September 5th, 1939 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: A number of U.S. registered ships are ordered inspected by the RN. (1) U.S. freighter SS Black Osprey, bound for Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and Antwerp, Belgium, is stopped by British warship off Lizard Head and ordered into the port of Weymouth, one of the five "contraband control bases" (the others are Ramsgate, Kirkwall, Gibraltar and Haifa) established by the British government. (2) Freighter SS Lehigh, bound for Hamburg, Germany, is detained by the British. (3) Philippine motorship MS Don Isidro, on her maiden voyage en route from her builders' yard at Kiel, Germany, to Manila, clears the Suez Canal; U.S. government immediately protests British authorities having removed, at Port Said, two German engineers (on board "to guarantee construction and demonstrate proper manning" of the new vessel) from SS Don Isidro (which is under the American flag) as illegal and a violation of the neutral rights of the United States.In a memo Churchill writes on the Irish treaty ports:
"A special report should be drawn up...upon the questions arising from the SO-CALLED neutrality of the SO-CALLED Eire. Various considerations arise: (1) What does Intelligence say about possible succouring of U-boats by Irish malcontents in West of Ireland inlets."
(NOTE: There was no diesel fuel in Eire!) "Secondly, a study is required of the addition to the radius of our destroyers through not having the use of Berehaven or other South Irish submarine bases; showing also the advantage to be gained by our having these facilities. The Board [of Admiralty] must realise that we may not be able to obtain satisfaction, as the question of Irish neutrality raises political issues which have not yet been faced, and which the First Lord is not certain he can solve."
FRANCE: The French Commissioner of Information makes a radio broadcast, referring to the current war communiques as "those of a people that has already at hand all that is necessary for defense or attack, whose frontier cannot be violated."
GERMANY: William L Shirer notes in his diary: "Very strange about the western front. The [foreign ministry] assures us that not a single shot has been fired there yet."
German Army Commander-in-Chief Colonel-General Walther von Brauchitsch gives the A-4 rocket project the highest possible priority. Even so, it will be another five years before the first production A-4 (V-2) rocket is launched at a military target.
POLAND: Germans enter Piotrkow and set fire to the Jewish district. Tenth Army units from Army Group South cross the Pilica River and turn northwest toward Warsaw. The fortress of Graudenz falls and the Germans break through the corridor. Krakow is surrounded.
Warsaw: The Polish government moves from Warsaw to Lublin, 100 miles (161 kilometers) southeast, as German forces advance to with 31 miles (50 kilometers) of the city.
SOUTH AFRICA: General Jan Christian Smuts became the new prime minister of the Union of South Africa and the South African Parliament rejects legislation which would have made the dominion neutral in the European War. South Africa is now at war with Germany.
JAPAN: Japanese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs SAWADA Renzo announces that Japan will maintain neutrality in the European war.
AUSTRALIA: The 2nd Australian Imperial Force is formed and there is a call for volunteers. (Australia needed to raise a volunteer force for overseas service while the militia were only allowed to serve in Australian territories.)
Prime Minister, Robert G. Menzies, sends a cable to the Australian High Commissioner in London, Stanley Bruce, summarizing Australia's pg that until Japan's position is made clear it would "be useless to discuss the sending of [an] expeditionary force [overseas". Menzies thought that Australia might reinforce Singapore or the Middle East, but "any suggestion at present of sending troops out of Australia would be widely condemned." The Prime Minister therefore approaches the sending overseas of an Australian expeditionary force cautiously, and the government is also hesitant about releasing ships of the Royal Australian Navy for service outside home waters.
CANADA: The RCAF has only 4,153 military personnel out of its authorized establishment of 7,259, eight permanent squadrons and 11 auxiliary squadrons with a total of 53, mostly obsolete, aircraft available for active service (eight on the west coast and 36 on the east coast including many civilian pattern aircraft equipped for float operation). The Signals Branch was of minimal size. There was no radar. The RCAF initial request for Can$136 million for the period ending 30 August 1940 had been pared to Can$77 million by the Canadian government. The reduced budget allowed for an expansion to only 167 aircraft, one third of the pre-war planning figure with no reserves, wastage or training allocation.
RCMP vessels Captor, Chaleur, Invader and Acadian transferred to RCN Examination serivce and recommissioned as HMCS Captor, Chaleur I, Invader and Interceptor respectively.
U.S.A.: Washington: US neutrality, announced by Roosevelt two days ago becomes official.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims the neutrality of the United States in the war between Germany and France, Poland, the UK, India, Australia and New Zealand, and orders the USN to form a Neutrality Patrol. As a result, Chief of Naval Operations (Admiral Harold R. Stark) directs Commander Atlantic Squadron (Rear Admiral Alfred W. Johnson) to maintain an offshore patrol to report "in confidential system" the movements of all foreign men-of-war approaching or leaving the east coast of the United States and approaching and entering or leaving the Caribbean.
USN ships are to avoid making a report of foreign men-of-war or suspicious craft, however, on making contact or when in their vicinity to avoid the performance of unneutral service "or creating the impression that an unneutral service is being performed." The patrol is to extend about 300 miles (483 km) off the eastern coastline of the United States and along the eastern boundary of the Caribbean (see 6 September). Furthermore, U.S. naval vessels are to report the presence of foreign warships sighted at sea to the district commandant concerned.
The U.S. Maritime Commission issues Hydrographic Office Special Warning No. 9 directing that all U.S. merchant ships en route to or from Europe are not to steer a zig zag course, are not to black out at night, and are to paint the U.S. flag on each side of the hull, on hatches fore and aft, and on sun decks of passenger vessels, and to illuminate the colors flying from the flagstaff at night. In Hydrographic Office Special Warning No. 12 (promulgated the same day), U.S. merchant vessels engaged in domestic, "near-by foreign" or transpacific trade are not required to paint the flag on hull, hatches and decks, but otherwise are to follow the other instructions contained in Special Warning No. 9.
In New York City, the U.S. steamship SS President Roosevelt off-loads the British Scott-Paine-type motor torpedo boat PT-9 at New York; PT 9 will be the prototype for the motor torpedo boats constructed by the Electric Boat Company.
In New York City, stocks soar on Wall Street as investors predict a war boom.
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
U-47 sinks SS Bosnia
U-48 sinks SS Royal
Sceptre.