December 25th, 1939 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: London: King George VI thanked the Empire in his Christmas Day broadcast for its sacrifices in coming to Britain's aid in the war. "The Mother Country can never be sufficiently grateful to you," he said. "We are all members of the great family of nations which is prepared to sacrifice everything that freedom of spirit may be saved." The King's voice was heard clearly in most parts of the world as he told his peoples that they are fighting to preserve civilisation and must trust in God. He spoke slowly in order to mask his speech impediment. It was his second Christmas broadcast.Britons made the most of their traditional turkey and plum pudding Christmas dinner today. There may have been less on the plates, but most families have hoarded sufficient quantities of luxuries like sweets and sugar to ensure a normal belt-loosening feast. If rationing is introduced, Christmas Day may become a much more spartan affair.
Preparation for the wartime feeding of 45,000,000 people has been under way for several months with the Ministry of Food drawing on the last war's experience to ensure fair distribution.
There have been several snags - the decentralisation of London's meat, fish and vegetable markets due to the threat of bombing, has caused chaos; and the government has found it difficult to cope with the large number of evacuees. Some areas have enjoyed a glut of bacon, others a shortage of butter; but real hardship is no worse than in peacetime.
ASW trawler HMS Loch Doon mined east of Blyth.
FRANCE: Somewhere in FRANCE: This is the day in the British Army when the officers serve Christmas dinner to the ranks. It is a peacetime tradition of a professional army of volunteers, preserved in spite of the 'phoney war'. The mood is as once relaxed and uneasy. To the big question - why hasn't the fighting really started? - nobody, it seems has the answer.
GERMANY: Hitler spends Christmas Day visiting his forces behind the Siegfried Line and joining in their celebrations.
Interesting that for all of the Nazi claptrap about abolishing Christianity and the celebration of "Julfest" a pagan yule-fest, they were after all, sentimentalists at heart. Images of Hitler with troops at Christmas. Frohe Weihnachten! (Russ Folsom)
FINLAND: Finnish troops enter Russian territory for the first time in the war.
Finland protests to Estonia for breach of neutrality because Soviet warships are using Tallinn as a base. The Estonian head of state (Riigivanem), Konstantin Päts, answers the protest by stating that Soviet Union isn't officially at war with Finland, thus echoing the official Soviet line.
U.S.S.R.: Soviet submarine S-56 launched.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: SS Stanholme sunk by U-33 at 51.20N, 03.39W - Grid AM 9947.