The SS Patria was blown up and sunk at the port of Haifa, Palestine. The SS Patria was being used deport the refugees who were passengers of three Greek cargo ships who had been refused entry by the British into Palestine. These passengers were being embarked on the SS Patria for deportation to the island of Mauritius where a special camp was to be built. As the last passengers were coming on board, a tremendous explosion ripped the liner apart. The death toll amounted to 267 refugees killed. The explosion was the work of the Jewish underground army, the Haganah. The Haganah had made an earlier attempt to sabotage the ship with a small charge, which failed. A larger bomb was therefore used, but it turned out to be more powerful than the perpetrators expected, blowing a hole several feet across below the ship’s waterline, and the ship rolled over and sank within sixteen minutes. This triggered a long and bitter dispute within Haganah over the propriety of the attack. The British, for their part, believed that the attack had been carried out by the rival Jewish group Irgun. The truth only became public in 1957, when Munya Mardor, the operative who had planted the bomb, wrote an account of his activities in the Jewish underground. He recounted, “There was never any intent to cause the ship to sink. The British would have used this against the Jewish population and show it as an act of sabotage against the war effort”. He said that it was in the highest interest of the Haganah to fight the sanctions of the British White Paper of 1939, and the primary objective was to avoid casualties. The British estimated 267 people were killed, but neither the Jewish Agency nor the Haganah could establish how many people escaped the sinking and how many had died. Munya Mardor continued to work at the port in order to remove suspicion from himself. The Haganah also put up an investigative body to find out why such a relatively small amount of explosives could create such a large hole in the ship. The Haganah investigators concluded that the boat’s superstructure was in poor condition, and therefore unable to withstand the pressure of the explosion.
A Hitler decree (the basic law of social housing construction) gave Robert Ley’s German Labour Front the project of building 6 million homesteads, at the rate of 300,000 per year. Priority was given to providing homes for German families with children and Hitler alone kept personal responsibility for deciding how many houses should be built. The decree stated that houses were to have a minimum floor area of 62 square meters, a kitchen, two bedrooms, bathroom, hallway and balcony. Each home was also to have an air-raid shelter built to resist a direct hit and large enough to house everyone in the family.
The Nazi Intelligence agency Sicherheitsdienst (SD) arrests Dutch resistance fighter Bernard Ijzerdraat, founder of De Geuzen.
The first success of minesweepers against German acoustic mines; three are exploded.
In Glasgow, Sir Kingsley Wood, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, said the present war was the most costly that had ever been waged and that Britain’s daily expenditure now was £9,100,000, almost twice what it was in the first year of the conflict. Britain can and will find the money necessary to continue financing the struggle, he declared.
General Charles de Gaulle returned to London today from his African exploit and went straight to 10 Downing Street to give Prime Minister Winston Churchill an account of his adventures.
Operation COLLAR: British Royal Navy Force H under Admiral Somerville departed from Gibraltar to escort Allied convoy ME4 to Malta.
Arkadi A. Sobolev, the Secretary-General of Soviet Foreign Ministry arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria. Sobolev told Bogdan Filov, the Bulgarian Prime Minister, that if Bulgaria permitted the Soviets troop transfer access, the Soviets were prepared to drop their objections to Bulgaria’s entry into the Axis and, most surprisingly, stated that it likely would not be an issue as it would “very probably, almost certainly” lead to the Soviets’ own entry into the Axis. Filov was stunned and stated that this new offer required further contemplation.
RAF Bomber Command dispatches 36 Hampdens, Whitleys and Wellingtons overnight; targets were difficult to locate. Wilhelmshaven reports only 1 bomb on an air-raid shelter, which was empty, and 2 bombs in open ground. Kiel reports sirens but no bombing incidents. 1 Wellington lost.
The prototype DH.98 de Havilland Mosquito, aircraft E0234, made its first flight with Geoffrey de Haviland at the controls. The plane was designed as a bomber fast enough not to need defensive armament and had a top speed of 400 mph. The plane will have the normal teething problems, but its potential quickly becomes obvious. By February 1941, it is clear that the “Mossie” is not only faster than any other bomber in the sky, it is also faster than the Spitfire II fighter of the RAF (or the German Messerschmitt), with a top speed at altitude of almost 400 miles per hour. Once the aircraft is fitted with the latest Merlin 61 engines in October 1941, this changes to well in excess of 400 miles per hour. The superlative aircraft will serve the RAF and commonwealth air forces as a bomber, fighter, fighter-bomber, night fighter, and photographic reconnaissance aircraft, going down in history as one fo the greatest aircraft of World War II and indeed, of all time.
During the night 5 British aircraft attacked battleship Tirpitz in bad weather conditions; they scored no hits.
Arthur Harris is appointed Deputy Chief of the Air Staff for the RAF.
Anti-aircraft ship HMS Alynbank transferred to convoy EN.31.
Destroyer HMS Vimy departed Scapa Flow at 0900 to rendezvous with armed merchant cruisers HMS Letitia and HMS Wolfe and destroyer HMS St Marys ten miles 090° from Butt of Lewis at 1515/25th to provide escort. Owing to weather, destroyer Vimy could not make seven knots and could not join. Destroyer Vimy arrived at Scapa Flow at 1720/27th.
Destroyer HMS Verdun completed her conversion to fast escort vessel.
Submarine HMS Talisman reported torpedoing a German tanker off Lorient in 47-37N, 3-50W. Submarine Talisman left the tanker dead in the water with a trawler standing by her.
Later in the day, the submarine captured French fishing vessel Le Clipper (40grt) off Lorient. The vessel was used to observe German submarine movements.
Motor launch ML.111 (Lt A. V. C. Hoadley RNR) was sunk on a mine near Chequer Shoal Buoy off the Humber. Two ratings were missing and Lt Hoadley wounded.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Conquistador (224grt, T/Skipper J. Paterson (act) RNR) was sunk in a collision in the Thames Estuary.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Kennymore (225grt, T/Skipper J. W. Greene RNR) was sunk on a mine in the Thames Estuary, off the East Oaze Light Vessel. Four ratings were lost in the trawler. Greene was wounded.
British hopper barge TCC Hopper No. 3 (698grt) was sunk on a mine 54‑40N, 01‑07W. The entire crew was rescued.
Force H departed Gibraltar on Operation COLLAR. Departing were battlecruiser HMS Renown, aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, light cruisers HMS Sheffield, HMS Despatch, HMS Manchester, and HMS Southampton (the last two carrying 700 RAF personnel each for Alexandria embarked from troopship Franconia), and destroyers HMS Hotspur (proceeding to Malta for repairs), HMS Firedrake, HMS Faulknor, HMS Forester, HMS Fury, HMS Wishart, HMS Duncan, HMS Encounter, HMS Jaguar, HMS Kelvin, and HMS Vidette.
Battleship HMS Royal Sovereign, which was repairing at Gibraltar, was considered for this operation, but not used as she was not ready in time.
Force F light cruisers HMS Southampton and HMS Manchester and destroyer HMS Hotspur were en route to Alexandria. Force F was escorted by destroyers HMS Duncan and HMS Vidette.
Also sailing were British steamers Clan Forbes (7529grt), Clan Fraser (7529grt), and NEW Zealand Star (10, 740grt) and new corvettes HMS Salvia, HMS Hyacinth, HMS Peony, and HMS Gloxinia. Corvette Gloxinia arrived at Malta with engine room defects. The other three corvettes proceeded to Alexandria and steamer New Zealand Star went directly to Suda Bay.
The Mediterranean Fleet departed Alexandria at 0325 for COLLAR as Force A with battleships HMS Warspite and HMS Valiant, aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, and destroyers HMS Decoy (for repairs at Malta), HMS Jervis, HMS Janus, HMS Juno, HMS Nubian, HMS Mohawk, HMS Griffin, HMAS Waterhen, and HMS Wryneck.
At noon, troopship Ulster Prince, with the last of BARBARITY details, joined the Fleet. Heavy cruiser HMS York and light cruisers HMS Glasgow and HMS Gloucester of the 3rd Cruiser Squadron departed Alexandria later in the day and joined the Fleet at sea at 1600. Destroyers HMS Hero and HMS Hereward, which departed Malta at 0500 that day, joined the Warspite force on the 26th.
All the Mediterranean Fleet destroyers, less HMS Imperial and HMAS Stuart under repairs, were involved in COLLAR.
British netlayer HMS Protector and armed boarding vessels HMS Fiona and HMS Chakla departed Alexandria for Suda Bay.
Convoy HX.91 departed Halifax at 1600 escorted by Canadian destroyer HMCS Assiniboine and auxiliary patrol vessel HMCS French. Auxiliary patrol vessels HMCS Elk and HMCS Husky operated within the harbor approaches. Patrol vessel French departed the convoy at 1711 and destroyer Assiniboine departed at 1450/26th. The ocean escort was Battleship HMS Revenge and Canadian destroyer HMCS St Clair. The battleship was detached on 4 December. The destroyer continued with the convoy and arrived in the Clyde on 11 December.
Convoy BHX.91 departed Bermuda on the 23rd escorted by ocean escort armed merchant cruiser HMS Ascania. The convoy rendezvoused with convoy HX.91 on the 28th and the armed merchant cruiser was detached. On 6 December destroyers HMS Vansittart and HMS Walker and corvette HMS Candytuft joined the convoy. Corvette Honeysuckle joined on the 8th. The destroyers were detached on10 December. The convoy arrived at Liverpool on 11 December.
A Greek convoy of seven steamers, escorted by four destroyers, departed Suda Bay for Piraeus.
In Washington, President Roosevelt conferred with the Marquess of Lothian, British Ambassador, on aid to Great Britain, discussed the legislative situation with Senator Barkley, the majority leader, and Speaker Rayburn, and received UnderSecretary Welles, the Argentine Ambassador and Dr. Paul Prebisch, head of the Argentine Economic Mission.
The Senate voted to consider the Logan-Walter bill, elected Senator George chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, confirmed the nomination of Wayne C. Taylor to be Undersecretary of Commerce, received the Nye resolution for an investigation of British financial resources in the United States and recessed at 1:36 PM until noon tomorrow.
The House heard criticism of strikes in defense industries, received the Hoffman bill to prevent unions from requiring dues of defense industry workers and adjourned at 1:25 PM until noon on Thursday. The Dies committee issued a statement on Communists in defense industries.
Senator Hiram Johnson, California Republican, a noted isolationist and one of the most influential members of the Senate, today served notice on congress that “there will be one hell of a fight to prevent repeal or modification of the Johnson Act to make loans or give credits to Great Britain or any nation in default of its World war obligations.” necessary to permit financial aid. He was asked at his press conference whether there might be ways of extending financial assistance without revising the Johnson and neutrality acts, which bar credits to a debt defaulter or a belligerent. Hull replied that he would not undertake to say there was any way without action by Congress in some approving manner.
The British Ambassador to Washington, the Marquess of Lothian, leaving the White House after a report to President Roosevelt on his visit to London, said British optimism as to a successful conclusion of the war was based on continued and accelerated aid from the United States. He said he and the President had not discussed finances. Senator Hiram Johnson, commenting on Lord Lothian’s statement last Saturday that Britain would need financial aid for war purchases here, said he would oppose any change in the Johnson bill, which now bars loans to Britain.
Chairman Martin Dies of the House Committee on Un-American affairs charged in a statement today that Communists and Nazis are at work in every important American industry. The statement, issued through Committee Secretary Robert E. Stripling, invited attention to “a deplorable weakness in our government dealing with fifth columnists and cited in particular department of justice knowledge that the Vultee Aircraft Co. strike in California “has been prolonged by Communists.”
The Logan-Walter bill, imposing judicial curbs on the rule-making power of government boards and various New Deal agencies, became the unfinished business of the Senate today. The vote to take it up, carrying by a margin of 34 to 21, was a defeat for the Administration leadership, administered by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats at the first meeting of the Senate in its temporary quarters of the old Supreme Court chamber, the home of the Senate in the days before the Civil War. Analysis of the roll-call indicated that the bill probably would pass if it came to a vote at this session, but it failed to show the necessary two-thirds majority to pass it over the virtually certain veto of President Roosevelt.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided Helvering v. Horst, which further developed the “fruit-and-tree” metaphor established in Lucas v. Earl. Horst is the leading case that applies the assignment of income doctrine to income from property.
A report that Miss Frances Perkins had submitted her resignation as Secretary of labor to President Roosevelt was denied today by the White House.
The American Federation of Labor demanded by vote in convention today that Congress forbid the issuance of national defense contracts to violators of federal labor laws. The convention raised the salary of the federation president, William Green, from $12,000 a year to $20,000 and stirred echoes of the walkout five years ago of the original C.I.O. unions by vesting in its executive council power to suspend unions that conspired to form a dual organization. In an interview Mr. Green declared that no strike “for any reason” could be permitted to interrupt the production of war materials for national defense or for aid to Great Britain. “Tribunals could be set up to adjust differences,” he said.
The first large group of men from the selective service enrollment that will furnish the bulk of the Republic’s rapidly expanding armed forces entered the Army yesterday at many points throughout the country.
Rising temperatures brought a new menace falling blocks of ice to harass Amarillo, Texas, tonight while new flood crests inundated extensive areas to the south. Two homes were swept away by flood waters at Brooltshire, 30 miles west of Houston, and at least seven persons were missing and believed dead. So far, the only known fatality in the three-day storm siege was a fishing camp employee in West Galveston whose boat overturned while he was rowing two duck hunters to shore. The hunters were saved by coast guardsmen.
The Martin B-26 Marauder made its first flight. The first Martin Model 179, USAAF B-26-MA Marauder, s/n 40-1361, msn 1226, makes its first flight at the Martin Airport in Middle River, Maryland, piloted by William K. Ebel, the chief engineer of the Glenn L. Martin Company.
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) announced that it would build a new laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio. The Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory (AERL) would be established in 1941. It was renamed the NACA Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in 1948 and the Lewis Research Center in 1958, the same year that the NACA became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA Lewis was renamed again in 1999 as the John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field.
Kichisaburō Nomura was named Japanese Ambassador to the United States.
Woody Woodpecker made his debut in the animated short, “Knock Knock.”
The University of Michigan football team retires Tom Harmon’s #98
The U.S. Navy heavy cruiser USS Louisville (CA-28) departs Santos, Brazil, for Rio Grande du Sol, continuing her goodwill cruise in Latin American waters.
The Japanese are massing a large field army in Hankow for a drive against the main positions of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist armies east of Chungking, a well-informed European authority said today. The assembling of men and equipment for this army, according to the informant, who reached Lashio from the Yangtze Valley by way of the Burma Road, explains recent Japanese naval activity along the South China coast and on the Lower and Central Yangtze River. Launching of the Japanese attack, he believed, would follow Japan’s recognition of the Nanking regime headed by former Premier Wang Ching-wei as the “National Government of China.”
The Japanese already have assembled many divisions” at Hankow, including units formerly on duty in Kwangsi Province and the Lower Yangtze Valley, the informant said. The divisions include mechanized and chemical warfare units. The purpose of the new “general offensive,” the informant said, will be to give a “death blow to the Chungking regime.” Several squadrons of heavy Japanese bombing planes recently stationed at Nanning, Kwangsi Province, recently were flown to Hankow, the informant said. The informant described recent reports in Shanghai that the Japanese were massing forces on Hainan Island for occupation of Saigon. French Indo-China, as part of a “smoke screen” of rumors put out by the Japanese to hide their real intentions.
Japanese 11th Army launched an offensive in Hubei Province, China.
Chungking experienced its first air-raid alarm in exactly a month today as defense outposts reported Japanese planes left a Central China base, but the all clear sounded as the populace was hurrying to shelters.
Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, in an interview today with the newspaper Asahi, declared he would pursue the middle path of diplomacy as Japan’s ambassador to the United States. (The Interview followed a semiofficial radio report by Domei, Japanese news agency, that Admiral Nomura had been appointed ambassador to succeed Kensuke Horinou-chi, recalled last September.
German armed merchant cruisers Orion and Komet sank New Zealand steamer Holmwood (546grt) in the South Pacific twenty seven miles west by south of Durham Point, Chatham Island in 43‑44S, 177‑30W. Seventeen crew and thirteen passengers were landed at Emirau Island on 21 December.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 131.96 (+0.49)
Born:
Joe Gibbs, NFL head coach (Washington Redskins; NFL Championships, Super Bowl 17, 1982; Super Bowl 22, 1987; Super Bowl 26, 1991), in Mocksville, North Carolina.
Percy Sledge, American soul singer (“When A Man Loves A Woman”; “Take Time to Know Her”), in Leighton, Alabama (d. 2015).
Reinhard Furrer, German physicist and astronaut (1982 German Group; STS-61-A, 1985), in Worgl, Germany. During his time as a student in Berlin, he was involved in the building of the 145-metre-long (476 feet) “Tunnel 57” below the Berlin Wall, which was the escape route of 57 people from East Berlin to the West in October 1964.
Dennis Aust, MLB pitcher (St. Louis Cardinals), in Tecumseh, Nebraska.
Naval Construction:
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type VIIC U-boat U-92 is laid down by Flender Werke AG, Lübeck (werk 296).
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type IXD2 U-boat U-177 is laid down by AG Weser, Bremen (werk 1017).
The Nihon Kaigun (Imperial Japanese Navy) Kagerō-class destroyer HIJMS Hamakaze (浜風; “Beach Wind”) is launched by the Uraga Dock Company (Uraga, Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture,, Japan).
The Royal Navy anti-aircraft ship HMS Springbank (F 50) is commissioned. Her first commanding officer is Captain (retired) Claud Herbert Godwin, DSO, RN.
The Royal Canadian Navy corvette HMCS Orillia (K 119) is commissioned. Her first commanding officer is T/Lieutenant Commander William Edgar Slade Briggs, RCNR.
The Royal Canadian Navy corvette HMCS Cobalt (K 124) is commissioned. Her first commanding officer is T/A/Lieutenant Commander Robert Baird Campbell, RCNR.
The Nihon Kaigun (Imperial Japanese Navy) Kagerō-class destroyer HIJMS Arashi (嵐; “Storm”) is commissioned. Her first commanding officer is Commander Watanabe Yasumasa.
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