1931 (FRIDAY)
TURKEY: Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov visits Ankara and the Soviet and Turkish governments agree to renew the Turco-Russian Alliance for another five years.
UNITED STATES: The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) puts a TV transmitter atop the Empire State Building in New York City. The first experimental TV broadcast is on 22 December.
1935 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED STATES: President Franklin D. Roosevelt repeats determination of the United States not to become involved in the Italo-Ethiopian controversy stating, "In dealing with the conflict between Ethiopia and Italy, I have carried into effect the will and intent of the neutrality resolution recently enacted by Congress."
1938 (SUNDAY)
UNITED STATES: The radio program "The Mercury Theater on the Air" on CBS presents Orson Welles' production of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" at 2000 hours Eastern Time. The show is set up as a music program interrupted by news bulletins saying that Martians have landed in Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Though a disclaimer is broadcast several times throughout the hourlong program, most listeners did not pay attention to the explanation telling them that the story is fictional and a radio fabrication. Even the newspaper program guides printed the warning. Of the 6 million listeners who heard the show, more than 1.7 million reportedly believed the story is true Nobody ever found out why thousands of people believed the science-fiction drama..
UNITED KINGDOM:The RAF performs a reconnaissance of an aerodrome in North Germany.
London: A government white paper exposes Nazi Brutality towards dissidents and Jews, including the concentration camp system.
'The Lion Has Wings', the first war film of the conflict, is shown. It
features newsreel footage of RAF Ansons attacking a German fleet.
The Spitfire sequences were flown by B flight of 74 Squadron RAF (which
squadron I later joined).
The scenes with74 Squadron were shot on 6 Sep 1939, late in the day after A Flight had shot down two Hurricanes of 56 Sqn in the infamous 'Battle of Barking Creek' . In an early morning SNAFU, due to faulty controlling and aircraft recognition, and lack of a good IFF system (at that stage we only had the 'Pip-Squeak' system) aircraft were vectored on to the non-existent enemy, with this tragic result.
The happier and almost unreal experience befell B Flight. The stars of the film were Merle Oberon (Lady Korda) and Ralph Richardson. The shot of the Flight Commander's tent shown in one scene had a large painting of the Squadron badge and 'The Tiger's Den' on it so there was no mistaking which Sqn was doing the flying.
I still have several stills from the film.
(Doug Tidy)
U-56 fires two torpedoes at HMS Nelson, the flagship of the Home Fleet, but they do not explode.
Corvettes HMS Calendula and Clarkia laid down.
Submarines HMS Upholder, Urge and Unique laid down.
AMC HMS Cheshire commissioned.
U.S. freighter SS Scanpenn is detained by British authorities at Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands and freighter SS Hybert is detained by British authorities at the Downs the same day
GERMANY: U-409, U-410, U-411, U-412, U-451, U-452, U-453, U-454 ordered.
POLAND: Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuhrer-SS and Head of the German Police, orders that all Jews must be cleared out of the rural areas of western Poland within three months. In the Poznan region, 50 communities are immediately uprooted. (Atlas)
SWITZERLAND: Rationing of Sugar, pasta, leguminous plants, rice, wheat and corn semolina, flour, oats and barley products, butter, edible fats and food oils, starts today. (William Jay Stone from http://www.geschichte-schweiz.ch/en/worldwar2.html)
U.S.S.R.: The Fenno-Soviet negotiations get a new twist as FM Molotov published the Soviet demands in a speech. The realization of the demands are now a matter of prestige for Stalin.
Submarine S-4 commissioned.
U.S.A.: Corvette USS Ready laid down.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-34 aborted patrol and returned to base due to serious engine trouble.
U-13 sank SS Cairnmona in Convoy HX-5.
U-37 sank SS Thrasyvoulos.
U-59 sank HMS Northern Rover.
A contingent of the British Home fleet, the battleships HMS Rodney (29) and Nelson (28), the battlecruiser HMS Hood (51) and escorting destroyers, is sailing just west of the Orkney Islands north of Scotland. A high level conference is being held aboard Nelson; the attendees are Commander-in-Chief Home Fleet, Admiral Sir Charles Forbes, the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Dudley Pound, and First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. The German submarine U-56 finds herself in the middle of the fleet and fires three torpedoes at Nelson; two of them strike the ship but fail to explode. (The Germans are having torpedo problems.) U-56 escapes unharmed.