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• Mussolini sent Fascist Party leaders to the Albanian front to bolster morale. ww2dbase [Invasion of Albania | TH]
• General Erwin Rommel was appointed as the head of an unit temporarily named "German Army Troops in Africa"; it would later become the Afrika Korps. ww2dbase [Erwin Rommel | CPC]
• Italian troops in Eritrea, Italian East Africa withdrew into towns in the mountains. ww2dbase [Invasion of Italian East Africa | CPC]
• German submarine U-107 sank British ship Empire Citizen 300 miles south of Iceland at 0223 hours; 77 were killed, 5 survived. At 2333 hours, U-107 struck again, sinking British ship HMS Cirspin; 20 were killed, 121 survived. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German submarine U-93 attacked British ship Dione II 50 miles northwest of Ireland at 1410 hours; the torpedo missed. A German Fw 200 aircraft arrived later in the day and bombed the ship, causing damage. At 2300 hours, U-93 surfaced near Dione II and engaged in a brief gun battle. ww2dbase [CPC]
• British minesweeping trawler HMT Arctic Trapper was sunk by German bombing off Ramsgate, Kent, England, United Kingdom; 17 were killed, 3 were wounded. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German military leaders presented detailed plans for Operation Barbarossa to Adolf Hitler. ww2dbase [Operation Barbarossa | CPC]
• US Marine Corps Air Station Ewa was commissioned in US Territory of Hawaii after five months of conversion work; it had previously been a US Navy airship base. ww2dbase [CPC]

• Alessandro Malaspina arrived at Le Verdon-sur-Mer, France at 1300 hours, ending her third war patrol. She was escorted into Le Verdon-sur-Mer by German minesweepers M9 and M21. ww2dbase [Alessandro Malaspina | M31 | M9 | Le Verdon-sur-Mer, Aquitaine | CPC]

• USS Arizona arrived at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii. ww2dbase [Arizona | Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Ford Island Naval Air Station | Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]
• The US Marine Corps established an airfield near the Ewa villages at Kapolei, Honolulu County, US Territory of Hawaii with the aircraft of Marine Aircraft Group 2 originally based at Naval Air Station Ford Island, also on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. ww2dbase [Ewa Marine Corps Air Station | Kapolei, Oahu | CPC]

• Vsevolod Merkulov was named the People's Commissar of State Security of the Soviet NKGB with responsibilities to oversee espionage and intelligence activities. The new ministry NKGB would last only until the German invasion when it would be merged back into the NKVD. ww2dbase [Vsevolod Merkulov | Moscow | CPC, AC]
• Kliment Voroshilov was awarded the Order of Lenin for the third time. ww2dbase [Kliment Voroshilov | CPC]

• Henry Arnold was promoted to the permanent rank of major general. ww2dbase [Henry Arnold | CPC]

3 Feb 1941 Interactive Map