Tokyo, Japan • November 11, 1940 Seventh child to a Japanese schoolmaster and his second wife and named “Isoroku” to memorialize his father’s age (56), the future commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Combined Fleet (Rengō Kantai) for much of World War II would seem to have been born under what Westerners call “a lucky star.”…
London, England • May 15, 1940 On this date, just five days after assuming the top leadership position in Great Britain, Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent a telegram to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was also 5 days since the German Wehrmacht (armed forces) had flooded over the borders of the Low Countries and France,…
Alexandria, Egypt • November 11, 1940 Italian Army operations in North Africa, based in Libya, required a supply line from the Italian mainland. The British Army’s North African Campaign, based in Egypt, suffered from supply difficulties in the Mediterranean Theater due to the proximity of Italy’s Regia Marina naval base at Taranto on the Italian…
River Plate Estuary, Uruguay • December 13, 1939 In the first months of World War II only Great Britain’s Royal Navy, under the leadership of 65‑year-old First Lord of the Admiralty (in May 1940, Prime Minister) Winston Churchill, prosecuted the war against Nazi Germany with energy. After U‑boats had sunk the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous…
Montevideo, Uruguay · December 15, 1939 In the first months of World War II only Great Britain’s Royal Navy, under the leadership of 65-year-old First Lord of the Admiralty (in May 1940, Prime Minister) Winston Churchill, prosecuted the war against Nazi Germany with energy. After U‑boats had sunk the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous and the…
Alexandria, Egypt · November 11, 1940 Italian Army operations in North Africa, based in Libya, required a supply line from the Italian mainland. The British Army’s North African Campaign, based in Egypt, suffered from supply difficulties in the Mediterranean Theater due to the proximity of Italy’s Regia Marina naval base at Taranto on the Italian…
Montevideo, Uruguay · December 15, 1939 In the first months of World War II only the British Royal Navy, under the leadership of 65-year-old First Lord of the Admiralty (in May 1940, Prime Minister) Winston Churchill, prosecuted the war against Nazi Germany with energy. After U‑boats had sunk the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous and the…
When September 1939 to May 1945 Where Atlantic Ocean, North Sea, Irish Sea, Labrador Sea, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Outer Banks (U.S. coast), and Arctic Ocean Who U-boats of the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) under Rear (later Grand) Admiral Karl Doenitz (1891–1980) and aircraft of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) under…