75 years ago today… January 12, 1940 After an 18-day respite, Soviet planes resume bombing of Helsinki, Abo, and Lahti in Finland. Secret meeting in Sweden between Finnish and Soviet representatives. General Alfred Jodl, the Wehrmachts Chief of Operations, gave Hitler an assessment of what the Belgians might have learned from documents recovered in the Mechelen Incident. A note in Jodls diary summed up what he had said to Hitler: “If the enemy is in possession of all the files, situation catastrophic.” The Germans would at first be falsely reassured by Belgian deception measures. In the Mechelen Incident Major Helmuth Reinberger and Major Eric Hönmanns meet the German Air and Army Attachés to Belgium, Lieutenant-General Ralph Wenninger and Colonel Friedrich Carl Rabe von Pappenheim, while their conversations were secretly recorded. During this meeting Reinberger informed Wenninger that he had managed to burn the papers enough to make them unreadable. French supreme commander Maurice Gamelin held a meeting with the highest French operational army commanders and the Chief of Military Intelligence Colonel Louis Rivet. Rivet was skeptical of the warning from the Belgians but Gamelin considered that, even if it all were a false alarm, this would be an excellent opportunity to pressure the Belgians into allowing a French advance into their country. Both to intensify the crisis and to be ready for any occasion that presented itself, Gamelin ordered 1st Army Group and the adjoining Third Army to march toward the Belgian frontier. Dutch Queen Wilhelmina and her government are alarmed when notified by the Belgians of the contents recovered in the Mechelen Incident. Dutch supreme commander Izaak H. Reijnders was skeptical of the information. When the Belgian military attaché in The Hague, Lieutenant-Colonel Pierre Diepenrijckx, handed him a personal memorandum from Van Overstraeten, he reacted: Do you believe in these messages yourself? I dont believe in them at all. The Dutch were not informed of the precise source and the Belgians hid the fact that the Germans only intended a partial occupation of The Netherlands, without the Dutch National Redoubt, the Vesting Holland. First German attack is made on London. The targets are still military ones. Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys of No.77 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, operating from Villeneuve in France, dropped leaflets over Prague and Vienna for the first time. The Royal Navy trawler HMT Valdora was bombed and sunk in the North Sea off Cromer, Norfolk by aircraft of X Fliegerkorps, Luftwaffe with the loss of all ten crew. At 0650, the Danish cargo ship Danmark was hit by one torpedo from U-23 when she was anchored in a Bay in the Shetlands. She exploded, broke in two and drifted ashore. On 21 January, the afterpart sank and the forepart was refloated, taken to Inverkeithing and used as storage hulk. Of the ship’s complement, all 40 survived. The 10,517 ton Danmark was carrying petrol and kerosene and was bound for Nyborg, Denmark. British steamer Granta (2719grt) sinks in the German destroyer minefield off Cromer, in 53 13N, 01 21E, eleven miles 123° from Cromer Knoll Light Vessel. Twelve of her crew were lost, and sloop Stork and fishing vessels Fulham IV and Robur VIII rescued the survivors. The British fishing vessel William Ivey was bombed and sunk in the North Sea off St Abbs Head, Northumberland. The Estonian cargo ship Kastor ran aground off Lysekil, Sweden. Convoy OA 71 departs Southend. Convoy OB 71 departs Liverpool. Convoy OB 71M departs Liverpool. Convoy HXF 16 departs Halifax for Dover. Interior Department motorship North Star (U.S. Antarctic Service) reaches Bay of Whales, Antarctica, and immediately begins discharging cargo to establish West Base. Ice conditions prohibit unloading at the original chosen site, King Edward VII Land. Chinese Winter Offensive: Chinese 4th War Area captures Pachiangkou and Yuantan. https://youtube/watch?v=WL9zMs9xM1o
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 15:13:57 +0000
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