4 Mar 1941 | World War II Database

4 Mar 1941

Prince Paul, Regent of Yugoslavia, arrived in Berchtesgaden in Germany where Hitler applied further pressure for Yugoslavia to join Tripartite Pact. Hitler offered to cede Salonika and part of Macedonia to Yugoslavia in return for allowing German troops to transit into Greece. ww2dbase [The Tripartite Pact | TH]
Four British freighters departed Alexandria and Port Said, Egypt with men and equipment, escorted by destroyers HMS Hereward and HMS Stuart, for Greece; it was codenamed Operation Lustre. Meanwhile, British General Wilson arrived in Athens, Greece to take command of all Allied ground forces; he discovered the Greek troops were still manning the Metaxas Line on the Bulgarian-Greek border rather than the agreed upon Aliakmon Line. From the sea, Italian warships bombarded Greek coastal positions in Albania. ww2dbase [Balkans Campaign | CPC]
Australian Walrus seaplane of HMAS Canberra spotted German ship Coburg and captured Norwegian tanker Ketty Brøvig, which was being used to supply German armed merchant cruisers. The German ships escaped HMAS Canberra's interception attempt. ww2dbase [Canberra (County-class) | CPC]
Richard O'Connor was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. ww2dbase [Richard O'Connor | CPC]

Ceylon

HMS Hermes arrived at Colombo, Ceylon. ww2dbase [Hermes | Colombo | CPC]

Norway

British landing ships HMS Queen Emma and HMS Princess Beatrix, escorted by five destroyers, landed 500 British Commandos, Royal Engineers, and Free Norwegian troops at four ports in the Loftoten Islands, off Narvik, Norway at dawn. Operation Claymore, the first large scale commando raid of the war, saw the destruction of fish oil factories (along with 3,600 tons of fish oil, used for high explosives) and nine merchant ships. An unexpected bonus was the discovery of coding rotors for the Enigma cryptographic sysyem found aboard German trawler Krebs. The raiders withdrew without a single casualty along with 228 German captives. ww2dbase [Nordland | AC]

Timeline Section Founder: Thomas Houlihan
Contributors: Alan Chanter, C. Peter Chen, Thomas Houlihan, Hugh Martyr, David Stubblebine
Special Thanks: Rory Curtis

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