16 Sep 1940
  • US Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act. ww2dbase [TH]
  • Battleship Bismarck entered the Kiel Canal. ww2dbase [Bismarck | CPC]
  • Italian troops of the 1st Blackshirt Division "23 Marzo" captured Sidi Barrani, Egypt and stopped the advance due to supply problems. This would prove to be the farthest the Italians would go. ww2dbase [Invasion of Egypt | CPC]
  • British bombers attacked German invasion barges in French ports along the English Channel, interrupting an amphibious training exercise and causing many casualties. ww2dbase [CPC]
  • German submarine U-99 sank Norwegian ship Lotos north of Ireland at 0241 hours; the entire crew of 17 survived in two lifeboats. ww2dbase [First Happy Time | CPC]
  • German bombers damaged British troop ship Aska in the Irish Sea, kill 11 British crew and 19 French soldiers. ww2dbase [CPC]
  • French ship Poitiers, sailing from Libreville, French Equatorial Africa to Dakar, was intercepted by British cruiser HMS Cumberland. After taking the entire crew aboard, HMS Cumberland sank Poitiers by gunfire. ww2dbase [CPC]
  • The presence of German troops in Finland, despite the fact that they were ultimately destined for Norway, alarmed the Soviet Union. ww2dbase [CPC]
  • HMS Cumberland intercepted French mercantile Poitiers on passage to Ivory Coast. ww2dbase [Cumberland | DS]
China United Kingdom
  • At 0730 hours, more than 100 German Bf 109 fighters made a raid on Kent, England, United Kingdom to draw British fighters, which never rose to meet them. Overnight, German bombers attacked London, Liverpool, Manchester, Coventry, Birmingham, and Bristol. ww2dbase [Battle of Britain | England | CPC]
  • Georges Boris made a broadcast over the BBC from the United Kingdom to the French people, asking them to bear with the British blockade of France, for that hunger suffered now would lead to an eventual French victory against the Germans. He also spoke of the German actions to deprive France of its food and other goods, which was the true cause of the shortages, citing Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf as evidence of the underlying philosophy of the German occupation. ww2dbase [CPC]



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Battlecruiser Kongo on sea trials, 8 May 1913

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General Douglas MacArthur at Leyte, 17 Oct 1944


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