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• The German 5th Light Division (later renamed the 21st Panzer Division) was formed for operations in North Africa. ww2dbase [Operation Sonnenblume | CPC]

• German submarine U-96 sank British ship Black Osprey 140 miles south of Iceland at 0227 hours; 25 were killed, 11 survived. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German submarine U-103 sank British ship Seaforth 330 miles south of Iceland at 2133 hours. 59 survivors took to lifeboats, but they were never seen again. ww2dbase [CPC]

• German aircraft mined the Suez Canal in Egypt, forcing the transit of carrier HMS Formidable into the Mediterranean Sea to be delayed. ww2dbase [Formidable | CPC]

• South African 1st Division captured Mega, Ethiopia. ww2dbase [Invasion of Italian East Africa | Mega | CPC]

• Maggiore Baracca arrived at Pauillac, France at 1303 hours, ending her third war patrol. She was escorted into port by German minesweepers M6, M9, and M21 and German auxiliary cruiser Sperrbrecher 16. ww2dbase [M6 | M9 | M21 | Maggiore Baracca | Pauillac, Aquitaine | CPC]

• Adolf Hitler met with tank generals and tank designers at his residence Berghof in southern Germany. He insisted on using larger (either 50-millimeter or 75-millimeter) high velocity guns for Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks. He also demanded some soldiers to be released from the front to man tank factories. ww2dbase [Adolf Hitler | Berchtesgaden, München-Oberbayern | CPC]

• Free French forces besieged El Tag fort at Kufra, Libya, bombarding the fort with 75-millimeter field guns (whose range was longer than their Italian counterparts) and 81-millimeter mortars. ww2dbase [Battle of Kufra | Kufra | CPC]

• In the afternoon, a single Dornier Do 17Z of 1/K2 that had been reporting weather conditions over the County of Suffolk, England, United Kingdom, passed near to the RAF base at Duxford and then flew west and strafed an Army Convoy heading into Newmarket. Over the town it released ten bombs that fell directly in line with the market town's busy High Street. Eighteen shops and businesses were completely destroyed, and the civilian casualties were high, many being trapped in the shops that had collapsed. The town was ill equipped to deal with such a serious raid and it was only days later when rubble had been cleared that it became clear that 20 civilians had died and over 200 injured, seven more would die in hospital due to their injuries. This attack was one of the worst of many such lightening and seemingly pointless attacks that the mostly rural coastal county would undergo of the course of the war. ww2dbase [Battle of Britain | Newmarket, England | HM]

18 Feb 1941 Interactive Map