January 27th, 1940 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill (uneasy at the slow increase in war production) speaks at Free Trade Hall, Manchester: "each to our station... there is not a week, nor a day, nor and hour to be lost!" He also says he is puzzled and worried about the "phoney war" and wonders why Britain has not been bombed yet. The speech is broadcast to the dominions and the United States.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Fir launched.
Sloop HMS Black Swan commissioned.
GERMANY: The Plan for the German invasion of Norway and Denmark is given a formal codename of "Weserubung".
FINLAND: There is an expectant air about the Mannerheim Line today as the Finns prepare for the massive attack that they know is being prepared by General Timoshenko, who has been whipping his Red Army into shape behind his defensive lines on the Karelian Isthmus. This does not mean that there is no action. Soviet guns have kept up a steady pounding of the Finnish positions and small groups of soldiers, now well-trained in winter tactics, have launched a series of attacks to wear down the Finns.
GIBRALTAR: U.S. freighter SS Cold Harbor, bound for Odessa, U.S.S.R., is detained at Gibraltar by British authorities.
REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA: Cape Town: In an extraordinary spectacle, with the former Prime Minister, General Hertzog, openly supporting Hitler, South Africa's all-white parliament has rejected the call for a separate peace with Germany.
The pro-British Premier, general Jan Smuts, likened the speech of Hertzog, his former Boer comrade-in-arms, to a chapter from Mein Kampf. "Goebbels could not have done it better," he said.
The division in the lobby was clear-cut, reflecting the division in the country - the English-speakers and liberal Afrikaaners in one camp, the irreconcilable Boers, with their own theories of racial supremacy , in the other.
U.S.A.: Baltimore: The 'City of Flint' arrives back at her home port following her adventures in the Baltic.Submarine USS Tautog launched.
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
At 2003, SS Faro was torpedoed by U-20 about 15 miles SE of Copinsay, Orkneys. She was taken in tow, later abandoned and was wrecked when drifted ashore in the Taracliff Bay near Copinsay the next day.
At 2313, SS Hosanger was torpedoed and sunk by U-20 15 miles SE of Copinsay Light. The ship was hit by one torpedo, lost the stern and sank within two minutes. The only survivor, Magnus Sandvik, managed to reach a raft with four others, but his shipmates froze to death while a British destroyer picked him up after about 15 hours. A line was thrown down on him, but he was not able to fasten it around himself, so a man from the destroyer jumped overboard to assist. He was then brought to a hospital in Kirkwall.