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• Soviet troops continued to assert pressure on Finnish defensive positions on the Karelian Isthmus. Meanwhile, Finnish 9th Division continued their attempt to encircle troops of the Soviet 54th Division near Kuhmo. At the Viipuri Bay, Soviet troops attempted to launch an offensive, but was disrupted by Finnish aircraft. ww2dbase [The Winter War | TH]

• German submarine U-59 (Kapitänleutnant Harald Jürst) was on patrol in the North Sea close to Lowestoft, England, United Kingdom and sank 2 British merchant steamers. At 0624 hours, the unescorted 838-ton tanker Creofield was hit amidships by a single G7e torpedo, the creosote cargo she was carrying exploded and the ship sank immediately taking her 17 man crew with her. In the evening she sank the 1,064-ton Portelet, in ballast heading for Sunderland, England, at 2040 hours she was hit and sank less than a mile southwest by west of the Smith's Knoll Lightship. The master Alexander Joseph Walsh and 8 crew members were picked up by a Finnish merchant, Oscar Midling, and taken to Immingham; 2 crewmen had been killed in the attack. ww2dbase [North Sea | HM]

• Guglielmo Marconi was completed. ww2dbase [Guglielmo Marconi | CPC]

• British minesweepers Sphinx (J69; Commander John Robert Newton Taylor), Speedwell, and Skipjack were sweeping an area about 15 nautical miles north of Kinnaird's Head near Fraserburgh north-east Scotland, United Kingdom when attacked by German aircraft. A bomb pierced the fo'c'sle deck of 889-ton HMS Sphinx (John Robert Newton Taylor, RN) and exploding destroying the fore part of the ship. The commanding officer and forty of the men were killed in the explosion; survivors were taken to HMS Speedwell. Sphinx remained afloat and was taken in tow by minesweeper HMS Halcyon (J42) but steadily flooded. ww2dbase [Start of the Battle of the Atlantic | Scotland | HM]

2 Feb 1940 Interactive Map