September 1941

[September 1], 1941 (Monday)

• The Germans recaptured Mga from the Soviets.
• German forces came within artillery range of Leningrad.
• A Nazi regulation announced that starting September 19, all Jews of the Reich would be required to wear the yellow Star of David badge.
• U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a Labor Day radio address to the American people. "American labor now bears a tremendous responsibility in the winning of this most brutal, most terrible of all wars," the president said. "In our factories and shops and arsenals we are building weapons on a scale great in its magnitude. To all the battle fronts of this world these weapons are being dispatched, by day and by night, over the seas and through the air. And this Nation is now devising and developing new weapons of unprecedented power toward the maintenance of democracy ... Our vast effort, and the unity of purpose that inspires that effort, are due solely to our recognition of the fact that our fundamental rights - including the rights of labor — are threatened by Hitler's violent attempt to rule the world."
• KYW-TV, the first American television station outside New York, went on the air in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• Born: George Saimes, American football player, in Canton, Ohio
• Died: Karl Parts, 55, Estonian military commander

  [September 2], 1941 (Tuesday)

• The Royal Air Force began daylight bombing of targets in northern France.
• Ponary massacre: German police and local auxiliaries massacred more than 3,700 Jews at Ponary near Vilnius.
• Born: David Bale, entrepreneur and activist, in South Africa ; Jyrki Otila, quiz show judge and member of the European Parliament, in Helsinki, Finland ; Sadhana Shivdasani, actress, in Karachi, British India ; John Thompson, basketball player and coach, in Washington, D.C.

  [September 3], 1941 (Wednesday)

• German heavy artillery began shelling Leningrad.
• Operation Gauntlet ended in Allied success.
• Zyklon B was used experimentally at Auschwitz concentration camp, gassing 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 sick Polish prisoners. The experiment was deemed a success.
• German submarine U-702 was commissioned.
• Born: Sergei Dovlatov, journalist and writer, in Ufa, USSR

  [September 4], 1941 (Thursday)

• The Greer incident occurred in the North Atlantic when the German submarine U-652 fired a torpedo at the American destroyer USS Greer, perhaps believing that the American ship had launched an attack that had actually come from a British bomber.
• The Finnish conquest of East Karelia began.
• The New York Yankees clinched their fifth American League pennant in six seasons with a 6–3 win over the Boston Red Sox. This was the earliest major league clinching date ever for a 154-game season.
• German submarines U-156 and U-586 were commissioned.
• Born: Ken Harrelson, baseball player and broadcaster, in Woodruff, South Carolina; Sushilkumar Shinde, politician, in Solapur, British India

  [September 5], 1941 (Friday)

• The Finnish reconquest of the Karelian Isthmus was completed.
• The Pavoloch massacre occurred when the Einsatzgruppen shot 1,500 Jews in the Ukrainian shtetl of Pavoloch.
• The film Citizen Kane, directed by and starring Orson Welles, was released in the US.
• Died: George Marchant, 83, Australian soft drink manufacturer and philanthropist

  [September 6], 1941 (Saturday)

• The Battle of Changsha began as part of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
• During the Yelnya Offensive, the Soviets retook Yelnya itself.
• Hitler issued Directive No. 35, Moscow Offensive. Army Group Centre was instructed to prepare for a drive on Moscow at the end of September.
• The German training ship Bremse was rammed and sunk with the loss of over half the crew off the coast of Norway by the British cruiser HMS Nigeria.
• The Vilna Ghetto was established.

  [September 7], 1941 (Sunday)

• The German 6th Army broke through Soviet defenses near Konotop.
• German XIII, XLIII and XXXV Army Corps captured Chernihiv.
• 360 refugees disembarked the Spanish freighter Navemar at Havana. Four died in the overcrowded conditions during the voyage across the Atlantic.
• The results of a Gallup poll were published asking Americans, "Should the United States take steps now to keep Japan from becoming more powerful, even if it means risking a war with Japan?" 70% said yes, 18% said no and 12% expressed no opinion.
• Died: Sara Roosevelt, 86, mother of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt

  [September 8], 1941 (Monday)

• The Yelnya Offensive ended in Soviet victory.
• The Siege of Leningrad began.
• The Germans captured Kremenchuk.
• Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy began a three-day visit to Hitler at his Wolf's Lair.
• Born: Bernie Sanders, politician, in Brooklyn, New York

  [September 9], 1941 (Tuesday)

• Allied convoy SC 42 was sighted near Cape Farewell, Greenland by the German submarine U-85. Over the next three nights a total of 16 ships from the convoy were sunk by a German Wolfpack.
• Iran agreed to the terms of the occupying Allied forces. All Axis-aligned consulates would be closed and German nationals would be turned over to the British or Russians. The Allies would control Iranian roads, airports and communication.
• Congressional hearings opened in Washington investigating allegations of propaganda in American films. North Dakota Senator Gerald Nye set the tone of the hearings on the first day by suggesting that propaganda was being injected into films by a cabal of foreign-born Jews who owned or operated the major movie studios.
• German submarine U-162 was commissioned.
• Born: Otis Redding, soul singer, in Dawson, Georgia ; Dennis Ritchie, computer scientist, in Bronxville, New York
• Died: Hans Spemann, 72, German embryologist

  [September 10], 1941 (Wednesday)

• 3rd Panzer Division reached Romny.
• In Nazi-occupied Norway, martial law was declared and trade union officials were arrested in order to prevent a trade union plan for a general strike.
• German submarine U-501 was depth charged and sunk in the Denmark Strait by the Canadian corvette HMCS Chambly.
• The Van–Erciş earthquake in eastern Turkey killed 192 people.
• German submarine U-168 was commissioned.
• Born: Christopher Hogwood, conductor and harpsichordist, in Nottingham, England ; Gunpei Yokoi, video game designer, in Kyoto, Japan

  [September 11], 1941 (Thursday)

• Joseph Stalin fired Semyon Budyonny as Commander-in-Chief of the Southwest Direction and replaced him with Semyon Timoshenko.
• Charles Lindbergh made a speech on behalf of the America First Committee in Des Moines, Iowa which included remarks that would be instantly controversial: "The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration." Lindbergh said he admired the British and Jewish races, but claimed that the Jews' "greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government."
• The German submarine U-207 was sunk in the Denmark Strait by depth charges from the British destroyers Leamington and Veteran.
• German submarine U-587 was commissioned.
• President Roosevelt gave a fireside chat on maintaining freedom of the seas and the Greer incident, an incident that led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue what became known as his "shoot-on-sight" order. Roosevelt publicly confirmed the "shoot on sight" order on 11 September 1941, effectively declaring naval war against Germany and Italy in the Battle of the Atlantic, 3 months prior to Pearl Harbor.
• Died: Alipio Ponce, 35, Peruvian police officer, was killed in an ambush in the Ecuadorian–Peruvian War.

  [September 12], 1941 (Friday)

• An authorized Nazi spokesperson said that President Roosevelt "wants war" and that Germany would take "appropriate measures". That same day, an editorial by the prominent Italian journalist and unofficial Axis spokesman Virginio Gayda was published in the Giornale d'Italia, in which he declared that the "act of unprovoked aggression" by Roosevelt had left the Axis warships no alternative "but to attack United States naval ships on sight."
• White House Press Secretary Stephen Early said there was "striking similarity" between Nazi propaganda and Charles Lindbergh's comments in Des Moines. Lindbergh's remarks were widely criticized in the American press, even among pro-isolationist newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune and the Hearst media empire. The public standing of the America First Committee was severely damaged as a result.
• The collaborationist Norwegian government of Vidkun Quisling banned the Boy Scouts. Boys were now required to join the youth leagues of the Nasjonal Samling.
• The Spanish freighter Navemar arrived in New York with 787 refugees.
• Died: Eugen Ritter von Schobert, 58, German general

  [September 13], 1941 (Saturday)

• Georgy Zhukov arrived in Leningrad to replace Kliment Voroshilov as the commanding officer of the city's garrison.
• XXIV Panzer Corps took Lokhvytsia.
• Norwegian passenger ship Barøy was sunk in the Vestfjord by a Fairey Albacore of 817 Squadron, Royal Australian Navy.
• Born: Tadao Ando, architect, in Minato-ku, Osaka, Japan

  [September 14], 1941 (Sunday)

• 3rd and 16th Panzer Divisions linked up at Lokhvitsa, completing the encirclement of Kiev.
• The U.S. Navy provided escorts for British convoy Hx 150, the first time that the Americans took a direct part in the North Atlantic campaign.
• The unfinished Soviet cruiser Petropavlovsk was sunk at Leningrad by German artillery.
• Born: Alberto Naranjo, musician, in Caracas, Venezuela