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• German submarine U-126 torpedoed and sank American freighter Lehigh 100 miles west of Freetown, British West Africa at 1051 hours; all 38 aboard survived. U-126 had misidentified the American ship as a Greek vessel. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German submarine U-204 sank British tanker Inverlee carrying 35 miles southwest of Tangier, Spanish Morocco at 0300 hours; 22 were killed, 21 survived. In the same region, German submarine U-206 sank British ship Baron Kelvin at 0614 hours; 26 were killed, 16 survived. British corvettes from Gibraltar were dispatched to hunt for these submarines; HMS Mallow was able to find and sink U-204 at 2146 hours with depth charges. ww2dbase [CPC]
• British gunboat HMS Gnat bombarded a German artillery battery near Tobruk, Libya after sundown. ww2dbase [Siege of Tobruk | CPC]
• German troops began rounding up men over the age of 16 in the Serbian town of Kragujevac in Yugoslavia. Of the 2,324 gathered, about 300 of them were students from the First Boys High School. ww2dbase [CPC]

• German troops defeated the Soviet forces within the Vyazma pocket in Russia and captured 670,000 men, 1,000 tanks, and 4,000 artillery pieces. At Volokolamsk, the northwest end of the Mozhaysk defensive line, newly arrived Soviet 316th Rifle Division halted the attack by German 4th Panzer Army. In Moscow, Lavrentiy Beria advised the Soviet GKO to evacuate the capital "or they will strangle us like chickens", but it was rejected by Joseph Stalin; however, Stalin did order the Politburo (less Stalin, Beria, and Georgy Malenkov) to evacuate. ww2dbase [Battle of Moscow | TH, CPC]

19 Oct 1941 Interactive Map