23 Feb 1941 | World War II Database

23 Feb 1941

British monitor HMS Terror sank off the Libyan coast at 0420 hours after receiving fatal damage from German aircraft on the previous day. ww2dbase [CPC]
A German Fw 200 Condor aircraft led German submarines U-69, U-73, U-96, U-107, and U-123 and Italian submarines Bianchi and Barbarigo to Allied convoy OB-288 300 miles south of Iceland. Just before midnight, U-69 sank British ship Marslew (13 killed, 23 rescued) and U-96 sank British ship Anglo-Peruvian (29 lost, 17 rescued). U-107 and Bianchi damaged and chased British ocean boarding vessel HMS Manistee through the night. ww2dbase [CPC]
British submarine HMS Upright sank Italian ship Silvia Tripcovich 50 miles off Sfax, Tunisia. ww2dbase [CPC]
Prime Minister Alexandros Korizis of Greece accepted British offer of aid, but British and Greek commanders debated on the defense strategy against a German invasion through Bulgaria. The Greeks preferred to dig in along the Metaxas Line, while the British argued for a line further southwest along the Vermion Mountains and the Haliacmon River. ww2dbase [Balkans Campaign | CPC]
Joachim von Ribbentrop hosted Hiroshi Oshima in his home in Germany, where Ribbentrop attempted to persuade the Japanese ambassador that it was the time for Japan to strike British territories in Asia. Ribbentrop argued that there was little worry regarding the United States as American possessions in Asia could be bypassed easily, but should the Americans decide to go to war, the Japanese Navy was vastly superior to the US Navy. ww2dbase [Hiroshi Oshima | CPC]

Italian Somaliland

British 12th African Division marched up the Juba River in Somaliland, Italian East Africa toward the Ethiopian border while the motorized British Nigerian Brigade of the 11th African Division drove up the coastal road toward Mogadishu. ww2dbase [Invasion of Italian East Africa | CPC]

United States

Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg chemically identified the recently discovered new element Plutonium in the 60-inch cyclotron at the University of California at Berkeley, California, United States. ww2dbase [Operation Trinity and Manhattan Project | Berkeley, California | CPC]

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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