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• In Egypt, the 7th Armoured Division "The Desert Rats" was created out of the Mobile Division, with Major General Michael Creagh in command. ww2dbase [AC]

• Finnish troops abandoned the Mannerheim Line overnight, falling back to the V-line by 1545 hours. On the same day, troops of the Finnish 9th Division wiped out the surrounded Soviet "Dolin" ski brigade. ww2dbase [The Winter War | CPC]

• German freighter Altmark, former supply ship for pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, was found by Hudson aircraft of No.233 Squadron RAF in Jøssingfjord, Norway. HMS Cossack captured Altmark and rescued 299 British prisoners of war aboard. ww2dbase [Altmark Incident | Altmark | Sokndal | TH]

• At the start of the day, 20 miles north of Kinnaird Head, Fraserburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom, German submarine U-14 (Oberleutnant zur See Herbert Wohlfarth) sank Danish ships Rhone (killing 9) and Sleipner (killing 13) shortly after midnight; 41 survivors were later picked up by Swedish trawler Standard and HMS Kipling. Toward the end of the day, at 2125 hours, 10 miles north of Kinnaird Head, U-14 struck again, sinking the 1,526-ton neutral Swedish coal ship Osmed, which sank by the bow 2 minutes after the torpedo struck, 10 of the crew were lost, the remaining 7 were picked up by the British trawler Loch Hope and taken to Scrabster, a small harbour in Thurso Bay Caithness, Scotland. 10 minutes later, at 2135 hours, U-14 sank the 1,646-ton neutral Swedish coal ship Liana carrying coal from Blyth to Halmstad, Sweden. She went down within a minute, 10 crew members managed to get off the vessel and these too were picked up by the trawler. Eight of these later boarded the Santos to return to Sweden but the ship was sunk on the 24 Feb 1940 and 6 of them were drowned. ww2dbase [Start of the Battle of the Atlantic | Scotland | CPC, HM]

16 Feb 1940 Interactive Map