October 1939

October

• 02

  • The surrender of HelOn 2 October 1939 the Germans entered the Hel Peninsula. The day before, the last pocket of resistance on the Polish coast had signed its surrender in Sopot.
• 04

  • The French withdraw from the SaarIn early October 1939 the main French forces left the strip of the Saar taken in September and returned to the Maginot Line. Only outposts stayed behind.
• 05

  • The Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance PactOn 5 October 1939 Latvia, under threat of force, signed a mutual assistance pact in Moscow. The USSR gained bases at Liepāja and Ventspils and 25,000 troops.
  • Hunting groups against the raidersOn 5 October 1939 the Admiralty, together with the French, formed eight hunting groups of carriers and heavy ships to track down German surface raiders.
• 06

  • The surrender at KockOn 6 October 1939 General Kleeberg’s Polesie group laid down its arms near Kock – the last regular Polish Army formation still fighting in the 1939 campaign.
  • Hitler offers peaceOn 6 October 1939 Hitler proposed a peace conference in the Reichstag if the West accepted the conquest of Poland, whose fate was for Germany and the USSR.
• 08

  • Chinese victory at ChangshaOn 8 October 1939 the Japanese 11th Army recrossed the Xinqiang, its start line for Changsha. China proclaimed a great victory, Japan a planned return.
• 09

  • The Case Yellow directiveOn 9 October 1939 Hitler signed Directive No. 6 – strike through Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands as soon as possible. The generals objected.
  • The seizure of the City of FlintOn 9 October 1939 the Deutschland seized the US freighter City of Flint. A German prize crew took her via Tromsø and Murmansk, while Washington protested.
• 10

  • Raeder proposes occupying NorwayOn 10 October 1939 Grand Admiral Raeder set out for Hitler the advantages of bases in Norway. Hitler shelved it but attacked the country six months later.
  • The Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance TreatyOn 10 October 1939 Lithuania signed a mutual assistance pact in Moscow. It received Wilno, seized from Poland, but had to accept 20,000 Soviet troops.
• 11

  • The British Expeditionary Force on the Belgian borderOn 11 October 1939 Hore-Belisha announced that 158,000 men had been sent to France. Four BEF divisions were already fortifying a sector on the Belgian border.
• 12

  • Britain and France reject Hitler’s offerOn 10 October 1939 Daladier, and on 12 October Chamberlain, rejected Hitler’s peace offer, demanding deeds, not words. Roosevelt declined to mediate.
  • Soviet demands on FinlandOn 12 October 1939 Stalin and Molotov demanded of Paasikivi a base at Hanko, islands and part of the Karelian Isthmus in exchange for land in Karelia.
• 14

  • Orzeł reaches BritainOn 14 October 1939, after six weeks at sea, with no charts and a damaged radio, ORP Orzeł reached Scotland. The British had given her up for lost.
  • The sinking of HMS Royal OakOn the night of 13–14 October 1939 Günther Prien’s U-47 slipped into Scapa Flow and sank the battleship Royal Oak. 833 or 835 men were killed.
• 16

  • The first Luftwaffe raids on BritainOn 16 October 1939 Ju 88s attacked warships in the Firth of Forth, and on 17 October Scapa Flow. Spitfires shot down two bombers, including the leader’s.
• 17

  • The Czechoslovak National Committee in ParisOn 17 October 1939 Beneš’s Czechoslovak National Committee was set up in Paris. Two weeks earlier France had agreed to rebuild a Czechoslovak army.
• 18

  • The Red Army enters EstoniaOn 18 October 1939 the Red Army entered Estonia to occupy the bases granted by the pact. That day the first ship carrying Baltic Germans left Tallinn.
  • The Nisko PlanOn 18 October 1939 the first transport of Jews left Ostrava for Nisko on the San, the first wartime deportation of Jews from the Reich, run by Eichmann.
• 20

  • The encyclical Summi PontificatusOn 20 October 1939 Pius XII signed his first encyclical. It condemned racism and the deified state and mourned Poland, but named neither Germany nor the USSR.
  • German pressure on Romania in OctoberIn October 1939 Berlin refused to let Mościcki leave Romania for Switzerland, and the envoy Fabricius pressed Bucharest over the British guarantee.
• 21

  • Conscript registration in BritainOn 21 October 1939 some 230,000 young Britons, the first age group of wartime conscription, registered at labour exchanges; 2.2 per cent as objectors.
• 26

  • Key eventThe annexation of Polish lands and the General GovernmentOn 26 October 1939 Hitler’s decrees took effect. Western Poland was annexed to the Reich and central Poland became Hans Frank’s General Government.
  • Tiso becomes President of SlovakiaOn 26 October 1939 the Bratislava parliament unanimously elected the priest Jozef Tiso President of Slovakia. The next day Vojtech Tuka became Prime Minister.
• 27

  • Belgium reaffirms its neutralityOn 27 October 1939 Leopold III, in a radio address to Americans, reaffirmed Belgium’s neutrality and warned that if attacked the country would fight.
• 28

  • Demonstrations in PragueOn 28 October 1939, the anniversary of Czechoslovak independence, Czechs took to the streets. Shots in Prague killed Václav Sedláček and wounded Jan Opletal.
• 30

  • The British White Paper on concentration campsOn 30 October 1939 London published diplomats’ reports of 1938–1939 on terror in Germany, describing the beating and starving of Dachau and Buchenwald inmates.
• 31

  • The Manstein PlanOn 31 October 1939 Army Group A sent Erich von Manstein’s memorandum to the OKH. The main blow in the west was to shift south, towards the Ardennes.