Friday, October 22, 2010

Day 419 October 23, 1940

Battle of Britain Day 106. The weather deteriorates further with poor visibility due to low cloud and drizzle. Luftwaffe mounts only reconnaissance flights and sporadic raids of single bomb-carrying fighters. No fighters are shot down by either side. There is relatively light night bombing of London and Glasgow and minelaying off the Yorkshire coast in Northeast England.

In an attempt to bring Fascist Spain into the war on the side of Germany, Hitler travels to Hendaye, Southern France, to meet General Franco. Over 9 hours of negotiations, Hitler offers Gibraltar and territory in North Africa to Spain but Franco demands French Catalonia (North of the Pyrenees), almost all of Morocco and a large chunk of Algeria. Hitler later confides (to Mussolini) that he would rather have 3 or 4 teeth pulled out than continue the discussions.

10 more WWI-era US Navy destroyers are transferred to Royal Navy at Halifax, Nova Scotia, for escort duty as part of the “destroyers for bases” deal between Churchill and Roosevelt.

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