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January 3rd, 1940 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
Unity Mitford returns home via Switzerland after attempting suicide in the 'Englischer
Garten' in Munich. She had gone to Germany when Nazism attracted many English admirers.
Aged 24, she is a member of the family of Lord Redesdale. She became known as the 'Storm
Trooper Maiden' in the 'Osteria Bavaria' restaurant in Munch after Hitler invited her to
his table. In 1933, 19-year-old Mitford travelled to Nuremberg, Germany for
a rally and met the man she had become obsessed with, Adolf Hitler. She became a
member of Adolf Hitler's entourage and a passionate though naïve supporter of
National Socialism, along with her sister Diana Mitford, who married the British
fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley. British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) more
commonly known as MI6, reports from 1936 state that she saw a lot of Hitler
whenever he was in Munich and they viewed her as "more Nazi than the Nazis." The
same report said that she gave the "Hitler salute" to the British Consul General
in Munich who immediately requested that her passport be impounded. When Britain
declared war on Germany, a distraught Mitford sent a farewell letter to Hitler
and s hot herself in the head. The suicide attempt failed and she returned to
England, mentally damaged. She spent the rest of her life on the island of Inch
Kenneth, an uninhabited island off the west coast of the island of Mull,
Scotland; the island was owned by her family. Doctors had decided it was too
dangerous to remove the lodged bullet, and she eventually died of meningitis on
28 May 1948 caused by the cerebral swelling around it.No. 10 Sqn. RAAF is assigned to No. 15 Group RAF Coastal Command.
Submarine HMS Taku commissioned.
U.S. freighter SS Mormacsun is intercepted by British naval vessel and
diverted to Kirkwall, Scotland, into the zone designated as a combat area.
NORTH SEA: SS Svartön
sunk by U-58 57.48N, 01.47W - Grid AN 1866. (DS)
GERMANY:
U-143 and
U-753 are laid down. (DS)
FINLAND:
The government claims to have destroyed 400 Russian tanks and brought down 150 planes
since the fighting began.
BALTIC SEA:
Soviet submarine S-2 struck a mine at Märket and sinks.
(DS)
SPAIN: Cadiz:
U-25 becomes the first Axis
submarine to take advantage of Spain's offer to allow provisioning and
refuelling in its ports. It ties up along the German freighter THALIA. After
four hours of taking supplies off the merchant ship,
U-25 returns to sea.
(Russell Folsom)(206 p.118)
GIBRALTAR: U.S. freighter
SS Nashaba is detained by British authorities at Gibraltar. The freighter SS
Executive, detained at Gibraltar since 20 December 1939, is released to proceed
on her voyage to Greece, Turkey, and Rumania.
U.S.A.: In his annual
budget message, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asks Congress to provide
US$1.8 billion (US$25.11 billion in year 2005 dollars) for national defence, new
appropriations of almost US$1.2 billion (US$16.74 billion in year 2005 dollars),
and the development of an annual production program of 50,000 aircraft.
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