Today in World War II History—February 5, 1940 & 1945
British poster, WWII (Imperial War Museum)
85 Years Ago—Feb. 5, 1940: First sinking of a U-boat by a lone British destroyer: in convoy OA-84 off Land’s End, HMS Antelope sinks U-41.
Gen. Isaak Reijnders, commander in chief of the Dutch Army, resigns over lack of military preparation in the Netherlands.
Glenn Miller records hit song “Tuxedo Junction” and Jimmie Davis records hit song “You Are My Sunshine.”
OSS depiction of Operation Cornflake, 1945 (Source: CIA)
80 Years Ago—Feb. 5, 1945: US Seventh and French Armies link, splitting the Colmar pocket in France.
RAF Balloon Command is disbanded as the air raid threat lessens.
Operation Cornflakes begins: US Fifteenth Air Force P-38s strafe German mail trains and drop mailbags containing Allied propaganda drafted by OSS and addressed to German households; 320 mailbags with 96,000 pieces of mail will be dropped in 10 missions through April 1945.
