February 1940

[February 1], 1940 (Thursday)

• The 2nd Battle of Summa began. Soviet forces launched an all-out assault on the Karelian Isthmus.
• Japan passed a massive budget devoting unprecedented sums to weapons and training.
• Born:
• *Mark Fleischman, American businessman and nightclub owner, in New York City
• * Ajmer Singh, sprinter, in Kup Kalan, Sangrur district, Punjab
• Died: Philip Francis Nowlan, 51, American science fiction writer and creator of Buck Rogers

  [February 2], 1940 (Friday)

• The members of the Balkan Pact met in Belgrade.
• In Prague, Nazi authorities changed the name of Wilson railway station to "Main station", and Masaryk station to "Prague-Hibernia station".
• Born: David Jason, actor, in Edmonton, London, England
• Died: Vsevolod Meyerhold, 65, Russian theatre director ; Yefim Yevdokimov, 59, Soviet politician and member of the Cheka

  [February 3], 1940 (Saturday)

• A German plane crashed on English soil for the first time in the war when a Heinkel He 111 was shot down near Whitby. Flight Lieutenant Peter Townsend of 43 Squadron was credited with the air victory.
• Born: Fran Tarkenton, NFL quarterback and television personality, in Richmond, Virginia

  [February 4], 1940 (Sunday)

• After two days of talks, the Balkan Pact issued a 7-point communiqué indicating it would remain neutral in the conflict.
• The United States and Saudi Arabia established full diplomatic relations for the first time when Bert Fish presented his credentials as American Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.
• Born: George A. Romero, filmmaker, in the Bronx, New York
• Died: Samuel M. Vauclain, 83, American engineer and inventor; Nikolai Yezhov, Soviet police official

  [February 5], 1940 (Monday)

• The Anglo-French Supreme War Council met again in Paris with Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill in attendance. Franco-British plans for intervention in the Winter War were discussed.
• The German Submarine U-41 sunk south of Ireland. All 49 of the crew went down with it.
• Born: H. R. Giger, surrealist artist, in Chur, Switzerland

  [February 6], 1940 (Tuesday)

• The "Careless Talk Costs Lives" propaganda campaign began in Britain, aimed at preventing war gossip.
• Born: Tom Brokaw, television journalist and author, in Webster, South Dakota; Jimmy Tarbuck, comedian, in Liverpool, England

  [February 7], 1940 (Wednesday)

• The Manstein Plan was tested in a war game at Koblenz.
• The Walt Disney animated film Pinocchio premiered at the Center Theater in New York City.
• Peter Barnes and James McCormack of the Irish Republican Army were hanged in Birmingham on charges of being involved in last August's bomb explosion in Coventry.
• Born: Tony Tan, Singaporean academic and politician, 7th President of Singapore

  [February 8], 1940 (Thursday)

• An official Nazi decree established Łódź Ghetto.
• Neville Chamberlain made a speech in Parliament updating the House on the general international situation, saying there was "no reason to be dissatisfied" with the early progress of the war. Chamberlain also praised the Finnish people for their "heroic struggle" that "has evoked the admiration of the world" and said that "further aid is now on its way."
• The adventure film Swiss Family Robinson, the first feature-length adaptation of the Johann David Wyss novel of the same name, was released.
• Born: Ted Koppel, broadcast journalist, in Nelson, Lancashire, England

  [February 9], 1940 (Friday)

• The French Chamber of Deputies met for a secret session. Prime Minister Édouard Daladier had resisted holding the meeting behind closed doors out of concern that its secrecy would have a negative effect on national morale.
• U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that he was sending Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles to the principal Western European capitals on a fact-finding mission. In private Roosevelt conceded that the chances of finding a peaceful solution to the war were remote.
• Joe Louis defeated Arturo Godoy by split decision at Madison Square Garden in New York City to retain the world heavyweight boxing title.
• The comedy-Western film My Little Chickadee starring Mae West and W. C. Fields was released.
• Born: Brian Bennett, drummer for The Shadows, in Palmers Green, North London, England; J. M. Coetzee, novelist and Nobel laureate, in Cape Town, South Africa; Seamus Deane, poet, novelist and critic, in Derry, Northern Ireland
• Died: William Dodd, 70, American historian, author and diplomat

  [February 10], 1940 (Saturday)

• Soviet troops finally began breaking through the Mannerheim Line.
• First mass deportation of Poles from Soviet-occupied territories to prison and labour camps in Siberia/northern Russia
• To mark the 2,600th anniversary of the traditional founding date of Japan, Pope Pius XII sent Emperor Hirohito a telegram that said in part: "We ask God that may you cease hostilities and that through Divine aid may the Japanese people and their sovereigns attain greater glory and happy years."
• Czech Jews were ordered to close their shops and cease economic activity.
• From the south portico of the White House, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt confronted a gathering of 4,500 members of the American Youth Congress, which had recently passed a resolution declaring that granting aid to Finland was an "attempt to force America into the imperialistic war" against the Soviet Union. Roosevelt told them that it was "a grand thing" for youth to be interested enough in government to come to Washington, but offered "some words of warning or perhaps I should say of suggestion ... do not as a group pass resolutions on subjects which you have not thought through and on which you cannot possibly have complete knowledge." The president continued, "That American sympathy is ninety-eight per cent with the Finns in their effort to stave off invasion of their own soil is by now axiomatic. That America wants to help them by lending or giving money to them to save their own lives is also axiomatic today. That the Soviet Union would, because of this, declare war on the United States is about the silliest thought that I have ever heard advanced in the fifty-eight years of my life. That we are going to war ourselves with the Soviet Union is an equally silly thought." The organization responded by booing the president, but the event was politically useful to Roosevelt in that it served as a rejoinder to accusations from his opponents that he was sympathetic to communism.
• The biographical film Young Tom Edison starring Mickey Rooney had a special preview in Port Huron, Michigan, the place where Thomas Edison spent his childhood.
• Tom and Jerry made their debut in the short film Puss Gets the Boot, under their original names of Jasper and Jinx.

  [February 11], 1940 (Sunday)

• The German–Soviet Commercial Agreement was signed.
• The unfinished German cruiser Lützow was sold to the Soviet Navy.
• General elections were held in Costa Rica. Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia was elected president.
• Died: John Buchan, 64, Scottish novelist, historian and 15th Governor General of Canada

  [February 12], 1940 (Monday)

• German submarine U-33 was sunk in the Firth of Clyde by the minesweeper Gleaner. 25 of the crew perished but there were 17 survivors, one of whom had three Enigma machine rotors in his pockets which were sent to Alan Turing at the Government Code and Cyper School for study.
• The Finnish cabinet authorized the government to seek peace terms with Moscow.
• The first troops from Australia and New Zealand arrived in Egypt.
• An official Nazi decree deprived industrialist Fritz Thyssen and his wife, living in Switzerland since November, of their German citizenship.
• The U.S. Supreme Court decided Chambers v. Florida, an important case dealing with the admissibility of coerced confessions.
• The radio serial The Adventures of Superman, adapted from the comic book character Superman, premiered as a syndicated show.
• Born: Ralph Bates, actor, in Bristol, England ; Richard Lynch, actor, in Brooklyn, New York

  [February 13], 1940 (Tuesday)

• Finland asked Sweden to provide troops to fight against the Soviet Union, but Sweden refused out of fear that both Britain and Germany would respond by invading Sweden.
• By a vote of 49 to 27 the United States Senate passed the Roosevelt Administration's bill to provide additional government loans to Finland, China and other countries. The bill went on to the House.

  [February 14], 1940 (Wednesday)

• Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department Osbert Peake announced in Parliament that a general license had been granted for British subjects to volunteer for service with the Finnish military.
• An authorized Nazi spokesman said that U-boats had a "theoretical right" to attack United States shipping en route to Allied ports.
• The Manstein Plan was tested again in a war game at Mayen. Heinz Guderian concluded that the plan was viable, but Franz Halder did not share Guderian's confidence that panzers could cross the Meuse on their own without waiting for infantry support. This debate was never resolved except for an agreement that panzer commanders would be authorized to attempt the crossing on their own, but if they failed Army Group A would switch to the infantry option.

  [February 15], 1940 (Thursday)

• The 2nd Battle of Summa ended in victory for the Soviets, who overran the Mannerheim Line. That night the Finnish Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim ordered the II Army Corps to withdraw from the line.
• Bogdan Filov replaced Georgi Kyoseivanov as Prime Minister of Bulgaria.
• James Roosevelt, the eldest son of the U.S. president, filed for divorce from his wife Betsey Cushing.
• More than 1100 Jews were deported from the German city of Stettin to the Lublin region of the General Government.
• German submarine U-65 was commissioned.
• Superman #4 was published, marking the first appearance of the villain Lex Luthor.
• Born: Don Shows, multi-sport athlete and coach, in Ruston, Louisiana
• Died: R. E. B. Crompton, 94, British electrical engineer, industrialist and inventor