Monday, November 28, 2011

Day 821 November 29, 1941

Siege of Leningrad Day 83. Soviet destroyers Slavny & Stoiki and troopship Josif Stalin leave Kronstadt (escorted by 5 T-class minesweepers, 4 torpedo boats and 7 submarine hunters) to evacuate the remaining 12,000 troops from Hango Peninsula, Finland. Icebreaker Oktyabr is sunk by German bombers but the force reaches Hango next day.

Operation Typhoon. At 5 AM 37 miles North of Moscow, 7th Panzer Division evacuates the Yakhroma bridgehead over the Moskva/Volga canal in the face of continued determined attacks from Soviet 1st Shock Army. German losses are 45 killed, 115 wounded.

Operation Crusader. At 8.30 AM, 21st Panzer Division commander General von Ravenstein runs into a 2nd New Zealand Infantry Division roadblock in the desert and is taken prisoner, becoming the only German General in captivity. 15th Panzer Division arrives back in the vicinity of Tobruk and reinforces German infantry attacking the narrow corridor at the Ed Duda ridge that links New Zealand 2nd Division to the garrison from Tobruk. 15th Panzer swings South of Ed Duda to threaten the corridor from the Southeast, despite heavy shelling by the New Zealanders and British tanks in the desert further South.

British aircraft from Malta sink Italian tanker Berbera at Navarino, Greece, and damage Italian tanker Volturno carrying fuel to Libya for Rommel from Navarino (Volturno returns to port). Royal Navy force B (cruisers HMS Ajax and HMS Neptune and destroyers HMS Kimberly and HMS Kingston under the command of Admiral Rawling) arrives in Malta to disrupt Italian supply lines.

At 4.11 AM 240 miles North of the Azores, U-43 sinks British SS Thornliebank (all 66 crew and 9 gunners were lost). U-43 is hit by falling debris from SS Thornliebank, injuring the navigator.

German 4th Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla attacks convoy FN.564 off the coast of East Anglia, England, sinking British tanker Asperity and freighters SS Empire Newcomen & SS Cormarsh.

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