Mistaken Auxiliary

FRI 12 DEC 1941
Naval Air Transport Service (NATS) is established.

U.S. government seizes French ships in U.S. ports.

Pacific
Secretary of the Navy Knox departs Oahu after inspecting the damage done by the Japanese attack of 7 December.

Japanese reconnaissance flying boats (Yokohama Kokutai) bomb Wake Island in pre-dawn raid. Later in the day, land attack planes (Chitose Kokutai) bomb Wake.

Unarmed U.S. freighter Vincent is shelled and sunk by Japanese armed merchant cruisers Aikoku Maru and Hokoku Maru about 600 miles northwest of Easter Island, 22°41'S, 118°19'E, and her entire crew captured.

Unarmed U.S. freighter Lahaina, shelled and torpedoed by Japanese submarine I 9 the previous day, sinks (see 21 December).

Japanese Naval Aviation Pilot First Class Nishikaichi Shigenori begins, with aid of Harada Yoshio, a Japanese resident of Niihau, to terrorize the inhabitants of the island into returning papers confiscated on 7 December. In response to this campaign of intimidation, the islanders flee to the hills (see 13 December).

Submarine S 38 (SS-143) mistakenly torpedoes and sinks Norwegian merchantman Hydra II west of Cape Calavite, Mindoro, P.I., believing her to be a Japanese auxiliary. Hydra II had been en route from Bangkok, Thailand, to Hong Kong, when she is diverted to Manila by the outbreak of war.
[Not, oddly, mentioned in this episode of The Silent Service, which besides the above omission also confuses the date of the "Xmas Eve" sinking portrayed in the episode.]

The Ordeal of the S-38[W/ Touch Connors.]

During Japanese bombing of shipping off Cebu, in the Visayan Sea, Philippine passenger vessel Governor Wright is sunk, 12°55'N, 123°55'E.

USAAF B-17 (19th Bombardment Group) bombs Japanese shipping off Vigan, P.I., damaging transport Hawaii Maru.

Dutch submarines operate off Malaya against Japanese invasion shipping. K XII torpedoes and sinks army cargo ship Toro Maru off Kota Bharu, 06°08'N, 102°16'E; O 16 torpedoes and damages army cargo ships Tozan Maru, Kinka Maru, and Asosan Maru off Patani/Singora.

Japanese minelayer/netlayer Naryu is damaged by marine casualty, Tomogashima Channel.