24-Nov-39: Japanese Take Nanking; Germans Seize Property of Industrialist Ex-National Socialist; Belgians Register Concern; Royal Navy Rescues Sinking Survivors
Today is 24-Nov-1939, the 55th day of World War II; there are 2,108 days left in the conflict.
Over 100,000 Chinese troops attempt to repel the Imperial Japanese Army’s attack on Nanking but fail; the Japanese enter the city, breaking the Chinese winter offensive. The taking of Nanking represents the first Japanese victory in their drive westward into Kwangshi province, which is designed to break China’s links with Indochina to the south.
The German government in Berlin seizes the property and financial interests of iron and steel industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a former supporter of the National Socialists who fled to neutral Switzerland two months previously.
While the government of Belgium sends a note to the British government concerning announced reprisals against the Germans for laying magnetic mines, over 200 mines adrift in the North Sea wash up on the beaches of Yorkshire.
In the North Atlantic, the Royal Navy rescues five survivors of the Dutch tanker Sliedrecht, which had been sunk by a German Kriegsmarine Unterseeboot a week earlier. The survivors had endured the seven days before their rescue in an open life raft.
15-Nov-39: Czech Student’s Funeral Turns Into Bloodbath, Neurath Closes Czech Higher Education; Ribbentrop Rejects Peace Appeal; French Add Work Hours; Last Chinese Port Falls to Japanese
Today is 15-Nov-1939, the 46th day of World War II; there are 2,117 days left in the conflict.
In the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, several thousand students attend the funeral for medical student Jan Opletal, shot in the stomach by German troops during anti-occupation demonstrations in Prague on 28-Oct, who died 11-Nov.
Opletal (1-Jan-1915 – 11-Nov-1939) was a student of the Medical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague. The thousands of students attending his funeral turned it into another anti-German rally and 12 are reportedly injured.
In response, Reichsprotektor Konstantin von Neurath, governor of the former Czech lands, closes all Czech universities and colleges, and sends over 1,200 students to concentration camps; nine students will be executed on 17-Nov, which will later be commemorated as International Students Day by the International Union of Students and other groups.
Opletal’s remains are transferred to his native village of Náklo in the Olomouc Region; a post-war monument will be erected in his honor, and many Czech cities will name streets after him.
German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop issues a formal rejection of the offer of neutral mediation made by Belgian King Leopold and Dutch Queen Wilhelmina. Ribbentrop gives the news to official representatives of Belgium and the Netherlands during a meeting in Berlin. He claims the rejection is prompted by what he terms the “blunt rejection” of the German peace appeal by Britain and France. The “German government considers the matter closed,” Ribbentrop concludes.
As munitions and other war-related industries rachet up in France, the government officially adds three hours to the work week; workers will now be required to work 43 hours per week.
The south China port city of Pakhoi is captured by Imperial Japanese troops. It is the final Chinese port occupied by the Japanese since their campaign began in July 1937.
In action on the high seas, British tanker SS Africa Shell is sunk in the Mozambique Channel two miles off Portuguese East Africa in the Indian Ocean by two bombs placed in her hold by an boarding party wearing British lifebelts from a 10,000-ton German raider. Africa Shell’s crew identifies the German raider as the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer.
14-Nov-39: Allies Meet Secretly with Belgians; Dyle Plan Accepted; Dutch, Belgian Royal Peace Offers Rejected by Germany; Prague Demonstration Violently Suppressed; Sikorski Arrives in London
Today is 14-Nov-1939, the 45th day of World War II; there are 2,118 days left in the conflict.
Allied military commanders on the Western Front meet secretly with Belgian military commanders in mostly inconclusive meetings, but there is agreement that British and French troops should immediately advance to a position known as the “Meuse-Antwerp Line,” southeast of Brussels, if the Germans invade. The secret agreement is referred to as the “Dyle Plan” or “Plan D” after the Dyle River.
After negative responses are recorded in Paris and London to a previous joint offer of peace negotiations given by Netherlands Queen Wilhelmina and Belgian King Leopold II, it is noted in Berlin that the Germans are also responding in the negative. The war will continue.
In Prague, police violently disperse a Czech Fascist Party demonstration injuring 12 marchers.
Polish President-in-Exile General Wojtech Sikorski, having been based in France since the German invasion of his country, arrives in London for an official visit.
12-Nov-39: King George VI Issues Negative Reply to Peace Appeal; First ENSA Entertainment Debuts; Germans Round Up Suspected Assassination Conspirators
Today is 12-Nov-1939, the 43rd day of World War II; there are 2,120 days left in the conflict.
King George VI issues a gracious reply to a joint peace appeal issued by Dutch Queen Wilhelmina and Belgian King Leopold the previous week; he states that the onus of the war, and therefore the means to end it, lie with the Germans. The reply is thus characterized as being negative. At the same time, French President Alfred Lebrun also issues a negative reply to the Low Countries monarchs. The Dutch and Belgian foreign ministers are holding their own meetings at Breda, in the Netherlands.
British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill announces via a BBC radio broadcast that the first campaign of the war will be won if the nation makes it through the war’s first winter without serious setbacks. British and French troops stationed in France are entertained by Maurice Chevalier and Gracie Fields in the very first concert of the war given by the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), which is chartered to provide such services in order to boost fighting troop morale.
German security forces arrest hundreds of dissidents and Jews as the search for the perpetrators of the 8-Nov attempted assassination of Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler in Munich heats up. Regular German citizens receive for the first time ration cards for clothing allowances.
11-Nov-39: Germans Say Neutrality of Low Countries Is Assured; BEF Holds Armistice Day Ceremonies on French Battlefields; In Radio Broadcast, Queen Elizabeth Exhorts British Women
Today is 11-Nov-1939, the 42nd day of World War II; there are 2,121 days left in the conflict.
In response to invasion preparations in Holland and general nervousness expressed by the three Low Countries (Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg), the German Foreign Ministry issues a statement the promises the Germans will continue to respect the neutrality of the countries in question and respect their territorial integrity. German patrols and artillery are largely quiet along the Western Front further to the south.
The British Expeditionary Force observes the anniversary of the World War I armistice (11:00 11-11-18) by holding ceremonies on the sites of some of the most intense fighting of that war. holds Armistice Day services amid the great battlefields of the First World War.
In a broadcast from Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth declares that the women of the British Empire will take a prominent role in the new struggle; she says British women “have real and vital work to do … keeping the Home Front, which will have dangers of its own, stable and strong.”
7-Nov-09: Fall Gelb Postponed Due to Weather; Czech Exiled Government Warned of German Invasion by Double Agent; Western Polish Jews Rounded Up; Dutch, Belgian Royals Appeal for Peace, Offer to Mediate
Today is 7-Nov-1939, the 38th day of World War II; there are 2,125 days left in the conflict.
Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), the invasion of France scheduled for 12-Nov, is officially postponed by German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler due to bad weather. It is the first of 14 such postponements extending into January of 1940.
The Czechoslovakian government-in-exile in London receives reports of Fall Gelb from a man named Paul Thummel, who will later be unmasked as a double agent.
A German edict issued previously in occupied Poland consigning Warsaw’s Jews to an official ghetto area is temporarily withdrawn, even as Jews in western Poland are rounded up for deportations to ghettos in other Polish cities.
Dutch Queen Wilhelmina in the Hague and Belgian King Leopold III in Brussels officially issue a joint appeal for peace; they an offer of mediation to both the allies and Germany.
5-Nov-39: Plot to Arrest Hitler Collapses from Lack of Nerve; German Intelligence Chief Warns Dutch of Imminent Invasion; City of Flint Saga Draws to Close; Finns, Soviets Continue Negotiations; Churchill Visits French Marine Headquarters
Today is 5-Nov-1939, the 36th day of World War II; there are 2,127 days left in the conflict.
Commander in Chief of the German Army, Gen. Heinrich Alfred Hermann Walther von Brauchitsch, meets with Reichskanzler Adolf HItler to discuss the plans drawn up by Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH – the High Command of the Army) for the invasion of France, Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). Gen. Brauchitsch presses a strong argument that Fall Gelb should not be put in motion on 12-Nov as scheduled because of widespread weaknesses within the Heer after the invasion of Poland. The Reichskanzler loses his temper during the stormy meeting and states that he is unconvinced by the argument.
Unknown to Hitler, Gen. von Brauchitsch had agreed with Army Chief of Staff Gen. Franz Halder and Chief of the General Staff of High Command of the Army Gen. Ludwig August Theodor Beck that Hitler should be arrested and the military take over the country if he pressed forward with the prosecution of Fall Gelb. Although Hitler does not relent during their meeting, Gen. von Brauchitsch suffers a loss of courage and meekly returns to OKH headquarters in Zossen without executing the planned arrest; the conspiracy subsequently collapses.
One of the conspirators, Colonel Hans Oster, chief of the Abwehr, German Military Intelligence, does at least send a warning to the Dutch military attaché in Berlin, Colonel Gijsbertus Jacobus (Bert) Sas, that the Germans are preparing to invade both Holland and Belgium, as well as France, and that the invasion is imminent. Colonel Sas shares the information with his Belgian counterpart in Berlin; these activities will lead to a Dutch crisis in January of 1940.
In Oslo, the German government officially lodges a protest with the Norwegians regarding the ongoing saga of the United States freighter SS City of Flint, which had been seized by the German pocket battleship Deutschland on 9-Oct, and sailed by a prize crew to Murmansk, from which it was ejected by the Soviet government. The saga reaches its climax in Norway. The prize crew sails the ship to the port of Haugesund, Norway, after being ousted from Murmansk, but the Norwegian government (for the second time) refuses entry, claiming that the German crewmen are kidnappers. The prize crew runs out of options as British Royal Navy ships approach and they sail the ship into the harbor on 3-Nov. The Norwegian Admiralty dispatches the minelayer HNoMS Olav Tryggvason and boards the City of Flint. The Norwegian minelayer’s second in command, Captain B. Dingsør, and thirty of its armed sailors will return the City of Flint to its captain’s command. The ship unloads its cargo in Bergen and sets sail for the United States. The German prize crew is interned at Kongsvinger Fortress in Norway. The City of Flint will continue in cargo service on the Atlantic until she is sunk 23-Jan-1943.
The Finns and Soviets continue their border and territory negotiations; the Finnish delegation wires to Helsinki for more instructions.
And in France, marine headquarters is visited by Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.
29-Oct-39: OKH Takes Fall Gelb Revision to Hitler; Kriegsmarine Gives Go to Passenger Liner Attacks; Chinese Defections to Japanese Increase; Red Army Occupies Agreed Bases in Latvia
Today is 29-Oct-1939, the 59th day of World War II; there are 2,134 days left in the conflict.
The German High Command of the Army, OberKommando des Heeres (OKH), in response to Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler’s order, brings him a revision to the plan for Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), the invasion of France. The main portion of the invasion force is moved slightly to the south and the force directed at Holland is weakened somewhat. Debate continues within OKH as to if and how Fall Gelb could be modified further.
The German Kriegsmarine issues permission to its warships and U-boats for attacks passenger ships which are traveling in convoys.
The United States military attache in Tokyo reports to Washington that the numbers of Chinese defections to the invading Japanese are increasing. The report says that there are now over 100,000 Chinese under arms and they are known as Huang Hsieh Chun (Imperial Assisting Troops).
The first Red Army troops assigned to bases in Latvia as a result of the recently concluded Lativan-Soviet agreement arrive and begin their occupation.
An official French communique reports that all is quiet along the western front; the British move larger numbers of heavy artillery into positions along their positions facing the Belgian border.
27-Oct-39: Pope Pius XII Issues First Encyclical; King Leopold II of Belgium Asserts Neutrality; OKH Ordered to Revise Fall Gelb Planning; US Senate Approves Neutrality Act Alterations
Today is 27-Oct-1939, the 57th day of World War II; there are 2,136 days left in the conflict.
From the Vatican, Pope Pius XII issues his first encyclical. The document condemns racism, dictatorships and violations of treaty obligations.
In a radio broadcast to the United States, Belgium’s King Leopold III asserts that Belgium is determined to defend its neutrality, just as in 1914; meanwhile in Germany, the Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment orders newspapers to complain about anti-Nazi propaganda in newspapers in Belgium; they claim such writing actually violates Belgium’s promises of neutrality.
After being disappointed by the plans drawn up by OberKommando des Heeres for Fall Gelb, the invasion of France, German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler orders the OKH generals to revise the planning and begin operational preparations for the invasion. Reports continue that German troops are massing in the Saar, along the German North Sea coast and along the German borders with Belgium, Holland and Switzerland.
Finally, in a historic vote in Washington, DC, the United States Senate votes to approve amendments to the Neutrality Act which repeal the act’s arms embargo.
19-Oct-39: German OKH Presents Plan for Fall Gelb, the Invasion of France; Turks Ink Treaty With Allies; Brits Note Increase in Road Fatalities Due to Blackout
Today is 19-Oct-1939, the 49th day of World War II; there are 2,144 days left in the conflict.
German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler’s Führer-Anweisung N°6, Directive No. 6, was issued on 9-Oct, directing the Army to prepare for an invasion of France through the Low Countries as soon as possible. Today, General Franz Halder, Chief of Staff of Oberkommado des Heeres, the High Command of the Army, hands Hitler OKH’s plan for the execution of the Führer’s order. Called Aufmarschanweisung N°1, Fall Gelb, or “Deployment Instruction No. 1, Case Yellow,” the main features of the plan call for the German left wing to fight a holding action on the French border facing the Maginot Line, while the main attack will be thrust through the middle of Belgium towards the French border. The plan also calls for a simultaneous invasion of Holland.
The plan seems, at first glance, to mirror the World War I Schlieffen Plan, which called for a sweeping envelopment action through Belgium and down the coast of the English Channel, wrapping around Paris and destroying the French Army. The German Army’s failure to execute the plan fully in 1914 (its right wing swung to the north of Paris instead of south) ended ultimately in stalemate and defeat on the Western Front in 1918.
Fall Gelb actually differs from the Schlieffen Plan, however. Gelb is based on an unimpressive, conventional frontal attack which would sacrifice an estimated 500,000 German soldiers in order to push the Allies back only as far as the Somme River. Gelb estimates that the Heer’s strength would thus be exhausted and would only be recovered in 1942, at which time the main attack against France could begin. Hitler is reportedly “disappointed and unimpressed” by the initial plan, to say the least. He will act immediately and decisively to change Gelb.
In Ankara, Turkey, after a day of talks between the British General Archibald Wavell, commander of British troops in the Middle East, and French General Maxime Weygand, former chief of staff, the “Ango-French-Turkish Treaty of Mutual Assistance” is inked by all parties. During the term of the 15-year treaty, the Turks undertake to aid the Allies if war begins in the Mediterranean as long as said aid does not bring Turkey into conflict with the Soviet Union. In exchange, the French give Ankara control of the disputed Sanjak of Alexandretta (the province of Hatay) in French Syria. The Syrians protest that the cession is illegal and the dispute over the province will continue even into the 21st Century.
Back in England, near the town of Whitby, North Yorkshire, two German Luftwaffe airmen are discovered after they drift ashore in a collapsible dinghy. They had been shot down over the North Sea two days previously.
The British Ministry of Transport notes that the wartime blackout, not enemy action, accounts for the most casualties so far; fatalities in road accidents increased from 617 in August, the last month of peace, to 1130 in September, the first full wartime month when the blackout was imposed, a 55% increase.
12-Oct-39: Germans Begin Jewish Deportations in Central Europe; Chamberlain Rejects Hitler Peace Move; Finns Meet With Soviets for Border Negotiations
Today is 12-Oct-1939, the 42nd day of World War II; there are 2,151 days left in the conflict.
In a secret move, the German Central Office for Jewish Emigration, under the auspices of the Shutzstaffel (SS) begins to carry out the deportation of Jewish people in the Ostmark (the former Austria) and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (the former Czechoslovakia). Deported Jews are moved by the SS into parts of now-occupied Poland. This first move to render the Greater German Reich Judenrein (Jew-Free) is under the direction of SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Adolf Eichmann.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain officially announces that the government has rejected German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler’s 9-Oct Reichstag speech proposal for a European peace conference. Chamberlain declares that to “consider such terms would be to forgive Germany for all aggressions;” he further warns that Germany “must choose between permanent security arrangements in Europe and war to the utmost of our strength … since past experience has shown that no reliance can be placed upon the promises of the present German government.”
As the implications of this announcement are being felt around Europe, the War Office in London reports that the British Expeditionary Force has completed its planned deployment and is occupying its assigned stations along the border between France and Belgium, between the towns of Maulde and Halluin.
After a week of feverish military preparations in Finland for a possible Soviet invasion, representatives of the two countries finally meet to discuss the Soviets’ border proposals. These include the turnover of Finnish territory near Leningrad, control of islands in the Gulf of Finland, use of the port of Hanko and other alterations as far north as Murmansk. In return the Soviets offer some land concessions. However, the Finns inform their neighbors that they will only be able to agree to a limited range of concessions.
9-Oct-39: Finland Calls Up Reservists; American Ship Captured by Germans; Hitler Issues Directive Ordering Invasion of Low Countries
Today is 9-Oct-1939, the 39th day of World War II; there are 2,154 days left in the conflict.
In Paris, officials arrest 35 French Communist Party deputies in parliament; they are charged with agitating against the war. This leaves just 11 Communist representatives in the legislative body.
While Finland has agreed to discuss border revisions with neighbor the Soviet Union, the Finns have also mobilized their armed forces. Today, the government in Helsinki calls up military reservists, signaling that they will strongly resist any Soviet aggression.
On the high seas, the German pocket battleship Deutschland captures an American cargo ship City of Flint. The seizure is justified by the Germans because contraband supplies bound for Britain are found on board. A German crew pilots the ship towards Murmansk, a Soviet port. The seizure causes outrage in the United States and exerts some influence on the current debate in Congress over proposed modifications to the Neutrality Act.
In Berlin, German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler issues Führer-Anweisung N°6, Directive No. 6, of the war, regarding future operations in the west. In it, he states, “Should it become evident in the near future that England and, under her influence, France also, are not disposed to bring the war to an end, I have decided, without further loss of time to go over to the offensive.”
The offensive, he writes will repeat somewhat the famous Schlieffen Plan, used by the German Army at the outset of World War I. The Wehrmacht will sweep across Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg to the English Channel; the strategy, as always, is designed to envelop strong sections of French and British allied armies as they move north to help the Low Countries. The invasion will provide a buffer of land for the critical industrial region of the Ruhr, as well as provide forward air bases for an air war against Britain. There is no initial mention of plans for actually defeating and conquering France. This plan will be, however, revised many times prior to the actual invasion.
Directive 6 is seen as a further strike by Hitler against the traditional autonomy of the Germany army, since he has not consulted with the high command on where and how the attack should be prosecuted.
Hitler bases the plan on the reality that Germany’s military strength, after being expended so much in Poland, will still have to be built up for several more years, therefore only limited objectives can be entertained; mainly objectives which improve Germany’s ability to survive a long, protracted war in the West.
Hitler assumes that the attack can begin within at most a few weeks, but even as he issues it, he is informed by the army that the true state of the Wehrmacht is worse than thought. For instance, motorized units must recover for an estimated three months and ammunition stocks are largely depleted. The directive remains in effect, but the actual orders for its execution will be postponed repeatedly.