The
Mechelen Incident
Enraged
by the Mechelen Incident Hitler fired
both the commander of 2. Luftflotte, General Helmuth Frey, and the
latter's chief of staff Colonel Josef Kammhuber. It was nevertheless
decided to proceed with the German attack on the Low Countries as
originally planned, while the Luftwaffe attaché in The Hague
Lieutenant-General Ralph Wenninger, and the military attaché in
Brussels, Colonel Friedrich Carl Rabe von Pappenheim, would investigate
whether the plan had been fatally compromised or not.
The
contents of the translated document fragments recovered in the
Mechelen Incident confirm earlier
warnings from the Italian Count Galeazzo Ciano about a German attack to
take place around January 15. It was concluded by one of King Leopold
III of Belgium’s key advisors, General Raoul van Overstraeten, that the
information was basically correct. That afternoon King Leopold III
decided to inform his own Minister of Defense General Henri Denis and
the French supreme commander Maurice Gamelin. At 5:15 p.m. the French
liaison officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Hautcoeur, was given a two page
abstract of the contents without any explanation of how the information
had been obtained. Lord Gort, the commander of the British Expeditionary
Force, was warned and Leopold personally phoned the Dutch Princess
Juliana and the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg Charlotte telling the first:
"Be careful, the weather is dangerous" and the second: "Beware of the
flu", predetermined code phrases indicating the Belgians considered a
German attack to be imminent.
The
Battle of the AtlanticThe
neutral Norwegian steam merchant Fredville was torpedoed and sank by the
U-23, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Otto Kretschmer, about 100 miles
east of the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland in the North Sea. The
forepart remained afloat and five survivors left their lifeboats several
times to go back on board and look for more survivors. Of the ship’s
complement, 11 died and 5 survivors were picked up by a Swedish ship and
taken to Kopervik, Norway. The 1,150 ton Fredville was carrying ballast
and was
bound for Methil, Scotland.
The
United States NavyU.S.
Navy Fleet Landing Exercise (FLEX) No. 6 began at Culebra, Puerto Rico.
Lack of transports compelled the Navy to
substitute combatant ships in that role for purposes of the exercise. An
important exception was the prototype high speed transport Manley (APD
1), converted from a World War I-emergency program "flush-deck,
four-pipe" destroyer. The Manley (APD 1) experiment proved to be
successful.The objective of WW2Timelines.com is to provide a day by day account of the events that lead up to and were part of the greatest conflict known to mankind. There are accounts for the activities of each particular day and timelines for subjects and personalities. It is the of this website intent to provide an unbiased account of the war. Analysis, effects caused by an event, or prior or subsequent pertinent events are presented separately and indicated as text that is italicized.
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