http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/08.htm
January 8th, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM: Rationing is introduced today, housewives had to take their ration books with them to buy butter, sugar and bacon from the shops with whom they have registered. Butter is rationed at four ounces a week. Adults are allowed 12 ounces of sugar and four ounces of bacon or uncooked ham - less of cooked ham. Hotels are allowed to serve one-sixth of an ounce of butter - a circular pat the thickness of three pennies - with each meal, including afternoon tea. Some have installed special weighing machines. They can serve one-seventh of an ounce of sugar, or two lumps.
British housewives will be allowed extra sugar for making marmalade by the Ministry of Food, providing that the Treasury and Board of Trade permit the import of Seville oranges. Obtaining rationed food from Eire is punishable by six months imprisonment, unless it is sent as small gifts.
NORTH SEA: A converted Wellington bomber fitted with an energised metal hoop to explode magnetic mines does its first successful trials.
This was Wellington Mk IA, RAF serial number P2516. The aircraft was equipped with a 48 foot (14.63 meter) dural hoop under the fuselage energized by an auxiliary motor mounted in the fuselage. Several Wellingtons were converted to Wellington D.W. Mk Is and successfully used for mine duty in British coastal waters and later in the Mediterranean harbours and the Suez Canal. (Jack McKillop)
GERMANY: A new army headquarters is reported to have been established at Recklingshausen, ten miles from the Dutch border.
The Italian Ambassador delivers a message from Benito Mussolini to Adolf Hitler cautioning the Fuhrer against waging war against Britain. Mussolini asked if it was truly necessary “to risk all-including the regime-and to sacrifice the flower of German generations.” (Jack McKillop)
U-754 laid down.
U-575, U-576, U-577, U-578, U-579, U-580, U-581, U-582, U-583, U-584, U-585, U-586 ordered. (Dave Shirlaw)
FINLAND: Details of the Finnish victory over two Russian Divisions at Suomussalmi are released. The 44th Division was completely destroyed, trapped while going to the support of the defeated 163rd Division. The Finns captured 102 field guns, 43 tanks, over 300 vehicle and 1,170 horses.
Tonight in Helsinki the Church bells are ringing, flags are flying and strangers embracing on the streets in celebration.
Many Soviet tanks were burnt-out by Molotov cocktails thrown by Finns hiding in pits by the forest tracks, other Soviet troops froze to death with nothing to protect them from the cold except crude shelters of spruce branches.
When the Finns attacked some of the Soviet troops were too weak to stand, too cold to fight.
The Finnish Foreign Minister Väinö Tanner authorises the author and playwright Mrs. Hella Wuolijoki to discuss the possibility of peace with the Soviet Ambassador at Stockholm, Madame Alexandra Kollontay.
The commander of the Swedish volunteers, Lieutenant General Ernst Linder visits the Finnish GHQ to receive his orders.
Group Sisu is formed at Lapua, west-central Finland. It’s composed of non-Scandinavian foreign volunteers. At the moment only eight men are present.
(Mikko Härmeinen)
CHINA: Japan claims to have killed 25,000 Chinese in battle north of Canton.
U.S.A.: Quezon tells Sayres that MacArthur is “crazy”. (Marc Small)
Wuolijoki, Estonian by birth, was at least a fellow traveller, and probably a Russian agent of influence. She helped Otto Kuusinen translate ther “Internationale” into Finnish, and her sister was married to Palme Dutte, one of the two biggies in the CPUK.
Kollontay, although a Menshevik back in the day [she knew Lenin] had a long career as a Soviet diplomat. In her youth [and she was a beauty], and later she was a vocal exponent, and practitioner of ‘free love’, scandalizing the rather staid Bolsheviks. But Stalin seemed to have some affection, or at least respect, for her, and she survived the purges.
I think MacArthur's former aid and as of May of last year current regimental executive for the 15th Infantry would agree with him. Colonel Eisenhower referred to MacArthur as "General Impossible" and by the time he left the Philippines last May (two months after finally making colonel) he and the General were getting into daily arguments. The only reason the colonel had stayed on in the Philippines as long as he did was because it was "requested" by Quezon. Quezon wanted Ike to remain as a buffer between the Philippine government and the American Caesar.