Manchester: The Avro Manchester Mk. III, RAF serial number BT308, makes its first flight at Ringway Airport, Cheshire, England. The aircraft is equipped with four Rolls-Royce Merlin engines in place of the two Rolls-Royce Vultures used on earlier Manchester marks. It also has triple fins and lacks dorsal and ventral gun turrets. It has a longer range and heavier bomb-load than any other British bomber. The aircraft that flew today, however, is only a prototype, and it will be some months yet before it is ordered into production as the Lancaster Mk. I. Even so, as the Avro chief test pilot, Bill Thorne, took her into the air, the managing director Sir Roy Dobson turns to the designer, Roy Chadwick, and said: "Oh boy, oh boy ... what an aeroplane! What a piece of aeroplane!" The Lancaster becomes possibly the most famous RAF bomber of all time, after bearing the brunt of the Bomber Command offensive in Europe.

London:Churchill"> Churchill apologises in person to de Gaulle over the Muselier affair.

Churchill also writes to Roosevelt explaining that many of the 50 destroyers handed over in 1940 had not yet entered service. This is because they need extensive refitting to prepare them for service in the north western approaches. "This is inevitable in the case of ships laid up for long periods, and the Admiralty is giving your Naval Attache here details of the work found to be necessary ...in case you want to work up any of the remaining destroyers in your yards."

Destroyer HMS Bath transferred to Norway with same name.

VICHY FRANCE: Vichy France plans to order all men aged 20 to do eight months' service in the 'Chantiers de Jeunesse' [Youth Workshops] which were created last July. Run on military lines, the Chantiers are a tool in Marshal Petain's "National Revolution", a euphemism for autocratic government, discipline and "traditional" moral values under his guardianship. To that end Petain last month reintroduced religious instruction in state schools.

GERMANY: During the night of 9/10 January, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 135 aircraft to bomb synthetic oil plants at Gelsenkirchen but less than half of the aircraft bomb the target

U-410 laid down.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: The RAF orders three squadrons of Hurricane Mk. I fighters and two of Blenheim light bombers to Greece to join the two RAF fighter squadrons equipped with Gladiator Mk. I and II biplane fighters already there. The three Hurricane squadrons arrive in Greece between January and April. The two Blenheim squadrons arrive in January and March.

The Royal Navy's Force H, including the carrier HMS Ark Royal, provided cover for Operation Excess, a convoy of supply ships headed for Malta and Greece. Ark Royal dispatched six Swordfish torpedo bombers to reinforce 830 Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm, based on Malta, which was conducting a successful campaign of night attacks on Axis shipping and installations in Sicily. Italian SM79 bombers attacked Force H, but were intercepted by Ark Royal's Fulmar fighters and two were shot down by Lieutenant Tillard. Other Italian aircraft, including Stukas, attacked Malta, inflicting some damage to RAF aircraft on the ground. An air combat with 261 Squadron's Hurricanes saw two Macchi MC200 fighters shot down.

ETHIOPIA: Gubba: From the hills surrounding this Italian fort, just 25 miles from the Sudanese frontier, Tigrean and Amharic guerrillas today watched three antiquated RAF planes bomb the fort. As it happened the bombs all missed, but what matters to the guerrillas is that the Italian air force no longer has a monopoly in the air. Allied air support means that the guerrillas can move out of their caves, and march in daylight. Already mule trains are making their way up the Ethiopian escarpment with arms, and a British military mission is now establishing itself in Ethiopia.

NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: The US sends Rear Admiral Purnell ("Speck" Purnell was Chief of Staff to ADM Hart, Commander of the US Asiatic Fleet) to meet Dutch military representatives in Java. This shall continue until January 18, 1941. (Marc Small)

WAKE ISLAND: The transport USS William Ward Burrows (AP-6, ex-SS Santa Rita) arrives at Wake Island with the first increment of workmen (80 men and 2,000 tons of equipment of Contractors Pacific Naval Air Bases) to begin building a naval air station there. 

CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS Quatsino launched Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

U.S.A.: The first demonstration of small screen, colour television is given by the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).  The TV fails miserably, since the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) has pretty much wrapped up the patent process on color TV at the time. 

ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 1814, the unescorted SS Bassano was torpedoed and sunk by U-105 NW of Rockall. One crewmember was lost. The master, 48 crewmembers, two gunners and five passengers were picked up by HMS Wild Swan and landed at Liverpool.