11-Sep-39: Polish Forces at Radom are Destroyed; Germans Announce Counter-Blockade; Washington Says No More Peace Initiatives
German Wehrmacht forces cross the River San in southeast Poland both north and south of the city of Przemysl. The Poles are holding their own in the battle on the Bzura river. However, German General Gerd von Rundstedt, leader of Army Group South, and his Chief of Staff, General Erich von Manstein, start to gather reinforcements for the Eighth Army, which will prove to be decisive in the battle.
Polish forces in the city of Radom are destroyed; 60,000 men are captured and the industrial area of Upper Silesia is completely occupied.
In response to Britain’s announcement yesterday, the German government announces a counter blockade against the British Isles. The government announces that, “since economic warfare was forced on her, she is not only able to resist every pressure of blockade and every form of British hunger warfare, but to reply to it with the same methods.”
The British are unaware that, at the same time, German cipher experts have solved the British merchant ship code and can now identify convoy meeting points.
Meanwhile, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill begins corresponding with United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Churchill signs each letter with the sobriquet, “A Naval Person.”
The British cabinet decides to put a moratorium on further attempts to bomb Germany by air. They also indefinitely postpone plans for the federation of India.
From Washington D.C., American Secretary of State Cordell Hull cables a secret message to the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph Kennedy. Kennedy had wired earlier urging the president to make peace overtures to the European combatants, believing that the time was ripe, before the USSR and Italy jumped into the fray. Hull replies, noting that President Roosevelt will not be undertaking further peace initiatives because of strong anti-German sentiment in the country. The wire states:
“The President desires me to inform you, for your strictly confidential information and so that you may be guided thereby without divulging this message to any one, that this Government, so long as present European conditions continue, sees no opportunity nor occasion for any peace move to be initiated by the President of the United States. The people of the United States would not support any move for peace initiated by this Government that would consolidate or make possible a survival of a regime of force and of aggression.”
The war is now set to run its course.
26-Aug-39 — America Debuts Televised Baseball; Germany Prepares for War
The United States continues its isolation and long dream in the years prior to 7-Dec-41 while the rest of the world is going up in smoke. Today, the first Major League Baseball game is broadcast via television, a double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, in Brooklyn, New York. The announcer was Red Barber and the television station was W2XBS, an NBC affiliate. The Reds won the first game 5-2, with their Bucky Walters becoming the first pro pitcher to win a televised baseball game. The Dodgers came back and won the second game 6-1.
Most viewers were only able to watch the games at the RCA Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair and the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center in Mahattan on 9×12 inch screens. NBC claimed that viewers as far away as 50 miles from the Empire State Building could see the game, but there were only about 400 sets in the New York metropolitan area. In comparison, there were just 19,000 television sets in use in all of Great Britain prior to the outbreak of the war.
Meanwhile, in more serious, behind-the-scenes diplomatic news, United States Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph Kennedy telegraphs Secretary of State Cordell Hull that British Ambassador to Germany Nevile Henderson had stated that German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler, during their Berchtesgaden meeting earlier in the month, had claimed that the “only one to benefit from a war between Germany and England would be Japan, who might very well become the dominating factor in the world.”
In Germany, Sir Henderson leaves Berlin for London and short consultations with the government. Before his departure, he called on German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and accompanied him to the Reich Chancellery, where he had a further talk with the Fuehrer. After Henderson left, the French, Italian and Japanese Ambassadors visit Hitler at the Chancellery.
Ominous signs of the imminence of war continue to appear all over Germany; the government announces the cancellation of celebrations to have taken place at Tannenberg the next day of the 25th anniversary of the German victory over the Russians in World War I, including the cancellation of a speech Hitler was to have made. The National Socialist Party also announces that its upcoming 1939 Party Congress at Nuremberg is likely to be cancelled.
It is officially announced that German shipping is to remain in port or return at once. Deutsche Lufthansa plane services are suspended. And at 01.35, it was announced in London that the German Embassy has advised all Germans to leave Britain. Also, Italian ships have been ordered to return to their home ports.
In London the Anglo-Polish treaty of mutual assistance announced the previous day is signed; it provides for immediate reciprocal aid in the event of aggression against either country. The French Premier, M. Daladier, broadcasts an address emphasizing Anglo-French unity of purpose. “Britain’s will is our will,” Daladier declares.
In Spain and Japan, the negotiation of the German-Soviet agreement produces a profound effect on political opinion. The French Government is informed by the Spanish Ambassador that in the event of hostilities Spain will be neutral; Spain also makes a formal protest in Berlin against the conclusion of the German-Soviet nonaggression pact.
In Asia, at Hankow, the Japanese abandon the blockade of the French concession and tension at Hong Kong eases, at least for the time being.
Fall Weiss, the invasion of Poland and the official beginning of the war, is now six days away.