Women's place in roles such as the Land Army has been more easily accepted and a course is being held this week in London to advise headmistresses on the changing face of women's work during the war.

No one need fear that the pilots of the Women's Section of the ATA are underqualified. The nine women - one first Officer, Pauline Gower, with 8 second officers in her command have over 7,500 hours flying time between them. The youngest of them, Joan Hughes is 22 and learnt to fly at 17 before she left school, and is a qualified instructor.
Cris Wetton writes: Apparently the ATA was originally staffed by men considered unfit for regular flying
duties and ATA was alleged to stand for "Ancient and Tattered Airmen".
The women pilots were known as "Atagirls".

RAF Fighter Command: Enemy aircraft attacked the Firth of Forth. One enemy aircraft destroyed. No damage inflicted on naval targets.

SS Sylvia sunk by U-20 NE of Aberdeen. All 20 crewmembers lost.

EUROPE: Belgium mobilises and Netherlands cancels all army leave; both countries are put on a state of alert for invasion from Germany.

FRANCE:  A Franco-Spanish Trade Agreement is signed. Spain is to receive French wheat, fertilizers and manufactured goods in exchange for iron ore and other minerals. 

GERMANY: Bad weather forecasts force Hitler to postpone the western offensive to 20 January.

Falls in the size of the German male workforce are giving Berlin cause for concern and could lead to a relaxation of the Nazi doctrine that a woman's place is in the home as housewife and mother.

The Nazis foresaw the potential problem as early as February 1939, when a new regulation allowing employers to recruit any skilled worker not yet called-up for military service for compulsory work in any industrial sector important to a war economy. This measure led to a partial redistribution of the German workforce to agriculture and armaments, but it still proved inadequate to make up expected shortfalls. In 1939 1.5 million men were called, but the expected figure for 1940 is 6 million.

Daily Keynote from the Reich Press Chief [Otto Dietrich]

Saturday 13 January 1940:

On 10 January 1940 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-101 is launched. (DS)

NORWAY:  Increases in defence expenditures produces the largest government budget in Norwegian history. 

GIBRALTAR:  U.S. freighter SS Narbo, bound for Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece, is detained at Gibraltar by British authorities. The Freighter SS Tripp, detained at Gibraltar by the British since 11 January, is released, but not before some items of her cargo are seized as contraband. 

UNITED STATES: The number 1 song in the U.S.A. on this date, according to Billboard magazine, is"South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)" by Shep Fields.

U.S.S.R.: The Yakovlev Ya-26, the prototype of the Yakovlev Yak-1, makes its first flight. The Yak-1 is a single-engine, low-wing monoplane fighter By June 1941, about 400 Yak-1s have been delivered. The aircraft is a vast improvement over the previous Soviet aircraft but is not equal to the Luftwaffe's Bf 109. A total of 8,666 Yak-1s are built before production ceased in the summer of 1944. .