One of the most extraordinary aviation incidents of the war took place. Greek Air Force pilot Marinos Mitralexis, after running out of ammunition, rammed an Italian bomber. Mitralexis then landed his plane and captured the Italian crew who had parachuted to safety.[3]
The German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer located Allied convoy HX 84 in the North Atlantic and sank the British armed merchant cruiser Jervis Bay and five cargo ships.
Died:Edward Fegen, 49, Royal Navy officer and Victoria Cross recipient (killed in the Jervis Bay sinking); Otto Plath, 55, German-born American author, professor of biology, entomologist and father of poet Sylvia Plath
November 7, 1940: Film of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse.
Irish TaoiseachÉamon de Valera rejected a British request that strategic naval ports and air bases on Irish territory be rendered or leased to Britain.[6]
The Vrancea earthquake struck Romania, registering 7.7 on the Richter scale and killing 1,000 people.
The first aircraft to be ferried from Gander, Newfoundland to the United Kingdom took off. The formation of seven Lockheed Hudson bombers landed the next morning at Aldergrove, Northern Ireland after a 10-hour-17-minute flight. Over the course of the war some 10,000 aircraft would travel this route from North America to Europe.[8]
RAF Bomber Command, aware of reports of high-level Nazi-Soviet negotiations in Berlin, conducts air raids over the German capital. The raids do little physical damage, but succeed in embarrassing the hosts by forcing them to re-locate the discussions to an air raid shelter and cause the Soviet delegation to question German claims regarding the supposedly imminent British defeat.
The Walt Disney animated film Fantasia, the first commercial film shown in stereophonic sound, had its world premiere at the Broadway Theatre in New York City.[9] It was the first box office failure for Disney, though it recouped its cost years later and became one of the most highly regarded of Disney's films.
Died:Johann Urban, 77, Austrian chemist and industrialist
Germany expelled 70,000 Lorrainers from northeast France.[12]
In American college football, the famous Fifth Down Game was played between Cornell and Dartmouth. Cornell appeared to have won 7-3 but officials reviewing game film discovered they had made an error that allowed Cornell an extra down during the final seconds of the game that led to a touchdown. Cornell forfeited the game as a result.
The British attempted Operation White, an attempt to deliver fourteen aircraft from the carrier HMS ArgustoMalta, but only five planes made it due to bad weather and the presence of the Italian Fleet.
Count Ciano met with Hitler at the Berghof. Hitler was pessimistic over the situation in the Balkans but became enthusiastic on the subject of negotiating an alliance with Yugoslavia.[14]
Patria disaster: The French-built ocean liner SS Patria was sunk in the Port of Haifa when a bomb exploded on board. 267 were killed and 172 injured. It was not until 1957 that the underground paramilitary group Haganah was revealed to be the party responsible.
In the wake of the German–Soviet Axis talks, Vyacheslav Molotov told the German ambassador to the Soviet Union that the USSR was willing to join a four-power pact with Germany, Italy and Japan if new Soviet territorial demands were met, including expansion into the Persian Gulf and the annexation of Finland. Hitler called Stalin a "cold-blooded blackmailer" and refused to make any response to the Soviet proposal.[22]
A plane bound for Syria piloted by the French aviator Henri Guillaumet with the newly appointed High Commissioner of the LevantJean Chiappe among the passengers was mistakenly shot down over the Mediterranean by an Italian fighter plane.
^Holston, Kim R. (2013). Movie Roadshows: A History and Filmography of Reserved-Seat Limited Showings, 1911-1973. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. p. 94. ISBN978-0-7864-6062-5.
^Arens, Moshe (2011). Flags Over the Warsaw Ghetto: The Untold Story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing. p. 45. ISBN9789652295279.
^Kitson, Simon (2008). The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France. University of Chicago Press. p. xviii. ISBN9780226438955.
^Tucker, Spencer C. (2010). A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, LLC. p. 1917. ISBN9781851096725.
