Editorials – 10-11
Submarine Warfare
Unification in Sight
Republican Policy
“Taking Over” Our Stocks
The Unsolved Relief Problem
Gamble in Weather
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/feb40/f20feb40.htm
Finns repulse Soviet crossing
Tuesday, February 20, 1940 www.onwar.com
The Winter War... Finnish forces defeat Soviet forces attacking across the frozen Taipale River.
From Moscow... The Soviet government offers fresh peace talks to Finland.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/20.htm
February 20th, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM:
RAF Fighter Command: North Sea shipping is again attacked by the Luftwaffe. ASW trawler HMS Fifeshire bombed and sunk by German aircraft east of Copinsay, Scotland. (Dave Shirlaw)
RAF Bomber Command: Reconnaissance of Heligoland Bight; one aircraft is lost.
NORTH SEA: U-54 believed sunk by mine in North Sea. No survivors. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, who commanded XXI Corps in the invasion of Poland, is given command of the invasion force for Norway.
U-111 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
FINLAND: British Brigadier Christopher Ling and French Colonel Jean Ganéval visit Mannerheim’s GHQ. They give vague promises of future aid, but can give no concrete information.
The 8000 Swedish volunteers of Lt. Gen. Ernst Linder’s Svenska Frivilligkåren become officially a part of the Finnish field army.
Finnish Foreign Minister Väinö Tanner asks his Swedish collague Christian Günther to mediate between Finland and Soviet Union.
(Mikko Härmeinen)
U.S.S.R.: Moscow: Russia offers fresh peace talks to Finland.
CANADA: Corvettes HMCS Chambly, HMS Trillium and Mayflower laid down Montreal, Province of Quebec. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: 300 Douglas Boston Mk IIIs (Douglas Model DB-7B) attack bombers are ordered for the RAF. These are essentially the same as the USAAF Havocs but equipped with British instrumentation, bomb racks, radio equipment and machine guns. (Jack McKillop)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Day 173 February 20, 1940
War comes to the waters of the Americas. 75 miles southwest of Halifax, Nova Scotia, U-96 sinks British MV Empire Seal at midnight (carrying steel from USA to Belfast, 1 dead, 56 survivors picked up by the British CAM ship Empire Flame and landed at Halifax) and neutral American MV Lake Osweya at 04.53 (en route to Iceland, all 39 lives lost). In the Caribbean, U-129 sinks Norwegian SS Nordvangen at 4 AM 25 miles east of Trinidad (all 24 dead) & U-156 hits American SS Delplata with 3 torpedoes at 11.31 AM 60 miles west of Martinique. All 53 crew abandon ship and are picked up the next day by USS Lapwing, which scuttles Delpata with gunfire after finding her unsalvageable. http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/1353.html
U-54 goes missing in North Sea (all 41 hands lost), probably lost to mine barrages laid by the British destroyers HMS Ivanhoe and HMS Intrepid in early Jan 1940.
Finland, Soviets tanks dragging troops on armoured sleds penetrate the Finnish V-line as far as 1 km in places.