Posted on 01/20/2011 5:41:45 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/jan41/f20jan41.htm
Romanian Iron Guard revolts
Monday, January 20, 1941 www.onwar.com
In Romania... There is a revolt of the Iron Guard which is put down (by January 24th) on the order of General Antonescu with the help of the Romanian and German armies.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/20.htm
January 20th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: Fire-watching becomes compulsory today as part of Britain’s new Defence Regulations, under which men and women aged between 16 and 60 are to register for part-time Civil Defence service.
For the time being, the powers of Herbert Morrison, as Minister of Home Security, will only be exercised to require 48 hours of firewatching a month by men during the blackout hours. All factories, offices, shops, cinemas and theatres, churches, blocks of flats and private houses in the danger areas are to arrange fire-watching rotas. Empty properties will be the responsibility of the local authorities.
In commercial premises management have the same obligations as employees to take turns of duty in watching for incendiaries and dealing with them, unless the outbreak is so big that the fire brigade must be called.
Mr Morrison explained: “Big buildings will draw their parties within their own walls. Small ones will combine together.” In residential districts, fire-watching parties will be made up, some on patrol with stirrup pumps and sandbags at hand, some within call for when they are needed. No-one who is unfit or would suffer exceptional hardship has to enrol.
London:
Churchill enquires of the Commander-in-Chief Home Forces how they would deal with any very large German tanks put ashore in a raid or invasion, the current proposal seemed to be to follow them until they ran out of fuel, then attack the crew.
Churchill telegrams to Roosevelt inviting him to inspect the new battleship, King George V, which is bringing the new ambassador, Lord Halifax, to Annapolis.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Relonzo mined and sunk off Liverpool.
ASW trawler HMS Bressay launched.
ASW trawler HMS Sword Dance commissioned.
(Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: Berchtesgaden: On the second day of Hitler’s conference with Mussolini, Hitler declares that he believes the greatest danger to come from Russia, not from America.
U-boats U-235, U-236, U-237, U-238, U-239, U-240, U-268, U-269, U-270, U-271, U-272, U-273, U-305, U-306, U-307, U-308, U-341, U-342, U-343, U-344, U-363, U-364, U-365, U-366, U-391, U-392, U-393, U-394, U-396, U-397, U-398, U-417, U-418, U-419, U-420, U-469, U-470, U-471, U-472, U-473, U-635, U-636, U-637, U-638, U-639, U-640, U-641, U-642, U-643, U-644, U-645, U-646, U-669, U-670, U-671, U-672, U-673, U-674, U-777, U-778, U-779, U-821, U-822, U-841, U-842, U-843, U-844, U-845, U-846, U-847, U-848, U-849, U-850, U-851, U-852 are ordered. (Dave Shirlaw)
ALBANIA: The RAF heavily raids Valona.
ROMANIA: There is a revolt of the Iron Guard which is put down on the order of Marshal of Romania Ion Victor Antonescu with the help of the Rumanian and German armies. (Jack McKillop)
FAR EAST: Japan offers to mediate in the conflict between French Indochina and Thailand.
U.S.A.: Washington: Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated as President for the third time. He is the first President to hold the office for three successive terms.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: SS Florian sunk by U-94 42 miles south-east of Iceland. (Dave Shirlaw)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 508 January 20, 1941
At 00.42 AM 200 miles Southeast of Iceland, U-94 torpedoes British steamer Florian, which sinks in 42 seconds (all 41 hands lost). West of Ireland, Italian submarine Luigi fires a spread of 3 torpedoes at a group of 3 Allied destroyers but none hit. Italian submarine Marcello, returning to base at Bordeaux for repairs, sinks Belgian SS Portugal with the deck gun.
Kriegsmarine orders the construction of 75 new U-boats.
1000 miles off the coast of Angola, German cruiser Admiral Scheer sinks British steamer Stanpark and captures Dutch steamer Barneveld (sunk the following day). Among the prisoners taken from the 2 vessels are 3 Royal Navy officers on their way to take up appointments on warships the Mediterranean.
Minesweeping trawler HMT Relonzo sinks on a mine off Liverpool (19 killed).
Overnight, Italian positions at Tobruk, Libya, are bombarded from the air by RAF Wellington and Blenheim bombers and from the sea by monitor HMS Terror and gunboats HMS Gnat & Ladybird (escorted by Australian destroyers HMAS Stuart, Vampire & Voyager). Australian infantry and British tanks & artillery move into position to start the land attack on the Italian defenses.
Also today:
Chemist Glenn T. Seaborg has been working since early this month with the relatively new element Neptunium (93). What is trying to be established is that a portion of this element decays up to element 94 which will be very important later (plutonium). Back on January 9th Seaborg and his Emilio Segrè bombarded ten grams of unranly nitrate hexagydrate (UNH) for six hours in a cyclotron. From the resulting product they were able to identify on January 20th that the Np238 has a daughter alpha-emmitter which they strongly believed had to be element 94.
The only way to prove this would be to separate it chemically which they began to do immediately. If it separates chemically then it is a different element, if not then it is an isotope of the same element.
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