World War II Database

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

• In Russia, German SS Reich Division captured Istra west of Moscow while 7th Panzer Division advanced to the Moskva-Volga canal at Yakhroma east of Moscow. The forward-most German troops were reported within 19 miles of the Soviet capital, and noted the sighting of the Kremlin. ww2dbase [Battle of Moscow | TH]
• US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold Stark warned commanders of Pacific and Asiatic Fleets that attacks on Malaya, Philippine Islands, and Dutch East Indies were now a possibility. ww2dbase [Invasion of the Philippine Islands | Harold Stark | CPC]
• As the German 21st Panzer Division withdrew to the west for resupplying, the 15th Panzer Division captured Sidi Azeiz, Libya, taking 700 prisoners. ww2dbase [Operation Crusader | CPC]
• Destroyer Yuzuki arrived at Haha Jima, Japan. ww2dbase [Yuzuki | CPC]
• New Zealand 2nd Division supported by 90 tanks penetrated the German encirclement of Tobruk, Libya and broke into the besieged city. Tanks of German 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions moved in to counterattack, but Australian and British troops halted it during the day; German tanks would attempt to close in on the city after sundown. ww2dbase [Siege of Tobruk | CPC]
• German submarine U-559 sank Australian sloop HMAS Parramatta and ammunition ship Hanne 40 miles northeast of Tobruk, Libya at 0046 hours, killing a total of 168. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo rejected the American counter-proposal for peace. ww2dbase [Hideki Tojo | CPC]
• Russian partisan fighter Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was captured by the Germans. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Allied convoy QP-3 departed Arkhangelsk, Russia and convoy PQ-5 departed Hvalfjörður, Iceland. ww2dbase [Arctic Convoys | CPC]
• US Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall warned US Army Hawaii and Philippine Departments that attacks on Malaya, Philippine Islands, and Dutch East Indies were now a possibility. ww2dbase [Invasion of the Philippine Islands | George Marshall | CPC]

• US Navy-chartered passenger liner President Madison departed from Shanghai, China for the Philippine Islands with the 2nd Battalion of the US 4th Marine Regiment. ww2dbase [Shanghai | CPC]

• The Italian garrison at Gondar, Ethiopia surrendered as the British 12th (African) Division captured two mountain passes overlooking the town. ww2dbase [Invasion of Italian East Africa | Gondar | CPC]

• Vichy French official for the youth Georges Lamirand announced over radio that youths of large zones of France were required to serve 3 days community service. ww2dbase [CPC]

• Husband Kimmel met with Joseph Rochefort at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii in the late afternoon to discuss possible moves Japan might take should Japan and United States continued to head toward a military conflict. Rochefort believed that the main Japanese thrust would be toward the South Pacific, and the Hawaiian Islands did not seem to be in direct danger for now. ww2dbase [Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Ford Island Naval Air Station | Joseph Rochefort | Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]

• During a raid on the Blackheath Park District of Dublin, Ireland in search of IRA terrorists, the police arrested Abwehr agent Hermann Görtz who had parachuted into Ireland in May 1940. He had been living in hiding after losing his codebooks and currency escaping the police in an earlier raid. Görtz would spend the remainder of the war in Athlone prison but would then take poison, in 1947, when informed that he was to be deported to the British occupation zone in Germany. ww2dbase [AC]

• In Libya, German pilot Otto Schulz took off, shot down a British Bristol twin-engine aircraft, and landed safely near Gazala, Libya all within three minutes. Several British SAS personnel were killed aboard the Bristol aircraft. ww2dbase [Gazala | CPC]

• American radio intelligence analysts stationed in the Philippine Islands reported their suspicion that, contrary to the findings of their counterparts in the Hawaiian Islands, the Japanese warships detected to have been recently moved into the Marshall Islands were likely to take actions eastward rather than southward. Also, they concluded that main Japanese carrier force was still at Sasebo, Japan rather than in the Marshall Islands. ww2dbase [Attack on Pearl Harbor | Detailed Timetable | CPC]

• Franklin Roosevelt traveled to Warm Springs, Georgia, United States for a belated Thanksgiving holiday break. ww2dbase [Georgy Zhukov | Warm Springs, Georgia | CPC]

27 Nov 1941 Interactive Map