11 December 1940

ROMANIA: Bucharest: Associated Press reports that Romania has promised to deliver three million tons of oil to Germany in 1941. It is pointed out in the dispatch that the amount would be nearly twice as much as the total exported this year and twice as much as that sold to the Reich in 1936, when exports were at their peak.

NORTH AFRICA: Flg Off C H Dyson of 33 Sqn. RAF, flying a Hurricane, destroys seven Italian aircraft in a single action before being shot down himself. This is a record for an Allied pilot in the war. He is uninjured and returns to base six days later.

LIBYA: Ships of the British Mediterranean fleet shell Sollum.
Sidi Barrani: At dawn today Scottish troops appeared from a ridge overlooking the town of Sidi Barrani and charged into the ruins. After an hours of fierce hand-to-hand fighting, the Italian blackshirts began to hold up white flags. The first phase of the assault was complete and 15,000 Italians have been taken prisoner, including three generals.
Wavell telegrams to Dill:
Sidi Barrani area was attacked by 4 Indian Div., and 4 Armoured Brigade.
Maktila garrison withdrew west during night 9/10 December to dig in near Sidi Barrani. Enemy still in position between Sidi Barrani and Buqbuq. Patrols 11 Hussars have been 15 miles west of Buqbuq.
Navy bombards Sollum area.
3rd Coldstream Guards capture two Libyan battalions between Maktila and Sidi Barrani.

Later 4 Armoured Brigade is directed west of Buqbuq. 7 Armoured Brigade and Support Group is moving west of Sofafi camps to cut off enemy in that area.

Corvette HMCS Dunvegan launched Sorel, Province of Quebec.

Destroyer HMCS St Clair arrived Clyde for duty with EG-4 at Greenock.

Corvettes HMCS Eyebright, Mayflower, Spikenard and Orillia arrived Halifax incomplete from builders to avoid St Lawrence River freezing.

U.S.A.: Destroyer USS Farenholt laid down.

The British Ambassador to the U.S., Lord Lothian, asks for more American aid stating, "Hitlerism in the end must go down unless Admiral Mahan is all wrong. By ourselves we cannot be sure of this result though we will try our best. Not only is there the situation in the North Atlantic I have described, but no one can yet tell when the constant pressure of Hitler both on the Vichy government to give him control of the French fleet and bases in the Mediterranean, and on Japan to extend the war in the Pacific, may lead to. But with your help in airplanes, munitions, in ships and on the sea, and in the field of finance now being discussed between your Treasury and ours, we are sure of victory." Sure that the gangster menace to human freedom, the greatest the world has ever seen, will go down to the oblivion it deserves. But if ramparts fall, the war will inevitably cross the oceans and roll up against your shores. If Britain and the eastern shores of the Atlantic an d the islands which lie off its shores, Iceland, the Azores, or bases like Dakar fall into the dictators' hands, or if you are unable to defend the island fortresses in the Pacific, then the jumping off grounds go against you, the oceans become a passageway and your power to strike back at an enemy disappears because you have no bases from which to do so."

U-94 sank SS Empire Statesman in Convoy SLS-56.

U-96 sank SS Rotorua and Towa in Convoy HX-92.

U-65 was the first U-boat to cross the Equator, in Grid FC 39.

German freighter SS Rhein, having been trailed by USN destroyer USS Simpson (DD-221) and, later, USS MacLeish (DD-220), is intercepted by Dutch sloop HNMS Van Kinsbergen (U 93) near the Florida Straits between Florida and the Bahamas, and is scuttled by her own crew to avoid capture. The destroyers USS MacLeish and McCormick (DD-223) are present as the German ship's bid to escape fails.