Tuesday 19 November 1939

Heinkel He 177 V1.

Western Front: The Germans launch some scattered attacks on the French lines on 19 November 1939, throwing grenades.

Battle of the Atlantic: More ships are sunk by the magnetic mines dropped by Kriegsmarine destroyers, but the U-boats have a big day.

U-35 (Kptl. Heinz Scheringer) torpedoes and sinks 793-ton British merchant Bowling near the Outer Farne Islands in the North Sea. All thirteen crew perish.

U-41 (Kapitänleutnant Gustav-Adolf Mugler) torpedoes and sinks the 1,351-ton British freighter Darino near Spain. Eleven survive, picked up by the U-boat and transferred to an Italian steamer, and sixteen perish. It turned into extremely long and tedious stalking, as the U-boat fired three torpedoes over eight hours that all missed or malfunctioned. Finally, at 01:50, a fourth hits.

U-49 (Kapitänleutnant Kurt von Gossler) torpedoes and sinks 4,258-ton British freighter Pensilva near Spain. U-49 has been stalking convoy HG 7 out of Durban for three hours before it gets the right opening. Again, two torpedoes miss, but the third does hit the ship.

U-57 (Kapitänleutnant Claus Korth) torpedoes and sinks 1,383-ton British freighter Stanbrook in the North Sea. All 20 crew perish.

British ship Torchbearer hits a magnetic mine and sinks.

Kriegsmarine minesweeper M-132 is accidentally damaged by depth charges and, after being beached, is a total loss.

Convoy HG 9 leaves Port Said for Liverpool.

European Air Operations: Flights of Luftwaffe planes are spotted both in the southeast and near the Firth of Forth.

German Opposition: Rumors are running wild about the actions taken against the students in Prague. Up to 120 Czech students and teachers are claimed to be killed, with another 50,000 people arrested. It is all just rumor and conjecture, there are no hard facts being reported by any media sources.

British Government: First Lord of the Admiralty Churchill, wishing to retaliate for the success of the German magnetic mines, proposes using aircraft to drop mines in the Rhine between Strasbourg and the Lauter River and around the Ruhr stretch of the river. He wishes to make the former mines time-activated so they will float downstream and then blow up in the busiest section of the Rhine.

Luftwaffe: The prototype Heinkel He 177 V1, the Luftwaffe's only four-engine bomber (in two nacelles feeding only two propellers), makes its maiden flight. The flight must be cut short because of overheating engines.

Dutch/Belgian/German Relations: The Dutch and Belgians protest at incursions of their airspace by the Luftwaffe.

Japanese/Soviet Relations: Molotov signs an agreement with the Japanese ambassador to establish a commission to fix the border of Manchukuo, where the two nations recently clashed at Khalkin Gol.

China: Chiang Kai-Shek renews his quest for a Winter Offensive against the Japanese despite recent setbacks along the coast.

Warsaw Ghetto Fencing.

Holocaust: The Germans announce that they have erected walls around the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw in order to better control the inhabitants.
American Homefront: American League MVP Joe Dimaggio marries Dorothy Arnold in San Francisco.

The cornerstone ceremony is held for the FDR Library in Hyde Park, New York. It is the first Presidential Library. He places a "time capsule" inside. Despite his physical condition, FDR stands for the ceremony.

November 1939

November 1, 1939: The Jet Flies Again
November 2, 1939: The Soviets Devour Poland
November 3, 1939: Amending the Neutrality Act
November 4, 1939: Roosevelt Signs Neutrality Laws
November 5, 1939: The Spirit of Zossen
November 6, 1939: First Dogfight
November 7, 1939: More Lies About SS Athenia
November 8, 1939: Hitler Almost Killed
November 9, 1939: The Venlo Incident
November 10, 1939: Dutch Panic
November 11, 1939: Poignant Armistice Day
November 12, 1939: Peace Efforts Made and Rejected
November 13, 1939: First Bombing of Great Britain
November 14, 1939: The Dyle Plan
November 15, 1939: Elser Confesses to the Bürgerbräukeller Bombing
November 16, 1939: Martial Law in Prague
November 17, 1939: International Students Day
November 18, 1939: Magnetic Mines
November 19, 1939: Walls Around the Warsaw Ghetto
November 20, 1939: First RN Submarine Victory
November 21, 1939: Salmon & Gluckstein on the Prowl
November 22, 1939: British Recover A Magnetic Mine
November 23, 1939: HMS Rawalpindi Sunk
November 24, 1939: Japanese Enter Nanning
November 25, 1939: The Olympics are a War Casualty
November 26, 1939: Soviets Stage an "Incident" at Mainila
November 27, 1939: German Marriage Becomes Perilous
November 28, 1939: Judenrats in Poland
November 29, 1939: The Soviets Prepare to Invade Finland
November 30, 1939: Winter War Begins

2019

Monday 4 September 1939

The Daily Mirror, 4 September 1939.

European Air Operations: After only dropping leaflets performing reconnaissance during the day, the RAF mounts its first raid of the war on 4 September 1939. It is against Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel, which had been the subject of the previous day's recon. There are fifteen Blenheim and fourteen Wellington bombers in the raid, and the RAF comes off the worse for the day: it loses 7 bombers.

One of the aircrews killed over Wilhelmshaven on this first night of the war is Herbert Brian Lightoller, an RAF pilot. He is the son of Charles Lightoller, a senior surviving officer of RMS Titanic.

The Luftwaffe gets its first kill of the war, as seven (sources vary) of the bombers go down and at least one is a victim of a Bf 109 from II/JG 77. The cruiser Emden is damaged when one of the bombers lands on it but remains operational. The Pocket-battleship Admiral Scheer suffers a light hit but also remains operational.

Battle of Poland: The Luftwaffe is focusing its offensive operations in Poland, where cutting-edge Bf 109s meet and destroy 11 Polish fighters and three bombers over Lodz. The Polish air force is hopelessly obsolete and under-equipped and will quickly be put out of operation.

The Luftwaffe continues Operation Wasserkante against Warsaw, but results are minimal as Polish air defenses remain intact. The Polish news service announces several minor victories but admits the loss of the Silesian town of Czestochowa. A small Polish garrison of three old World War I forts at Różan holds out against a superior German panzer division. In the Battle of the Border, German forces crush Polish forces at Ćwiklice, forcing the withdrawal of the entire Armia Kraków from Upper Silesia.
Battle of the Atlantic: Great Britain blockades German ports. The German propaganda service announces that the sinking of the SS Athenia on 3 September was a false-flag operation arranged by the British to cause issues between Germany and the United States.

In actuality, the Kriegsmarine is completely in the dark about what had happened to the SS Athenia the previous day (the ship only sinks this morning). It won't know until the U-30 makes port and the commander reports. In the interim, Hitler wants no more enemies for the moment and announces a prohibition against attacks on passenger ships which will mostly be followed for some time. Propaganda Minister Goebbels has his outlets basically accuse Winston Churchill of using the Athenia to mount a false-flag operation to drag the United States into the war. The Germans, of course, were the masters of such operations, having just performed several phony "attacks" against themselves as part of Operation Himmler to "justify" their invasion of Poland.

Western Front: The French are ensconced behind the Maginot Line without British support yet, and the Germans are occupied in Poland. The latter also are happy to stay behind the mostly fictional Siegfried Line as the Reich continues to re-arm. Thus, there are only sporadic "demonstration" attacks by both sides along the border as Hitler studiously avoids the greatly feared "two-Front war."

Meanwhile, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) hurries into action and begins ferrying troops to Cherbourg, France via destroyer.

International Relations: On Monday, 4 September 1939, New Zealand (part of the British Commonwealth) declares war on Germany backdated to the time of Great Britain's announcement on 3 September. Egypt, garrisoned by British troops under the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936, breaks off relations with Germany but remains neutral. Japan remains neutral - though only in Europe. Its predatory operations in China will continue, and it will remain a covert supporter of the Reich..

German Government: Hermann Goering meets with British Ambassador Sir Neville Henderson, who is getting ready to return to England. He assures him that Germany has no qualms with France or Great Britain and will not attack them with troops. Goering says the same thing to unofficial diplomat Birger Dahlerus, whose efforts had failed.

British Government: Winston Churchill accepts PM Chamberlain's offer of the previous day to join his war cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty. Churchill had been First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911–1915 during the early part of World War I with mixed results. Now, he is seen as a strong war hawk with a wealth of experience about naval matters, but, as events show, he retains many of his old and sometimes unsuccessful ideas about naval strategy (such as landing operations in the Balkans). Chamberlain broadcasts a message in German to the German people explaining the decision to declare war.

British Homefront: The planned evacuation of 650,000 children and non-essential adults from London concludes smoothly.

German Homefront: The German income tax is increased to 50%.

The interwar years had been full of various "stunts," and it was a hard habit to break. Here, the 4 September 1939 edition of the NY Times reports breathlessly on a six-year-old who swam from New Jersey to the Dyckman Street Ferry slip. To show how popular these stunts were, this wasn't even the first time a six-year-old had done it: another boy, Johnny "Freckles" Devine, had beaten him to it in 1925.

2019