7 Mar 1940
  • The British boarded 9 Italian ships from Rotterdam carrying German coal in the English Channel and detained all ships at The Downs, off Deal, Kent, England. The Italians believed that it was an attempt for the British to force the Italians to sell them weapons. ww2dbase [CPC]
  • Soviet troops began to break through the final defense line at Viipuri, Finland. Meanwhile, Finnish Prime Minister Ryti and his diplomatic party arrived in Moscow, Russia in an attempt to negotiate peace. In the United Kingdom, British Chief of the Imperial General Staff Edmund Ironside offered military assistance to Carl Mannerheim of Finland. ww2dbase [The Winter War | CPC]
  • Adolf Hitler allocated 8 divisions for the invasion of Norway and Denmark. ww2dbase [Invasion of Denmark and Norway | CPC]
  • Oberst Alois Stoeckl was named the commanding officer of the German Kampfgeschwader 55 wing. ww2dbase [CPC]
Atlantic Ocean
  • German merchant steamer Hannover was intercepted by the Canadian destroyer Assiniboine and the British cruiser Dunedin in the Mona Passage between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. The Canadians prevented the German crew from scuttling their ship inside Dominican waters by sending a boarding party. During the hunt for the Hannover which also included the French cruiser Jeanne d’Arc, German steamers Mimi Horn and Seattle, which sailed out of Curaçao together with Hannover two days prior, were able to get away. ww2dbase [Caribbean Sea | HM]
Netherlands
  • The 1,965-ton Dutch steam merchant Vecht was torpedoed in the Scheldt Estuary at 0430 hours by German submarine U-14. The submarine had spotted the steamer three hours earlier and reported that she carried no neutrality markings. The Vecht sank by the stern after twenty minutes. All 22 crewmen perished. ww2dbase [Start of the Battle of the Atlantic | HM]
United States

Timeline Section Founder: Thomas Houlihan
Contributors: Alan Chanter, C. Peter Chen, Thomas Houlihan, Hugh Martyr, David Stubblebine
Special Thanks: Rory Curtis




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The USS Enterprise conducted flight training when steaming from Hawaii to Tonga on 23 Jul 1942. Here, upon landing, a TBF Avenger slid off the flight deck into the catwalks; no injuries.


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Winston Churchill, 1935


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