This doesn't explain why so many trains run late in the daytime. Even daily commuter journeys habitually take half-an-hour longer than advertised, if not more.

RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group. Daylight Anti-shipping sweep over the North Sea. 77 Sqn, two Whitley Mk. Vs, aircraft. 102 Sqn, two Whitley Mk. V aircraft. No enemy shipping sighted.

North Sea Reconnaissance - One German aircraft destroyed, one RAF Blenheim lost.

BELGIUM: A German military Me 108 courier aircraft on a flight from Munster to Cologne deviated from its heading due to bad weather while carrying important deployment documents, and had to make an emergency landing at Mechelen-sur-Meuse, Belgium. Luftwaffe headquarters in Berlin is in turmoil after learning of the crash-landing from the German embassy in Brussels. One of the passengers had tried to set fire to papers he had taken from his briefcase, but Belgian soldiers closed in and retrieved the partly burnt papers. The passenger was Major Helmut Reinberger, a Luftwaffe staff officer, and the papers were operational plans, complete with maps, for a German airborne assault on the west to begin on 14 January with saturation bombing of French airfields. Extra.

When told of this Hitler is reported to have said, "It's things like this that can lose us the war."

GERMANY: Hitler tells his generals that he has set 17 January as the date for the attack on the Western Front.

The Luftwaffe High Command (the OKL) instructed the German press that it was forbidden to publish any information about the Me 110, Ju 88 and Me 210 bomber aircraft, mine-laying aircraft, one ton bombs, and the aircraft controlling and reporting service [Flugmeldedienst].

U-144 is laid down. (DS)

SWEDEN: The Swedish government rejects the Soviet claim that Sweden is pursuing an "unneutral" policy. 

FINLAND: The Soviet's 122th Division starts a retreat in Joutsijärvi. The Finnish IV Corps launches an attack, which leads to the encirclement of the Soviet 34th Tank Brigade, 18th and 168th Divisions. By the end of the war 18th Division and 34th Tank Brigade are destroyed while the 168th suffers from starvation and lack of ammunition, but is saved by relieve attack and peace.

EGYPT: U.S. steamship SS President Van Buren, bound for Genoa, Italy, and New York, New York, is detained at Port Said, Egypt, and subsequently discharges items of cargo, deemed as contraband, at Alexandria, Egypt, before being allowed to proceed.

AUSTRALIA: Four passenger liners depart Sydney, New South Wales, carrying the Australian 16th Brigade bound for Egypt. The ships, escorted by the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia, will rendezvous with the convoy carrying the New Zealand 4th Brigade that sailed from Auckland on 6 January.