World War II Database

• Home
• » Events
• » WW2 Timeline
• » 25 Nov 1940

• During the night 5 British aircraft attacked battleship Tirpitz in bad weather conditions; they scored no hits. ww2dbase [Tirpitz | CPC]
• A Hitler decree (the basic law of social housing construction) gave Robert Ley's German Labour Front the project of building 6 million homesteads, at the rate of 300,000 per year. Priority was given to providing homes for German families with children and Hitler alone kept personal responsibility for deciding how many houses should be built. The decree stated that houses were to have a minimum floor area of 62 square metres, a kitchen, two bedrooms, bathroom, hallway and balcony. Each home was also to have an air-raid shelter built to resist a direct hit and large enough to house everyone in the family. ww2dbase [Adolf Hitler | AC]
• Jewish paramilitary group Irgun destroyed British liner Patria in Haifa Harbor, Palestine as Patria began to embark Central European Jewish refugees. 213 refugees were killed along with 50 of the 130 British crew. ww2dbase [CPC]
• British minesweeping trawler HMT Conquistador collided with another vessel and sank in the Thames Estuary in southern England, United Kingdom. ww2dbase [CPC]
• British minesweeping trawler HMT Kennymore hit a mine and sank in the Thames Estuary in southern England, United Kingdom, killing 4. ww2dbase [CPC]
• British motor launch ML-111 hit a mine and sank 10 miles off Grimsby in the Humber Estuary in England, United Kingdom, killing 2. ww2dbase [CPC]
• British submarine HMS Talisman disabled a German tanker with a torpedo and captured the French trawler Le Clipper in the Bay of Biscay 10 miles south of Lorient, France. ww2dbase [CPC]

• Japanese 11th Army launched an offensive in Hubei Province, China. ww2dbase [Battle of Han River | Hubei | CPC]

• Operation Collar: British Royal Navy Force H under Admiral Somerville departed from Gibraltar to escort Allied convoy ME4 to Malta. ww2dbase [Malta Campaign | CPC]

• German armed merchant cruisers Orion and Komet, supported by supply ship Kulmerland, caught up with 546-ton New Zealand Holm Line coaster Holmwood off of the Chatham Islands 500 miles east of New Zealand. Captain Robert Eyssen of Komet ordered Holmwood to stop and not to use her radio. Holmwood's captain complied to safeguard the lives of the 17 crew and 12 passengers (all from the Chatham Islands) on board, four of whom were women and five were children. The ship was also carrying 1,370 sheep, 1 horse, and a cargo of wool from the island of Lyttelton, New Zealand. Eyssen briefly considered capturing the ship for use as a minelayer, but after realizing the ship's maximum speed was only 9 knots, he decided to sink her. The horse was shot, and then the passenger, crew, and some of the sheep were moved to the three German ships; a number of sheep remained on Holmwood. Komet and Orion then proceeded to fire on Holmwood for 30 minutes until its sinking. While the crews of all three ships welcomed the fresh sheep meat, not surprisingly, in no time at all, they came to detest the taste of mutton. ww2dbase [Orion | CPC, HM]

• The prototype of the de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito unarmed light bomber was flown for the first time from Hatfield Aerodrome, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom. The aircraft was flown by Geoffrey de Havilland, accompanied by engineer John E. Walker. ww2dbase [Mosquito | Hatfield, England | AC, CPC]

• USS Nevada arrived at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for maintenance. ww2dbase [Puget Sound Navy Yard | Nevada | Bremerton, Washington | DS]

25 Nov 1940 Interactive Map