military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) (05/01/91)
From: military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) Friday, 2 May, 1941 President Roosevelt orders the US Maritime Commission to take over 2 million tons of merchant shipping, both domestic and foreign, for use in transporting Lend-Lease supplies. Arrangements are also made to transfer 50 American tankers to British control. The British destroyer Jersey strikes a mine at the entrance to Valletta harbor on Malta and sinks. Iraqi ground forces attack the British base at Habbaniya after shelling the airfield by artillery. The obsolete aircraft of the base are launched in defense, and help to defeat the attack. Further British landings in Basra are met by riots and scattered shooting. Tobruk continues to hold out, despite the continuous commitment of fresh German troops to the attack. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Bill Thacker military@att.att.com Send submissions for "50 Years Ago" to military-request@att.att.com "Japan might attack us in the Pacific ? She will threaten it; has already threatened. But does any one think she has the stomach for war with the United States ?" - Pierre Jay, in a letter to the New York Times