20-Sep-39: First RAF vs. Luftwaffe Clashes of the War Occur Over Aachen; Britain and France Vow to Keep Fighting; British Conservatives Under Fire for Lack of Assistance to Poland
In a foreshadowing of greater clashes to follow, the British Royal Air Force and German Luftwaffe engage each other for the first time in the war. Three British Fairey Battle reconnaissance bombers are on a patrol over the Siegfried Line near Aachen, Germany when they are attacked by a flight of German Messerschmitt Me109 fighters.
This first fight results in one Me109 and two Battles being shot down.
In Poland, the Battle of Grodno gets underway between a hodgepodge of Polish forces under Gen. Józef Olszyna-Wilczyński and the Soviet Red Army. Soviet tanks of the 27th Armoured Brigade/15th Armoured Corps reach the city’s outskirts but, lacking infantry support and oil, they are forced to halt before capturing the city. They are also hampered because of their lack of experience in urban tank warfare (a situation which will quickly change and cease to be a problem for the rest of the war).
The Red Army attempts to seize Grodno from a bridge over the Niemen River on the south side of the city, but the Poles repulse the attempt.
In Moscow, German Ambassador to the Soviet Union Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenberg replies to the previous day’s telegram from Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop instructing him to inform Soviet General Secretary Josef Stalin that the German Reich will keep its agreements and obligations under the 23-Aug Nonaggression Pact with a message from Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov:
“Molotov stated to me today that the Soviet Government now considered the time ripe for it, jointly with the German Government, to establish definitively the structure of the Polish area. In this regard, Molotov hinted that the original inclination entertained by the Soviet Government and Stalin personally to permit the existence of a residual Poland had given way to the inclination to partition Poland along the Pissa-Narew-Vistula-San Line. The Soviet Government wishes to commence negotiations on this matter at once, and to conduct them in Moscow, since such negotiations must be conducted on the Soviet side by persons in the highest positions of authority, who cannot leave the Soviet Union. Request telegraphic instructions.”
In other words, the Soviets and Germans are moving toward a finalization of their partition of Poland, which means its elimination as a nation.
Meanwhile in the west, despite German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler’s triumphant entry into and defiant speech from Danzig yesterday, the British and French vow to keep fighting in spite of HItler including a tentative peace offering in his speech. They announce that they “will not permit a Hitler victory to condemn the world to slavery and to ruin all moral values and destroy liberty.”
In London, the government of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is beginning to come apart; the Labour Party opposition attacks the Conservative Party and the government in the House of Commons in Parliament for “failing to help Poland enough” against the invasions by Germany and the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, the British Conservative Party government, under the leadership of Neville Chamberlain, is denounced by the Labour Party opposition, in the House of Commons, for failing to help Poland enough against the German and Soviet invaders.
The government will, however, last for another eight months.