Vacant Admiral's Quarters

FRI 6 FEB 1942
General
Naval Coastal Frontiers--Eastern, Gulf, Caribbean, Panama, Hawaiian, Northwest, Western, Philippine--are redesignated as Sea Frontiers.

U.S. and Britain establish Combined Chiefs of Staff.

Pacific
Japanese land reinforcements at Lingayen Gulf.

Japanese artillery on the Cavite coast, near Ternate, shell Corregidor, Fort Hughes, Fort Frank, Fort Drum and anchorage of Inshore Patrol off South Harbor, Corregidor; river gunboat Luzon (PR-7) is hit by a shell in her vacant admiral's quarters; there are no casualties.

Atlantic
Unarmed U.S. freighter Major Wheeler, en route from Fajardo, Puerto Rico, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-107. There are no survivors from the 35-man crew.

British freighter Hartlepool comes across lifeboat from torpedoed U.S. tanker W.L. Steed (sunk by German submarine U-103 on 2 February) and rescues the two survivors she finds; one of them will die in hospital on 10 February of exposure (see 12 February).