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• German aircraft conducted the first of the two consecutive nightly raids on Hull, England, United Kingdom. Meanwhile, Liverpool, England was bombed for the seventh (and final) consecutive night, damaging destroyer HMS Hurricane; by this time, 75% of Liverpool's port capacity had been destroyed. ww2dbase [Battle of Britain | TH]
• The first of the B-17 Flying Fortress bombers in Britain arrived at RAF Watton. ww2dbase [B-17 Flying Fortress | CPC]
• German armed merchant cruiser Pinguin stopped small British tanker British Emperor 400 miles off British Somaliland with gunfire, whose crew was able to send distress signals before being taken prisoner. The tanker was scuttled with torpedoes from Pinguin. Meanwhile, British cruiser HMS Cornwall sailed toward the location of the distress signal. ww2dbase [Pinguin | CPC]
• German submarine U-94 sank British ship Ixion and Norwegian ship Eastern Star 150 miles south of Iceland at 2300 hours. Destroyer HMS Bulldog and sloop HMS Rochester dropped 98 depth charges over 4 hours, but U-94 was able to escape with only minor damage. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Italian submarine Tazzoli sank Norwegian ship Ferlane off West Africa. ww2dbase [CPC]
• During the day, German bombers sank British minesweeper HMS Stoke at Tobruk, Libya, killing 21. After nightfall, British cruiser HMS Ajax and destroyers HMS Havock, HMS Hotspur, and HMS Imperial bombarded Benghazi, Libya, sinking Italian ships Tenace and Capitano Cecchi. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Indian 20th and 21st Brigades marched out of Basra, Iraq to attack nearby port of Ashar. ww2dbase [Campaigns in the Middle East | CPC]
• Douglas Bader shot down a German Bf 109 aircraft and claimed another probable. ww2dbase [Douglas Bader | CPC]

• In the North Atlantic at 1707 hours, the German weather ship München was sighted between the cruiser HMS Edinburgh and the destroyer, HMS Somali. The latter fired warning shots which caused most of the München's crew to take to the boats. Somali closed at speed and boarded the ship. A prize crew and boarding party from HMS Edinburgh then went over on a cutter, which also carried a mysterious man in civilian clothes (later revealed to be Captain J. R. S Haines RN of Naval intelligence). The München's captain, another officer and several ratings received the boarding party with great courtesy and a search of the German vessel was commenced. Although the German captain had thrown the Enigma machine and the May coding tables over the side as Somali approached, the settings for June were found in his desk, and these were duly collected by Captain Haines, who knew exactly what he was looking for. HMS Nestar took Captain Haines and his valuable find to Scapa Flow, Scotland, United Kingdom at speed. ww2dbase [Enigma Code Broken | CPC, AC]
• Comandante Cappellini sighted a small motor boat in the Atlantic Ocean at 0515 hours, shortly after joined by two others; suspecting them to be anti-submarine vessels, she submerged to avoid contact. ww2dbase [Comandante Cappellini | CPC]

7 May 1941 Interactive Map