Monday 23 December 1940

Reich Minister for Armaments and Ammunition Fritz Todt greets Adolf Hitler during the latter's inspection tour of German coastal fortification in France, 23 December 1940. Todt's "Organisation Todt" built the autobahns and gravitated into war work after the invasion of Poland.

Italian/Greek Campaign: Having taken Himara on the 22nd, the Greeks on 23 December 1940 continue pushing the Italians back along the coast. Or, more accurately, the Greeks chase the Italians up the coast. In addition, Greek II Corps is in action further east, but the weather is horrendous in the mountains and little progress is possible. Fierce and inconclusive battles rage around Klisura Pass.

Mussolini has been despondent ever since the Italian offensive in Albania failed in early November, and recent events only have made it worse. During a private discussion with Count Ciano, his brother-in-law and Foreign Minister, Mussolini moans:

I must nevertheless recognise that the Italians of 1914 were better than these. It is not very flattering for the regime, but that’s the way it is.

Of course, "the Italians of 1914" were on the British side, not the German, a point which Winston Churchill makes during his evening broadcast (see below).

European Air Operations: German propagandist Lord Haw-Haw brazenly reveals the Luftwaffe's plans to bomb Manchester for the second night in a row, and then the attack takes place as he describes. Throughout the night, 171 German bombers drop 195 more tons of high explosives and 893 incendiary bombs on the city. Overall, through the two nights, there are 363 dead and 1183 other major casualties.

RAF Bomber Command attacks Boulogne, Dunkirk, and Ostend. It also hits Ludwigshafen in the Rhineland.

Hitler during his inspection tour, 23 December 1940 (Leitstand of the Marine-Küstenbatterie "Großer Kurfürst" in Cap Gris Nez).

Battle of the Atlantic: There is another engagement in the North Sea involving German motor Torpedo Boats. The 1st MTB Squadron attacks Convoy FN 366, which had departed from Southend earlier in the day. MTB S-28 sinks 358-ton British trawler HMT Pelton north of Aldeburgh (off Lowestoft), while S-59 badly damages 6552-ton Dutch tanker Stad Maastricht east of Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. There are 19-20 deaths on the Pelton, but everyone on the Stad Maastricht survives. The freighter is taken in tow by three other ships, but it later sinks. One of the German craft also is reported sunk by the British, but there is no verification.

The Luftwaffe (either Heinkel He 111s or Focke-Wulf Fw 200 of I,/KG 40, sources vary) bombs and badly damages 6941-ton Dutch freighter Breda off Oban in Loch Etive. The Breda is taken in tow and beached, but ultimately is written off. Everyone survives.

During the attack near Oban, the Luftwaffe also damaged 2022-ton British freighter Flynderborg, 88-ton drifter Lupina and 4652-ton Dutch freighter Tuva.

The Luftwaffe (IX Air Corps) also drops an aerial mine on and sinks 400-ton Dutch trawler Ystroom in Liverpool Bay near Southport, Lancashire. Everyone survives

The Luftwaffe attacks on Manchester damage 6734-ton British freighter Pacific Pioneer.

The Luftwaffe also damaged 314-ton British freighter Iwate.

Royal Navy destroyer HMS Warwick hits a mine off Liverpool (near the Bar Lightship) and has to be towed to shore, where it is beached prior to repair. The damage is severe and repairs will take well over a year.

Royal Navy anti-aircraft ship HMS Alynbank hits another ship (not identified) in the night and is damaged. It proceeds to Rosyth for repairs.

Royal Navy destroyer HMS Havock collides with battleship HMS Valiant and is put out of action for two months.

Royal Navy minelaying cruiser HMS Adventure lays minefield ZME 9 in the North Sea.

Convoy OB 263 departs from Liverpool, Convoy FN 366 departs from Southend, Convoy SC 17 departs from Halifax.

U-553 (Kapitänleutnant Karl Thurmann) is commissioned, U-558 launched.

Royal Navy corvette HMS Aubretia (K 96) and anti-submarine warfare trawler HMT Hamlet (T 167) are commissioned).

US submarine USS Grampus is launched.

Hitler inspecting the coastal guns in France, 23 December 1940. He is talking with Friedrich-Wilhelm Fleischer, Marinebefehlshaber Kanalküste at the Marine-Küstenbatterie "Großer Kurfürst" in Cap Gris Nez.

Battle of the Mediterranean: Italian Commander-in-chief Rodolfo Graziani sacks the commander of the Italian 10th Army, General Mario Berti, and replaces him with 10th Army Chief of Staff General Giuseppe Tellera. Operation Compass is at a standstill at this point, with the Italians holding firm in Bardia and Tobruk while the British Army brings up Australian units to assault those long-standing Italian fortresses. The British continue sorting out Italian prisoners, with the number evacuated from Sidi Barrani numbering 35,949, including 1704 officers. The RAF raids Tripoli and Castel Benito.

Italian destroyer Fratelli Cairoli hits one of the mines laid by HMS Rorqual off Tripoli on 5 November and sinks near Misrata, Libya.

German/Vichy French Relations: Jacques Bonsergent, a 28-year-old civil engineer, was one of the protestors against German rule on 10 November 1940 (they were laying wreaths on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier). Arrested (along with 122 others), Bonsergent was convicted on 5 December by a German military tribunal of violating the occupation rules by fighting with a Wehrmacht sergeant. In fact, Bonsergent was only visiting Paris and had no interest in the protest, but got caught up in the melee.

Today, the Germans execute Bonsergent. Jacques Bonsergent is believed to be the first Frenchman executed by the Germans under the occupation. He is buried at Malestroit, Brittany, and a station of the Paris Métro on line 5, which has its entrance on Place Jacques Bonsergent, is named after him.

Hitler emerging from the coastal bunker of the Marine-Küstenbatterie "Großer Kurfürst" in Cap Gris Nez, 23 December 1940. Friedrich-Wilhelm Fleischer is on his left, to his right is Fritz Todt (in Luftwaffe uniform for some reason).

Anglo/Italian Relations: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill broadcasts a speech to the Italian people. He reminds them that Italy and Great Britain were allies during World War I against the "barbarous Hun," and blames the two countries' current struggle on Mussolini:

It is all one man – one man, who, against the crown and royal family of Italy, against the Pope and all the authority of the Vatican and of the Roman Catholic Church, against the wishes of the Italian people who had no lust for this war; one man has arrayed the trustees and inheritors of ancient Rome upon the side of the ferocious pagan barbarians.

Italians are forbidden from listening to any BBC broadcasts, so few are likely to hear it - or at least admit to hearing it. However, people all across Occupied Europe surreptitiously listen to the BBC despite the regulations, and this is a clever way for Churchill to reach them and demoralize them, too.

US/Sino Relations: Claire Chennault's talks with President Roosevelt bear fruit when the US government agrees to provide the American Volunteer Group with 100 P-40B Tomahawk fighters - which are America's front-line fighters. This will enable Chennault to begin battling the Japanese over China with American pilots. Everything, however, is strictly unofficial - there is no direct government involvement, and Chennault's AVG is to be managed by a private company.

Hitler during his inspection tour in France, 23 December 1940. He is at the Leitstand of the Marine-Küstenbatterie "Großer Kurfürst" in Cap Gris Nez.

German Military: Today is the first flight of the Messerschmitt Me 261, flown by Karl Baur. This is a long-range, twin-engine aircraft originally designed to break the world long-distance flight record and carry the Olympic Flame from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany (site of the 1936 Winter Olympics) to Tokyo, Japan for the 1940 Summer Olympics. This would be a flight of 5870 miles (9445 km), powered by Daimler-Benz DB 606 "power systems" (two DB 601 engines coupled in pairs, a difficult mechanism some German designers favored but which caused all sorts of heating and other problems).

With the 1940 Olympics canceled and no real need for long-range transport, the Me 261 is a plane without a purpose - but it is an advanced design, so the design and manufacturing process continues. It does not hurt its state backing that the Me 261 has acquired the nickname "Adolfine" in honor of the Fuhrer, who likes the long-range concept. The test flight goes well, and development continues.

Soviet Military: The Red Army begins a conference at the Kremlin. Attending are all the top Generals, including Meretskov, Zhukov, Timoshenko, Voroshilov, and Pavlov.

US Military: The Army absorbs the National Guard's 35th Division. This division is populated by men from Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska.

The US Navy establishes NAS Key West.

Japanese Military: The Japanese navy determines that aircraft carrier Hōshō, the world's first commissioned ship designed from the keel up to be an aircraft carrier, was obsolete. The ship is found to be too small to carry the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, the Aichi D3A "Val", and/or the Nakajima B5N "Kate" in combat, and in any event it cannot carry enough aircraft to make it useful. However... the Japanese keep it in service anyway, used mainly to provide air cover for capital ships.

German Government: Hitler makes a rare tour of coastal fortifications in France. Riding in his train "Amerika," Hitler inspects railway guns at Audruicq, Rinxent, the Siegfried/Todt bunkers at La Sence, Pointe aux Oies near Wimereux, Wimereux itself, Boulogne, and the defense zone Grosser Kurürst. Hitler will continue his inspection on the 24th, spending the night in his train (parked in a tunnel north of Boulogne). This is as close as he ever gets to England - and one of his closest visits to the enemy until 1945.

Adolf Hitler touring coastal fortifications in France, 23 December 1940. With him are Friedrich-Wilhelm Fleischer, commander of the coastal guns, and labor boss Fritz Todt. Todt's men have built massive fortifications, and some are grandly engraved with "Batterie Todt" in giant letters.

British Government: The appointments of Lord Halifax as Ambassador to the United States and Anthony Eden to be the new Foreign Secretary are announced.

Singapore: Some units of the 2/15 Punjab arrive in British Borneo from Singapore as garrison troops. Air Marshal Brooke Popham, the British Commander-in-Chief in the Far East, takes the opportunity to give a press conference in which he touts the increase British forces in the Far East. The Japanese, however, are in possession of the Top Secret military assessment of British defenses in that theater by the Churchill War Cabinet. The Japanese thus know that any claims of British strength not only are spurious but evidence of mere puffery designed to mislead them and conceal British weakness.

China: Due to clashes between Communist and Nationalist forces, Chiang Kai-Shek demands that the  Communist Party of China (CPC) army evacuate Anhui and Jiangsu Provinces, where they recently have been battling the Japanese with some success. After some hesitation, the Communist New Fourth Army complies. However, Chiang is not happy with the overall situation despite the CPC bowing to his demand, and he or his minions plot reprisals. This is the start of a brewing civil war in the middle of the far more important war against the Japanese.

American Homefront: Eddie August Henry Schneider, a famed 1930s aviator who set several transcontinental speed records and became the youngest certified pilot in the United States, perishes at age 29 in an airplane crash. His plane crashes while Schneider is training another pilot at Floyd Bennett Field. The other plane, piloted by a US Naval Reserve pilot, clips his tail and sends his private plane into the sea. Both the Naval Reserve pilot and the air traffic controllers are held accountable for the tragedy. Schneider had flown with the Yankee Squadron supporting the Spanish Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War.

Lana Turner is profiled in Life Magazine today, illustrating why she is known as the "Sweater Girl." Source: Niven Busch, "Lana Turner: She Was Sipping a Strawberry Malt When Fame Walked in to Make her the Movie Sweater Girl," Life, December 23, 1940, pp. 62-67.

2020

Thursday 12 September 1940

Lascaux cave paintings from 17,000 years ago are discovered on 12 September 1940.

Overview: The Luftwaffe campaign against London and other major population centers now, as of 12 September 1940, is in full swing. The devastation is enormous. Already, though, two favorite 1930s theories of terror bombing are being disproven:

1. That properly targeted terror bombing will inflame class divisions between rich ("plutocrats") and poor; and
2. That terror bombing will destroy civilian morale and force negotiations.

The attacks on Warsaw, Rotterdam and other major European cities during the lightning campaign of May/June 1940 had left these as open questions, with some people pointing to the quick defeats of those countries as evidence that terror bombing works. However, after about a week of the attacks on London, not only is British morale still high, but the bombing has created a sense of shared sacrifice. Wealthy residences such as Buckingham Palace take damage along with poorer areas, for which the royals are eternally grateful.

From a military perspective, the German change in strategy from bombing RAF infrastructure to cities already is known to be ineffective. Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park of No. 11 Group writes in a memo that:

confidence is felt in our ability to hold the enemy by day and to prevent his attaining superiority in the air over our territory, unless he greatly increases the scale or intensity of his attacks.

Fighter Command statistics as of 0900 hours 12 September 1940 show the following operational status:

• Blenheim - 50
• Spitfire - 208
• Hurricane - 392
• Defiant - 21
• Gladiator - 8
• Total – 679

This is very near the normal strength of around 700 fighters. This shows that, while the RAF has not quite recovered from its devastation suffered through 6 September, it is getting there. It also shows a healthy proportion of the more modern Spitfires to the other planes than at earlier times in the battle. The Defiants and the Gladiators, though, are largely out of the battle, and the Blenheims are used only in special situations, so the 679 total number is a bit deceptive in terms of actual front-line strength.

This is not to downplay the deaths, the suffering, and the damage to buildings old and new alike. Historic buildings made of wood tend to be dry and easy to burn. However, the RAF is recovering, rebuilding its shattered airfields, repairing its radar installations, replacing aircraft, and restoring aircraft production.

S/L Ernest A "Ernie" McNab of RAF No. 111 Squadron, pictured with his Spitfire at RAF Northolt on 12 September.

Battle of Britain: The weather is cloudy but good enough for operations. The morning, as usual recently, is quiet except for reconnaissance and "pirate raids" - lone intruders hiding in the clouds by special crews.

Around mid-day, a few small raiders attack the Fairlight radar station, without result. Another raid damages Harrogate, in particular, the Majestic Hotel, apparently targeting the nearby Ministry of Aircraft Production building and causing 15 casualties. Tunbridge Wells also takes damage, while RAF Hornchurch is bombed, with many bombs falling errantly on nearby houses (not a good place to live near at that time).

Hastings is bombed around 14:40, and the Luftwaffe planes strafe the area as rescue operations are in progress. Hampshire and Wiltshire also receive some hits. Rail service is interrupted near Reading due to a random strike on the rail line.

At dusk, III,/KG 51 and I,/KG 54 send about 50 bombers across to bomb London, while a few bombers from III,/KG 27 bomb Liverpool. After dark, there are further raids, but it is nothing like previous nights. Two Luftwaffe bombers are brought down, one by the Balloon Barrage at Monmouthshire and another by London flak (which quickly is becoming concentrated as nowhere else in Europe).

Lieutenant Robert Davies and sapper George Cameron Wyle of the British Royal Engineers disarm an unexploded one-ton bomb buried deep beneath the pavement at the southwestern corner of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Davies drives it to the countryside to detonate it. The two men receive the George Cross medal, which is unusual because it is intended for civilians.

Overall, losses are minimal, at least compared to previous days, with losses by the RAF in the single digits and those by the Luftwaffe not much higher. The fighter pilots on both sides basically get the day off.

An "abandon ship" drill on HMS Kelvin, 12 September 1940. © IWM (A 685).

European Air Operations: RAF Bomber Command attacks the ports of Emden and Flushing, where invasion barges have been gathering, and the seaplane base at Norderney in the East Frisian Islands. The RAF claims to have sunk 80 barges.

Other targets are the industrial centers/marshaling yards of Osnabruck, Hamm, Schwerte, Ehrang, and Brussels. Hamm is hit for the 6th time. Individually, the raids do not cause much damage and bombing accuracy is poor, but in some locations, the damage is starting to accumulate.

The Kriegsmarine admits in a report that the British attacks are hurting its efforts to assemble an invasion fleet. To date, the Germans have assembled about 1000 barges in the ports, and they provide tempting targets. However, despite the losses, the number of barges for Operation Sealion continues to grow.

Battle of the Atlantic: British 2444 ton tanker Gothic hits a mine 7500 yards southeast of Spurn Head, Yorkshire, and sinks. Half of her 24-man crew perishes.

Royal Navy Tug 1164 ton Salvage King runs aground off Duncansby Head, Scotland and is a total loss.

Force Y of the Vichy French Navy, which passed through the Straits of Gibraltar on the 11th without British interference and stopped for the night in Casablanca, leaves port at 04:00. Eluding a shadowing British force led by battleship HMS Renown, the three fast cruisers and accompanying destroyers speed down to Dakar in French West Africa. The British continue their bumbling pursuit, not even realizing that the cruisers have left until the Renown's floatplane can't find them in the Casablanca harbor and instead spots them far to the to south. The Admiralty dispatches the aircraft carrier Ark Royal from Freetown, accompanied by three cruisers, to intercept the French from the south - the British not knowing for certain that Dakar is Force Y's ultimate destination. Of course, the British are planning Operation Menace for Dakar, so that is the last place they want the cruisers to go.

The Liverpool raids the Liverpool harbor and damages freighter Tintern Abbey, Royal Navy storeship Glenroy and troopship HMT Highland Princess.

Convoys OA 213 and MT 167 depart from Methil, Convoy FS 279 departs from the Tyne, Convoy LG 1 departs from Liverpool, Convoy BS 48 departs from Suez.

Corvette HMS Heliotrope (K 03, Lt. Commander John Jackson) is commissioned.

U-153 and U-407 are laid down.

12 September 1940: German airmen, who parachuted from a Heinkel HE-111 bomber that was shot down in the Battle of Britain, are marched off by the Home Guard in Goodwood, Sussex. Notice how confident and self-possessed the German POWs are at this time of the war. Fox Photos/Getty Images.

Battle of the Indian Ocean: German raider Pinguin is patrolling 330 miles east of Madagascar when it intercepts the 5872-ton British freighter Benavon. The Benavos tries to fire its deck gun at the Pinguin, but the crew is untrained and its shells - well-aimed by the gunner - fail to explode. The Pinguin's own guns sink the freighter, and 24 crew perish. The Pinguin takes the 25 survivors as prisoners.

Battle of the Mediterranean: The Italian 10th Army continues marching toward the Egyptian border, harassed by the RAF. It is a slow advance, held up more by the pace of Italian foot soldiers more than anything the British are doing.

On Malta, the military prepares for heightened military activity due to the overall war situation. The War Office instructs Governor Dobbie to raise more men from the local population to man the anti-aircraft guns.

Applied Science: The Tizard Mission team members have all crossed the Atlantic with their equipment, and today it holds a meeting in Washington D.C. with its American counterparts.

War Crimes: Wing Commander J.S.Dewar, D.S.O., D.F.C. of RAF No. 213 Squadron makes a personal flight from RAF Exeter to Tangmere during the quiet morning period. He disappears, and his body eventually washes up at Kingston Gorse, Sussex on 30 September 1940. There is a rumor/belief that enemy aircraft shot down his Hurricane and machine-gunned him in his parachute. This incident is not offered as an actual war crime, because there is no proof of this, however, this is the sort of atmosphere in which pilots on both sides are operating. The air war, an area of unusual gallantry in both world wars, has a potential sharp edge that pilots of both sides recognize.

German/Finnish Relations: The two countries sign their agreement granting the Germans transit rights within the country.

US/Japanese Relations: A Japanese trade delegation arrives to negotiate increased deliveries of raw materials to Japan from the Netherlands East Indies. US Ambassador to Tokyo Joseph Grew and Secretary of State Cordell Hull confer about the implications of US oil sanctions on Japanese aggressiveness. Grew sees the likelihood of Japanese adventurism if the sanctions are too severe. There is no agreement reached during the meetings.

US Military: The Greenslade Board departs Norfolk, Virginia for St. John's, Newfoundland to inspect the new US base there (obtained in the destroyers-for-bases swap).

Hungary: The Hungarian army completes the occupation of the territories in northern Transylvania Maramures and part of Crisana given to it in the Second Vienna Award.

Romania: The Germans establish a military mission in Bucharest with the stated purpose of training the Romanian military. The real German interest is in the Romanian oil fields, which fuels the Wehrmacht and which Adolf Hitler obsesses over. New leader Ion Antonescu, meanwhile, is busy reaching an agreement with Iron Guard leader Horia Sima.

Canada: Order in Council 4751 makes foreign sailors on foreign ships in Canadian ports subject to imprisonment.

Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto for Jews, the wall already constructed, is formally approved by Gauleiter Hans Frank in occupied Kraków. This is conceived as a somewhat temporary solution, with the more permanent solution (at this point) foreseen as forced resettlement of Jews to the French-administered island of Madagascar in the southern Indian Ocean (originally, and perhaps ironically, an idea of the Polish government itself in the late 1930s). The Poles, however, determined that the island could not support more than a few thousand such refugees, and there are about half a million Jews in occupied Poland.

Robot the Dog, the true discoverer of the Lascaux cave.

French Homefront: In an amazing archaeological find that gets lost in the war news, 18-year-old Marcel Ravidat from near Dordogne finds the entrance to the Lascaux Cave. As the story goes, he follows his dog down a hole. He returns with three friends, and they enter via a long shaft. They discover remarkable detailed 17,000-year-old Paleolithic cave paintings of animals. They announce their discovery, and eventually the caves open to tourists. This innocent find, of worldwide cultural importance, begins a long process of deterioration of the ancient artwork from the mold.

American Homefront: There is a suspicious explosion at the Hercules Powder Co. in Kenvil, New Jersey. There are 49 deaths and 200 other casualties.

In a typical Hollywood quickie marriage, Lana Turner and Artie Shaw, married on February 13, 1940, are divorced today after only seven months of marriage.

Future History: Mickey Lolich is born in Portland, Oregon. He becomes a top pitcher (3x All-Star) with the Detroit Tigers in the 1960s and then stars for other teams. In his biggest game, he wins Game 7 of the 1968 World Series against Bob Gibson. Lolich later runs a doughnut shop in Lake Orion, Michigan., which comports with his "everyman" attitude toward life.

Linda Gray is born in Santa Monica, California. She becomes a model in the 1960s, becomes a frequent television guest star in the 1970s, and then achieves Hollywood immortality ast Sue Ellen Ewing on CBS drama "Dallas." One of her lesser-known claims to immortality is that her legs are the ones featured on the posters for classic Dustin Hoffman film "The Graduate" in 1968. She remains active in the industry as of this writing, appearing, for instance, in British Channel 4 soap opera "Hollyoaks" as Tabitha Maxwell-Brown in late 2016.

The Beaufort News, September 12, 1940, North Carolina Newspapers. Not too much going on in that far-off European war, the big news is the back-to-school day.

September 1940

September 1, 1940: RAF's Horrible Weekend
September 2, 1940: German Troopship Sunk
September 3, 1940: Destroyers for Bases
September 4, 1940: Enter Antonescu
September 5, 1940: Stukas Over Malta
September 6, 1940: The Luftwaffe Peaks
September 7, 1940: The Blitz Begins
September 8, 1940: Codeword Cromwell
September 9, 1940: Italians Attack Egypt
September 10, 1940: Hitler Postpones Sealion
September 11, 1940: British Confusion at Gibraltar
September 12, 1940: Warsaw Ghetto Approved
September 13, 1940: Zeros Attack!
September 14, 1940: The Draft Is Back
September 15, 1940: Battle of Britain Day
September 16, 1940: italians Take Sidi Barrani
September 17, 1940: Sealion Kaputt
September 18, 1940: City of Benares Incident
September 19, 1940: Disperse the Barges
September 20, 1940: A Wolfpack Gathers
September 21, 1940: Wolfpack Strikes Convoy HX-72
September 22, 1940: Vietnam War Begins
September 23, 1940: Operation Menace Begins
September 24, 1940: Dakar Fights Back
September 25, 1940: Filton Raid
September 26, 1940: Axis Time
September 27, 1940: Graveney Marsh Battle
September 28, 1940: Radio Belgique Begins
September 29, 1940: Brocklesby Collision
September 30, 1940: Operation Lena

2020