World War II Database

• Home
• » Events
• » WW2 Timeline
• » 29 Nov 1941

• Operation Crusader: Italian Ariete Division overran the New Zealand 21st Battalion at Point 175 in Libya. ww2dbase [Operation Crusader | CPC]
• US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold Stark directed that defense recommendations made by Major Alfred R. Pefley was to be implemented immediately, consisting mostly of the construction of defensive gun positions on various Pacific islands. ww2dbase [Harold Stark | CPC]
• US Marine Corps Major Walter L. J. Bayler arrived at Wake Island with a detachment of Marines from Marine Aircraft Group 21 to set up air base communication facilities. ww2dbase [Battle of Wake Island | CPC]
• Japanese ambassador in Germany Hiroshi Oshima reported that, on the previous day, Joachim von Ribbentrop had verbally promised a German declaration of war on the United States should Japan and the US enter a state of war. ww2dbase [Hiroshi Oshima | CPC]
• Russian partisan fighter Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was publicly executed by hanging by the Germans. ww2dbase [CPC]
• The German 4th Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla attacked Allied convoy FN.564 off the coast of East Anglia, England, United Kingdom, sinking British tanker Asperity and freighters Empire Newcomen and Cormarsh. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German submarine U-43 sank British ship Thornliebank 240 miles north of the Azores islands at 0411 hours, killing all 75 aboard. The navigator of U-43 was injured by showering debris. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German 7th Panzer Division completed the evacuation of the Yakhroma bridgehead near Moscow, Russia; 45 were killed in the unsuccessful attempt to cross the Moskva-Volga canal. ww2dbase [Battle of Moscow | CPC]
• Soviet destroyer Slavny, destroyer Stoiki, troop ship Iosif Stalin, and other vessels, escorted by 5 minesweepers, 4 torpedo boats, and 7 submarine chasers, departed Kronstadt, Russia for Hanko, Finland to evacuate troops. German aircraft discovered the force, attacked, and sank icebreaker ship Oktyabr. ww2dbase [CPC]

• At 1300 hours, Morosini was informed of a twenty-ship Allied convoy in the area being detected near her patrol area in the Atlantic Ocean about 8 hours earlier. At 2045 hours, Morosini observed a destroyer, and submerged to avoid detection. After the destroyer disappeared, she resumed the search for the convoy, but would ultimately fail to find it. ww2dbase [Morosini | CPC]

• US Navy river gunboats Luzon and Oahu departed Shanghai, China for Manila, Philippine Islands. ww2dbase [Shanghai | CPC]

• British aircraft from Malta sank Italian tanker Berbera and damaged Italian tanker Volturno at Navarino (now Pylos), Greece. ww2dbase [Malta Campaign | Navarino, Messenia | CPC]

• British Royal Navy Force B (cruiser HMS Ajax, cruiser HMS Neptune, destroyer HMS Kimberly, and destroyer HMS Kingston) under the command of Rear Admiral Bernard Rawlings arrived in Malta. ww2dbase [Malta Campaign | CPC]

• The British Royal Air Force's No. 151 Wing, which had been conducting successful combat missions in Northern Russia, handed over its Hurricane fighters to Lieutenant Colonel Boris Safonov's Soviet 72nd Air Regiment before sailing back home. ww2dbase [AC]

29 Nov 1941 Interactive Map