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• Soviet artillery pieces fired 300,000 shells in the Summa sector of the Karelian Isthmus on this date at the start of a new Soviet offensive against the Finnish forces. ww2dbase [The Winter War | CPC]
• German submarine U-59 torpedoed and sank British coaler Ellen M. 20 miles east of Southwold, Suffolk, England, killing the entire crew of 9. ww2dbase [CPC]
• In Russia the noted stage director, Vsevolod Meyerhold, having been tortured into confessing that he was the leader of an anti-soviet Trotskyite, was convicted in camera, and was executed on the following day. ww2dbase [AC]
• The keel of refrigerated cargo ship Telemachus was laid down. ww2dbase [Activity | CPC]
• Arturo Riccardi was made Knight Grand Cordon of the Order of the Crown of Italy. ww2dbase [Arturo Riccardi | CPC]

• Hans-Joachim Marseille was awarded the Pilot's Badge. ww2dbase [Hans-Joachim Marseille | CPC]
• U-1 was transferred out of the German Navy Submarine School Flotilla. ww2dbase [U-1 | CPC]

• SS-Reichsführer Himmler ordered inspections of potential sites for a planned concentration camp. Among those inspected was the camp at Oswiecim, Poland, known in German as Auschwitz. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Auschwitz Concentration Camp | Oswiecim | CPC]

• The Swedish-owned 2,491-ton Fram, an old steam merchant launched in 1897, was lying at anchor at Rosehearty Buoy off Fraserburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom when, at 0043 hours, she was struck by a G7e torpedo fired from German submarine U-13 (Kapitänleutnant Max-Martin Schulte) and sunk. 9 of her crew were killed in the explosion, survivors were picked up by the K-class destroyer HMS Khartoum and the armed trawler HMS Viking Deeps. Svea Hannson, a 45-year-old stewardess was one of those killed when the neutral ship sank. ww2dbase [Fraserburgh, Scotland | HM]
• In Britain, the Admiralty took over the responsibility for the building and repair of merchant shipping and concluded an arrangement to buy old cargo ships from the United States. ww2dbase [AC]
• In the British House of Commons, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declined to accept a suggestion by Herbert Morrison that a Minister of War Economy should be appointed on the grounds that such a post would do nothing which was not already being done. ww2dbase [Neville Chamberlain | London, England | AC]

• The keel of battleship Alabama was laid down at Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia, United States. ww2dbase [Norfolk Navy Yard | Alabama | Portsmouth, Virginia | CPC]
• Harold George was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was made the commanding officer of 31st Pursuit Group. ww2dbase [Harold George | CPC]

1 Feb 1940 Interactive Map