Eighty Years Ago: Asia Pacific, Dec 26, 1940 – Jan 1, 1941

Dec 26, 1940: Brigadier General Leonard T. Gerow, acting chief of the US War Plans Division, calls for doubling of Philippine defense force

Dec 27, 1940: Veteran Japanese diplomat Yoshizawa Kenkichi arrives in Dutch East Indies for talks aimed at increasing oil imports from Netherlands colony

Dec 28, 1940: Richard Sorge, Soviet spy posing as journalist in Tokyo, sends first serious warning to Moscow that Germany is planning an attack

Dec 29, 1940: As Axis powers advance across the globe, the United States, while still neutral, must become ‘the great arsenal of democracy’, President Franklin D. Roosevelt says in speech broadcast nationwide

Dec 30, 1940: Rear Admiral Claude C. Bloch, commander of the Fourteenth Naval District at Pearl Harbor, sends letter to Washington warning that defenses are insufficient

Dec 31, 1940: In New Year address, Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek thanks both the United States and the Soviet Union for their support in war against Japan

Jan 1, 1941: Japanese Navy believed to be building submarine base on south China’s Hainan island

Categories: War

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