This day in the war in Europe 65 years ago

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GERMANY: RAF Bomber Command dispatches 12 Hampdens and nine
Manchesters to lay further mines in the Frisian Islands, although weather
conditions were still unfavorable. Only eight aircraft laid their mines but all
returned without loss, but one Hampden crashes in England.

MEDITERRANEAN: Three Allied supply ships leave Alexandria, Egypt,
for Malta, but all are lost to enemy before reaching destination.
The destroyer HMS MAORI is sunk while moored in the Grand Harbour
at Malta.

SPAIN: Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and Portuguese dictator
Antonio Salazar meet in Seville and report that they share many
views.

U.S.: Lieutenant General Henry H "Hap" Arnold, Commanding General
USAAF, indicates that 16 heavy bomber groups, three pursuit groups, and
eight photographic reconnaissance squadrons will be sent to the UK during
1942. Brigadier General Asa N Duncan, Commanding General 8th Air Force, requests that his force, inadequate for its intended mission under Operation GYMNAST (early Allied plan for the seizure of Casablanca and the invasion of northwestern Africa), be strengthened by several bombardment and pursuit groups. This move, if carried out, would require diversion of units originally intended for other task forces.
The USAAF places a second production order for 410 Northrop P-
61s.

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Germany: German Operation Sealion is formally cancelled. This is
the plan for the cross channel invasion of England. While postponed
many times, this cancellation makes it final.

FRANCE: During the night of the 13-14th, RAF Bomber Command
dispatches 28 bombers to Le Havre but they encounter icing and thick cloud and only meager bombing results were claimed. There are no losses.

GERMANY: During the night of the 13-14th, RAF Bomber Command
dispatches 39 bombers to Cologne and 18 to Aachen but all encountered icing and thick cloud and only meager bombing results were claimed. There are no losses.
Admiral Erich Raeder, head of the German Navy, brings a new
plan to Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Raeder proposes that the Germans drive
through Libya, into Egypt, and keep on going through Iraq, Iran, and
all the way to India, thus drying up Britain's oil supply, hooking up with
the Japanese, and winning the war. To do so, the German will have to
divert more resources to the Mediterranean, starting with massive supplies
to North Africa. To do that, the Germans will have to invade Malta.
Hitler orders the Luftwaffe's Air Fleet 2 to hammer Malta and knock out its
airfields and will to resist. General Erwin Rommel, commanding the
Afrika Korps, who will lead the drive to India, thinks it's a great idea.

ITALY: Italian torpedo boat Circe sinks the British submarine HMS
Tempest off Taranto.

U.S.S.R.: The Soviet winter offensive continue to meet increasing
German resistance. Despite this, the Soviet spearhead has reached
Belorussia.

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FRANCE: During the night of 14/15th, 15 RAF Bomber Command aircraft
attack Le Havre while one Manchester flies a leaflet mission. There
are no losses.

GERMANY: During the night of the 14/15th, 98 aircraft of RAF Bomber
Command attack Mannheim; a Hampden and a Whitley are lost. Sixty
seven aircraft claimed to have bombed the city in difficult conditions
however, the Germans report only a light raid, with two buildings destroyed,
15 damaged, some railway damage and with one man wounded and 23 people
bombed out.

U.K.: The Area Bombing Directive is issued to the RAF Bomber Command. It states that raids "should now be focused on the morale of the enemy civil population and, in particular, of the industrial workers." This represents a substantial shift in policy and targets civilian residential areas rather than factories.

U.S.: "This Is War!," a 30-minute 13-week anti-fascist radio series, debuts this Saturday night at 1900 hours Eastern Time. This is the only radio series to air on all four networks, The Blue Network, CBS, Mutual and NBC. The program features such Hollywood stars as James Stewart, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Tyrone Power in shows that promote the Army, Navy, and Air Force and help Americans understand themselves and the enemy.
Director Frank Capra is called up for duty with the Army Signal Corps.

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ATLANTIC: A Brazilian merchant ship is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-432 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Cape Henry, Virginia..

FRANCE: During the night of the 15-16th, RAF Bomber Command
dispatches ten Whitleys and six Halifaxes to attack the port area at St
Nazaire; only nine aircraft bomb visually, in cloudy conditions. No aircraft
are lost but three crash in England.

Mediterranean: Two merchant vessels on a convoy to Malta are sunk.

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CARIBBEAN: The German Operation NEULAND begins with simultaneous attacks on Dutch and Venezuelan oil ports to disrupt production and flow of petroleum products vital to the Allied war effort; German submarine U-156 shells a refinery on Aruba, Netherlands West Indies, and torpedoes
and damages a U.S. merchant tanker as she lies alongside Eagle Dock; a second torpedo misses the ship and runs up on the beach. There are no casualties among the 37-man crew. The enemy does not emerge from the action unscathed, however, for the explosion of a shell prematurely in a gun barrel injures two men on board U-156, which will receive permission to put in to French Martinique Island.

FRANCE: During the night of the16-17th, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 11 aircraft to drop leaflets.

GERMANY: During the night of the 16-17th, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 37 Hampdens and 12 Manchesters to the Frisian Islands; one Hampden and one Manchester are lost. Eighteen Wellingtons fly roving commissions over Northern Germany, eight aircraft bomb Bremen, seven bomb Aurich, two hit Oldenburg, one hit Wilhemshaven.

THE NETHERLANDS: During the night of the 16-17th, two RAF Bomber Command bombers hit Schipol Airfield in Amsterdam and Sosterberg Airfield.

NORTH SEA: Eight RAF Bostons, of No. 88 and 226 Squadrons, commenced the first regular operations with this new type the of day bomber. They searched for German shipping off the Dutch coast without success or
loss.

USA: The US Navy launches a new battleship, the USS Alabama.

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1942: AUSTRALIA: The Australian Prime Minister, John Curtin, cables British and New Zealand government officials requesting that all Australian troops then in transit or about to sail for the East Indies be diverted to Australia, and that the 9th Division and other Australian Imperial Force units in the Middle East be recalled at an early date.

FRANCE: During the night of the 17-18th, three RAF Bomber Command Hampdens drop leaflets over Paris.

GERMANY: During the night of the 17-18th, 12 RAF Bomber Command bombers are sent on a roving commission over northwestern Germany but visibility is poor and most bombing results are unobserved; eight
other aircraft bomb the city of Essen.

MIDDLE EAST: General Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander in Chief Middle East Command, is ordered to release two more divisions for action in the Far East, the British 70th and the Australian 9th. The Australian 9th Division is subsequently allowed to remain in Middle East.

NORTH SEA: Five Bostons of RAF Bomber Command fly an uneventful shipping search off the Dutch coast.

NORWAY: RAF Bomber Command dispatches one Whitley during the night to drop leaflets over Oslo.

U.K.: The House of Commons holds a debate on the escape of the German ships from Brest, France. Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces the formation of a commission of inquiry under Mr. Justice Bucknill.

U.S.S.R: In Russia, the Soviet Army struggles to push the German lines back near Rhzev, on the Moscow front. The Soviet Air Force drops 7,373 Soviet paratroopers behind German lines amid fog; more than a quarter fall directly onto German lines and are taken prisoner.

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UK: British miners are exempted from soap rationing.

ATLANTIC: A Brazilian tanker is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-432 about 78 miles (126 kilometers) northeast of Norfolk, Virginia.

CARIBBEAN: The Free French submarine Surcouf, then the largest submarine in the world, is sunk in a collision with a U.S. merchant ship near the entrance to the Panama Canal. There are no survivors of the 130- man crew.
An armed U.S. freighter is torpedoed by German submarine U-161 while lying at anchor at Port of Spain, Trinidad; there are no casualties among the 36-man merchant crew and 9-man Armed Guard.

FRANCE: During the night of the 18-19th, six RAF Bomber Command aircraft drop leaflets over Paris and Lille.

THE NETHERLANDS: During the night of the 18-19th, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 25 Hampdens on a mining mission over the West Frisian Islands.

NEWFOUNDLAND: The USN destroyer USS Truxtun (DD-229) and stores issuing ship USS Pollux (AKS-2) run aground during storm near Placentia Bay; the former just east of Ferryland Point and the latter off LawnPoint.
Minesweeper USS Brant (AM-24) arrives on scene and contributes rescue parties as well as brings medical officer and corpsmen from destroyer tender and Support Force flagship, the destroyer tender USS Prairie (AD-15). The tragedy produces deep admiration for the lifesaving
efforts of the local population. "Hardly a dozen men from both ships would have been saved," one observer writes later, "had it not been for the superb work of the local residents." Many men jeopardize their own lives
frequently to save the American sailors; several hang by lines over the cliffs to keep survivors from dragging over sharp rocks as they are pulled up from the beach below; others go out in a dory, risking swamping several times in the rough waves; after working all day rescuing USS
Truxtun's people, some of the local inhabitants then toil all night rescuing USS Pollux's men with a stamina that defies description. Though poor, the men, women, and children of the town of St. Lawrence turn out to outfit the "survivors with blankets, warm clothes, boots, fed them, cleaned them up as best they could and turned them in their own
beds." Subsequently, they turn a deaf ear to offers to pay for food and clothing used in succoring the shipwrecked Americans.

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ATLANTIC: An unarmed U.S. tanker is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-128 about 20 miles off Cape
Canaveral, Florida and an armed U.S. freighter is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-96 in the North Atlantic, about 300 miles west-southwest of St. Johns, Newfoundland. Although U-96 sees three lifeboats pull away from the ship, no survivors from the 30-man merchant complement or the seven-man Armed Guard are ever found.

CANADA: The Canadian Parliament votes to introduce military conscription.

Cuba: The transport USS William P. Biddle (AP-15) arrives at Guantanamo Bay and disembarks the USMC's 9th Defense Battalion.

FRANCE: During the night of 1-20th, two RAF Bomber Command aircraft drop leaflets on Paris and Lille.
Police arrest several French Resistance leaders, including the philosopher Georges Politzer.

VICHY FRANCE: After their arrest by the order of French Premier Marshal Henri Petain, General Maurice Gamelin, former Commander in Chief of Allied Forces in France, and former Prime Ministers, Paul Reynaud and Leon Blum are put on trial, in Riom, for the French loss in this war.
The defendants present evidence which tends to implicate the entire French military establishment, many of whom are now serving in the Vichy Government. The trial is adjourned and never completed.

GERMANY: During the night of 19-20th, seven RAF Bomber Command Wellingtons visually bomb Essen.

UK: Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces changes in the War Cabinet. It now has seven members instead of nine. Out went Lord Beaverbrook, who ceases to be minister of production. He had often been at loggerheads with Ernest Bevin, the powerful minister of labour. Out
also went Sir Kingsley Wood, the chancellor of the exchequer, and Arthur Greenwood, the minister without portfolio. In came Sir Stafford Cripps, the darling of Labour's discontented left-wingers. Clement Attlee,
Labour's leader, is now to remain deputy prime minister.

U.S.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas "as deemed necessary or desirable." The military in turn defines the entire West Coast, home to the majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry or citizenship, as a military area. By June, more than 110,000 Japanese
Americans were relocated to remote internment camps built by the U.S. military in scattered locations around the country. For the next two and a half years, many of these Japanese Americans endured extremely difficult living
conditions and poor treatment by their military guards.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower is appointed as Chief of the War Plans Division for the US Army.

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A note on Canadian conscription although Canada had conscription the draftees were only to serve on the home front and not til late 44 that any consripted troops were sent overseas according to Wiki only 2463 went overseas and 79 lost their lives

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1942: ATLANTIC: German submarines sink 2 US freighters. One
is an unarmed U.S. freighter sunk by German submarine U-432 about 125
miles (201 kilometers) east-southeast of Ocean City, Maryland. There
are no survivors from the 38-man crew.

CARIBBEAN: An armed U.S. freighter is torpedoed by German submarine
U-156 about 60 miles (97 kilometers) west of Martinique. The 52
crewmen are rescued by the small seaplane tender USS Lapwing (AVP-1) and then scuttles the irreparably damaged merchantman with gunfire.

FRANCE: US Admiral William D. Leahy writes to President Roosevelt that he expects a recall "for consultation" since the French have not
responded positively to Roosevelt's message of 11 February. President
Roosevelt, while sympathetic to Admiral Leahy's position, subsequently
informs his ambassador to Vichy that "to hold the fort [in Vichy] is
as important a military task as any other in these days." Leahy is thus
retained in France. On the same day that Leahy writes to the President,
however, German submarine U-156 puts in to the French island of
Martinique in the Caribbean to put ashore one of the men wounded by
the premature barrel explosion on 16 February.

GERMANY: German casualties in the USSR so far are 199,448 dead,
708,351 wounded, 44,342 missing and 112,627 cases of severe
frostbite.
The German naval warships, Admiral Scheer and Prinz Eugen leave
BrŸnsbuttel for Norway.

U.K.: Major General Ira C. Eaker, who is to command the USAAF VIII
Bomber Command, 8th Air Force, arrives by air with six staff officers
to select a headquarters site and prepare for the arrival of American
troops; he reports to Major General James E. Chaney, Commanding
General U.S. Army Forces, British Isles (USAFI).

U.S.: The US supplies the USSR with a $1,000 million loan.

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ATLANTIC: An unarmed U.S. tanker is torpedoed by German
submarine U-504 about three miles (4,8 kilometers) east of Jupiter
Inlet, Florida.

BELGIUM: During the night of the 20-21st, one RAF Bomber Command
aircraft visually bombs the port area at Ostend.

CARIBBEAN: An unarmed U.S. tanker is torpedoed and sunk by German
submarine U-67 about 225 miles (362 kilometers) west of Aruba, Netherlands
East Indies.

GERMANY: During the night of the 20-21st, 21 RAF Bomber Command
aircraft visually bomb eight cities. Six bomb Koblenz, five bomb
Mannheim, three bomb Frankfurt-am- Main, two each bomb Aachen and Cologne, and one each bombs Darmstadt, Dortmund and Karlsruhe.
The German naval warships, Admiral Scheer and Prinz Eugen leave
Germany for Norway.

THE NETHERLANDS: During the night of the 20-21st, two RAF Bomber
Command Manchesters drop mines off the West Frisian Islands.

NORWAY: During the night of the 20-21st, eight RAF Bomber Command
aircraft attack four airfields to provide a diversion for a Fleet Air Arm strike from the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious on the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, which had taken shelter in a Norwegian fjord near Trondheim after being torpedoed and damaged by the submarine HMS Trident.
The Fleet Air Arm strike was not successful, because of poor weather
conditions. Five aircraft attack Lista and one each attack Christiansand,
Mandel and Stavanger. The aircraft attacking Stavanger is lost.

U.K.: On convoy escort destroyer HMS Montgomery rescued the survivors of Scottish Standard. USS Wickes (DD-75), was commissioned as HMS Montgomery (G-95) on 25 Oct. 1940.

U.S.S.R.: The Soviet Army surrounds part of the German 16th Army at Vyazma, a city northwest of Moscow. The Luftwaffe will airlift supplies to the Vyazma garrison until it is rescued in April. The same air supply tactic will fail next year at Stalingrad.

VICHY FRANCE: US Ambassador Admiral William D. Leahy USN (Retired),
receives an instruction to see French Vice Premier Admiral Jean Darlan
immediately about German submarine U-156's receiving assistance at
Martinique. Unless the Vichy French can assure the U.S. government
that no Axis ships or planes will be allowed to enter French ports or
territory in the Western Hemisphere, and that unless such assurances are
rigidly maintained, the United States "will take such action in the interest
of security of the Western Hemisphere as it may judge necessary and in
accordance with existing inter-American obligations. " Leahy writes in
his diary that everything points to his early recall to Washington "for
consultation."

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ATLANTIC: Two U.S. tankers are sunk off the coast of Florida
by German submarines:
(1) an armed tanker is torpedoed and sunk by U-128 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of the city of Melbourne; six of the nine Armed Guards and 30 of the 41-man crew are rescued;
(2) an unarmed tanker is torpedoed and sunk by U-504 about 41 miles (66 kilometers) northeast of West Palm Beach; only one of the 36-man crew survives. An unarmed U.S. freighter is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-129 about 125 miles (201 kilometers) southeast of Trinidad, British West Indies.

BELGIUM: During the night of the 22-23d, three RAF Bomber Command
aircraft bomb the port area of Ostend.

FRANCE: Paris: Stulpnagel has a farewell tea in the Paris Talleyrand with Ernst Junger. Junger describes him "In him, delicacy, grace, suppleness, are oddly mixed, suggesting a ballet master, with features like wooden guignol, melancholy and maniacal. He had sent for about the question of hostages, because he was most concerned that the record in the future be accurate. Beside, the question is the only one which has to do with his departure. Seen from the outside, he displays the grand proconsular power of someone in his position, and there is no way of learning the secret history of the quarrels and intrigues within the palace walls. The story is filled out with the struggle against the embassy and the Nazi party in France, the latter slowly gaining ground, without the Army High Command lending its support to the general." Stulpnagel goes on to say that the campaign in Russia is taking an unexpected turn and he considered that Germany's tactical interests lay in securing its empire with the minimum of force. If you're wondering who these people are: Stulpnagel is the Milit`rbefehlsaber (German Military Governor) of Paris. Ernst Junger is a German writer who at the time was a member of Stulpnagel's staff, and kept a diary.

GERMANY: During the night of the 22-23d, 36 RAF Bomber Command
aircraft attempt to bomb the floating dock at Wilhelmshaven which the Germans might be using to repair the battleships Scharnhorst or Gneisenau.
The area was cloud-covered and bombs were mostly released on the
estimated position of the city. Three other aircraft bomb the city of Emden.

U.K.: HQ of U.S. Army Bomber Command, U.S. Army Forces, British Isles
(USAFBI), is established under Major General Ira C. Eaker.
Hugh Dalton is appointed president of the British board of trade.
Air Marshall Arthur Harris is appointed Head of Bomber Command for
the RAF.
Amplifying the above:
He first went to war against the Germans with the 1st Rhodesian
Regiment in South-west Africa in 1915. He has 20 years experience of
bombing.
He learnt the hard way - flying worn-out Bristol Fighters on punitive
raids against the tribesmen of the North-West Frontier, and Vickers
Vernon transports fitted with bomb racks against Iraqi rebels. He has
since commanded No. 4 Bomber Group and, for a year of the war, No 5 Bomber Group.Known to his friends as "Bert", he is a prickly individual and
no respecter of authority. It is possibly for this reason that he has
caught the eye of Churchill. He believes in strategic bombing and can
be relied on to carry out Bomber Command's new orders to attack German
civilian morale. He faces opposition, however, from those who regard
his command as a costly diversion of resources.

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CARIBBEAN: Two U.S. merchant ships are attacked by German submarines:
(1) An armed freighter is torpedoed by U-161 about 275 miles(443
kilometers) west of Martinique; the damaged ship engages the sub in a
surface gunnery action before the freighter is subsequently abandoned and the crew rescued. An attempt is made to tow the ship to St. Lucia but she sinks short of the island.
(2) An unarmed tanker is torpedoed by U-502 about 54 miles (87 kilometers) north of Aruba, and although initially abandoned is reboarded. She is ultimately repaired and returned to service; there are no casualties among the 36-man crew.

GERMANY: During the night of the 23-24th RAF Bomber Command dispatches 23 Hampdens on minelaying mission off Wilhelmshaven and Heligoland. One
aircraft lost.

ITALY: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini delivers a speech in Rome stating, "We call bread bread and wine wine, and when the enemy wins
a battle it is useless and ridiculous to seek, as the English do in their
incomparable hypocrisy, to deny or diminish it."

MIDDLE EAST: General Claude Auchinleck, Commander in Chief Middle
East Command, revises the plans for defense of the Northern Front,
instructing the British Ninth and Tenth Armies to impose maximum
delay on the enemy in the event of Axis offensive.

North Sea: Submarine HMS Trident (Cmdr. Sladen) sights KMS Prinz
Eugen, in the North Sea, and fires three torpedoes, one of which hits
aft, damaging Prinz Eugen's rudder and blowing away 30 feet of her
stern. She is taken into Lo Fjord at Drontheim, and temporary repairs
(including the fitting of two jury rudders) is completed by the
beginning of May (1942).

U.K.: Prime Minister Winston Churchill informs Australian Prime
Minister John Curtin that the convoy carrying the Australian 6th and
7th Divisions will proceed to Australian after refueling at Colombo,
Ceylon.
HQ of the USAAF's VIII Bomber Command is established at Daws Hill
Lodge, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England; Major General Ira C
Eaker assumes command.

USA:The USN's Bureau of Aeronautics outlines a comprehensive program
which became the basis for the wartime expansion of pilot training.
In place of the existing seven months course, the new program required
11 months for pilots of single or twin-engine aircraft and 12 months for
four-engine pilots, and is divided into three months at Induction Centers, three months in Primary, three months in Intermediate and two or three months in Operational Training, depending on the type aircraft used.

U.S.S.R.: Soviet troops capture Dorogobuzh on the Dniepr River. German reports that day say that a partisan camp of more than 500 men armed with heavy machine guns and anti-tank guns, is located east of Minsk.
In the Cherven region, partisans "have strict orders not to start any
action, only to attack and destroy German search parties."

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BLACK SEA: Some 764 Romanian Jewish refugees heading for Palestine are killed when a Soviet submarine sinks their steamer Struma. The Romanian ship 'Struma' sailed from Constansa under the command of a Bulgarian captain, G.T. Gorbatenkoin, and flying the Panamanian flag. There are 747 Romanian Jews on board, many from the town of
Barland, their hope was to reach Palestine. After three days at sea, the Struma anchored off the outer harbour at Instanbul, with engine trouble.
Here she awaited British permission to proceed to Palestine, permission which the British refused, one reason given was "It will encourage a flood of refugees". Turkey, for some unknown reason, likewise refused them to disembark although the local Jewish community, who were already running a camp for Displaced Persons, were quite willing to take the Struma's passengers and were in the meantime supplying them with food and water.
One of the passengers, Medeea Marcovici, suffered an embolism and was transferred to the Jewish hospital in Instanbul. She was granted a visa for Palestine and died in 1996.
After two months at Instanbul with engines that were damaged beyond repair, conditions on board became
appalling, many of the passengers now suffering from dysentery and malnutrition. Eventually the Turkish police arrived to tow the Struma out into the Black Sea. The British had exerted strong pressure on Turkey to pursue this course. The enraged passengers fought them off, but a
second attempt, where force was used, succeeded and the Struma was towed out and cast adrift outside Turkish territorial waters. This inhuman decision by the Turkish and British governments was to destroy the special relationship between Britain and the Zionist Jews.
On the water for 74 days since leaving Conatansa, the Struma, hopelessly overcrowded, and with no country willing to accept them, was suddenly torpedoed and sunk by the Russian submarine SHCH-213 commanded by Lt. Col. Isaev, just ten miles from Instanbul. All on board, a total of 796 persons, perished except one, nineteen year old David Stoljar who today (1999) lives in Oregon USA.
The British High Commissioner in Palestine, Sir Harold
MacMichael, stated: 'The fate of these people was tragic, but the fact remains that they were nationals of a country at war with Britain, proceeding direct from enemy territory. Palestine was under no obligations towards them".

U.S.: The Voice of America shortwave radio station broadcasts for the first time with the words, "The Voice of America speaks. ... we shall speak to you about America and the war. The news may be good or bad, but we shall tell you the truth." Its first programs are in German.
The USN's Bureau of Aeronautics issues a contract for television equipment, including camera, transmitter, and receiver, that is capable of airborne operation. Such equipment promises to be useful both in transmitting instrument readings obtained from radio-controlled
structural flight tests, and in providing target and guidance information necessary should radio-controlled aircraft be converted to offensive weapons.
The US gun manufacturers stop production of 12 gauge shotguns for civilian consumption as they converted to war production.

U.S.S.R. Six German divisions cut off at Demyansk, USSR in the northern sector of the Moscow front are defying all the Red Army's efforts to crush them. The Demyansk pocket and other similarly defended localities are frustrating the Soviet offensive. One remarkable aspect of the Demyansk operation is that the 100,000 men in the pocket are completely cut off and are being supplied with
food, fuel and ammunition by air.
All types of aircraft are being used. Junkers Ju52 transports
are the main workhorses, but bombers are also carrying in supplies. They are protected by every available Messerschmidt Bf109, but the Russians are having a field day, while other bombers are being shot down by a flak
corridor set up by the USSR.
Supplies are also being airlifted into another fiercely defended pocket, or "hedgehog", around Kholm. It is even more dangerous here, for the airfield is in range of Russian artillery and the Germans are being forced to drop supplies by parachute or land them by glider.
The effect of the "hedgehogs" is the break up the cohesion of the Russian front. The Russians cannot maintain their offensive and the Germans cannot regroup effectively. Both sides are now showing signs of exhaustion. The Germans lose more men from frostbite than from gunshot, and the Russians are simply running out of steam.

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ATLANTIC: Five U-boats - four of them outward bound
from their Biscay bases and fully loaded with torpedoes - have caused havoc with one of the first convoys to leave the United States for Europe.
The convoy was sighted 600 miles north-east of Cape Race and trailed until the submarines formed a hunting pack and struck. In the three-day battle that followed, eight ships - six of them large tankers - were sunk. The U-boats escaped unscathed.

FRANCE: During the night of the 25-26th, three RAF Bomber Command aircraft drop leaflets on Paris and Lille.
Paris: Galtier-Boissi� re's diary notes more arrests by the
Gestapo. "Marie-Claude, daughter of Lucille Vogel and widow of Vaillant-Couturier".

GERMANY: During the night of 25-26th, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 61 aircraft, 43 Wellingtons, 12 Manchesters and six Stirlings, to visually bomb a the floating drydock at Kiel; 36 aircraft bomb the target.
In the bombing of the harbor area, the accommodation ship Monte Sarmiento is hit and burnt out with the loss of 120-130 lives; 16 people are also killed and 39 injured in the town. Three Wellingtons are lost. Nine Hampdens also fly a mining mission along the coast.

GREECE: British Commandoes land on the Italian held Island of Castelorizzo in the Dodecanese Islands.

MEDITERRANEAN: British submarine HMS P38 is sunk off the coast of Tunisia by Italian destroyers.

NORWAY: During the night of the 25-26th, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 21 Whitleys to bomb aluminum factories at Heroya and Odda. These areas are cloud covered and the Whitleys return without bombing.

U.K.: The debate that began in the House of Commons yesterday comes to a close with many speakers being sharply critical of government policy, with the bombing of Germany being called into question.
Sir Stafford Cripps makes a speech asking why so many resources are being spent on building up Bomber Command.
Major General James E Chaney, Commanding General US Army Forces in British Isles (USAFBI), instructs Brigadier General Ira C Eaker and the staff of the VIII Bomber Command to proceed to HQ, RAF Bomber Command for a study of bombing operations, and to make reconnaissance
of certain airfields and submit plans for the reception and
assignment of US Army Air Forces units.

U.S.: Reports of unidentified aircraft approaching Los Angeles, California, from the ocean during the night of the 24th-25th result in the city being blacked out from 0227 to 0721 hours. During the "Battle of Los Angeles," some 1,400 rounds of 3-inch (7.62 cm) antiaircraft ammunition is fired against various "targets." Later the US Army will conclude
that the "battle" had been touched off by one to five unidentified aircraft, but the USN will maintain there was no reason for the firing.
The War Production Board bans the use of rubber thread in
brassieres, girdles and corsets for the duration of the war.
Thousands of American residents of Japanese descent are being forcibly moved from the west coast to internment camps in inland states. More than 112,000 people are being ordered into buses and lorries, often at gunpoint - whether or not they are American born or naturalised
citizens. Such is anti-Japanese hysteria in the United States since the attack on Pearl Harbor that most civil rights campaigners have turned a blind eye to the mass evacuation.
All 3,000 Japanese -American residents of Terminal Island, Los Angeles, have been given three days in which to leave.
The decision is a response both to fears on the part of the army and navy that the Japanese might help a Japanese invasion and to pressure from the public and politicians. Since the attack on Pearl Harbor seven Japanese have been murdered by vigilantes.
One US Senator has called for all Japanese, whether citizens or not to be placed in "concentration camps". Similar scenes are taking place in western Canada. Men are being parted from their families and placed in labour camps.
In the U.S., the U.S. Coast Guard assumes responsibility for U.S. port security.
In Washington, the Air War Plans Division recommends the removal of Operation GYMNAST (an early Allied plan for the seizure of Casablanca and the invasion of Northwest Africa) from the list of current projects.
This proposal, if adopted, would leave the 8th Air Force uncommitted to any operation.

USSR: Black Sea Fleet and Azov Flotilla: Shipping loss: MS "TSch-405 "Vzrivatel"" - by field artillery, close to Eupatoria (later raised) (Sergey Anisimov)(69)