October 19th, 1940 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Battle of Britain: The weather is cloudy in the Channel and misty in northern France but the weather clears after 1200 hours.There is little German air activity during the day except for one ineffective attack on London. A number of houses are damaged in Coventry and the By Pass Road machine-gunned. There are only minor incidents to report in Essex, Surrey and Kent. As soon as darkness fell, a particularly vicious attack is launched against London and the surrounding suburbs. Railway communications appeared to be the main objective and considerable damage is done. The Dockyards are attacked but damage is not as great as at first thought, owing to a large number of bombs falling either on empty sheds or on warehouses already destroyed. There are numerous fires But all are now under control. In the Midlands, attacks are concentrated on Coventry. Districts in and around Liverpool and Birkenhead are also attacked but on the whole damage to factories and residential quarters is not as great as at first feared.
One bomber sent out in the morning was shot down over Kent.
By 1400 hours, 14 Bf 109 fighters had assembled over the Pas de Calais for a fighter sweep over England. They headed from London and a dog fighter ensued; 2 RAF fighters were shot down bringing Fighter Command's losses for the day to 5 against 2 Luftwaffe aircraft.
During the night, Luftwaffe bombers attacked London, Liverpool, the midlands and Bristol.
NORTH SEA: WW1 vintage destroyer HMS Venetia is sunk by a magnetic mine in the Thames Estuary off the Knob Buoy at 51 33N, 01 10E, while on patrol. (Alex Gordon)(108)
NETHERLANDS: An RAF Wellington is shot down over the Zuider Zee by a Luftwaffe Do 17 Z-10 'Kauz II' intruder, with the Infra-Red system called 'Spanner' (Observer).
GERMANY:
U-442 laid down.
BALTIC SEA: U-106 collided with U-143 during exercises off Danzig.
SPAIN: Himmler arrives in Spain. He is accompanied by General Wolf, Chief of General Staff, plus five others. He arrives at Irun and proceeds to Burgos. (Russel Folsom)
MIDDLE EAST: Four Italian aircraft have made an audacious long-range attack on the British oil refinery at Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf. The SM82 bombers were in the air for more than 15 hours, flying 3,000 miles from Rhodes in the Mediterranean to Massawa, in Eritrea, on a triangular route whose most easterly point was Bahrein Island. Each aircraft dropped 66 30-pound bombs on the complex. Pilots say: "We saw fires for hundreds of miles as we left the area."
This does not match the British claims that there was no damage. A refinery engineer asserted that safety flares were turned up to simulate uncontrolled fires.
JAPAN: Tokyo: The Dutch East Indies agrees to supply Japan with 40% of its oil production for the next six months.
AUSTRALIA: Convoy US-6 consisting of the transports Queen Mary, Aquitania and Mauretania, escorted by the light cruiser HMAS Perth (D 29), sails from Sydney, New South Wales, for the Middle East with the 20th and 21st Brigades of the Australian 7th Division plus supporting units.
CANADA: Patrol vessel HMCS Brad D'Or foundered in the early morning while keeping the Romanian freighter Ingener N Vlassopol under surveillance in the Gulf of St. Lawrence near Anticosti Island. Her last known position was 40.20N, 063.50W. Brad D'Or sank with no survivors. It has been suggested Brad D'Or foundered due to icing conditions that were prevalent at the time.
U.S.A.: "Only Forever" by Bing Crosby reaches Number 1 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in the U.S. The song is from the motion picture "Rhythm on the River" starring Bing Crosby, Mary Martin, Basil Rathbone, Oscar Levant and William Frawley. This song, which debuted on the charts on 28 September 1940, was charted for 16 weeks, was Number 1 for 9 weeks and was ranked Number 4 for the year 1940.
The motion picture "They Knew What They Wanted" is released today. The romantic drama, based on the play by Sidney Howard, is directed by Garson Kanin and stars Charles Laughton, Carole Lombard, William Gargan and Harry Carey; Tom Ewell, and Karl Malden appear in bit parts. The plot has Laughton as an Italian grape-grower in California who asks a waitress to marry him. Gargan is nominated for a Best Supporting Actor award.
NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN: Royal Navy commanders were tonight counting the cost of Admiral Donitz's escalation of the U-boat war. U-boats are now ordered to hunt in "wolfpacks" of up to a dozen boats. One pack has sunk over 30 ships from two convoys and damaged another in the last two days.
The slaughter began when Lieutenant Heinrich Bleichrodt in U-48 spotted a slow convoy, SC-7, escorted by two sloops and a corvette. Without waiting for the rest of the pack to catch up, Bleichrodt attacked and sank two merchant ships. He was then chased by a Sunderland flying boat and a sloop.
After dark last night he was joined by five other pack members. They struck together with devastating effectiveness, sinking 15 ships in six hours. Tragically, the escorts could do little to help as they floundered around picking up survivors.
By this time U-48 and two others had used up all their torpedoes and headed for home. The others stayed to pick off some of the stragglers and to look for new prey. The pack leader was Gunther Prien, called the "Bull of Scapa Flow" in recognition for his daring sorties into the home of the British fleet. He homed in on the 49-ship convoy HX-79.
Cautiously Prien waited for three other submarines to join him, by which time the convoy had an escort of two destroyers, four corvettes, three trawlers, and a Dutch submarine. Again Prien waited and then after nightfall struck suddenly with his full force. Within hours he had hit six ships and his colleagues had hit seven - 12 sank. In the chaos the defending forces mistook the Dutch boat O14 for a German submarine and attacked it twice.
This same night the U-boats run into Convoy HX-79A, outward from England, and sink a further seven ships.
U-100 damaged SS Blairspey in Convoy SC-7.
U-101 sank SS Assyrian and SS Sosterberg in Convoy SC-7.
U-123 sank SS Boekelo, SS Clintonia, SS Sedgepool and SS Shekatika in Convoy SC-7.
U-99 damaged SS Clintonia and sank SS Thalia, SS Snefjeld and SS Empire Brigade in Convoy SC-7.
U-47 sank SS Uganda, SS Wandby and damaged SS Shirak in Convoy HX-79.
U-46 sank SS Ruperra in Convoy HX-79.
U-38 sank SS Bilderdijk and SS Matheran in Convoy HX-79.