To spur diplomatic moves towards peace, USSR asks Finland to choose an island in the Gulf of Finland to give up as a Soviet military base. To press home their case for a settlement, Soviets continue their daily shelling and aerial bombing of Mannerheim Line fortifications and launch attacks around Summa with tanks pulling armored sleds. The sleds contain explosives to be dragged up to the Finnish concrete bunkers and detonated. The Finns are very tired and their artillery is running short of ammunition. Throughout this period (of Soviet attacks beginning on February 1st) the diplomatic exchanges via Sweden continue, but achieve nothing in the face of Soviet refusals to modify their terms.
Soviet infantry supported by tanks and protected by ski-borne armoured sheets manage to reach the front of the Finnish positions in Summa. By midnight the enemy has been forced to withdraw, leaving almost 150 armoured sheets in Finnish hands.
In addition, on the Eastern Isthmus, at 10:15 AM, two Soviet divisions shell the Kirvesmäki Cape and attack across the River Taipale which has been quiet for a week. They take two Finnish strongholds at Terenttilä at the extreme East end of the Mannerheim Line where the River Taipale empties into Lake Ladoga (Finnish casualties 219 men, with 32 killed).
The Red Army directs heavy shelling onto the eastern part of Kirvesmäki and the western strongholds in Terenttilä.
The Finnish positions being shelled are also bombed by nine enemy aircraft at the same time as fighter aircraft strafe the front lines.
The enemy assault on Kirvesmäki fails with the loss of two assault tanks.
The Finnish government announces today that a Swedish brigade of 6,000 men is manning part of the line on the Salla front.
There is no relief for the Soviet divisions abandoned North of Lake Ladoga by Timoshenko’s plan. Finnish 9th division annihilates 1,500 Soviet soldiers in mottis from 54th division around Kuhmo.
In Ladoga Karelia, the Soviets wipe out a Finnish ski battalion to the northeast of Lake Ladoga.
An Soviet detachment of around 250 men is surrounded to the east of Lake Nietjärvi.
Government ministers Ryti, Walden, and Tanner discuss the offer of help from the Allies and decide it should be used to exert pressure on both the Soviet Union and Sweden.
Second Lieutenant Wilhelm Bekassy, a Hungarian volunteer, disappears while flying his Fiat G50 fighter, bought from Italy and assembled in Sweden, from the Swedish city of Västerås to Säkylä in southwest Finland.
The Swedish national collection in aid of Finland has so far generated around 15 million krona.
The British Labour Party delegation visiting Finland leaves for home today.
The Paris Opera is putting on a special gala evening to raise funds for Finland.
An official Nazi decree established Łódź Ghetto. Friedrich Ubelhor, the governor of the Kalisz-Łódź District, issued the order to establish the Łódź ghetto. The original plan was to set up the ghetto in one day, in actuality, it took weeks. Jews from throughout the city were ordered to move into the sectioned off area, only bringing what they could hurriedly pack within just a few minutes.
Neville Chamberlain made a speech in Parliament updating the House on the general international situation, saying there was “no reason to be dissatisfied” with the early progress of the war. Chamberlain also praised the Finnish people for their “heroic struggle” that “has evoked the admiration of the world” and said that “further aid is now on its way.”
In a manifesto addressed as much to the people of Germany as to those of Great Britain, the British Labor Party declared today that there could be no peace between the two countries until “the accursed Nazi regime is overthrown.”
The third contingent of Canadian soldiers arrives in England at a west coast port.
Paris police raid the Soviet Press Agency and discover that it is being used as a front for pro-German propaganda.
The French Government today indicated that it could not consider Moscow’s protest against the raid on the commercial and other offices of the Russians in Paris on the ground that Soviet trade officials did not enjoy diplomatic privileges.
On the Western Front, two French soldiers capture a German patrol in Forbach Woods. One of the soldiers, Joseph Darnand, later heads the Vichy French secret police (January 10, 1943).
Turkey suddenly seized the German owned Krupp shipyards on the Golden Horn and placed her own marines in charge. The Turkish government at once discharged the German naval engineers and technicians who had been outfitting Turkish submarines in the huge marine works. Authoritative Turkish sources said the government had uncovered evidence of a network of Nazi agents ready to perpetrate explosions, train wrecks and other havoc throughout the near east on the signal from Berlin. Under the circumstances, they said, it was impossible to allow the Germans to remain in strategic positions.
The German submarine U-37 landed an agent in Donegal Bay, Ireland.
Convoy OA.88GF departs Southend.
The U.S. freighter Scottsburg was detained at Gibraltar by British authorities.
The War at Sea, Thursday, 8 February 1940 (naval-history.net)
Destroyers GALLANT and BOREAS unsuccessfully searched for a submarine reported at 2057, nine miles 207° from Sumburgh Head.
Destroyer GRIFFIN departed Aberdeen to search for a submarine SSE of Buchanness. Destroyers IVANHOE and ESCAPADE joined her to assist in the hunt.
Destroyer KIPLING attacked a submarine contact in Shapinsay Sound in 59-01N, 2-51W.
Anti-submarine trawlers of the 17th Anti-Submarine Striking Force were searching for destroyer DELIGHT’s contact of the day before – the 7th – NNE of St Abbs Head in 56-04N, 2-14W. LE TIGRE (516grt) attacked a contact and signaled CAPE WARWICK (516grt) which altered course to assist. CAPE WARWICK then struck a submerged object a glancing blow on the starboard side and dropped depth charges.
Light cruiser SHEFFIELD arrived in the Tyne.
Destroyer DARING rendezvoused with tanker BRITISH GOVERNOR (6840grt) and former German merchant ship ILSENSTEIN (8216grt) for escort to Scapa Flow, where they arrived safely on the 10th. ILSENSTEIN was sunk as a blockship at Scapa Flow on the 18th.
Destroyers ESK and EXPRESS arrived at Aberdeen, and BOREAS departed
Destroyers BRAZEN arrived at Rosyth, as did INTREPID and IVANHOE, and JAVELIN after dark.
Destroyers KIPLING and KIMBERLEY arrived at Scapa Flow. KIPLING immediately departed again to hunt a submarine.
Destroyers GURKHA and NUBIAN departed the Clyde for Scapa Flow.
Netlayer GUARDIAN departed Scapa Flow for Rosyth, and from there was due to proceed to the Clyde for refitting.
Minelayer PRINCESS VICTORIA and destroyers ESK and EXPRESS departed Aberdeen later that day on minelaying operation LD 3.
Submarines TRUANT arrived at Rosyth from patrol, and SEALION departed on patrol.
Submarine TRITON and minesweepers SEAGULL and SHARPSHOOTER departed Scapa Flow for Rosyth where they arrived on the 9th.
Armed merchant cruiser ANDANIA arrived in the Clyde from Northern Patrol.
Armed merchant cruiser WOLFE departed the Clyde to relieve light cruiser NEWCASTLE on Northern Patrol Station 53 and allow her to proceed to Station 3.
Armed merchant cruiser FORFAR arrived at Greenock from Northern Patrol.
Armed merchant cruiser CIRCASSIA investigated the report of a Fleetwood trawler about the sighting of a large merchant ship in company with a submarine.
U-37 landed two agents in Donegal Bay, Ireland.
Convoy HN.10 with two British, nineteen Norwegian, nine Swedish, two Finnish, six Estonian and one Panamanian ship departed Bergen escorted by destroyers IMOGEN, IMPERIAL, ILEX, and DELIGHT and submarine NARWHAL. DELIGHT detected a submarine contact SSE of Copinsay in 58 55N, 02 09W, and destroyers GALLANT and GRIFFIN and anti-submarine trawlers of the 11th Anti-Submarine Group joined in the hunt. Destroyer GURKHA and NUBIAN departed Scapa Flow the same day on anti-submarine patrol and attacked a contact shortly after sailing. On the 10th, destroyers KIMBERLEY and NUBIAN took over the escort of the twelve ships of the west coast portion of HN.10, while destroyers KANDAHAR, KHARTOUM, KASHMIR, and KINGSTON departed the Clyde, also on the 10th to meet this section. At dawn on the 11th, NUBIAN and KIMBERLEY left the convoy in 58-20N, 09-00W. (After her escort duties, destroyer GURKHA was to join.) On the 12th, a German submarine was located near the west coast portion of HN.10 and attacks by destroyers GURKHA and NUBIAN prevented any damage being done to the convoy. Meanwhile, the east coast portion of the convoy had arrived at Methil safely on the 11th.
Convoy FS.91 departed the Tyne at 2300, escorted by destroyers VIVIEN and JAVELIN, and arrived at Southend on the 10th.
Heavy cruisers DORSETSHIRE and SHROPSHIRE arrived at Buenos Aires and Montevideo, respectively, to refuel after escorting heavy cruiser EXETER.
German steamers CORDILLERA (12,055grt) had departed Livinston, Guatemala, on 25 August and arrived at Murmansk on 10 September while PHOENICIA (4124grt) had left Curacao on the same day in August and reached Murmansk in mid-September. There, they were assigned respectively as accommodation and replenishment ships for German submarines to operate against British lumber and ore shipping out of Murmansk and Narvik. Both steamers departed Murmansk on 2 December 1939 for Zapadnaya Litsa Bay, which was to be known as Basis Nord, and fishing vessel SACHSENWALD (650grt) arrived there with supplies a day earlier. Her job was to serve as a dispatch vessel. At the end of November, U-36 and U-38 departed Germany for Basis Nord, but were reassigned for operations against British shipping off northern Norway. The base itself was never used, CORDILLERA almost immediately returned to Murmansk, and then completed her voyage home reaching Hamburg on 8 February
German steamer KONIGSBERG (6466grt) departed Para, Brazi, but returned on the 16th after failing to break away from coastal patrol boats.
On the 8th, a Berlin communiqué admitted the following merchant shipping losses – 13,196 tons captured in enemy harbours (steamers POMONA, CHRISTOPH V. DOORNUM, and HAGEN in September 1939), 82,236 tons captured at sea by the enemy, and 141,525 tons scuttled to avoid capture. (See British list of 30 January).
Today in Washington, President Roosevelt discussed the question of disposal and distribution of surplus raw materials with members of the Cabinet and experts of the State and War Departments. He conferred with Myron C. Taylor, recently appointed as his personal representative to the Vatican, Mayor La Guardia and Chaim Weizman, Zionist leader. He received from Prince Bertil of Sweden a letter. from Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf. Tonight he broadcast from the White House a message of greeting to Boy Scouts on their thirtieth anniversary.
The Senate approved a resolution urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to expedite applications for bond issues to aid Finland, approved the $1,139,693,522 Independent Offices Appropriations Bill and adjourned at 3:50 PM until noon tomorrow.
The House approved a rule for consideration of the Ramspeck Civil Service bill, passed the $105,225,660 State-Justice-Commerce Appropriation Bill, approved the conference report on the $251,822,588 Emergency National Defense Bill and adjourned at 5:23 PM until noon tomorrow. The Ways and Means Committee approved extension of the trade agreements program.
Appropriation bills passed quickly through Congress today as the Senate completed work on the Independent Offices measure and sent it to the House for concurrence in amendments, and the House approved a conference report on the emergency defense deficiency bill and approved the supply bill for the State, Justice, and Commerce Departments. The Independent Offices bill was returned to the House with an addition by the Senate of $39,506,261 to the total approved by the lower chamber, where an economy campaign had made heavy inroads into budgetary estimates. The House voted $1,100,187,267 for the independent agencies; the Senate raised the total to $1,139,693,258.
The Senate total was $55,010,945 under the estimates for the next. fiscal year, but exceeded comparable appropriations for the current year by $23,247,596. Senator Barbour lost an amendment to eliminate from the measure an appropriation of $1,000,000 to start work on a dam at Coulter Shoals on the Tennessee River below Knoxville, the last dam planned for the chain in the Tennessee Valley Authority program. This dam eventually will cost an estimated $28,000,000.
As the vanguard of 3,000 members of the American Youth Congress began to arrive for a four-day citizenship institute which they said would constitute “a monster lobby for jobs, peace, civil liberties, education, and health” for young people, the congress announced that John L. Lewis had been added to the list of its speakers, which already includes the President and Mrs. Roosevelt and Attorney General Jackson. Meanwhile foes of the congress, who have repeatedly asserted that among the sixty-three national organizations with a total membership of 4,700,000 enrolled in the congress, the Communist elements have undue influence, disclosed that an effort would be made to force the congress to act on resolutions condemning the Soviet invasion of Finland and ousting the Youth Communist League and a group of other organizations which were characterized as “Communist fronts” by the Dies committee.
In the House the interest of Mrs. Roosevelt in the Youth Congress and her defense of it aroused the fire of Representative Frank B. Keefe, Republican, of Wisconsin, who said that it was “exceedingly interesting to note that of twentyseven House members who attended a meeting with officers of the Youth Congress at the White House sixteen were among the twenty-one who voted against continuance of the Dies committee. Representative Keefe said that it was “to the everlasting credit” of the Senators and Representatives who attended the meeting Monday that all except Representative Vito Marcantonio had gone on record “against the infiltration of the Young Communist League into the American Youth Congress.”
Despite the verbal assaults, the leaders of the congress went jubilantly ahead with preparations for their meeting, which will open tomorrow night with a Lincoln Memorial meeting in the auditorium of the Department of Labor. Attorney General Jackson and Senator Murray of Montana, sponsor of the American Youth Act to provide $500,000,000 for jobs and vocational training for young people, will speak. Led by a young woman on horseback costumed as a “1940 Joan of Arc,” the members of the congress will parade Saturday morning to the White House, where the President will speak to them at 12:30 from the South Portico. The parade will be featured by banners, floats and slogans designed to stress the opposition of the participants to war and their demands for further governmental aid for youth. Mr. Lewis will speak at a Saturday afternoon session devoted to the topic of jobs and vocational training.
Mrs. Roosevelt is scheduled to comment on the discussion at a Sunday evening meeting devoted to the question of “How the War Affects American Youth,” and the announcement says she has promised to answer questions from the floor. The institute proper will close with a Sunday meeting session, but the national assembly, consisting of representatives from each participating national organization and each local youth council, will meet Monday to act on resolutions. After their meeting the members of the assembly, about 130 in all, are to be guests at a White House tea. According to the program the only time at which resolutions will come up for action will be at the Monday meeting of the national assembly, and this will be a closed one.
The American Youth Congress, which President Roosevelt, Attorney General Jackson and John L. Lewis will address and which Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt has defended and aided, was charged yesterday with being “the junior front of the Communist Trojan horse movement,” by five men prominent in youth and patriotic movements.
Caught up in the wave of pro-Finnish feeling that seems to have swept through Congress with increasing force these last few days, the Senate today adopted by a vote of 65 to 3 the Harrison resolution memorializing the Securities and Exchange Commission to expedite consideration of any possible private bond issue for Finland.
Ten field ambulances and a huge shipment of medical supplies from this country have reached their destination for service with the Finnish Army, the American Red Cross, Brooklyn Chapter, announced yesterday.
A White House meeting discusses selling surplus munitions to the Finns and other Scandinavian nations.
Problems growing out of Allies’ raw material purchases in this country and the transfer of merchant ships to foreign registry were discussed today in a White House conference to which President Roosevelt summoned the heads of the State, War and Navy Departments.
Roosevelt meets with Chaim Weizmann about the Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine.
“Harry Sawyer” (William Sebold, born in Mulheim, Germany) arrives in New York to lead a German spy network in the USA. His special equipment includes “microdots”. Sebold is a spy for the Reich, but in actuality is a double agent working for the FBI. He sets up a short-wave radio transmitter with FBI help and begins transmitting reports (prepared by the FBI) to Berlin.
With a trace of wistfulness, William Dudley Pellley, the leader of the American fascist Silver Shirts, told the Dies House Un-American Affairs Committee that if his organization had succeeded in its purposes he “probably” would be in charge of the government now. And in that case, he continued, he “probably” would have put into effect something resembling Adolf Hitler’s policies with respect to the Jews, although he said he did not endorse Hitler’s exact methods. Pelley today praised the Dies committee so fulsomely for its work in combating un-American activities that Representative Starnes, acting chairman, angrily demanded that he cease such comments, and even extended the prohibition to committee members themselves.
Elliott Roosevelt, son of the President, said today that he did not approve of his father’s running for a third term, that Vice President Garner was not as bad as John L. Lewis said he is and that some members of the Roosevelt family do not like the Dies Committee.
Sixteen prelates of the Catholic Church in America called Thursday for the re-establishment of a “guild” system, “which will bind men together in society according to their respective occupations, thus creating moral unity.” With this, they declared, “a reform of morals and a profound renewal of the Christian spirit” will aid the nation to effect social reconstruction.
The adventure film “Swiss Family Robinson,” the first feature-length adaptation of the Johann David Wyss novel of the same name, was released.
Lewis & Hamilton’s musical “Two for the Show” premieres in NYC.
The St. Louis Browns make one of their best acquisitions ever when they purchase Eldon Auker from the Red Sox. Auker will become the ace of the staff winning 44 games over the next 3 seasons.
Chinese forces have successfully evaded a Japanese attempt at their encirclement and annihilation in the Nanning sector and are now counter-attacking the enemy at many points on his flanks, according to a Chinese military spokesman, who gave a weekly review of the war situation in Chungking today. The spokesman admitted Japanese capture of Pinyang, but denied the claims of Japanese that they had trapped more than a score of Chinese divisions and killed many thousands of Chinese troops. Using a map, the spokesman showed that the Japanese had tried to encircle the Chinese troops at Kunlunkuang by means of a wide right-wing envelopment, striking the Chinese at Pinyang and combined with a frontal attack and a shorter flanking maneuver by the Japanese left wing.
He indicated that the right-wing envelopment had failed through the Chinese recapture of Wingshun and Kantang along the route of the advance toward Pingyasen. The Chinese, he said, had abandoned positions between Naanning and Kunlunkuang but still held the pass itself. Advancing from Pinyang, the Japanese had been halted outside Shanglin, thirty miles to the northwest, the Chinese spokesman said. He added that the Japanese were using three and a half divisions of 78,000 men in the Nanning area.
Shangtung Operation: Japanese 21st Infantry Division, 32nd Infantry Division, and 5th Independent Mixed Brigade continue sweep through Shangtung peninsula.
Battle of South Kwangsi: Japanese forces capture Wuning north of Nanning.
Three Curtiss Hawk 75 fighters of the Chinese 18th Squadron intercepted 27 Japanese aircraft en route to Mengzi, Yunnan, China at 1505 hours. One of the Chinese fighters was heavily damaged and was forced to crash land, injuring pilot Yang Tzu-fan.
It is the 100th anniversary of the founding of New Zealand with the Anglo-Maori Treaty of Waitangi.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 148.4 (+1.77)
Born:
Ted Koppel, German-American broadcast journalist (ABC’s “Nightline”), in Nelson, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom.
Averil Cameron, British historian, in Leek, England, United Kingdom.
Talib Rasul Hakim [Stephen Chambers], American composer (Visions of Ishwara; Az-Zaahir-Al Batin (The Outward-The Inward)), in Asheville, North Carolina (d. 1988).
Naval Construction:
The Royal Navy Bar-class boom defense vessel HMS Barcote (Z 52) is launched by the Blyth Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. Ltd. (Blyth, U.K.).
The Royal Navy Hunt-class (Type I) escort destroyer HMS Holderness (L 48) is launched by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd. (Wallsend-on-Tyne, U.K.); completed by Wallsend.
The Royal Navy Chantiers Navales de Meulan experimental-type motor torpedo boat HMS MTB 108 is commissioned.
History Diaries 