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• German submarine U-48 sank the ship Brandon of Allied convoy OB-48 in the Celtic Sea at 1155 hours. Master Richard Black Chisholm and other survivors were picked up by the Belgian trawlers Marie Jose Rosette and Tritten and landed at Milford Haven, Wales, United Kingdom. U-48 misidentified her victim as the Navasota, but this ship had been sunk by submarine U-47 three days earlier. ww2dbase [Start of the Battle of the Atlantic | U-48 | Celtic Sea | CPC]
• U-23 sank Danish merchant ship Scotia, sailing in ballast, in the North Sea with 0004 hours with one torpedo. Nineteen were killed. The two survivors were picked up by the nearby Danish merchant ship Hafnia immediately. ww2dbase [Start of the Battle of the Atlantic | U-23 | North Sea | CPC]

• Admiral Erich Raeder requested a meeting with Adolf Hitler as political and military situations were developing quickly in these early days of the war. Great Britain told Germany that they would confiscate all German exports (until then only imports had been treated as contraband). This was because of Germany's act of laying magnetic mines since 18 Nov 1939. Japan, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden all protested to London about this and Raeder thought it would help him to convince Hitler to sanction his plan for "Siege of England". At the end of the meeting Raeder had got no further with his plans of blockade and realised that the situation would not change until after the invasion of the Low Countries. ww2dbase [Adolf Hitler | Erich Raeder | HM]

• Belgian ship Louis Scheid ran aground and broke up in front of the Thurlestone Golf Club, Warren Point, Devon, England, United Kingdom before dawn. ww2dbase [Start of the Battle of the Atlantic | Thurlestone, England | CPC]

8 Dec 1939 Interactive Map