December 20th, 1940 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Liverpool: Luftwaffe bombers stage another damaging night-time raid. The worst attack of the war so far. London had one of its earliest night alarms.Corvette HMS Trillium arrived at Greenock from Canada for final fitting out.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Cumbrae launched.
GERMANY: U-331 launched.
FINLAND: Risto Ryti takes over as president of Finland, from Dr. Kyosti Kallio. Kallio has been the President of the Republic since 1937. The Winter War has been an especially hard time for him, even if the more immediate decision making has in practice been in other hands, in civilian affairs with Prime Minister Ryti and Foreign Minister Väinö Tanner, and in military matters with Marshal Carl Mannerheim. On 12 March 1940 Kallio gave the Finnish negotiatiors the powers to sign the harsh peace treaty with the Soviet Union, he uttered the famous words "May wither the hand that has signed a paper like this!" The next summer (1940) Kallio suffered a stroke that left his right arm paralysed. Kallio's health deteriorated during the summer and autumn of 1940, and finally he gave up the presidency today. The President is normally elected by a chamber of electors elected by popular vote. This time this process is dispensed with and the new President is elected by the electors of 1937. The new President Risto Ryti had been the Prime Minister during the Winter War and the Director of the Bank of Finland before that. Later on the same day Dr. Kallio leaves Helsinki for his estate in Nivala. But at the Helsinki railway station, as he is seen off by the Finnish political and military leadership, he suffers the final fatal stroke and dies in the arms of his senior adjutant Colonel Aladar Paasonen.
ALBANIA: Greece starts a bombardment of Klisura.
BULGARIA: Laws to crack down on Jews and Freemasons are introduced.
NORTH AFRICA: Wavell to
CIGS:
...investment of Bardia proceeding. 16 Brigade and 16 Australian Brigade now grouped under
6th Australian Div. 100 guns should be in position against Bardia by tomorrow morning.
Transport strained ... Large percentage of vehicles out of action awaiting repair.
... we want Bardia as soon as possible but do not propose to risk failure and heavy
casualties, especially as this is Australians' first operation.
CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS Esquimalt laid down Sorel, Province of Quebec.
Destroyer HMCS
Assiniboine returned to operational status from refit.
U.S.A.: Washington: Roosevelt creates a four-man board for the defence drive. William Knudsen is
to be director; Sidney Hillman is to look after the interests of labour; Colonel Frank
Knox, the navy, and Henry L. Stimson, the army. It is said that full authority will be
given to this board to direct and speed American rearmament and all material aid
"short of war" for Great Britain and the democracies. The new council will be
known as the Office of Production Management for defence.
Destroyers USS Bristol and Ellyson laid down.
The motion picture "One Night in the Tropics" opens at the Roxy Theater in New York City. Directed by Edward Stutherland, this comedy based on an Earl Derr Biggers novel, stars Allan Jones, Nancy Kelly, Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Robert Cummings and Leo Carrillo. This is Abbott and Costello's film debut.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The German submarine U-37 mistakenly attacks two Vichy French submarines and sinks FR Sfax off Cape Juby, French Morocco. Cape Juby is located on the coast of southern French Morocco, near its border with the Spanish Sahara, directly east of the Canary Islands.