Friday 8 December 1939

Polish pilots cleared to serve in the RAF on 8 December 1939.

Winter War Army Operations: Soviet troops of the 163rd Division of the 9th Army (Duhanov) take Suomussalmi without a fight after dark at 9 p.m. on 8 December 1939. They quickly attack across the frozen lakes to the west with two companies. The objective is Hyrysalmi and then, ultimately, Oulu on the Gulf of Bothnia, which would split Finland in two and effectively end the war. However, there is a very rough country in between which might not be so obvious from maps.

The Finns who had abandoned Suomussalmi, the 15th and 16th Detached Battalions of the Finnish Army, also know the stakes and are waiting. With a clear field of fire across the frozen surface, they beat back the Soviets and inflict massive casualties. The Soviets regroup and try to outflank the Finns to the northwest, at Puolnaka. The Polish 16th detached battalion is there waiting for them and stops the Soviets cold.

Elsewhere on the front, the Soviet forces also are mostly stopped. The Finns are holding against the 8th Army at the River Kollaa. Only the Soviet 14th Army in the far north takes some tundra near Petsamo against three Finnish companies led by Captain Antti Pennanen.

It is the first day of the Winter War when the Finns largely hold their ground.

European Air Operations: The Royal Air Force and the British government agree to allow exiled Polish pilots to be attached to the RAF.

Otto Kretschmer.

Battle of the Atlantic: US Secretary of State Cordell Hull asks his Chargé d'Affaires in the United Kingdom to demand that the British release the Nishmaha, which has been held in detention for 25 days. The British wish it to unload cargo that the British consider contraband at Marseilles.

The US Consul General in Hamburg reports that the Germans have detained 125 vessels from neutral nations - 40 Swedish, 12 Danish, 5 Norwegian, 40 Finnish, 14 Estonian and 14 Latvian. The Germans, like the British, have adopted a sweeping interpretation of what constitutes "contraband."

U-34 (Kapitänleutnant Otto Kretschmer) torpedoes and sinks the 2,400-ton Danish freighter Scotia northeast of Scotland. Two survive and 19 perish.

U-48 (Kapitänleutnant Herbert Schultze) torpedoes and sinks 6,668-ton British freighter Brandon south of Ireland. Nine perish.

British freighter Merel hits a mine and sinks off Ramsgate.

British freighter Corea hits a mine and sinks.

Convoy OA 49 departs from Southend, OB 49 departs from Liverpool, HG 10 departs from Gibraltar.

British Military: In Egypt, General Wavell dismisses Major General Percy Hobart from his position forming Mobile Force (Egypt). Hobart has unconventional ideas about the use of tanks and other mobile forces, seeing in them the ability to project long-range power across the desert. The War Office is not a fan of these ideas, but, strangely enough, one Heinz Guderian in the Reich thinks that Hobart is brilliant and actually pays a translator so that he can read everything that Hobart writes. Hobart's dismissal is a reflection of the tensions going on in every major army about the role of mobile forces and tanks in particular. Hobart goes home to Chipping Campden and joins his Local Defence Volunteers unit as a lance corporal, serving as its Deputy Area Organiser.

Italy: Air Marshal Italo Balbo, long-time Governor-General of Libya, visits Rome and publicly states, "You will all wind up shining the shoes of the Germans!" He is the only fascist to publicly criticize Mussolini's obvious sympathies with Hitler and wishes that Italy would join the Allies. Balbo is such a towering figure in the military that Mussolini does nothing but inwardly seethe.

Peru: Manuel Prado y Ugarteche inaugurated as president.

China: The Japanese 104th Infantry Division attacks Chinese Kwantung Army forces in Kwantung as a spoiling attack against the Chinese 4th War Area. The Japanese spoiling attacks in Wenhsi and Hsia Hsien continue.

Future History: Gordon Arthur "Red" Berenson is born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He becomes a National Hockey League player in the 1960s and eventually becomes a coach. As of this writing, Red Berenson is the coach of the Michigan Wolverines men's hockey team and has been for 32 years.

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, December 8, 1939. Somebody important is coming or going on the Santa Fe, note the drum band. [Oklahoma Publishing Company Photography Collection].

December 14, 1939: Quisling Meets Hitler
December 15, 1939: Chinese Winter Offensive in High Gear
December 16, 1939: Battle of Summa
December 17, 1939: End of Admiral Graf Spee
December 18, 1939: Battle of Heligoland Bight
December 19, 1939: British Disarm Magnetic Mines
December 20, 1939: Finnish Counterattacks Continue
December 21, 1939: Finns Plan More Counterattacks
December 22, 1939: Enter Chuikov
December 23, 1939: Failed Finnish Counterattack
December 24, 1939: Soviets on the Run
December 25, 1939: Fresh Soviet Attacks
December 26, 1939: Vicious Battles at Kelja
December 27, 1939: Grinding Finnish Victories
December 28, 1939: Liberators
December 29, 1939: Finns Tighten the Noose
December 30, 1939: Finnish Booty
December 31, 1939: Planning More Soviet Destruction

2019

Sunday 1 October 1939

Britain's King George VI, right, and Queen Elizabeth leave St.Paul's Cathedral, London, on Oct. 1, 1939, following a service for the Nation's Day of Prayer.

Battle of Poland: Warsaw having surrendered, Wehrmacht troops on 1 October 1939 enter and begin disarming the estimated 120,000 Polish soldiers and transporting them to POW camps.

The Polish garrison on the Hela Peninsula (Admiral Józef Unrug) decides to surrender.

Following the Battle of Szack, the Polish Defence Corps (Gen. Wilhelm Orlik-Rückemann) is on the run and has crossed the Bug River. The Poles have walked hundreds of kilometers in the past fortnight, are marching through the night and are short of supplies, but they remain a disciplined fighting force. Near the village of Wytyczno near Włodawa, tank elements of the Soviet 45th Rifle Division attack at 1 a.m. The Poles fight them off and destroy four Soviet tanks. Another assault in daylight by the majority of the Soviet division again is beaten off, but the Poles are running out of ammunition. The exhausted Polish units then form small groups and melt away through the forests to join other units. The Battle of Wytyczno is considered a Soviet tactical victory, but also a Polish moral victory by only a few thousand poorly armed men against overwhelming odds.

British Military Intelligence: Poles fleeing from their country to England bring with them two Enigma machines.

Battle of the Atlantic: The Admiralty learns of the pocket battleships Graf Spee and Deutschland operating as lone commerce raiders.

U-35 sinks 2,239-ton Belgian merchant ship Suzon 42 miles off Ushant at 18:45 after stopping it, inspecting it, and disembarking the crew. The kill is legal because the ship, even though neutral, is transporting war goods from Bordeaux to Cardiff.

Western Front: The French claim a small advance near the district town of Saarlouis in the Saar.

British Homefront: Winston Churchill makes his first wartime broadcast to the British people. He summarizes the events of the first month of the war. He suggests that the Soviet invasion of Poland "was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the [German] menace." He coins the famous phrase "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" to describe Soviet machinations, "a cold policy of self-interest."

Churchill lists "three important things" that happened in that month:

• Poland has been overrun;
• The assertion of the power of Russia;
• "The U-boat attack has not so far proved successful"

He  anticipates a war of "at least three years."

A Royal Proclamation is issued calling up the classes of 1918 and 1919.

China: The Japanese 11th Corps. withdraws from Changsha and the nearby Tungting Lakes. Chiang Kai-shek has a rare victory in this "Battle of Changsha."

Soviet/Japanese Relations: As a show of good faith to the Soviets, the Japanese dismiss senior officers of the Kwantung army who had led the battle of Khalkin Gol. The dismissed Generals had been contemptuous of Tokyo authority.

German/Italian Relations: Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano is in Germany for discussions with Hitler and Ribbentrop.

Soviet/Turkish Relations: The Turkish Foreign Minister (M. Sarajoglu) meets with Molotov in Moscow.

German Homefront: On an undetermined day in October, Hitler has typed on his personal stationery (and backdated to 1 September 1939) a Fuhrer Decree that authorizes mercy killings of persons who "are incurable."

September 1939

September 1, 1939: Invasion of Poland
September 2, 1939: Danzig Annexed
September 3, 1939: France, Great Britain Declare War
September 4, 1939: First RAF Raid
September 5, 1939: The US Stays Out
September 6, 1939: Battle of Barking Creek
September 7, 1939: Polish HQ Bugs Out
September 8, 1939: War Crimes in Poland
September 9, 1939: The Empire Strikes Back
September 10, 1939: The Germans Break Out
September 11, 1939: Battle of Kałuszyn
September 12, 1939: The French Chicken Out
September 13, 1939: The Battle of Modlin
September 14, 1939: Germany Captures Gdynia
September 15, 1939: Warsaw Surrounded
September 16, 1939: Battle of Jaworów
September 17, 1939: Soviets Invade Poland
September 18, 1939: Lublin Falls
September 19, 1939: Germans, Soviets Hook Up
September 20, 1939: the Kraków Army Surrenders
September 21, 1939: Romania Convulses
September 22, 1939: Joint Soviet-German Military Parade
September 23, 1939: The Panama Conference
September 24, 1939: The Luftwaffe Bombs Warsaw
September 25, 1939: Black Monday for Warsaw
September 26, 1939: Warsaw on the Ropes
September 27, 1939: Hitler Decides to Invade France
September 28, 1939: Warsaw Capitulates
September 29, 1939: Modlin Fortress Falls
September 30, 1939: Graf Spee on the Loose

October 1939

October 1, 1939: Occupation of Warsaw
October 2, 1939: Hel Peninsula Falls
October 3, 1939: The Diamantis Incident
October 4, 1939: Otto Kretschmer Gets Rolling
October 5, 1939: Polish Resistance Ends
October 6, 1939: Hitler Peace Effort
October 7, 1939: The British Have Arrived
October 8, 1939: First RAF Kill from UK
October 9, 1939: "City of Flint" Incident
October 10, 1939: Lithuania Under Pressure
October 11, 1939: The Atomic Age Begins
October 12, 1939: England Rejects Hitler's Peace Offer
October 13, 1939: Charles Lindbergh Speaks Out
October 14 1939: Royal Oak Sunk
October 15, 1939: Cuban Rockets
October 16, 1939: First Aircraft Shot Down Over UK
October 17, 1939: Marshall Mannerheim Returns
October 18, 1939: Prien Receives His Award
October 19, 1939: Preliminary Plan for Fall Gelb
October 20, 1939: Hitler Grapples with the Jews
October 21, 1939: Hurricanes to the Rescue!
October 22, 1939: Goebbels Lies Through His Teeth
October 23, 1939: Norway the Center of Attention
October 24, 1939: German "Justice" Gets Rolling
October 25, 1939: Handley Page Halifax Bomber First Flies
October 26, 1939: Jozef Tiso Takes Slovakia
October 27, 1939: King Leopold Stands Firm
October 28, 1939 - First Luftwaffe Raid on Great Britain
October 29, 1939: Tinkering with Fall Gelb
October 30, 1939: Defective Torpedoes
October 31, 1939: Molotov Issues an Ultimatum

2019

Sunday 20 August 1939

Japanese forces marching against the Soviet Red Army at Khalkhin Gol.

Soviet-Japanese Military Action - Japan had been aggressive with its military throughout the 1930s. It confined that activity largely to the Chinese mainland, incurring little notice in the Western media. By and large, horrific as the human toll was, these military raids had little consequences extending into World War II. However, one did: the Battle of Khalkhin Gol.

Japan had occupied Manchuria (north of Korea) in 1931 and turned it into a puppet state named Manchukuo. This brought the Japanese into direct contact with the Soviets in Mongolia, removing the buffer between them. The result was a series of border incidents due to disagreement about the true border between the two adversaries. You might think that the Japanese, having absconded with such a huge territory, would just take a pass on pressing a meaningless border issue so as not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it was the 1930s and everyone was in everyone else's business.

Actually, somewhat surprisingly, headquarters in Japan did take that reasonable attitude. It was one of its last prudent military decisions. But this order was ignored.

The 1905 Battle of Tsushima off Korea was an epic Russian disaster that lingered in everyone's memory through the years. The Battle of Kalkin Gol turned the tables.

So, in a fit of common sense, Imperial Japanese Headquarters told the local army to stand down. However, the Japanese Kwantung Army was a loose cannon outfit that pretty much did what it wanted to do, led by leaders who fancied themselves crusading warlords. It ignored Tokyo and decided to settle the border issue by simply taking the disputed territory. The Kwantung Army began inconclusive skirmishing with the Soviets in May 1939, but this led nowhere. The Japanese then decided to settle matters once and for all in July. They sent in two roughly division-sized forces in a two-pronged assault designed to encircle Soviet forces on the river Khalkhin Gol. It was a classic double encirclement, then novel in modern warfare (though the tactic dated at least to the time of Hannibal) but much-practiced later in World War II.

The Japanese plan might have succeeded, but they were facing one Georgy Zhukov. Zhukov was to become famous during World War II as quite possibly the best General of the conflict, but at that time he was just a corps commander. He took over on 5 June 1939, bringing along reinforcements (part of being a favored General in those days was that you got stronger forces allocated to you than would otherwise be the case). Zhukov had literally hundreds of tanks, which he was not chary about using, making the operation a full-scale battle on a par with many of the famous engagements of the war. It was basically war games with live ammunition because everyone knew it would not evolve into a wider conflict. While the Japanese claimed to have destroyed more Soviet tanks than they lost (also a common claim by the Germans in subsequent years), ultimately they were repelled. The encirclement failed, the points of the attack failed to join, and the Japanese commander Yasuoka Masaomi was relieved.

While the Japanese attack had failed, they had occupied some territory and remained in their advanced positions. They may not have achieved their objective, but they also technically had not lost. Zhukov decided to settle matters. On 20 August, he attacked with three rifle divisions, two tank divisions and additional tank forces organized into two brigades. While Soviet divisions in those days were smaller than those in other armies, it was still a substantial force of about 500 tanks (while composed of weak BT-5 and BT-7 models, these were more than capable against the Japanese forces which were very light in armor). The Soviets also had some 557 aircraft and 50,000 men. The Soviets faced only one Japanese division - the disadvantage of having a failed encirclement was that the Japanese forces remained separate and could be defeated in detail. By the end of the month, the Japanese forces had been wiped out. A cease-fire was arranged in Moscow shortly afterward, made easier because now (temporarily) they essentially were on the same side against the Allies.


While there is doubt about the losses on both sides, there is no doubt that the Japanese lost, and lost badly. This was probably due to their deficiencies in armor and aircraft. The battle had several important consequences:

• The Soviet military successes in the Far East encouraged Stalin to sign the 23 August Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact with Germany, which had many militarily adventurous aspects;
• To some extent, the victory avenged the Soviet disaster at the 1905 Battle of Tsushima and restored Soviet prestige in the theater;
• Zhukov burnished his credentials and returned to Moscow a hero, thereby accelerating his career rise;
• Moscow got to practice an early form of Blitzkrieg (coordinated offensive attack by motorized forces and aircraft) and demonstrate it for the world;
• Japan saw that the Soviets would not be an easy opponent and looked in other directions for future conquests.

While it is dangerous to read too much into an isolated, basically inconclusive (in a strategic sense) engagement, the Battle of Khalkhin Gol had drastic consequences for world history. Due to this battle, Stalin felt free, especially given the intelligence received from Soviet spies such as Richard Sorge, to reduce his defensive strength facing Japan to the bare minimum during the darkest early days of World War II in 1941. This contributed to the successful defense of Moscow in December 1941 and the subsequent successful Soviet counterattacks. The battle also dissuaded the Japanese from attacking north in 1941 against the weakened Soviet Union, which would have made much better sense from a strategic perspective than what they chose to do. Ultimately, Japan attacked south for "easy" conquests, and this had catastrophic - actually fatal - consequences for the Axis.

Zhukov at the Khalkhin Gol battle.

Pre-War

8-9 November 1923: Beer Hall Putsch

December 20, 1924: Hitler Leaves Prison

September 18, 1931: Geli Raubal Commits Suicide

November 8, 1932: Roosevelt is Elected

30 January 1933: Hitler Takes Office
February 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire
March 23, 1933: The Enabling Act

June 20, 1934: Hitler Plans the Night of the Long Knives
June 30, 1934: Night of the Long Knives

August 1, 1936: Opening of the Berlin Olympics

September 30, 1938: The Munich Agreement
November 9, 1938: Kristallnacht

August 1, 1939: Flight Tests of B-17 Flying Fortress
August 2, 1939: Einstein and the Atom Bomb
August 7, 1939: Goering Tries to Broker Peace
August 14, 1939: Hitler Decides To Attack Poland
August 15, 1939: U-Boats Put To Sea
August 16, 1939: Incident at Danzig
August 20, 1939: Battle of Khalkhin Gol
August 22, 1939: Hitler Tips His Hand
August 23, 1939: Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact
August 25, 1939: Hitler Postpones Invasion of Poland
August 27, 1939: First Jet Flight
August 31, 1939: The Gleiwitz Operation

2019