41-3-27 Battle of Cape Matapan 14-3-29

Italian Fleet Smashed (1941) > .

After The Battle Of Cape Matapan (1941) > .  

The Battle of Cape Matapan - Drach > .

Cunningham's Victory > .   

Matapan Aftermath > .

After The Battle Of Cape Matapan (1941) > .  

The Sinking of the Pola > .

In late March 1941, as British ships of the Mediterranean Fleet covered troop movements to Greece, Mavis Batey, a cryptographer at Bletchley Park, made a breakthrough, reading the Italian naval Enigma for the first time. The first message, the cryptic "Today’s the day minus three," was followed three days later by a second message reporting the sailing of an Italian battle fleet comprising one battleship, six heavy and two light cruisers, plus destroyers to attack the merchant convoys supplying British forces. As always with Enigma, the intelligence breakthrough was concealed from the Italians by ensuring there was a plausible reason for the Allies to have detected and intercepted their fleet. In this case, it was a carefully directed reconnaissance plane.

As a further deception, Admiral Cunningham made a surreptitious exit after dark from a golf club in Alexandria to avoid being seen boarding his flagship, the battleship HMS Warspite. He had made a point of arriving at the club the same afternoon with his suitcase as if for an overnight stay, and spent time on the golf course within sight of the Japanese consul. An evening party on his flagship was advertised for that night but was never meant to take place.

At the same time, there was a failure of intelligence on the Axis side. The Italians had been wrongly informed by the Germans that the Mediterranean Fleet had only one operational battleship and no aircraft carriers. In fact the Royal Navy had three battleships, while the damaged British aircraft carrier Illustrious had been replaced by HMS Formidable.

[Courtesy of the 19-year-old crypotographer at Bletchley Park], the Battle of Cape Matapan (Ναυμαχία του Ταινάρου) was a WW2 naval engagement between British Imperial and Axis forces, fought from 27–29 March 1941. The cape is on the south-west coast of the Peloponnesian peninsula of Greece. Following the interception of Italian signals by the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, ships of the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy, under the command of the Royal Navy's Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, intercepted and sank or severely damaged several ships of the Italian Regia Marina under Squadron-Vice-Admiral Angelo Iachino. The opening actions of the battle are also known in Italy as the Battle of Gaudo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_Matapan .

41-3-9 Edward R. Murrow reports on the mood in WWII Britain

Edward R. Murrow reports on the mood in WWII Britain - March 9, 1941 > .

40-12-18 Directive 21 - Barbarossa

Directive 21, German Invasion of Russia, Barbarossa - Dec 18, 1940 > . 

Operation Barbarossa - Nazi-Soviet Alliance Ends - WW2 to 41-6-27 > .

Operation Barbarossa WW2: Why Hitler failed to defeat Russia - IWM > .

WW2 - Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin - Big Three of the 20th Century - Hoover > .

22-10-6 Rise of Hitler, 1930s, Invasion of Poland | WWII. E 2 (subs) - Katz > .

22-10-3 Comparing Pootin to Hitler | Dream of the Great Past (subs) - Katz > .

Barbarossa - Red Beard '41 - Bellum >> .

Führer Directive 21 .
Translation of Directive #21 as written by Adolf Hitler, ordering German forces to prepare an attack on Soviet Russia in 1941, designated Operation Barbarossa. The orders also outline the overall operational goals and considerations in the coming operation for each branch of the armed forces of Germany, as well as those of their allies (primarily Finland and Romania). Launched by Hitler's order on June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa became the single largest land battle in history, and the stalemate and eventual defeat that resulted for Germany signalled the beginning of the end for the Third Reich.

Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, which started on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during WW2. The operation put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union so as to repopulate it with Germans. The German Generalplan Ost aimed to use some of the conquered as slave labour for the Axis war effort, to acquire the oil reserves of the Caucasus and the agricultural resources of Soviet territories, and eventually to annihilate the Slavic peoples and create Lebensraum for Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa .

Pre-Barbarossa invasion:

During WW2, the Barbarossa decree was one of the Wehrmacht criminal orders given on 13 May 1941, shortly before Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The decree was laid out by Adolf Hitler during a high level meeting with military officials on March 30, 1941, where he declared that war against Soviet Russia would be a war of extermination, in which both the political and intellectual elites of Russia would be eradicated by German forces, in order to ensure a long-lasting German victory. Hitler underlined that executions would not be a matter for military courts, but for the organised action of the military. The decree, issued by Field Marshal Keitel a few weeks before Operation Barbarossa, exempted punishable offenses committed by enemy civilians (in Russia) from the jurisdiction of military justice. Suspects were to be brought before an officer who would decide if they were to be shot. Prosecution of offenses against civilians by members of the Wehrmacht was decreed to be "not required" unless necessary for the maintenance of discipline.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Adolf_Hitler%27s_directives .

40-12-18 Directive 21 - Barbarossa ..
41-6-22 Operation Barbarossa 41-12-5 ..
41-6-22 Unternehmen Barbarossa ..

40-11-11 Taranto Raid - Operation Judgement

Battle of Taranto: Swordfish Biplanes Cripple Italian Fleet > . 

Taranto 1940 - Raid that Inspired the Attack on Pearl Harbor - TOR > .

Battle: Taranto Raid - Italian Pearl Harbor > .

Operation Judgement - Battle of Taranto > .

40-10-31 Battle of Britain ends

Battle of Britain statistics - Allied & Axis losses > . 
Battle of Britain and Artie Holmes' Hurricane - HiGu > . 

How RAF Prepared For Luftwaffe's Offensive | Battle Of Britain | Timeline > .

Battle Of Britain: Hugh "Stuffy" Dowding - The Man Who Saved A Nation - War > .
40-8-13 Adlertag > .

Battle Of Britain: Hugh "Stuffy" Dowding - The Man Who Saved A Nation - War > .

Eagle Day: Göring's Air Assault On The RAF | Battle of Britain - War Stories > .

Gladiator - The Forgotten Battle of Britain Fighter - mfp > .

Battle of Britain - tb >> .

The Battle of Britain (Luftschlacht um England, literally "The Air Battle for England") was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It has been described as the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. The British officially recognise the battle's duration as being from 10 July until 31 October 1940, which overlaps the period of large-scale night attacks known as The Blitz, that lasted from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941. German historians do not accept this subdivision and regard the battle as a single campaign lasting from July 1940 to June 1941, including the Blitz.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain .