Wait, wait, wait! So he’s the leader now? But he’s always been the leader. But not officially? You know what? I did not know that. Huh. May 9, 1941 It’s not that big of a machine, but it gives he who holds it great powers of secret communication. But what if someone else holds it? Then perhaps they could one day read that
secret communication without anyone knowing- and at war that’s a HUGE plus. Perhaps. But getting it first is half the battle, but
that happens this week- Enigma changes hands! I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two. Last week, Athens capitulated and the Battle
of Greece was over, the Germans had won. However, their attack on Tobruk in North Africa
failed. In East Africa, Commonwealth troop began attacks
on the last major Italian stronghold Amba Alagi, and in Iraq, the Anglo-Iraqi War began. I’m gonna begin this week with a few news
items from the high seas. On the 9th, German U-Boat U-110 attacks allied
shipping convoy OB 318 east of Cape Farewell, Greenland, sinking two ships, but the British
corvette Aubrietia spots the U-boat and then together with a destroyer uses depth charges
to force it to surface. The sub is seriously damaged and its captain
Fritz-Julius Lemp says to the crew “Last stop, everybody out” since he thinks they’re
sinking. The British stop firing on it when they see
the men abandoning ship. Lemp then realizes that it is NOT sinking
and tries to swim back to destroy sensitive materials, but doesn’t make it. When the sub is boarded, everything portable
is removed, including an intact working Enigma machine and the Kurzsignale book. Enigma is the German secret messaging code,
believed by them to be unbreakable, and capturing such a machine is a major, major prize. It and the codebook are taken to Bletchley
Park and will be used - already next month- to solve Reservhandverfahren, the German navy’s
manual coding system when there is no Enigma machine available. The British are very busy at sea just now,
actually. From the 5th-12, Operation Tiger is in action. This is the first time in months the British
try to send a convoy from Gibraltar to Alexandria. Churchill orders this because he wants tanks
and supplies deployed in North Africa against the advancing Axis as soon as possible. This mission is combined with a supply run
for Malta by 6 destroyers. Five transports leave Gibraltar the 5th with
the battlecruiser Renown, the carrier Ark Royal, and a couple light cruisers from Force
H. The destroyer gang and another light cruiser joins them the 7th. Also on the 6th, two convoys leave Alexandria
for Malta, with 2 cruisers and 3 destroyers as escorts. Admiral Andrew Cunningham sends out the whole
Mediterranean Fleet as support- a carrier, three battleships, three cruisers and 19 destroyers. As part of the operation they shell the harbor
at Benghazi. Twice, actually. The whole big operation will end next week
on the 12th, and though both convoys come under attack from Italian and German planes,
238 tanks and 43 Hurricane planes reach Egypt. It’s true that the Axis, under Erwin Rommel,
HAD been advancing in North Africa, but they are no longer, halted at the Egyptian border
and at Tobruk, which they have under siege. Tobruk is strategically important because
its harbor is the only one of any size between Benghazi and Alexandria. Before the war, the Italians built up the
defenses with concrete and steel. Now there’s a double semi-circle of strongpoints
around the harbor, with barbed wire, tank traps, minefields, and artillery, and the
defenders are led by General Leslie Morshead. His orders are, “there is to be no surrender
and no retreat.” He has the 3rd armored brigade- which is going
to be re equipped by Operation Tiger, and the 9th Australian Division with the 18th
infantry brigade as reserve… some 24,000 troops, as I said a few weeks ago. Rommel had attacked and been repulsed four
times last month, and by May 4th, “For both sides, life at Tobruk settles down into a
style not unlike the trench warfare of WW1. The ground is very hard, however, and this
makes digging particularly difficult so that trenches are often shallow at first. This means that their occupants must stay
virtually motionless throughout the burning heat of the day. Neither side is well placed with regard to
supplies or other personal comforts. Both sides won adopt a policy of offensive
night patrolling which means that there can be no relaxation.” The Germans may not be attacking there just
now, but there’s one place they’re planning on attacking pretty soon. I mentioned last week some of the plans for
Germany’s upcoming airborne invasion of Crete, planned by Karl Student and the 7th
Flieger. That division- three parachute regiments and
one air landing regiment- is to storm the island, arriving in 600 Junkers 52s, some
of which would be towing the 80 gliders that carry the light tanks of the 5th Panzer Division
and troops of the 1st Assault Regiment, the spearhead of 7th Flieger. 280 bombers, 150 Stukas, and 200 fighters
will provide air support and cover. 22,000 men are to be sent in, under overall
command of Alexander Löhr’s 4th Luftflotte. Student’s plan is to send his three parachute
regiments against the three towns on the island’s north coast where airstrips are. When they capture these, heavy equipment can
be landed and they will then be bases for tackling the enemy along the single road that
runs 270km across the island. Maleme, the westernmost of those towns, is
going to be the big focus, where the 1st Assault Regiment guys will land their gliders right
on the airfield. Student expects to be outnumbered on the ground,
but figures that with surprise and air superiority, a few days of hard fighting will win the island. The leader of his opposition is Major General
Bernard Freyberg, a war hero from WW1. But Freyberg’s troops are a motley crew. There is a brigade of regular British infantry
that garrisons the island, and two intact New Zealand brigades and one Australian that
had evacuated from the Battle of Greece. But the rest of his 40,000 men are a mixed
bag, unorganized remnants, and without the equipment they need. They have a handful of tanks, and a little
bit of artillery, but barely any heavy equipment. In terms of aircraft, at the moment they have
17 Hurricanes and some obsolete biplane Gladiators. The 5th Cretan Division fought in Albania
but had been dissolved after the defeat, so there were only the reserves left on Crete,
and they are not many. British forces have been on Crete since Italy
attacked Greece last fall, and their presence is what allowed the 5th Cretan division to
go to the mainland in the first place. But they haven’t built the islands defenses
up into the fortress that Churchill wants- he wants Suda Bay to be another Scapa Flow,
but it has been pretty low on Archie Wavell’s priority list for the theater; Wavell is the
overall military commander. Freyberg didn’t arrive on the scene until
April 29th, and wasn’t exactly thrilled to find himself in charge of its defense. He was even less thrilled with the lack of
air cover on the island. There is a bit of confusion, though, “(Freyberg)
could not imagine Crete being taken in an airborne attack, so he put increasing emphasis
on a seaborne threat. Wavell, however, was perfectly clear in his
own mind… that the Axis simply did not have the naval strength to come by sea.” More on the plans and on British intelligence
decrypts- which do give valuable and accurate information both this week and next- next
week. The Germans are plenty active in the skies
already this week, though. Every night for the first two weeks of May,
British cities and dock facilities are just pounded from the skies. On the Liverpool docks, 13 merchant ships
are sunk by the Luftwaffe in seven nights of raids. However, on the 8th, the British succeed in
bending the radio signal that guides the bombers to their targets, so 235 high explosive bombs
that were supposed to hit an aircraft engine factory are dropped in empty fields 35 km
away, and on the 7th, 23 German planes are shot down by the British during a raid on
Humberside. The British are fighting elsewhere this week
in the field, in the Anglo-Iraqi War. On the 3rd, they attack Iraqi positions around
Habbaniya airfield. The next day, they launch air operations- a small German force using an airfield at Mosul is targeted. The Germans are being supplied from Vichy
Syria. By the 6th, much of the Iraqi air force has
been destroyed, and Iraqi ground forces withdraw from the airfield. The Iraqis are driven back toward Fallujah,
and on the 7th, 2 Iraqi col-umns caught in the open between Habbaniya and Fallujah and
are attacked by 40 or so British planes, taking heavy casualties. That attack began last week, but there is
new action beginning this week, far to the east- in China. The Battle of South Shanxi begins- in the
mountains at the southern tip of the province. It is also known as the Battle of Jinnan. This is a rough region with almost no roads,
and the Chinese Nationalists have a stronghold here. Dick Wilson says that this is the 14th attempt
by the Japanese to dislodge them, but whatever they’ve used before, this time they’re
sending in 100,000 troops against over 150,000 Chinese and they are sending them in from literally all four points of
the compass starting May 7th. They have bomber support and the attack from
the north crosses the mountains and the Yellow River the 8th. This is the most important river crossing
in the region, and the Chinese forces are now split in half. That is a direct attack, but others have been
trying a bit of subterfuge. In East Africa, the Indians feinted last week
to trick the Italians into thinking that their main attack against Amba Alagi was coming
from the left and the center in a frontal attack and through the Falaga Pass. The Italians bought it and manned those defenses. So on the 4th, the 29th Indian Brigade goes
into action and takes Mounts Pyramid, Fin, Whaleback, and Elephant. After them the cliffs crowd in on the way
to Middle Hill, which the attackers take the next morning before dawn under a hail of hand
grenades. Now though, they’re linked with Little Alagi,
west of the Amba, bristling with enemy barbed wire and machine guns, and they come to a
stop. At the end of the week, however, as the Italians
had been drawn off the Falaga positions, the feint became a real threat and the Indians
take the Pass. And here are some notes to end the week. On the 5th, 5 years from the day he was forced
to leave, Emperor Haile Selassie enters Addis Ababa. On the 9th, a Japanese brokered treaty in
Tokyo officially ends Franco-Thai War. And on the 7th, making his way south from
Zagreb, now the capital of the Croatian puppet state, a 49 year old communist who fought
in the Spanish Civil War, will set up shop in Belgrade for what is the beginning of a
Communist revolt against the Axis occupiers of Yugoslavia. Josef Stalin knows him as “Valter”, but his name is Josep Broz, and his alias is Tito. Speaking of Stalin, up until now, has been
content to hold the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party, but on the 6th he
becomes President of the Council of People’s Commissars- that’s Premier of the Soviet
Union- by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. He takes over the post from Vyacheslav Molotov,
who is also the FM. See, Stalin has been de facto head of the
USSR for many years, but so concerned is he about a German invasion that he will deal
with that and everything surrounding it from now on as the official and rightful leader. And that ends the week, with fighting in East
Africa, Iraq, and China on the ground, fighting in Britain in the skies, and lots of action
at sea. And the capture of an Enigma Machine. We’ve talked about enigma before, a bit
about its history, and a bit about cracking its codes. This has happened, especially by the Poles
prewar, but the Germans have made a series of modifications and improvements, making
it far more complex. Having the machine is a great boon for the
British, if they can crack the codes. So the capture of this machine this week could
be an event that helps win the war, or it could be the capture of just a useless- but
interesting- lump of rotors, keys, and wires. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see
which one it is. Joseph Stalin grabbing more and more power
is not something new in the Soviet Union. Watch our Between 2 Wars video on Stalin’s
Great Purges right here if you want to learn more about that. Our TimeGhost Army member of the week is Theodore
Newhouser. Newhouser? Okay, This is World War Two Hal Newhouser
was a star pitcher for the Detroit Tigers during WW2 who went 29-9, 25-9, 26-9 in 1944-1945-1946. I know a lot about baseball history. I'd like to know if Theodore Newhouser is
related to Hal Newhouser, that's why... Leave this in! Cuz that's why I'm asking. Theodore, if you're related to Hal Newhouser... Cool. Okay, but be like Theodore in other ways and
support us at patreon.com or timeghost.tv. It is your support that makes this channel,
well, all of our stuff possible. Don’t forget to subscribe, ring that bell
and see you next time.
A bit of further reading that may be of interest:
The capture of U-110 and its Enigma machine was a major coup for British Intelligence. Lt. David Balme led the raid on the stricken sub as a target of opportunity.
He was eventually hailed as a hero, but the events, and his report would remain secret for many years after the war. In 1993 he wrote in some detail about the events of May 9, 1941, albeit in the now somewhat dated feeling context of nuclear deterrence. He was extensively lauded for his actions when he passed away in 2016.