military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) (05/05/91)
From: military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) Tuesday, 6 May, 1941 US Secretary of War Stimson officially calls for the use of the US Navy to escort convoys to Britain. A Royal Navy convoy sets sail from Gibraltar, bound for Egypt through the Mediterranean. Although this route is riskier than the southern route around Africa, Prime Minister Churchill feels that its tanks and supplies are critical for regaining the initiative in North Africa. Five transports are included in the convoy, and are protected by forces including two battlships, a carrier, four cruisers and 13 destroyers The operation, code-named Tiger, includes a second small convoy from Alexandria to Malta, and the entire British Mediterranean Fleet sorties as well. Josef Stalin is nominated President of the Council of People's Commissars, in addition to his position as general secretary of the Communist Party. Premier Molotoff had request his own replacement to allow him to focus on his duties as Foriegn Commissar. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Bill Thacker military@att.att.com Send submissions for "50 Years Ago" to military-request@att.att.com "...if our Navy's assistance should be withheld until the power of the British fleet and nation is broken, its own power of execution would at once shrink to but an impotent fraction of what it could do at the present moment." - US Secretary of War Stimson