military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) (05/07/91)
From: military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) Friday 9 May, 1941 The corvette HMS Aubretia depth-charges the U-110, then captures the submarine when she surfaces. U-110 had sunk two ships from convoy OB-318 before being caught. The sub's crew and her captain, Lt.-Cdr. Lemp, are captured together with the ship's Enigma cipher machine and code books. The sub is taken under tow, but later sinks. The capture of this code equipment, together with that taken from the weathership Muenchen earlier this week, seriously compromises Germany's naval ciphers. The trans-Mediterranean Tiger loses a freighter carrying 57 tanks to an Axis mine. A Thai-Indochinese peace treaty is signed in Tokyo, and the Soviet government severs its diplomatic ties with the exiled governments of Belgium, Norway, and Yugoslavia. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Bill Thacker military@att.att.com Send submissions for "50 Years Ago" to military-request@att.att.com "The bill is not a peace bill. It carries war powers. The lease-lend bill (sic) was an open declaration to the world that we are moving down the road to war." - Congressman Cox of Georgia, on a House bill to permit the President to seize and use foreign ships for defense measures.