European Air Operations: Two Polish destroyers and other light craft are attacked by the Luftwaffe in the North Sea on 7 November 1939. There are no losses on either side.
A Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft is fired upon by anti-aircraft batteries and driven off by the RAF. There are scattered other intrusions of British airspace.
The RAF conducts further reconnaissance over western Germany without incident.
British Propaganda: Lord Halifax makes a radio broadcast setting forth Great Britain's war aims.
German Propaganda: The German Navy Ministry states to the U.S. Naval Attaché in Berlin that it had been "definitely established that no German U-boat had torpedoed the Athenia." In addition, the German Navy considered the incident "closed as far as the Navy was concerned" and possessed only "an academic interest in how the ship was sunk." This, of course, is all a complete fabrication, as the German Naval Ministry knows exactly how the Athenia sank when one of its U-boats put torpedoes into it.
Finland: The Finnish government tells its negotiators to tell the Soviets "Nyet."
Poland: General Władysław Sikorski is named General Inspector of the Armed Forces by the Polish government-in-exile in Paris.
General Sikorski is named Commander-in-Chief of Polish armed forces (in exile) in addition to being Prime Minister. He and the government form a General Staff.
American Homefront: Judy Garland guests on Bob Hope's "The Pepsodent Show." Future History: The Academy Theater in Inglewood California opens on 7 November 1939. It was originally designed to host the Academy Awards but never did. It served as a major suburban theater for the Fox West Coast Theaters chain with many film premieres and showed movies until 1976 when it became a church. Designed by architect S. Charles Lee.
The Academy Theater is showing "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" starring Jimmy Stewart, released 19 October 1939.
The view from the Admiral Graf Spee as the Trevanion sinks.
Battle of the Atlantic: The Admiral Graf Spee captures the 5,299-ton British freighter Trevanion, disembarks the crew, and sinks it on 22 October 1939.
The British vessel Whitemantle is sunk by a mine in the North Sea.
German vessel Poseidon is scuttled to avoid capture by the RN armed merchant cruisers Transylvania and Scotstoun.
Convoy HG 4 departs from Gibraltar for the UK.
Western Front: The ground is too muddy from the recent rains for operations. There are sporadic artillery exchanges.
Poland: The Soviets conduct "elections" in their occupied territory, which they have divided into "West Ukraine" and "West White Russia" (technically, the elections are to "the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus."
European Air Operations: A Luftwaffe intruder is shot down over Southeast Scotland.
German Propaganda: Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels makes a radio address and calls Winston Churchill a liar. He accuses the British of deliberately sinking the SS Athenia in order to provoke the United States against the Germans. In his version of events, the Athenia was sunk by British destroyers and also was intended to be outfitted as a raider (which are somewhat contradictory arguments).
Goebbels knows this is not what happened and that U-30 sank the Athenia. The captain of the U-boat has told him the exact sequence of events and shown his superiors the U-boat log proving it (which was quickly suppressed). Goebbels chooses to continue the false narrative for propaganda purposes anyway, knowing that the British cannot disprove the lie and making their denials sound suspicious simply because they are unprovable and sound reflexive. The Kriegsmarine, in particular, Admiral Doenitz, is put out by these blatant falsehoods (or so they later claim), but nobody does anything to correct the story until after the war when Admiral Raeder finally sets the record straight.
The French detain the US freighters Endicott and West Gambio. Carbon black and copper are removed from them as contraband.
USSR Military: General Boldin is appointed to the prestigious position of the Odessa Military District.
Estonia: Soviet destroyer Minks and seven Soviet submarines arrive in Tallinn to establish a base pursuant to the recent basing agreement between Estonia and the USSR.
Latvia: The Soviet cruiser Kirov makes port at Riga.
Turkey: General Wavell and General Weygand leave Turkey, their work completed with the signing of the Anglo-French-Turkish Treaty of Mutual Assistance.
India: The Congress Party condemns the British and refuses to support the Allied war effort.
American Homefront: Given the technical success of the recent college football game that it broadcast, NBC televises the first professional football game. It is available to roughly 500 viewers with television sets in the metropolitan New York area. Visitors to the New York World's Fair also can watch on monitors (the Philadephia Eagles beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 23-14).
Friday, October 22, 1939: Mother and Children on the Road. Texas tenant farmers displaced by power farming. Part of a photo-series on the Great Depression by Dorothea Lange.
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.
Winston Churchill and other top leaders on 3 September 1939.
World Affairs: At roughly 11:15 a.m. on the Sunday morning of 3 September 1939, British Prime Minister Chamberlain broadcasts a brief speech to the country. After setting forth the particulars, he concludes, "consequently, this country is at war with Germany." King George VI also delivers a speech later in the day, an event later recalled in the film "The King's Speech." He states, "all my long struggle to win peace has failed."
Behind the scenes, the Germans are still trying to prevent the declaration right up to the last second. Their unofficial diplomat, Birger Dahlerus, remains on the phone to Whitehall from Berlin as the speech is made, attempting to broker a deal. Both Alexander Cadogan and Lord Halifax, however, remain adamant: no deal without a prior German withdrawal from Poland.
Australia Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies immediately confirms with his own radio address that his country also is at war with Germany. France declares war at 5 p.m. India and New Zealand follow suit. Belgium reaffirms its neutrality, with King Leopold assuming command of the Belgian Army.
British Government: Winston Churchill, a long-time war hawk now proven correct, resumes his World War I post as First Lord of the Admiralty. A Ministry of Economic Warfare (blockade) is established. The House of Commons meets on a Sunday for the first time since 1820.
Battle of Poland: While Polish radio reports nothing but victories, spiked by the welcome news that England has declared war in Poland's support, mass evacuations continue of government officials and their families from Katowice, Krakow and other threatened cities.
The Polish troops are already retreating eastward. The 1st and 4th Panzer Divisions cross the Warta River and are bombed by Polish bombers in the Radom-Plotrkow sector without much effect. The German capture Czestochowa. General Guderian's XIX Corps crosses the Polish Corridor in the north.
Stukas sink the Polish destroyer Wicher at Hela.
Battle of Britain: at 11:28 a.m., barely ten minutes after the conclusion of Chamberlain's speech, there is a false alarm of an air raid in London, with people taking to the shelters for the first time.
European Air Operations: Shortly after the declaration of war, the RAF sends a Bristol Blenheim of No. 139 Squadron out of Wyton on a mission to obtain photographic reconnaissance of the German naval base at Wilhelmshaven. It returns unscathed.
That night, 10 Whitley bombers of Nos. 51 and 58 Squadrons drop 6 million anti-German leaflets over Hamburg, Bremen and the Ruhr industrial area without incident.
Battle of the Atlantic: The German Kriegsmarine has 17 U-boats on station guarding the western approaches to Great Britain in preparation for war. Germany announces an immediate blockade. The U-boats are under orders to follow the German Prize Ordinance taken almost literally from the Naval Protocol of 1936. The Kriegsmarine interprets this to mean that U-boats are to attack all merchant ships in convoy, and all that refused to stop or used their radio upon sighting a submarine. [This is pursuant to evidence and testimony of Admiral Karl Doenitz at the Nuremberg trials following World War II.]
Having sailed the previous day from Liverpool for Montreal despite strong indications that war was about to break out, liner SS Athenia is proceeding westward as the day begins. At roughly 200 nautical miles (370 km) northwest of Ireland and 60 nautical miles (110 km) south of Rockall, U-30 under the command of Oberleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp spots her. Mistaking her for a troopship or other armed vessel, Lemp fires two torpedoes, and one strikes on her port side toward the stern. Several ships rush to the Athenia's assistance, including, somewhat ironically, the large yacht the Southern Cross, owned by Dahlerus' boss at Electrolux, Axel Wenner-Gren. They get there well before the Athenia sinks, which takes a full 14 hours.
Sinking of the SS Athena on 3 September 1939.
There is much controversy about the sinking, which brings home the reality of the war to the startled public. The Germans disclaim responsibility in order to avoid an incident with the United States: among the 98 passengers and 19 crew members who perished were 28 Americans. While the attack is after the declaration of war, the manner of the sinking is illegal under international law due to it being a passenger liner. The Kriegsmarine under Admiral Raeder, along with the Propaganda Ministry, willfully misrepresent the incident as not being their fault in the press. The truth only comes out at the Nuremberg trials following the war, when it is still a very touchy subject.
German Government: Reinhard Heydrich, in his capacity as head of the State Security Police and the Security Service, issues a decree to the heads of all police officers. The decree states in part that "Any attempt to undermine the unity of the German people and its determination to fight must be ruthlessly suppressed." It calls for the arrest of anyone that speaks out against the war, though anyone who can be straightened out through "educational means" should be treated lightly.
Nobody is pleased with Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, who had repeatedly assured Hitler that Great Britain, in particular, would never declare war over Poland. Ribbentrop falls into disfavor from which he never really recovers. Goering somewhat vicariously yells at him: "Now you've got your... war! You alone are to blame!"
Background: German troops are on the march in Poland. England and France have warned Germany to withdraw or they will support Poland. No declarations of war have been tendered yet. It is Saturday, 2 September 1939, but world capitals are scenes of frantic diplomatic activity.
Italy, Diplomacy: In the morning, the Italian Ambassador to Germany, Count Bernardo Attolico, presents a proposal for a truce, to be followed by a conference. Italy has been acting as a diplomatic clearinghouse over central Europe for years but is known to favor Germany. The proposal, of course, hinges upon French/UK acceptance, as Germany desperately wants to delay or even prevent Allied intervention. Mussolini withdraws the proposal that afternoon due to Allied indifference. Italy declares neutrality.
Germany, Diplomacy: Ribbentrop invites British civil servant Sir Horace Wilson, a PM Chamberlain crony who has a room at 10 Downing Street, to Berlin for discussions. Wilson refuses and warns Ribbentrop that sentiment "in the House of Commons and in the Cabinet" strongly favors an immediate declaration of war. Hitler, dubiously encouraged by Ribbentrop who professes to have a superior understanding of British intentions, still believes a peaceful settlement is possible. Goering continues his attempts at unofficial diplomacy via the Swede Birger Dahlerus but gets nowhere despite repeated calls to Whitehall and visits to the British embassy.
England, Diplomacy: Shortly before midnight, the British ambassador to Germany Sir Nevile Henderson informs Ribbentrop to expect an ultimatum at 9 a.m. the following day.
England, military: The National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939 is enacted immediately and enforces full conscription on all males between 18 and 41 who are residents in the UK.
Ireland, Diplomacy: President Douglas Hyde of the Republic of Ireland declares the neutrality of his nation;
Switzerland, military: the government orders a general mobilization of its forces.
Germany, military: German forces complete the annexation of the free city of Danzig, which is adjacent to East Prussia and has no hope of staying unoccupied. Many German troops in plainclothes have been waiting in the city. Most historians pinpoint the beginning of the war as the attack on the depot at Danzig (Westerplatte) the previous day. Light but determined resistance in the city's Polish Post Office is overcome. Elsewhere, German forces remain on the move, pointed toward Warsaw.
Naval War, Atlantic: The SS Athenia, commanded by Captain James Cook, leaves Liverpool for Montreal at 13:00 hours despite indications that war is imminent - there is no war declaration so far. The Athenia carries 1,103 passengers including about 500 Jewish refugees, 469 Canadians, 311 US citizens, 72 UK subjects, and 315 crew.
