UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Bomber Command: Reconnaissance of Germany.

RAF Fighter Command: Luftwaffe aircraft attacked the Orkneys, Shetland and shipping in the North Sea. aircraft driven off by fighters; 1 German aircraft severely damaged. No damage on land.

Ark Royal and Glorious sail from Scapa Flow destined for the Mediterranean Fleet for exercises.

BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC:

U-boats start withdrawing from the Western Approaches in preparation for the German invasion of Norway.

Losses. 2 ships of 11,000 tons.

1 U-boat.

Merchant Shipping War.

Losses. 43 ships of 96,000 tons.

ITALY: Mussolini warns King Victor Emmanuel III that Italy will join the war.

GERMANY: The German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis (ex SS Goldenfels), known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 16 and to the Royal Navy as Raider-C, sets off on a mission to catch and sink Allied merchant ships. Atlantis had been a merchant ship, but was converted to a commerce raider with six 5.9-inch (15 cm) guns, one 75 mm gun on the bow, and two twin-37 mm and four 20 mm automatic cannons all of which were hidden, mostly behind pivotable false deck structures. A phony crane and deckhouse on the aft section hid four of the 5.9-inch guns. The ship also had two waterline torpedo tubes, a 92 mine compartment, and two Heinkel He-114B seaplanes for reconnaissance. The Atlantis donned various disguises in order to integrate itself into any shipping milieu inconspicuously. Commanded by  Kapitän zur See Bernhard Rogge, the Atlantis roamed the Atlantic and Indian oceans. She sank a total of 22 merchant ships (146,000 tons in all) and proved a terror to the British Royal Navy.