1 January 1940

UNITED KINGDOM: Anti-Aircraft cruiser HMS Coventry is damaged in an air raid on the Shetland Islands.

RAF Coastal Command: Three Coastal Command aircraft encountered two German aircraft 130 miles off east coast of Scotland and shot one down.

A royal proclamation extends the liability of men for military service to the age of 27. Call-up groups are based on year of birth. Men aged 19 will register, but will not be liable for service until they are 20. First to be summoned for service (on 1 March) are those aged 23, and other groups will soon follow. All those eligible will be in uniform by the end of the year.

Fifty women resign from the Auxiliary Fire Service in protest at being told to scrub floors.

NORTH SEA: At 1058, SS Lars Magnus Trozelli was torpedoed and sunk by U-58 in the North Sea. The Norwegian SS Ask picked the survivors up the same day.

NORWAY: U.S. freighter SS City of Flint, her odyssey almost at an end, is damaged in a collision with the British steamship SS Baron Blytheswood. Repairs to City of Flint will keep her at Narvik for another six days. The German armoured ship Deutschland had seized City of Flint on 9 October 1939 and she had then been sailed to Norway, the U.S.S.R. and then back to Norway where she had been seized by Norwegian authorities and returned to U.S. custody on 3 November 1939.

FRANCE: Rail links with Spain are reopened, having been closed down three and a half years ago during the Spanish Civil War.

MAP

ITALY: Rome: Russia recalls its ambassador to Italy following anti-Soviet demonstrations in Rome.

GIBRALTAR: U.S. freighter SS Exeter is detained at Gibraltar by British authorities.

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Strength of Philippine Army is only 468 officers and 3,697 enlisted men, including 300 men assigned to the single regiment of the 1^st Division.

Quezon cuts defense Program. Franking privileges for Military Advisor’s office and Philippine Army headquarters ended. Number of trainees cut in half. 61 training camps closed, ROTC ended at all but one school, all further military construction and ordnance procurement terminated.

Lt Colonel Charles Willoughby appointed G-4 of the Philippine Department. (Marc Small)

Commissioned for Fisherman's Reserve and returned to owners 1946 - HMCS Aristocrat, Leola Vivian and Meander.

U.S.A.: The Department of State releases a statement to the press telling of the delivery of a "vigorous protest" (dated 27 December 1939) to the British Foreign Office concerning the British removing and censoring U.S. mail from British, U.S. and neutral ships.

URUGUAY: The government interns the German freighter SS Tacoma at Montevideo as an auxiliary war vessel.