Franklin Roosevelt orders US Navy yacht Isabel and two additional small vessels sent off the coast of Indochina to bait Japan if war could not be avoided. This, of course, didn't go as planned.

Japan's German ambassador Hiroshi Oshima is ordered to secure Foreign Minister of Germany Joachim von Ribbentrop's signature on a document stating Germany would declare war on the United States if Japan and the US go to war.

Japan convince the US Navy the carrier Akagi was still in home water by false radio messages using outdated call signs. Later in the day the US Navy realise all Japanese warships have changed call signs.

A pilot who crash landed on the Niihau island during the attack on Pearl Harbor attempts to recover sensitive documents seized by the islanders. His turning to violence - including setting fire to the house he thought the documents might be stored in - is a fatal mistake; he is overpowered and killed.

Douglas MacArthur is promoted to general.

Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels makes a first radio broadcast appealing for winter clothes for the German troops in the Eastern front of the war.

The First American Volunteer Group - the Flying Tigers - have their first battle with Japan, in China.

USS Peary is bombed by four Japanese aircraft at 1420 hours, in transit from the Philippines to Australia; there was no damage. At 1800 hours, however, she was mistaken for a Japanese ship by three RAF Hudson bombers off Kina, Celebes and Dutch East Indies, killing one and wounding two.

German U-75 attacks Allied convoy ME-8 off Mersa Matruh, Egypt; British ship Volo is sunk killing 24 with 14 survivors. British destroyer HMS Kipling counter-attacks and sinks U-75 with depth charges, killing 14 with 30 survivors.