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• » 9 Feb 1940

• Winston Churchill made a radio broadcast to warn Bulgaria against joining the Tripartite Pact. ww2dbase [Winston Churchill | TH]
• The Finnish defensive Mannerheim Line in the Summa sector began to fall apart, with Soviet troops taking control of a bunker near the village of Karhula. Finnish troops brought up reserves to counterattack, but failed to retake the bunker. ww2dbase [The Winter War | CPC]
• Submarine Squalus was renamed USS Sailfish. ww2dbase [Sailfish | CPC]
• U-23 began her eighth war patrol. ww2dbase [U-23 | CPC]

• German destroyers Z3, Z4, and Z16 deployed 110 mines in the Shipwash, a busy sea lane in the North Sea east of Harwich, England. ww2dbase [North Sea | CPC]

• After sundown, during this dark night with minimal moon light, six German merchant ships sailed out of Vigo, Galicia, Spain, intending on breaking the Allied blockade. The ships were Arucas, Morea, Orizaba, Rostock, Wahehe, and Wangoni. ww2dbase [Start of the Battle of the Atlantic | Vigo, Galicia | HM]

• The 5,406-ton British steam merchant Chagres, carrying 1,500 tons of bananas from Victoria in the Cameroons, hit a mine and sank 5.5 miles from the Bar Light Vessel near Liverpool, England, United Kingdom. The mine was deployed by German submarine U-30 (Kapitänleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp) on 6 Jan 1940. Two crewmen were killed in the explosion but the master and the other 61 were picked up by the AST HMS Loch Montreith and brought into Liverpool. ww2dbase [Liverpool, England | CPC, HM]
• British trawler HMS Fort Royal commanded by Lieutenant Commander Edgar King and trawler HMS Robert Bowen commanded by Skipper Lieutenant John Clark, RNR were sunk by German aircraft off Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom. Clark was killed. ww2dbase [Start of the Battle of the Atlantic | Scotland | HM]

9 Feb 1940 Interactive Map