GERMANY: Munich: Prince Paul, the regent of Yugoslavia, was summoned to the Berghof, the Fuhrer's mountain retreat, this evening and given the usual treatment accorded to small powers. After listening to Hitler's threats and ranting into the early hours, Prince Paul buckled and agreed to follow Romania and Bulgaria into the German camp and sign the Axis Pact.

Hitler, in high spirits at having got his way, offered the prince a consolation prize - the Greek port of Salonika, which would give Yugoslavia access to the Aegean. Paul, aware that joining the Axis will be unpopular at home, has arranged for the signing of the treaty to take place in great secrecy in ten days time.

NORWAY:  Lofoten Islands: OPERATION CLAYMORE: Britain's new raiding force, the Commandos has destroyed 18 factories producing fish oil - a commodity which is made into glycerine, a basic ingredient of high explosive - on the Norwegian Lofoten Islands. 

"Herring oil factories and trawlers at Svolvær, Henningsvær, Stamsund and Brettesnes were destroyed". (All those places are in Lofoten). "Raiders included 52 Norwegians amongst them Captain Martin Linge." (Alex Gordon) (87)

About 800,000 gallons of oil and petrol were burnt, 11 ships totalling 19,000 tons are sunk and 215 Germans and 12 Norwegian collaborators (dubbed "Quislings" after Norway's Nazi puppet leader) taken prisoner. 314 volunteers also left with the commandos. The Germans will need to especially vigilant from now on.

Led by Brigadier Charles Haydon of the Irish Guards, 500 commandos with 100 other specialists went in escorted by five destroyers and a submarine.

The destroyer HMS SOMALI while leading the commandos, chanced upon a German patrol boat. The Germans opened fire, which the British returned. The German crew leapt out and the German boat, the _Krebs_ beached itself on a nearby islet. A British boarding party rescued vital papers that contained the daily Enigma settings for February, 1941. (Michael Turton, Torstein and 81)

Further severe damage has been caused in western Sweden by drifting British barrage balloons.

At the moment approximately 20 British barrage balloons are drifting over Sweden. In Uckluma a balloon pulled down a factory chimney with its 1,875-foot-long trail rope. Other balloons have destroyed the rigging of fishing boats with their trail ropes. In the rock island-strewn Goteborg area, a number of islands were left completely without electricity because one of the barrage balloons had destroyed the power transmission line.

BULGARIA: The government breaks diplomatic relations with Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland. 

GREECE: Athens: General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, who is to command the British expeditionary forces being prepared for Greece, arrives in Athens to arrange the final details with the Greek general staff. A major convoy is about to leave Alexandria, Egypt, with the first large contingent. The British have only just discovered that the Greek forces in Macedonia have not retired to the Aliakmon Line and will not be able to persuade them to do so because of the damage to morale that would result if territory is obviously given up without a fight after the German move into Bulgaria. Wilson is further hindered by the Greek insistence that he remains incognito inside the British Embassy in order not to provoke the Germans. In fact the German consulate in Piraeus overlooks the port area which is being used to land the British forces for OPERATION LUSTRE, so they are well aware what is happening. 

TURKEY: The government turns down Hitler's personal plea to join the Axis powers. The Turkish President replies that he is grateful for the assurance that German troops would be kept a safe distance from the Turkish border; and he tells the German ambassador that Turkey will do everything in her power to avoid war with Germany. He purported, however, to be deeply concerned about Bulgaria's mobilisation, which it seemed could be directed only against Turkey. von Papen, the German ambassador in Ankara, hastened to tell him that this was not so.

CANADA: Registration of all Japanese Canadians.

U.S.A.: The government freezes all Bulgarian assets in the U.S. 

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-105 refuelled from the German supply ship Charlotte Schliemann in Las Palmas.