World War II Chronicle: November 23, 1941
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While Secretary of State Cordell Hull confers with Japanese Ambassador Saburo Kurusu (see page seven), six aircraft carriers and their supporting ships are anchored at Hittokapu Bay in Japan’s Kuril Islands. The 1st Air Fleet, carrying over 400 aircraft, is making final preparations for a top-secret mission. Meanwhile, in the Marshall Islands, the Japanese submarine I-68 sails for Oahu where her crew will monitor the Hawaiian Islands.
Ernst Udet
Page four mentions Werner Mölders, who perished in a crash-landing yesterday when the Heinkel He-111 he was riding encountered a thunderstorm while enroute to the funeral for Generaloberst Ernst Udet. With 62 victories during World War I, Udet was second only to his former commander Mannfred von Richthofen — the “Red Baron.” In 1941 he served as the Luftwaffe‘s Chief of Procurement and Supply, making him the person who had to find a way to supply an air force that needed far more supplies to meet their objectives than Nazi Germany could possibly produce. On top of that, his relationship with the Nazi Party was becoming strained, bringing Udet to commit suicide.
Udet shot himself, and the regime crafted a story of the former fighter pilot’s heroic death while testing a new weapon, and noteworthy Luftwaffe officers like Mölders would attend the funeral. General der Flieger (then-equivalent to a U.S. three-star general) Helmuth Wilberg, chief of aviation training, was also killed in a plane crash while enroute to the funeral. Mölders and Udet are buried next to Richthofen in Berlin’s Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery.
New Navy Building
The comb-looking building on page 18 is the newly constructed Navy Annex. Where the photo’s caption is sits the southern edge of Arlington National Cemetery — land that formerly belonged to Gen. Robert E. Lee. That ground was turned into Freedman’s Village after the Civil War, a refugee camp for emancipated slaves that became a community. Property owners were bought off and the land became cemetery grounds and the site for the Navy Annex, an eight-wing, 1,000,000 square foot structure constructed in 1941. The Marine Corps moved their headquarters to this building in November 1941 and stayed there until 1996. The Navy relocated their Command Center from the Pentagon (which is two months into construction by Nov. 23, 1941) after the 9/11 attacks.
The annex was demolished in 2013 and the ground will be used for additional grave sites at Arlington. The site is just a half a mile west of the Pentagon… Summary of the war’s 116th week on page 36… Sports section begins on page 44
Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 23 November 1941. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1941-11-23/ed-1/