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January 10th

1940/41

1940 - U-144 laid down
1940 - RAF Bomber Command 4 Group daylight anti-shipping sweep over the North Sea. 77 Sqn, 2 a/c. 102 Sqn, 2 a/c. No enemy shipping sighted
1940 - Four passenger liners depart Sydney, New South Wales, carrying the Australian 16th Brigade bound for Egypt. The ships, escorted by the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia, will rendezvous with the convoy carrying the New Zealand 4th Brigade that sailed from Auckland on 6 January
1941 - Minesweepers HMCS Vegreville, Medicine Hat, Red Deer & Drummondville laid down
1941 - Operation Excess has reached the Strait of Sicily and is attacked by Italian torpedo boats. Escorting cruiser HMS Bonaventure & destroyer HMS Hereward sink Vega. Still to the west of Malta, heavy attacks by German and Italian aircraft are launched. HMS Illustrious is singled out and soon hit six times by thirty Ju87 and Ju88 bombers of the Luftwaffe's elite X Fliegerkorps, a unit specially trained to dive-bomb surface ships. It began with a feint attack by two Italian torpedo bombers, which drew off Illustrious' fighters, leaving her without air protection. She struggles into Malta with 200 casualties, her steering gear smashed. Illustrious was badly damaged, but managed to reach Valletta, where despite continuous further air attack, she was patched up sufficiently to retire to Alexandria for major repairs
1941 - Destroyer HMS Gallant damaged by a mine & taken to Malta and destroyed there during an air raid. Declared a constructive total loss on 5 April 1942
1941 - Appearing before the US House committee on naval affairs, Rear Admiral Towers stated that, in the past year, only 445 planes were obtained by the navy. He attributed the small output to "indecision and vagueness" on the part of the administration. Admiral Towers said that the Navy's goal is 16,000 fighting planes. At present there are 2,590 in use, and, of these, very few are modern
1941 - U-560 launched

1942/43

1942 - Destroyer HMS Middleton commissioned
1942 - AA cruiser USS San Diego commissioned
1942 - U-92, U-354 launched
1942 - U-513 commissioned
1942 - U-392 laid down
1942 - During heavy weather in the North Atlantic a lookout on U-582 broke his arm
1942 - Soviet submarine M-175 sunk by U-584 in Arctic Ocean
1942 - Landing ship HMAS Kanimbla sails from Melbourne, Victoria, escorting Convoy MS-1 consisting of three ships bound for Singapore and four for the Netherlands East Indies. Meanwhile, the heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra sails from Sydney, New South Wales, escorting convoy MS-2 to Singapore
1942 - Submarine USS Pickerel torpedoes & sinks a Japanese gunboat at the mouth of Davao Gulf, off Cape San Augustin, Philippine Islands
1942 - Submarine USS Stingray torpedoes & sinks a Japanese cargo ship in the South China Sea off southern Hainan Island
1942 - Submarine HNLMS O-19 torpedoes & sinks a Japanese army cargo ship & torpedoes a merchant cargo ship at the mouth of the Gulf of Siam
1942 - USN Bureau of Ships orders that the Cleveland-class light cruiser Amsterdam, which is under construction in Camden NJ, be completed as an aircraft carrier (CV). She will be commissioned as USS Independence (CV-22) on 14 January 1943 and be reclassified as a small aircraft carrier (CVL-22) on 15 July 1943. This is the first of nine light cruisers that are completed as small aircraft carriers
1943 - HMCS Surf paid off. Constructive total loss after grounding on Vancouver Island. Only Fisherman’s Reserve vessel lost in the war. Sold Sidney BC
1943 - Destroyers USS Wadsworth, McCord, Killen & Howorth launched
1943 - Destroyer escort USS Pillsbury launched
1943 - Minesweeper HMS Gazelle launched
1943 - Destroyer escorts USS Seid, Smartt, Walter S Brown, William C Miller laid down
1943 - Submarine USS Pogy commissioned
1943 - Submarine USS Argonaut sunk by Japanese destroyers Isokaze and Maikaze escorting a convoy south of St. George's Channel. 105 officers and men died; there were no survivors

1944/45

1944 - Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt, in a joint announcement, reported that merchant shipping losses due to U-boats were 60 percent less than losses for the preceding year.
1944 - The report of the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission was issued - A Caribbean Research Council had been set up (representing Britain, United States, and the Netherlands); steps had been taken to establish an organization for coordinating and expanding the purchase of imported food; an inter-island distribution system was developed
1944 - Submarine HMS Sanguine laid down
1944 - Escort carrier USS Cape Gloucester laid down
1944 - Destroyer minelayer USS Robert H Smith laid down
1944 - Destroyer escort USS Kenneth M Willett laid down
1944 - Destroyer escort USS Jack Miller launched
1944 - Frigate HMS Trollope commissioned
1944 - Minesweeper USS Defense commissioned
1944 - Destroyer escort USS Strickland commissioned
1944 - U-1273 launched
1944 - The damaged U-277, which had gone aground and stranded in Norwegian waters, was towed free by another vessel
1944 - U-956 assisted the weather reporting ship Hessen, which was experiencing some difficulties
1945 - Heavy cruiser USS Chicago commissioned
1945 - At 1603, SS Blackheath in Convoy KMS-76 (the convoy was combined with OS-102) was torpedoed & damaged by U-870 west of Gibraltar. She was set aground two miles south of Cape Spartel, Algeria, but broke in tow and was declared a total loss. Frigate HMS Ballinderry & sloop HMS Kilbirnie picked up the master, 41 crewmembers & nine gunners. Landed at Gibraltar
1945 - U-510 sailed from Jakarta on her final patrol
1945 - U-3032, U-3527, U-3528 launched
1945 - U-2531, U-4701 commissioned