UNITED KINGDOM: London: Britain today reluctantly declared war on the country which, only two years ago, she was planning to defend. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, Finnish forces joined in; for the past five months Britain has been appealing to the Finns to withdraw.
Stalin recently stepped up the pressure on Britain to declare war on Hitler's three little satellites, Finland, Hungary and Romania. They were given a deadline, which expires at midnight.
Though Finland now becomes an enemy, the hundreds of Finnish merchant seamen serving aboard British ships will be offered the opportunity of remaining in service or being interned. Other Finns, along with Hungarian and Romanian nationals, have been ordered to report to the police. Those regarded as unreliable will be sent to internment camps.
Submarine HMS Tempest commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
FRANCE: Paris: Boulevard Péreire. Lt. Rohl wounded by a pistol shot.FINLAND: Today, on Finland's 24th Independence Day, United Kingdom and Dominions declare war on Finland, Hungary and Romania.
By this date the Finnish advance in eastern Karelia is about to stop. The battle for town of Karhumäki (Medvezjegorsk, on northern shore of Lake Onega) is almost finished, and after the battle the Finnish troops dig into defence. The men are very war-weary; there has already been several instances of troops refusing the orders to advance. The men fighting in eastern Karelia feel they've been treated unfairly: the troops in Karelian Isthmus has been in defence for almost three months now, whereas they has been advancing and fighting the whole time. After the capture of Karhumäki the Finns are in defence all along the front, and the front-line will remain the same until June 1944. The Finnish leadership, already sensing the possibility of German defeat, adopt 'wait and see' policy, hoping in the event of Soviet victory to use the territories captured east of the pre-1939 border to bargain better terms for peace. (Mikko Härmeinen)
U.S.S.R.: A major Soviet counteroffensive kicks off along the Moscow front. Stretching 500 miles from Lake Ilmen in the north to west of Lipetsk in the south. Zhukov is in overall command of the effort which includes the North-West Front, the Kalinin Front, the West Front and the South-West Front and 20 Armies. He has planned the attack. Rokossovsky and Kuznetsov are among his subordinate commanders. The overextended and weakened German defenders will be unable to hold and forced to fall back.
The army was gathered together under great secrecy and they have won a stunning victory against the exhausted, frozen Germans.
Only four days ago, a German reconnaissance battalion mounted on motor cycles drove into the northern suburbs, only 12 miles from the Kremlin. It was pushed out by hastily-armed workers rushed to the spot. Some German tanks in another sector came within sight of Moscow's spires. This was to be the high tide of the Nazi assault.
Tonight the Germans are being driven back all along the front as the Red Army attempts to encircle the whole of the German 4th Army as it stands before Moscow. The Russians, well equipped and well fed, are advancing against an enemy ravaged by continuous fighting, shortage of supplied and the extreme cold.
The Germans do not have the correct oil in their tanks to cope with this weather and are lighting fires under the engines of to start them. Their frozen machine guns are refusing to fire on automatic and their men are in full retreat.
They are being hampered by Russian ski troops, T34 tanks and Ilyushin I-62s, the armoured assault planes which are doing to the German army what the Stukas did to the Poles and the French. In the north, the Germans are retreating along the single road through Klin, abandoning their heavy equipment. In the first day's fighting General Lelyshenko's 30th Army has advanced some 11 miles in this sector.
To the south, the defenders of Tula have turned into attackers, emerging from their strong points to strike at Guderian's tanks. A gap has opened between Guderian and von Kluge's 4th Army which General Zhukov is trying to exploit. The story is the same all along the 500-mile front from Kalinin in the north to Yelets in the south. The Red Army is inflicting on the Wehrmacht its first great defeat. It is not being done without cost. The Russians are too eager to go over to the attack, and many of their assaults are made frontally against German strong points. Their casualties are very high and General Zhukov has issued a directive calling for outflanking tactics.
The counter-assault before Moscow is not the Red Army's only success. It has driven the Germans out of the ruins of Tikhvin, the supply town south-east of Leningrad, and re-opened the precarious route to Lake Ladoga where lorries run the gauntlet of the ice.
BLACK SEA: Soviet submarine
SC-204 believed lost to Bulgarian ASW
activity near Cape Emine. (Dave Shirlaw)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: The British submarine HMS Perseus is sunk by a mine; one survivor escapes from a depth of 170 feet and swims ten miles to shore.
The loss of the RN submarine, HMS Perseus on an unknown date in very late December 1941, attributed to contact with Royal Italian Naval forces, probably a submarine, was based on Mediterranean Fleet intelligence estimates. However, these estimates came into question in 1943 when the then 33 year old Leading Stoker John Capes showed up at Alexandria via the British consulate in Turkey, claiming to be a survivor of His Majesties Submarine Perseus.
He stated that the ship had been mined on the night of 6/7 December 1941, and that it sank in 170 feet of water with the stern section holding air. He had been in the Petty Officer Stokers mess with several others at the moment of the mining sharing a bottle of rum. He and three others made it into the stern section alive, sealed it off, and after coming to rest on the sea floor in pitch darkness, donned their DESA escape gear and commenced flooding the after spaces in preparation to making a free ascent escape.
All four left the submarine, with Capes being last. Before departing, he polished off the remaining rum, and then left through the after escape hatch. He came to the surface alone and then was faced with swimming 7-9 miles to Keffalonia.
He did so, met up with Greek partisans, and then spent 20 months with them before successfully reaching Turkey. The other three survivors of the mining did not make it to the surface alive, most probably due to a failure to exhale completely throughout the ascent, which was made, as it turned out, from 20 feet deeper than it was though possible.
To say that Capes story was thought to been overly remarkable by many is an understatement. Many did not believe it, nor did they believe Capes was, in fact, himself, though those making those conclusions had to admit that, the crew list being classified, it was unlikely an imposter could have come up with the facts he had. None the less, his statements concerning the location of the sinking did not jive with Admiralty estimates, and many considered him a fraud to the day he died.
However, in 1996, Greek divers located HMS Perseus on the ocean floor, exactly where Capes said it would be. It was in 170 feet of water, and the rear escape hatch was open. Upon looking into the open hatch, the divers clearly saw on the floor below the rum bottle emptied by Capes just before his departure. All of this was photographed. Though Capes had been dead for some 15 years when the sub was discovered, it can truly be said that he had the last laugh on those that doubted his story. It is probably the single most remarkable survival story to come out of WW II. (Mark Horan)
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Hart informs
Phillips, when MacArthur suggests that he remain in Manila and have a formal
reception there, that Phillips ought to return to Singapore immediately if
"you want to see your ships again" as war was imminent. Phillips
returns to Singapore in the afternoon.
MacArthur
orders Brereton to disperse aircraft
"as well as possible", to man all stations full-time, and to increase
airfield guards and off-shore patrols.
Hart orders Destroyer Division 57 from Balikpapan to Singapore and for it to
operate under Phillips’ orders.
Two
B-17Cs and 14 B-17Ds arrive at
Del Monte Field, Mindanao and since they are expected to only stay three days,
they bring very few supplies. None of the barracks have been completed and there
are not enough tents to house the air crew so many sleep in their planes. Radio
communication with Luzon consists of high frequency radio which is sporadic at
best. The only thing the PX has to offer is a single brand of beer called "San
Miguel Beer for Convalescent Mothers." (Jack McKillop)
SOLOMON ISLANDS:
Japanese forces sail from Palau toward the
Philippines for an attack.
CANADA:
The British Special Operations Executive's (SOE) Camp X at Whitby, Ontario, becomes operational as Special Training School 103. At the same time, a sophisticated top secret communications relay station (Oshawa Wireless) is established at Camp X to facilitate the critical need for secure wartime transcontinental communications between Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. Hundreds of agents are trained at Camp X between 1941 and 1944. Many of those who train at the Camp receive specialized courses in security and intelligence, some are trained as radio operators and are dispatched to South America by the British Security Coordination (BSC). Others who are trained as secret agents, receive further training in the U.S. prior to missions in Asia or are shipped to Ringway (now Manchester International Airport), Beaulieu (Hampshire now home of the National Motor Museum) and Arsaig (west coast of Scotland, near Oban) in the U.K. before being sent on missions into occupied Europe. One of the students at the camp was Ian Fleming, the creator of Agent 007, James Bond. (Jack McKillop)
Corvette HMCS Weyburn arrived Halifax from builder Montreal, Province of Quebec.
Ordered in Canada - Revised Corvette (Increased Endurance) USS Haste (ex-HMS Mandrake), USS Intensity (ex-HMS Milfoil), USS Might (ex-HMS Musk), USS Pert (ex-HMS Nepeta), USS Prudent (ex-HMS Privet), HMS Rose Bay (ex-USS Splendor), HMS Smilax (ex-USS Tact), USS Vim (ex-HMS Statice), HMS Willowhead (ex-USS Vitality). (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: President Roosevelt again
appeals to the Japanese Emperor for peace and asking for troop withdrawal from
French Indochina. There is no Japanese reply. The
Japanese leaders feel that involving the Emperor is wrong and are resentful of
this effort. Later the first 13 parts of a 14 part Japanese message are
transmitted. Unknown to the Japanese, US codebreakers will intercept and decode
this message.
The
whereabouts of the Washington notables during the late afternoon and evening of
December 6 are a bit uncertain:
Roosevelt
seems to have been in the White House throughout the entire time; having sent
off his message to Hirohito, he then called for a meeting with his
“advisers” (presumably, Hull, Stimson,
Knox, Marshall, and Stark)
for 3 PM on Sunday, December 7, and conducted a brief dinner party.
He was home to receive the first 13 parts of the Japanese message at
around 11:00 PM Washington time (1 PM, December 7, Philippine time).
Stimson
and Knox were at their homes in Washington.
Stark
was at the theater.
Marshall
later claimed to have been at his quarters at Fort Myer,, though a Washington
Times-Herald article stated that he attended a VMI Alumni meeting at the
University Club on 16th Street in Washington.
His whereabouts have been a source of quandary and query ever since.
Arnold
was at Hamilton AAF, California, hastening the despatch of the 37th
and 38th Reconnaissance Squadrons to the Philippines via Hawaii.
(These were the planes which arrived in the middle of the Pearl Harbor
strike.)
The Director of Army Intelligence, Brigadier General Sherman Miles, was guested to dinner at the quarters of the Director of Naval Intelligence, Rear Admiral Theodore Wilkinson.
(Marc
Small)
Frank Knox, US Secretary of the Navy, states that he is very proud to report that the US Navy is second to none. This statement will appear in the New York Times Sunday Edition, tomorrow.
Tonight at the Hickam Field Officer's Club, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, the waitresses are serving refreshments are clad in colorful Japanese kimonos.
Many sailors and other enlisted men are enjoying this Saturday night with the "Battle of Music" performed by military bands. The winner was the band from the battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB-38).
Second place went to the band of the Pennsylvania's sister ship, the battleship USS Arizona (BB-39). (Jack McKillop)
The New York Times reports:
Discounts Allied Air Forces
Revealing what he represented as the completed line-up of air strength of the
ABCD powers in the Far East, Rear Admiral Toshio Matsunaga, chief of the marine
department of the Japan Airways Company, assured the Japanese people through the
newspaper Yomiuri that they need not fear the "encirclement front" because it
was lacking in suitable air bases, effective planes and trained personnel.
He put the whole air strength of United States, British, Chinese and
Netherland powers in the Far East at 1,000 planes--250 American, 400 British and
the rest mostly trainers. Of these, he said, about fifty American planes were
distributed in the Philippines and 350 in British Burma, although additional
American bombers to the value of $24,000,000 are to go to the Netherlands
Indies. In contrast, the Japanese Navy recently announced it alone had 4,000
planes, apart from Japanese Army planes.
Moreover, said Admiral Matsunaga, most of the types possessed by the ABCD powers are old or short-range planes that could not possibly bomb Japan and get back to their bases, except about twenty Consolidated PBY-28 [sic] bombers that had appeared in the Philippines, Singapore and Surabaya, Java.
These, he admits, are reported to possess the greatest flying capacity in the world at present, but he says that even they will not be able to perform what is expected of them.
He further estimates that there are about 200 air bases along the ABCD line,
including a naval airport at Singapore, the Bandoeng flying grounds in Java and
a recently completed military air depot at the northern end of the Philippines.
But the weakest point of the whole line-up, he asserts, is a great shortage of
trained pilots.
"For all these reasons," he concludes, "we can place full confidence in our preparations."
>>>>>>>>>>
(The story is "JAPAN CONFIDENT TALKS WILL GO ON", By OTTO D. TOLISCHUS,
_New York Times_, Dec 6, 1941, pg.2.)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Four crewmembers of U-562 injured in a torpedo reloading accident. (Dave Shirlaw)