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1941 in Wales

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This article is about the particular significance of the year 1941 to Wales and its people.

Incumbents

Events

  • January – Opening of RAF Llandwrog near Caernarfon as a Bomber Command training airfield.
  • 2 January – Cardiff Blitz: 165 people are killed in Luftwaffe air raids on Cardiff, and Llandaff Cathedral is seriously damaged.[2]
  • 13 February – Opening of RAF Valley on Anglesey as a Fighter Command station.
  • 14 February – Six people are killed in an air raid on Port Talbot.
  • 17 January – Swansea Blitz: 58 people are killed in air raids on Swansea.
  • 20 January – Welsh press magnate William Ewart Berry is created Viscount Camrose.
  • 17 February – Noted Baptist minister Samuel James Leeke finds his Swansea home destroyed by an air raid.[3]
  • 19-21 February – Swansea Blitz: 240 people are killed in air raids on Swansea. Much of the city centre is destroyed.[4]
  • 26 February – Four people are killed in an air raid on Cardiff. Buildings damaged include Cardiff University and a children's home.[5]
  • February – Six cattle are killed in an air raid on Cwmbran.
  • 3 March – 51 people are killed in air raids at Cardiff and Penarth.
  • 11 March – Three people are killed in air raids on Swansea.
  • 21 March – The coaster Millisle is sunk by German planes off Caldey Island, killing ten crew.[6]
  • 27 March – The Faraday, a cable-laying ship, is sunk by German planes off St. Ann's Head in Pembrokeshire, killing 16 crew.[6]
  • 31 March – Three people are killed in air raids on Swansea.
  • March – Co-developer Edward George Bowen is on board the first American experimental airborne 10 cm radar.
  • 12 April – Three people are killed in air raids on Swansea.
  • 15 April – 12 people are killed in an air raid on RAF Carew Cheriton.
  • 29 April – 26 people are killed in air raids aimed at coal mines in the Rhondda, and a further seven in Cardiff.
  • May – The Ministry of Information issues more than 14 million copies across the United Kingdom of a leaflet Beating the Invader, with a preface from Churchill, giving advice on what to do "if invasion comes"; there are also 160,400 copies of a Welsh version headed Trechu’r Goressgynnydd.[7]
  • 8 May – Three German Heinkel 111s are shot down. Nine German crew members are killed, and the remaining three taken prisoner.
  • 11 May – Three people are killed in an air raid on RAF Saint Athan.
  • 12 May – 32 people are killed in an air raid on Pembroke Dock.
  • 26–27 May – "Operation David": Western Command stages an exercise involving 20,000 troops simulating an invasion landing between Porthcawl and Kidwelly and a "Battle of Pontardulais".[8]
  • 30 May – Major air raid on Newport.
  • 1 June – A German Junkers 88 is shot down near Llandudno, killing four crew.
  • 11 June – The Baron Carnegie, a cargo ship, is sunk by German planes off Strumble Head, killing 25 crew.[9]
  • 13 June – The ferry St Patrick is sunk by German planes off Strumble Head, killing thirty.[10][11]
  • 1 July – 37 people are killed in an air raid on Newport.
  • 5 July – Alun Lewis marries Gwenno Ellis in Gloucester.[12]
  • 11 July – In a mining accident at Rhigos Colliery in Glamorgan, 16 miners are killed.[13]
  • 28 July – An RAF Wellington bomber crashes into Garn Fadryn on the Lleyn peninsula, killing six crew.
  • 7 August – An RAF Wellington bomber crashes into Rhosfach in the Berwyn range, killing six crew.
  • 28 August – An RAF Blackburn Botha with a crew of three crashes into the sea off Rhosneigr, Anglesey. A further eleven people die in the rescue attempt.
  • September – Sir Archibald Rowlands joins the Beaverbrook and Harriman mission to Moscow.
  • 10 October – Two planes collide at RAF Llandwrog, killing seventeen.[14][15]
  • 12 October – A German Heinkel 111 is shot down near Holyhead, killing four crew.
  • 22 October – A German Heinkel 111 is shot down near Nefyn, killing four crew.
  • October – Alun Lewis receives his army commission.
  • 25 November – Five miners are killed in a mining accident at Abergorki Colliery, Rhondda.
  • 6 December – Ruperra Castle is seriously damaged by fire while soldiers are billeted there.[16]
  • M. S. Factory, Valley, in Flintshire becomes operational for the manufacture of chemical weapons.[17]
  • Closure of the tinplate works at Kidwelly.
  • Sir Guildhaume Myrddin-Evans becomes Head of the Production Executive Secretariat at the War Cabinet Offices.
  • Artist Frank Brangwyn and administrator Elias Wynne Cemlyn-Jones are knighted. Brangwyn declines to travel to Buckingham Palace for the ceremony.[18]
  • Zoo in Victoria Park, Cardiff, closes.[19]

Arts and literature

Awards

  • National Eisteddfod of Wales (held in Old Colwyn)
  • National Eisteddfod of Wales: Chair – Rowland Jones, "Hydref"[23]
  • National Eisteddfod of Wales: Crown – J. M. Edwards
  • National Eisteddfod of Wales: Prose Medal – withheld

New books

English language

Welsh language

Music

  • Mansel Thomas – The White Rose
  • Grace Williams – Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes (first performance (broadcast) 29 October)
  • David Wynne – Songs of Solitude

Film

Broadcasting

  • Stars of BBC radio's ITMA programme are moved to Bangor to record the show, because of the Blitz in London.[25]

Sport

  • Football
    • 7 June – Wales lose 2-3 to England.
    • 25 October – Wales lose 1-2 to England.

Births

Deaths

  • 2 January – Sir John Rowland, civil servant
  • 11 January – Frederick Llewellyn-Jones, lawyer, 75
  • 20 January – Margaret Lloyd George, first wife of David Lloyd George, 74
  • 22 January – David Williams, Swansea politician, 75
  • 3 February – Sir Clifford John Cory, 1st Baronet, coal-owner
  • 10 March – Sir William Henry Seager, politician, 79
  • 11 March
  • 16 March – Sir David Hughes-Morgan, solicitor and landowner, 70?
  • 20 March – Jack Powell, Wales rugby union international, 58
  • 17 April – Sir William Henry Hoare Vincent, civil servant, 75
  • 11 July – Arthur Evans, archaeologist of Welsh descent, 90
  • 13 July – Lot Jones, footballer, 59
  • 15 July – Jack Elwyn Evans, rugby footballer, 43 or 44
  • 23 July – Joe Jones, footballer, 54
  • 27 July – Thomas Alfred Williams, Dean of Bangor, 71
  • 17 August – David Edward Lewis, businessman and philanthropist, 75
  • 11 September – Harry Grindell Matthews, inventor, 61[28]
  • 16 September – George Florance Irby, 6th Baron Boston, scientist and archaeologist, 81
  • 18 October – Geraint Goodwin, writer, 38[29]
  • 10 December – Admiral Tom Phillips, Welsh-descended naval officer, 53 (killed in Japanese attack on HMS Prince of Wales)[30]
  • 22 December – Richard Summers, Wales rugby union international, 81
  • 31 December – George Isaac Thomas (Arfryn), composer and conductor, 46

See also

References

  1. ^ C. J. Litzenberger; Eileen Groth Lyon (2006). The Human Tradition in Modern Britain. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-7425-3735-4.
  2. ^ Nick Lambert (2010). Llandaff Cathedral. Seren. ISBN 978-1-85411-499-0.
  3. ^ Dictionary of Welsh Biography: Leeke, Samuel James
  4. ^ Morgan, Kenneth O. (1981). Rebirth of a Nation: Wales, 1880-1980. Oxford University Press. pp. 296. ISBN 978-0-19-821736-7.
  5. ^ Rudolf, Mildred de M. (1950). Everybody's children: the story of the Church of England Children's Society, 1921-48. Oxford University Press.
  6. ^ a b "Naval Events, March 1941, Part 2 of 2, Saturday 15th – Monday 31st". Naval History. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  7. ^ Cohen, Ronald I. (Summer 2018). "Preparing for an Invasion of Britain… In Writing". Finest Hour. International Churchill Society (181): 38. Retrieved 2020-06-29.
  8. ^ Slater, D. (2019). "The Teme aqueduct". Journal of the Railway & Canal Historical Society. 39: 493.
  9. ^ "Naval Events, June 1941, Part 1 of 2, Sunday 1st – Saturday 14th". Naval History. Retrieved 13 December 2011.
  10. ^ "Channel Steamer Sunk By Bombs". The Times (48954). London. 17 June 1941. col E, p. 4.
  11. ^ "Railway Steamers Help In The War". The Times (49902). London. 7 July 1944. col G, p. 8.
  12. ^ Lohf, Kenneth A. (1995-12-06). Poets in a war: British writers on the battlefronts and the home front of the Second World War. Grolier Club.
  13. ^ Industrial Safety Survey. The Office. 1940.
  14. ^ Reference Wales. University of Wales Press. 1994. ISBN 978-0-7083-1234-6.
  15. ^ Air Pictorial. Air League of the British Empire. January 2001.
  16. ^ Davies, Brian E. (15 May 2011). Wales A Walk Through Time - Flat Holm to Brecon. Amberley Publishing Limited. p. 66. ISBN 978-1-4456-2617-8.
  17. ^ "Rhydymwyn Valley Works: Lifting the lid on secret site". BBC. 30 March 2010. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  18. ^ Sir Frank Brangwyn; Leeds (England). City Art Gallery; Glynn Vivian Art Gallery (2006). Frank Brangwyn 1867-1956. Leeds Museum and Galleries. ISBN 978-0-901981-71-4.
  19. ^ "Cardiff Time Line". Cardiffians. Retrieved 2015-05-24.
  20. ^ Bosman, Suzanne (2008). The National Gallery in Wartime. London: National Gallery Company. ISBN 978-1-85709-424-4.
  21. ^ John Magee (1 January 1989). The Complete Works of John Magee, the Pilot Poet : Including a Short Biography. This England Books. ISBN 978-0-906324-10-3.
  22. ^ Nielsen Business Media, Inc. (10 January 1953). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. p. 42.
  23. ^ "Winners of the Chair". National Eisteddfod of Wales. 3 October 2019.
  24. ^ Issued 24 January 1941 in the USA and 6 February 1942 in the UK (not published in 1940 and 1941 as shown in the texts). Dante Thomas, A Bibliography of the Principal Writings of John Cowper Powys, unpublished Ph.D thesis (State University of New York at Albany, 1971), p. 55.
  25. ^ Karen Price (23 October 2014). "How radio comedy stars secretly broadcast from Wales during the Blitz". WalesOnline. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  26. ^ "Trafgarne, Baron". Cracrofts Peerage. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  27. ^ Leopold George Wickham Legg; Edgar Trevor Williams (1959). The Dictionary of National Biography, 1941-1950. Oxford University Press.
  28. ^ Robert H. Ferrell (2007). Presidents, Diplomats, and Other Mortals: Essays Honoring Robert H. Ferrell. University of Missouri Press. pp. 214–. ISBN 978-0-8262-6571-5.
  29. ^ Sam Adams (1975). Geraint Goodwin. University of Wales Press [for] the Welsh Arts Council.
  30. ^ "Phillips, Sir Tom Spencer Vaughan". CWGC. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
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