ON THIS DAY:
After recieving news of the Declaration of War, HMS Ajax (Capt. C.H.L. Woodhouse, RN) intercepts the German merchant Olinda (4576 GRT) off the coast of Uruguay in position 33º50’S, 53º30’W.
The German ship is sunk by gunfire.
German aircraft attack Polish Navy ships that had moved to Hela, sinking the Destroyer “Wicher”, the Gunboat “General Haller”, 2 minesweepers, and several smaller ships.
The German Navy begins laying the “Westwall” mine barrages in the North Sea. This involves most of the Destroyers and light cruisers of the German Navy.
SS Athenia, a British cruise ship en-route from Glasgow, Scotland to Montreal, Canada is torpedoed by German submarine U-30 250 miles Northwest of Ireland. 112 passengers and crew are killed. The “Battle of the Atlantic” begins. Only a few hours before, at 1256 hours Berlin time, BdU had broadcast an urgent encoded message: “Hostilities with England effective immediately”.
In Poland,Third and Fourth Armies have linked up. The Pomorze Army force assigned to the defense of the Corridor proper had been destroyed, with a loss of 15,000 men in prisoners alone, 90 field pieces, and large stocks of matériel.
The Modlin Army, from which the Germans claimed to have captured 10,000 prisoners, had been forced to withdraw southward from the Mlawa area. The Corridor was cut at base and center. The northern end of the Corridor and the fortress of Westerplatte in Danzig Harbor remained in Polish hands, but under constant attack by German ground, air, and sea forces.
The Podlaska Cavalry Brigade of the Narew Group made several local penetrations into East Prussia in the area held by Corps Brand during this period of operations. These actions received much publicity in the foreign press but affected the campaign very little.
In the south, Czestochowa was taken on the morning of 3 September, and Tenth Army seized several bridgeheads across the Warta despite determined Polish resistance. Fourteenth Army fought its way through the fortifications about Katowice and Mikolow in its zone of advance, and moved east along the Vistula.
The southern Polish armies, bypassed in numerous places by the fast-moving German columns, began a hurried withdrawal. The troops on the front noted a marked decrease in Polish resistance and made extensive gains.
In Air Operations, The Polish Air Force has ceased to exist as an effective fighting force. In three days the Luftwaffe had driven the Polish Air Force from the skies, and destroyed most of its bases on the ground. 1st and 4th Air Forces are ordered to switch thier main effort to ground support of the troops.
A number of German civilians resident in the Bydgoszcz area were shot in an operation directed by the local Polish commander, and the Reich government charged the Polish Government with terrorism. The Polish Government, in turn, used the incident to support its claim of fifth column activities on the part of the German minority resident within Poland’s borders. The “Bloody Sunday” incident was promptly used in the psychological warfare effort of both Germans and Poles.