There is low cloud and drizzle over the country and visibility is poor. During the day German aircraft activity is on a very small scale and is confined to a few isolated raids by single aircraft. Night activity commences at 1830 hours and is much less severe than for some long time. London appears to be the main objective. The number of fires reported during the last two nights in the London Region shows a considerable decrease and only one incident is serious. RAF Fighter Command claims 0-0-1 Luftwaffe aircraft; there are no RAF losses.

Losses: Luftwaffe, 3; RAF, 1.

London: MPs protested today at critical comments by the author H G Wells, now lecturing in America, about British politicians and generals, whom he has also criticised in the Sunday Pictorial magazine. The government was asked why he was allowed to go abroad to denigrate his country at its hour of peril. Emanuel (Manny) Shinwell, a Labour MP, deplored Wells's speech but said that we were fighting for the right of free expression. Mr Peake, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office, said that Britain needed all the dollars it could earn; an American senator has said that Wells is harming Britain's cause.

Destroyer HMS Avon Vale launched.

FRANCE: Hendaye: German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Spain's dictator Francisco Franco meet for nine hours in Hendaye, on the French/Spanish border. Hitler tries to get Spain committed to the war, or allow German troops to assault Gibraltar. Franco reluctantly agrees to eventually enter the war, in return for military, agricultural, and territorial demands, and only at a time of Spain's choosing.

GERMANY: The armored ship (pocket battleship) Admiral Scheer leaves Gotenhafen (now Gdynia, Poland) for the commerce war.

CANADA: Minesweepers HMS Kelowna and Courtenay ordered from Prince Rupert Dry Dock and Shipyards Co, Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

The Fifth group of overage USN destroyers involved in the destroyers-for-bases agreement are turned over to Royal Navy crews at Halifax, Nova Scotia:

USS Conner (DD-72), commissioned as HMS Leeds (G-27), USS McCalla (DD-253), commissioned as HMS Stanley (I-73), USS Philip (DD-76), commissioned as HMS Lancaster (G-05), USS Rodgers (DD-254), commissioned as HMS Sherwood (I-80), USS Stockton (DD-73), commissioned as HMS Ludlow (G-57), USS Twiggs (DD-127), commissioned as HMS Leamington (G-19), and USS Evans (DD-78), commissioned as HMS Mansfield (G-76), and USS Yarnell (DD-143), commissioned as HMS Lincoln (G-42), as part of the destroyers-for-bases deal.

USS Conway (DD-70), commissioned as HMS Lewes (G-68), part of the destroyers-for-bases deal. Lewes outlives all of her sisters in British service; stripped of valuable scrap and scuttled off Sydney, Australia 25 May 1946. (Ron Babuka)