August 20th, 1940 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
London: Winston Churchill addressed the House of Commons today and praised the RAF for its
heroic struggle against the Luftwaffe.
"The gratitude of every home in our island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the
world ... goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds , unwearied in their
constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war", he
said. "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes
day after day." Comparing this war with the last, the Prime Minister found many
differences: "The slaughter is only a small fraction, but the consequences to the
belligerents have been even more deadly. We have seen great countries with powerful armies
dashed out of existence in a few weeks ... Moves are made upon the scientific and
strategic boards, advantages gained by mechanical means."
He continued: "There is another more obvious difference from 1914. The whole of the
warring nations, not only soldiers, but the entire population, men, women and children ...
Our people are united and resolved, as they have never been before. Death and ruin have
become small things compared with the shame of defeat."
Churchill also announces that bases in the Caribbean Sea will be
leased to the United States.
Destroyer HMS Eridge launched.
Minelayer HMS Latona launched.
Submarine HMS Undaunted is launched.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Almond is commissioned.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Resparko is bombed and sunk off
Falmouth.
RAF Fighter Command: Luftwaffe planes attempt to stoke the
fire at Llanreith and Erpro 210 interfere with a convoy off Aldeburgh {East Coast} before
striking sharply at Southwold's defences.
Weather restricts German activities. Manston and Martlesham attacked. Polish 302 Squadron
in action for the first time shooting down a Ju88 on its way to bomb the airfield at
Thornaby, Yorkshire.
Night raids take place on the Rolls-Royce works at Derby.
ÉIRE: A Luftwaffe Focke Wulf FW 200C-1 Condor, coded "F8+KH" and assigned to Kampfgeschwader 40 (KG 40), crashes at 1410 hours local on the lower slopes of Mount Brandon on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry.
This was the second Luftwaffe aircraft to crash in the country during World War II. The Condor had departed Abbeville, France, on a reconnaissance mission over northwestern Ireland and had been damaged by AA fire from a ship. All of the crew survived. Exactly 48 years later, the pilot and a crewman returned to the spot and met an Irish woman who had helped them on this day.
GERMANY:
U-89 and
U-130 laid down.
ITALY:
Rome: Mussolini announces a blockade of British ports in the Mediterranean.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA:
Italian planes bomb Gibraltar.
CHINA:
Shansi Province: The Japanese army's strategic security network of garrisons in northern
China was suddenly cut off from the world today as 40,000 men of the Chinese Communist
Eighth Route Army launched a series of well-coordinated surprise attacks on road and rail
installations, severing communications in the area.
The success of the attacks by the Army's 115 regiments provides a much-needed morale boost
for the Chinese forces. and will help to silence critics of the Kuomintang who claim that
the Communists are more intent on attacking them than the Japanese.
CANADA: Corvette HMS Fennel launched Sorel, Province of Quebec.
MEXICO: Exiled Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded by an ice-ax wielding assassin at his compound outside Mexico City. The killer--Ramón Mercader--was a Spanish communist and probable agent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Trotsky (real name Lev Davidovich Bronshtein) will die of his wounds tomorrow at age 60. Trotsky, who was born in the Ukraine of Russian-Jewish parents, was a theorist and a leader in both the 1905 and 1917 revolutions. Appointed Lenin's secretary of foreign affairs after the 1917 revolution, he negotiated with the Germans for an end to Russian involvement in World War I. In 1918, he became war commissioner and set about building up the Red Army, which succeeded in defeating anti-communist opposition in the Russian Civil War. In the early 1920s, Trotsky seemed the heir apparent of Lenin, but he lost out in the struggle of succession after Lenin fell ill in 1922. In 1924, Lenin died, and Joseph Stalin emerged as leader of the USSR. Against Stalin's stated policies, Trotsky called for a continuing world revolution that would inevitably result in the dismantling of the increasingly bureaucratic Soviet state. He also criticized the new regime for suppressing democracy in the Communist Party and for failing to develop adequate economic planning. In response, Stalin and his supporters launched a propaganda counterattack against Trotsky. In 1925, he was removed from his post in the war commissariat, in 1926 he was expelled from the Politburo and in 1927 from the Communist Party. In January 1928, Trotsky was deported by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to Alma-Ata in remote Soviet Central Asia. He lived there in internal exile for a year before being banished from the USSR forever by Stalin. During the 1930s, he lived on the Turkish island of Prinkipo, France, Norway and he was finally granted asylum in Mexico in 1936. Settling with his family in a suburb of Mexico City, he was found guilty of treason in absentia during Stalin's purges of his political foes. He survived a machine gun attack but finally fell prey to Ramón Mercader who had won the confidence of the Trotsky household. The Soviet government denied responsibility, and Mercader was sentenced to 20 years in prison by Mexican authorities.
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
The German submarine U-51 is sunk in the Bay of Biscay west of Nantes, France, in position
47.06N, 04.51W, by a torpedo from the RN submarine HMS Cachalot. All hands on the U-boat,
43-men, are lost.
U-46 attacked SS
Leonidas M Valmas. Constructive total loss.
U-A sank SS Tuira in Convoy
OB-198.