Photo of the Day

The clash between Congressional isolationists and the Roosevelt Administration was in full view yesterday when Navy officials answered senators’ questions about the new US military presence in Iceland and denied reports that US naval forces had engaged in combat with German vessels.

Left: USS Niblack. Right: US Marines arrived in Iceland on July 8, 1941.

But leaked, secret Congressional testimony suggests that a US Navy destroyer dropped a depth charge recently against a German submarine which menaced its rescue of survivors from a sunken British ship.

Ed: It will later be learned that the incident in question occurred off the coast of Iceland in April 1941, when the USS Niblack dropped three depth charges against a suspected U-boat as it picked up British sailors in three lifeboats.

The German navy will later say there were no U-boats present in the area at the time, a conclusion which the US Navy will officially accepted.

Yet, the incident will be viewed as the first naval engagement between Germany and the US.

German troops in Ukraine, July 1941. German government photos.

In western Russia, top Soviet military commanders have assumed command of defenses in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev as a fresh German assault in their three-week-old eastern offensive is expected.

Reports claim Germany has suffered a million casualties in its offensive so far, and its advance east has been stalled by massive military wreckage left behind by retreating Soviet forces.

British bomber crew returns to its base after a raid over Germany.

In western Europe, RAF bombers have struck targets in Naples and in Northern France after recent raids against German installations on the Channel coast and German industrial centers.

American construction workers in Northern Ireland, 1941.

In a transaction labeled as a ‘business deal,’ the British government announced it has contracted with a large American construction company to build unspecified facilities across the British Isles.

Ed: It will later be learned that hundreds of American construction workers were present in Northern Ireland for much of 1941, where they built a US naval operating base and a seaplane base.

Left: Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Right: A Nazi government subsidized radio receiver which eased the spread of propaganda. By 1941, almost 2/3 of German households owned a subsidized radio.

The underground German Freedom radio station has urged listeners to engage in railway sabotage to facilitate the overthrow of the Nazi government.

In response, the German government announced it will seek the death sentence for anyone convicted of operating a secret radio station or listening to an enemy radio station.

And finally…

Joe DiMaggio, age 27, in 1941. On the right, a 1941 DiMaggio baseball card.

Yankee center fielder Joe DiMaggio extended his hitting streak to fifty games in a row yesterday, as the Yankees defeated the St. Louis Browns 6 to 2.

DiMaggio was a crowd-pleaser, hitting a single in his first at-bat and later smacking a 375-foot homer, his fourth hit of the day.

Ed: DiMaggio’s 1941 hitting streak will extend to 56 games and will be called one of the greatest achievements in sports history.

I’ll see you on Monday.

— Brenda

Stories from the New York Times.