Timeline of World War II (1941) - February 1941

February 1941

• 1: Admiral Husband Kimmel is appointed the Commander of the US Navy in the Pacific.
• 3: Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel is appointed head of "German Army troops in Africa." This unit is later to be officially designated as the "Afrika Korps."
  : Germany forcibly restores Pierre Laval to office in Vichy.
• 7: Operation Compass: After several days of desperate fighting, a flying column of XIII Corps called Combe Force cuts off the retreating Italian 10th Army during the Battle of Beda Fomm. The Italians are unable to break through the small blocking force and the British accept the surrender of roughly 130,000 Italians in and to the south of Benghazi.
• 8: US House of Representatives passes the Lend-Lease bill.
• 9: Mussolini is informed that German reinforcements are on the way to North Africa.
  : British forces reach El Agheila, Cyrenaica.
  : British battleships shell Genoa and British aircraft attack Livorno.
  : Churchill again pleads with the US: "give us the tools."
• 10: Malta's critical period: now through March, it is under heavy daily attack.
• 11: Elements of the Afrika Korps start to arrive in Tripoli, Tripolitania.
  : British forces enter Italian Somaliland.
• 14: Rommel arrives in Tripoli.
  : Afrika Korps starts to move eastward towards the advance British positions at El Agheila. The British in North Africa have been weakened by the transfer of some troops to Greece.
• 15: Deportation of Austrian Jews to ghettos in Poland begins.
• 19: The start of the "three nights Blitz" of Swansea, South Wales. Over these three nights of intensive bombing, Swansea town centre is almost completely obliterated.
• 20: German and British troops confront each other for the first time in North Africa—at El Agheila in western Libya.
• 21: German forces move through Bulgaria toward the Greek front.
• 24: German U-boat offensive in the Atlantic is now increasingly successful.
  : Admiral Darlan is appointed the head of the Vichy government in France.
• 25: The British submarine "Upright" sinks the Italian cruiser "Armando Diaz" in one of the numerous sea battles in the North African campaign.
  : Mogadishu, the capital of Italian Somaliland, is captured by British forces during the East African Campaign.
• 28: RAF planes bomb Asmara, Eritrea.