conus off Liverpool (repaired at Liverpool until March 28 1941).

German armed merchant cruiser Kormoran departs Gotenhafen to raid Allied shipping in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Germany’s largest raider, she carries provisions for 12 months, 280 moored mines & 40 ground mines plus spare parts & torpedoes for U-boats.

51 German aircraft bomb Birmingham, dropping 55 tons of high explosive bombs and 448 incendiary canisters.

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