21-Dec-39: Finns Drive Red Army Back at Kemijarvi; Hitler Acknowledges Stalin’s 60th Birthday; Canadians Hold Ceremonial Parade at Aldershot
Today is 21-Dec-1939, the 82nd day of World War II; there are 2,081 days left in the conflict.
A Finnish attack at Kemijarvi drives the Soviet Red Army back 20 miles in the region. The Soviets are beginning to move to the defensive in the Winter War.
Soviet General Secretary Josef Stalin turns 60 years old. He receives a congratulatory telegram from German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler, which reads, “To Joseph Stalin: Best wishes for your personal well-being as well as for the prosperous future of the peoples of the friendly Soviet Union. Adolf Hitler.” Stalin sends a reply to Hitler: “To the Chancellor of the German Reich, A Hitler. The friendship of the peoples of Germany and the Soviet Union, cemented by blood, has every reason to be lasting and firm.”
The First Division, the first Canadian troops on European soil, participates in its first ceremonial exercise, at the British Royal Army’s parade grounds at Aldershot.
17-Dec-39: Soviet Attacks Hammer Mannerheim Line at Summa, Are Repulsed; Finns Refine Successful Tactics, Destroy Two Red Army Divisions; First Canadian Division Lands in Liverpool; French Claim German Reconnaissance Flights Increased Over Western Front
Today is 17-Dec-1939, the 78th day of World War II; there are 2,085 days left in the conflict.
The saga of the Admiral Graf Spee German pocket battleship comes to an end in front of a large crowds lining the quays on both sides of the River Plate in South America. The ship had been in port at Montevideo, Uruguay, for several days for rest, repairs, and refueling, but British ships and diplomats moved to flush her out. The succeeded in have the Uruguayans insist that Spee leave her anchor (but not too quickly so that other Royal Navy ships have a chance to arrive) and have stationed HMS Ajax HMS Achilles at the mouth of the estuary. The drama is carried live worldwide via radio and attracts a large audience.
As the deadline for leaving port passes, the Graf Spee gets underway in the estuary, but suddenly stops; her crew is ordered to scuttle the ship rather than risk battle with heavy British forces. The battleship sinks, the crew is saved, not hostile shots are fired and the crowds on shore are treated to a rare spectacle.
The Soviet Union attacks again Finnish positions along the Mannerheim Line around Summa. A familiar pattern for the attacks emerged; tanks penetrate Finnish positions during the day; infantry support for them are head off until nightfall, then the Finns destroy the tanks during the night by emerging from deep hiding places. Finland claims two Red Army divisions have been destroyed and that they have captured 36,000 soldiers and surrounded another 20,000 troops.
The First Canadian Division lands the first troops on British soil upon their arrival in Liverpool with over 7,500 men under command of Major-General McNaughton. The force used five ocean liners to make the crossing; officers were kept in suites and the enlisted men in first class cabins.
French forces along the Western Front note that there has been an increase in German Luftwaffe reconnaissance flights over the front lines in recent days.
10-Dec-39: Finns Appeal for More Aid from Civilized Nations; US Grants Finland $10 Million in Credit; Soviets Accidentally Sink German Ship; League of Nations Still Meeting; First Canadian Troops Hit the High Seas in Convoy for Europe
Today is 10-Dec-1939, the 71st day of World War II; there are 2,092 days left in the conflict.
The Helsinki government issues a general appeal to the rest of the world for aid in the Winter War, stating it has been attacked by the Soviet Union without cause; “our position as the active outpost of western civilization gives us the right to expect the active resistance of other civilized nations.” The United States government grants Finland $10 million in credit for agricultural supplies, which they say is possible mainly due to Finland being the only nation to have repaid its war debts from the First World War back to the United States.
The Soviet navy commits an embarrassing error when its submarine S-1 sinks the German ship Bolheim near the Finnish coast in the Gulf of Bothnia. And the Finns continue to have some surprising success in the field as they halt Red Army divisions north of Lake Ladoga during the Battle of Kollaa, which began on 7-Dec. League of Nations discussions on the League’s response to the Winter War continue in Geneva.
The Canadians successfully send their first troops to the European theater via five ocean liners under heavy escort in convoy departing from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
13-Nov-39: First British Destroyer Sunk in War; Shetlands Attacked by Luftwaffe; Romanian King Offers Peace Mediation; Finns Break Off Negotiations So Stalin Orders Preparations for War with Finland
Today is 13-Nov-1939, the 44th day of World War II; there are 2,119 days left in the conflict.
The British destroyer HMS Blanche strikes a mine and sinks near the Thames estuary, the first Royal Navy destroyer lost in World War II. The Shetland Islands off the Scottish coast becomes the target for the first German bombs dropped on British territory; the Luftwaffe bombers target naval vessels and flying boats, but cause little damage, except to a small rabbit.
Meanwhile in London, Canadian General Henry Crerar arrives to organize the first military headquarters for his nation in World War II.
King Carol of Romania sends a confidential message from Bucharest to the belligerent governments, offering to provide secret mediation between the warring powers, France, Britain and Germany. No immediate reply is received.
Once again in Moscow, negotiations between the Soviets and Finns over border and territory revisions break off. The Finns depart Moscow for Helsinki; they are completely unwilling to accept the Soviet demands that the port of Hanko be ceded to the USSR, since it would give the Soviet complete domination over the Gulf of Finland, as well as one of the most important regions in Finland. In response to this final breakdown after weeks of back-and-forth talks, Soviet General Secretary Josef Stalin orders the military to begin preparations for a war with Finland.
20-Oct-39: Germans to Formally Re-Annex Former Reich Territory on 1-Nov; Lindbergh Lampooned in London; Oxford Psychologist Pronounces Hitler a Parnoid Megalomaniac
Today is 20-Oct-1939, the 50th day of World War II; there are 2,143 days left in the conflict.
According to a directive signed by German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler, Field Marshall Herman Goering, Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, Deputy National Socialist Party Leader Rudolf Hess and State Secretary Hans-Heinrich Lammers, Germany will annex 11,500 square miles of territory which it had lost to Poland due to its loss of World War I and the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. The “re-annexation of former Reich territory” will occur on 1-Nov.
The German government in Berlin also announces a warning to neutral merchant ships: if they join Allied convoys, they will be sunk without warning by the Kriegsmarine.
Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies announces in Melbourne “compulsory military training for home service.” It will be instituted beginning in January 1940.
People around the British Empire continue to react to Colonel Charles Lindbergh’s speech the previous week in which he criticized Canada for going to war. A new theater review at the Gate Theatre in London’s West End including a song lampooning prominent individuals and included this verse:
“Then there’s Colonel Lindbergh
“Who made a pretty speech
“He’s somewhere in America
“We’re glad he’s out of reach.”
The Canadian Press report noted that the audience in the theater, many of who were in uniform, “held the show up momentarily with lusty cheering.”
In a letter to the The Times of London, Dr. William Brown, director of the Institute of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University and “a world authority on diseases of the mind,” announces that he has completed years of study of the “character and mentality” of German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler. His conclusion:
“… the German Chancellor is suffering from a chronic form of insanity, known as paranoia, that will gradually impair his intellect until he destroys himself or becomes a raving maniac. … [British Foreign Minister] Sir Nevile Henderson’s final report on the actions of Herr Hitler confirms my conclusion, reached six months ago, that he has ever symptom of the paranoiac who is suffering from persecutory mania and whose brainstorms and megalomania will increase until his madness is so apparent that he must be isolated.”
Dr. Brown says that Hitler’s mental makeup has the following tendencies:
“First, a hysterical tendency, shown in the emotional appeal to crowds in which his mind seems to undergo temporary dissociation through the very intensity of his concentration upon the matter in hand. With his mind so narrowed down on one point he may be temporarily oblivious of other considerations and thus may appear perfidious. There is also a probably hysterical identification in subconscious fantasy with Frederick the Great and a tendency toward mechanical imitation of the less admirable political maneuvers of him and of Napoleon, which makes him appear, judged by modern standards, as an atavistic monster.
“Second, a paranoid tendency amounting almost to persecutory mania. He is a very aggressive person and projects this aggressiveness upon the world around him, being acutely on guard against aggression from others with the suspicion, and possibly delusions, that such hostile aggressiveness is active against himself and his nation.
“Third, a growing megalomania with Messianic feelings. This is a further development of his paranoid tendency, making his followers paranoid and producing collective paranoia.
“Fourth, a compulsive tendency — in his case a power impulse — toward more and more bloodless victories in which his latest claim to territory or power is called his last — like the alcoholic who calls his latest drink his last.”
At the time dismissed as mere propaganda, Dr. Brown’s analysis and predictions would prove chillingly accurate.
14-Oct-39: HMS Royal Oak Sunk in Scapa Flow By Surprise U-Boat Attack; 800 British Sailors Dead; Protests Over Lindbergh Radio Broadcast Arise
Today is 14-Oct-1939, the 44th day of World War II; there are 2,149 days left in the conflict.
Based on German Luftwaffe aerial reconnaissance photos which reveal a 50-foot-wide gap in the Royal Navy’s antisubmarine defenses at the Kirk Sound entrance to the Home Fleet’s base at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, Unterseeboot Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien scores a major success for the German Kriegsmarine.
Commanding the U-47, Kapitänleutnant Prien pilots his submarine through the gap and, at 01:30 in the morning, launches seven torpedoes at the British battleship HMS Royal Oak, which has 1,200 sailors on board. Three of the torpedoes hit the battleship and she capsizes and sinks within 13 minutes. Estimates of the dead range from 786 to 833, and are usually rounded off to 800. 414 survive. The sinking is major blow to British naval prestige, a worrying indicator of serious deficiencies in the Empire’s defenses, and a significant triumph for the Kriegsmarine and Kapitänleutnant Prien and his crew.
The Royal Oak was a Revenge-class battleship which had been launched at the outset of World War I in 1914; it was completed in 1916 and first saw action at the Battle of Jutland. In the intervening years, attempts to modernise her could not address weaknesses of her age, including a fundamental lack of speed, so she was no longer considered as suitable for front-line duty in the new war. In spite of this fact and that its loss means little in terms of the numerical superiority enjoyed by the British navy and its allies and thus the naval balance of power, the sinking has a tremendous impact on British wartime morale. The raid demonstrates that the Germans are capable of bringing the naval war to their home waters, and security in harbors and dock areas is greatly tightened.
In Germany, the raid makes an immediate celebrity and war hero of Kapitänleutnant Prien, who becomes the first Kriegsmarine submarine officer to be awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross.
In other news, French Commander-in-Chief General Maurice Gamelin issues an Order of the Day predicting a massive German offensive “at any moment.” He is premature by eight months. At the same time, in Paris, escaped Polish intelligence team members resume their efforts to break German military codes with their replica of the legendary Enigma machine which they had smuggled out of Poland after the invasion and successfully brought to France.
In Moscow, representatives of the Soviet and Finnish governments wrap up their discussions of border revisions with very little change in either country’s terms. Soviet negotiators have refused Finnish counterproposals for a land exchange on their mutual border and are sticking to their original sweeping demands.
In North America, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Senator Key Pittman, D-Nevada, joins with the New York Herald Tribune and many Canadian voices in protest of the previous night’s nationwide radio broadcast by Col. Charles Lindbergh which championed strict neutrality, criticized the Canadian declaration of war and urged rejection of proposed revisions to the Neutrality Act pending in the Senate. Americans are still split on the war, a political divide that will last for almost two more years.
13-Oct-39: Finns, Soviets Continue Meetings; Scandinavian Leaders Plan Conference; Lindbergh Outlines American Neutrality Program, Appeals for Non-Intervention
Today is 13-Oct-1939, the 43rd day of World War II; there are 2,150 days left in the conflict.
Moscow meetings on border revisions between the Finns and Soviets are continuing; no news or breakthroughs are reported. Meanwhile, the King of Sweden invites his counterparts in Denmark and Norway as well as Finland’s president to a conference to discuss the present war situation.
In war action along the German/French border, French troops demolish three Rhine River bridges and skirmishes to the east of the Moselle are reported.
Near Bletchley, England, two express trains collide in the darkness of wartime blackout conditions; three passengers are dead.
In the United States, the Mutual Radio Network broadcasts nationwide a speech by Colonel Charles Lindbergh who has long been an advocate of strict American neutrality. In the speech, made during the ongoing debate in Washington, DC, over revisions to the Neutrality Act, Lindbergh states that a successful policy of neutrality must be backed by strength and arms, not pacifism, and also contains much criticism of Canada for entering the war.
“Tonight, I speak again to the people of this country who are opposed to the United States entering the war which is now going on in Europe. We are faced with the need of deciding on a policy of American neutrality. The future of our nation and of our civilization rests upon the wisdom and foresight we use. Much as peace is to be desired, we should realize that behind a successful policy of neutrality must stand a policy of war. It is essential to define clearly those principles and circumstances for which a nation will fight. Let us give no one the impression that America’s love for peace means that she is afraid of war, of that we are not fully capable and willing to defend all that is vital to us. National life and influence depend upon national strength, both in character and in arms. A neutrality built on pacifism alone will eventually fail.
“This western hemisphere is our domain. It is our right to trade freely within it. From Alaska to Labrador, from the Hawaiian Islands to Bermuda, from Canada to South America, we must allow no invading army to set foot. These are the outposts of the United States. They form the essential outline of our geographical defense. We must be ready to wage war with all the resources of our nation if they are ever seriously threatened. Their defense is the mission of our army, our navy, and our air corps the minimum requirement of our military strength. Around these places should lie our line between neutrality and war. Let there be no compromise about our right to defend or trade within this area. If it is challenged by any nation, the answer must be war. Our policy of neutrality should have this as its foundation.
…
“Sooner or later we must demand the freedom of this continent and its surrounding islands from the dictates of European power. American history clearly indicates this need. As long as European powers maintain their influence in our hemisphere, we are likely to find ourselves involved in their troubles. And they will loose no opportunity to involve us.”
Lindbergh speaks of the clear need for the US to steer clear of European entanglements:
“It is impossible for me to understand how America can contribute civilization and humanity by sending offensive instruments of destruction to European battlefields. This would not only implicate us in the war, but it would make us partly responsible for its devastation. The fallacy of helping to defend a political ideology, even though it be somewhat similar to our own, was clearly demonstrated to us in the last war. Through our help that war was won, but neither the democracy nor the justice for which we fought grew in the peace that followed our victory.
“Our bond with Europe is a bond of race and not of political ideology. We had to fight a European army to establish democracy in this country. It is the European race we must preserve; political progress will follow. Racial strength is vital politics, a luxury. If the white race is ever seriously threatened, it may then be time for us to take our part in its protection, to fight side by side with the English, French, and Germans, but not with one against the other for our mutual destruction. Let us not dissipate our strength, or help Europe to dissipate hers, in these wars of politics and possession.”
The speech also contains some criticism of Canada:
“We must protect our sister American nations from foreign invasion, both for their welfare and our own. But, in turn, they have a duty to us. They should not place us in the position of having to defend them in America while they engage in wars abroad. Can we rightfully permit any country in America to give bases to foreign warships, or to send its army abroad to fight while it remains secure in our protection at home? We desire the utmost friendship with the people of Canada. If their country is ever attacked, our Navy will be defending their seas, our soldiers will fight on their battlefields, our fliers will die in their skies. But have they the right to draw this hemisphere into a European war simply because they prefer the Crown of England to American independence?”
He concludes his speech with a specific program for American neutrality and an appeal to American democracy:
“I believe that we should adopt as our program of American neutrality — as our contribution to western civilization — the following policy:
“An embargo on offensive weapons and munitions.
“The unrestricted sale of purely defensive armaments.
“The prohibition of American shipping from the belligerent countries of Europe and their danger zones.
“The refusal of credit to belligerent nations or their agents.
“Whether or not this program is adopted depends upon the support of those of us who believe in it. The United States of America is a democracy. The policy of our country is still controlled by our people. It is time for us to take action. There has never been a greater test for the democratic principle of government.”
8-Oct-39: Germany Formally Annexes Polish Territory, Appoints Arthur Greiser Gauleiter; Finns Agree to Soviet Talks; Canadian Troops Prepare for Duty
Today is 8-Oct-1939, the 38th day of World War II; there are 2,155 days left in the conflict.
German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler issues a decree in Berlin that officially incorporates conquered Poland into the Greater German Reich. The territory is known as Reichsgau Posen and SS Obergruppenfuhrer Arthur Greiser is named gauleiter.
In Latvia, an estimated 50,000 ethnic Germans are repatriated to the Reich after representatives from Germany and Latvia for their return.
To the north, the Finnish government, two days after mobilizing its armed forces, accepts a Soviet proposal for discussions in Moscow regarding the disputed borders of the two countries. The Finns also announce their intention to maintain the country’s independence and its neutrality.
A division of 20,000 Canadian troops are due to embark for duty in Europe sometime early in 1940, it is announced by the government in Ottawa.
16-Sep-39: Soviets Inform Poles of Imminent Invasion of Eastern Poland; Warsaw Fights On; U-31 Sinks British Ship SS Aviemore
Today is 16-Sept-1939. It is the 16th day of the war; there are 2,177 days left in the war.
The command of Polish units defending Warsaw is given to General Walerian Czuma. The capital city is now completely surrounded by German forces, which now issue an ultimatum demanding the capital’s complete, unconditional surrender.
However, given that they have already repulsed a German advance on the city, inflicting many casulaties, the Polish garrison, with the support of the city’s civil population, decide to reject the Wehrmacht’s ultimatum. In response, the German Luftwaffe bomb the city’s Jewish quarter; today is also the day before Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which is given as one of the reasons for the special attack. The last of Poland’s air force planes make their final, limited bombing runs.
The Germans are fighting west of Lvov, and some units are driving north in order to link with others fighting along the Bug River. The invasion is approaching its final phase, exceeding Wehrmacht expectations.
The Soviet government finally makes official what the Germans have been urging them to do since the beginning of the invasion; it informs Polish representatives in Moscow that, on the next day, 17-Sept, the Red Army will deploy into eastern Poland in order to, quote, “protect the Ukrainian and Belorussian minorities.”
On the high seas, the German Kriegsmarine’s U-Boats score another sinking when the U-31 attacks and sinks the SS Aviemore, a British steamer. The U-31 will go on to sink 10 more ships during its wartime career.
23 crewmen of the Aviemore die in the attack. The Aviemore is a British merchant steamer built in 1920 and owned by Johnston Warren Lines. She had been en route from Swansea, Wales, to South America — Montevideo, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was carrying a cargo of 5,165 tons of tinplates and black sheets.
In London, the British Army appoints the former King Edward VIII, now known as the Duke of Windsor after he abdicated the throne in order to marry an American divorcee in 1936, as a liaison officer to the French army.
15-Sep-39: Japan, Soviet Union Sign Armistice; Warsaw Commander Refuses German Surrender Demands; First British Trans-Atlantic Convoy Sails from Halifax
Today is 15-Sept-1939. It is the 15th day of the war; there are 2,178 days left in the war.
Japan and the Soviet Union end the four-month-old “Nomonhan Incident” — in which the Japanese were disastrously defeated in the Battle of Khalkin Gol — with an armistice agreement signed in Moscow.
After their defeat in the battle (in which they lost over 17,000 soldiers), a new Japanese cabinet came to power and pressed for the armistice. The Germans had also been pressing for their two ostensible allies to come to an agreement and end the fighting ever since the 22-Aug signing of the Soviet-German Nonaggression Pact.
This armistice is another action designed to clear the decks for the Soviet invasion of Poland, planned for two days hence. German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop sends an urgent, top secret telegram to the Reich’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenberg. In it, he instructs the ambassador to convey to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov the following information:
“1. The destruction of the Polish Army is rapidly approaching its conclusion, as appears from the review of the military situation of September 14 which has already been communicated to you. We count on the occupation of Warsaw in the next few days.
“2. We have already stated to the Soviet Government that we consider ourselves bound by the definition of spheres of influence agreed upon in Moscow, entirely apart from purely military operations, and the same applies of course to the future as well.”
Ribbentrop instructs von der Shulenberg to give Molotov a thinly veiled warning: if the Soviets do not act and invade Poland as agreed in the 22-Aug Nonaggression Pact, the Soviet government might not like the results:
“From the communication made to you by Molotov on September 14, we assume that the Soviet Government will take a hand militarily, and that it intends to begin its operation now. We welcome this. The Soviet Government thus relieves us of the necessity of annihilating the remainder of the Polish Army by pursuing it as far as the Russian boundary. Also the question is disposed of in case a Russian intervention did not take place, of whether in the area lying to the east of the German zone of influence a political vacuum might not occur. Since we on our part have no intention of undertaking any political or administrative activities in these areas, apart from what is made necessary by military operations, without such an intervention on the part of the Soviet Government there might be the possibility of the construction of new states there.”
In other words, if the Soviets fail to act, they will find the German Wehrmacht at their borders along with possibly unknown and unwelcome new states along that border.
Ribbentrop then suggests that the Soviet government agree to the public issuance of a joint declaration, which would state:
“In view of the complete collapse of the previous form of government in Poland, the Reich Government and the Government of the U.S.S.R. consider it necessary to bring to an end the intolerable political and economic conditions existing in these territories. They regard it as their joint duty to restore peace and order in these areas which are naturally of interest to them and to bring about a new order by the creation of natural frontiers and viable economic organizations.”
The Reich’s foreign minister then urges his ambassador to speed the Soviets along:
“Since the military operations must be concluded as soon as possible because of the advanced season of the year, we would be gratified if the Soviet Government would set a day and hour on which their army would begin their advance, so that we on our part might govern ourselves accordingly. For the purpose of the necessary coordination of military operations on either side, it is also necessary that a representative of each Government, as well as German and Russian officers on the spot in the area of operations, should have a meeting in order to take the necessary steps, for which meeting we propose to assemble at Bialystok by air.”
Von der Shulenberg follows the instructions and presents Ribbentrop’s communique to Molotov.
Meanwhile, the fighting in Poland is increasingly going the Germans’ way; the Poles’ Poznan Army is encircled at Kutno and is steadily being destroyed by the Wehrmacht. Also encircled is the city of Brest-Litovsk, 120 miles east of Warsaw. The Bzura battles are also going badly for the Poles; the heaviest fighting is ending.
And in Warsaw itself, Major General Juliusz Rommel, the city’s military commander, receives a surrender proposal from German military representatives, but refuses to discuss it. The Poles will fight on in their capital.
The Romanian government in Bucharest makes a decision designed to at least partially placate the German government by granting asylum only to Polish civilian refugees fleeing the fighting by crossing the border into Romania proper. Any Polish military personnel who do the same will, the government declares, be disarmed and interned in camps.
The Germans make the decision to use captured allied flyers in propaganda radio broadcasts. On the air, they interview aircrew from Britain and New Zealand who were shot down and captured during the 4-Sept Royal Air Force raid on Wilhelmshaven.
On the high seas, a British TransAtlantic convoy departs Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and thus becomes the first such long-distance supply convoy of the war. The ships are supplying wheat and munitions from Canada and the United States.
From this point, all vital shipping will be required to travel in convoy form, scheduled by the military; naval forces from Britain and Canada will jointly provide protection for them from German U-Boats. Convoys are also organized for sailings from European ports to the British home isles such as Gibraltar, as well as ships sailing up and down the English/Scottish coasts and to Ulster and Ireland.
10-Sep-39: Canada Declares War on Germany; Luftwaffe Raids Warsaw 15 Times; British Expeditionary Force Builds Up in France
In Ottawa, Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King asks a special session of Parliament to approve his request that Canada join the war against Germany. Most Canadians see the coming of war one week after the declarations of war by England and France as inevitable. A few days before, a solemn King George VI took to the airwaves in London in an address called “Canada at the side of Britain.” This also marks the first time that Canadians make their own declaration of war as a sovereign nation.
Prime Minister King vows to secure Canada’s defense, and take “all necessary measures” to curb Germany’s “lust for conquest.” Even though the Canadians are the last of the British Dominions to declare war, the few days of hesitation permits the accelerated delivery from the US of large amounts of war goods which, after the declaration of war are now barred by American neutrality laws.
Meanwhile on the front lines in Poland, Polish armies are ordered to retreat to defensive positions in the southeast of the country. The German Luftwaffe conducts 15 air raids on Warsaw. German forces also make an attempt at spreading false propaganda by broadcasting a fake news bulletin on the same wavelength as Radio Warsaw that announces the fall of Warsaw, the capital.
The Polish Commander-in-Chief, Marshal Smigly-Rydz, continues making pleas to the French to invade Germany and take pressure off the Poles. But the French Chief of the General Staff, General Maurice Gamelin, announces that more than half of his active divisions are in contact with the enemy on the northeast front and that he can do no more to help the Poles.
Meanwhile, at the Channel ports, the first major units of British Expeditionary Force begin to land on French soil; small advance parties have been arriving since 4-Sept. 160,000 men, 24,000 vehicles and 140,000 tons of supplies are sent to France during September.
On the high seas, friendly fire takes its toll as the British submarine Triton mistakenly torpedoes the British submarine Oxley. The Oxley becomes the first allied naval casualty of World War II. Only three of 55 sailors on board survive.