Posted on 10/15/2009 4:54:07 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
. . . Into this confusing noise came an electric shock of news. A U-boat had sneaked into the British fleet anchorage in Scapa Flow at the northern tip of Scotland, had sunk the battleship Royal Oak, and had returned home safe!
News pictures showed the solemn fat-faced Fuhrer shaking the hand of Lieutenant Commander Prien, a nervous stiff young man with receding hair. The Nazi propaganda ministry foamed with ecstasy over the British Admiralty’s report that sadly praised Prien’s skill and daring. The writer was Churchill himself. Goebbels’s broadcasters said the sinking of the Royal Oak would prove a great boon to peace, since the Fuhrer’s “outstretched hand” proposal would now receive more serious considerations.
Herman Wouk, The Winds of War
There are not many stories to day since the image quality is so poor.
Navy Loss is Heavy – 2-4
The International Situation – 3
Blockade Doomed, Elated Nazis Say – 5
Berlin Guns Roar to Fight Off Plane – 6
Danzig Nazi Demands Ousting of All Jews - 6
Good thing Germany didn’t wait 20 years until they had an atomic bomb...
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1939/oct39/f15oct39.htm
Nazis seek return of ethnic Germans
Sunday, October 15, 1939 www.onwar.com
In Riga... A German-Estonian treaty is signed providing for the transfer to the Third Reich of Estonians of German ethnic origins.
In Finland... The government introduces compulsory national service.
In Kaunas... The Polish minister in protests to the Lithuanian government against the incorporation of Vilna, on the grounds that the Soviet Union has no right to dispose of this territory.
On the Western Front... German forces are reported massing behind the lines. Reconnaissance forces are active on the whole front.
In ???... The first exchange of British and German consular officials takes place.
In Occupied Poland... There are reports of a typhoid and cholera break out in Warsaw.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaGuardia_Airport
The airport was dedicated on October 15, 1939, as the New York Municipal Airport, and opened for business on that December 2.[3] It cost New York City $23 million to turn the tiny North Beach Airport into a 550-acre (2.2 km2) modern facility. Not everyone was as enthusiastic as LaGuardia about the project, some regarded it as a $40-million boondoggle. But the public was fascinated by the very idea of air travel, and thousands traveled to the airport, paid the dime fee, and watched the airliners take off and land. Two years later these fees and their associated parking had already provided $285,000, and other non-travel related incomes (food, etc.) were another $650,000 a year. The airport was soon a huge financial success.
Scapa Flow was considered invulnerable at that time.
It was a daring raid and the captain of the submarine showed great courage by bringing it off.
Thank you for putting these on every day.
It is sickening to go day by day on these news reports and see how a situation that could have been controlled led to immediate deaths of 60 million people and the enslavement of half of Europe
This is what dictators can do. No one stood up forcefully against Hilter. He NEVER won the absolute majority of votes in Germany. NEVER. He was hated by the correct thinking part of Germany. Even his Italian allies hated him for his rash actions.
Yet, his power was allowed to grow incrementally. Even we in the USA are to blame. Idiots like Lindbergh and his ilk had the stupid notion of neutrality.
That will NEVER work with a tyrant. Sooner or later the fascists would hit the USA. The same is true today of Communists or the Jihadists. One can never be the size of the USA and pretend to be neutral
Hitler should have been dealt with in the mid to late 30s and forcefully. Maybe the world would have been a better place then.
Think his name was Gunther Prien (sp)....called the “Bull of Scappa Flow”.....died in 1943-44 like most UBoat crews.
http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-47RoyalOak.htm
REPORT
ON
SINKING OF “ROYAL OAK”
Reproduced from
British Admiralty translation
(Too long to post here, but good stuff!)
8 March 1941. See reply #22 from yesterday's thread. Link at reply #3 above.
There are only two kinds of ships in the navies of the world: SUBMARINES and "targets"!
My favorite war movie of all time is Das Boot....and I have DAYS and DAYS of missions in Silent Hunter III with all the realism mods attached.
Thanks for the links!
Prien died in 1941.
LINDBERGH SPEECH
ASSAILED IN SENATELundeen Stirs Storm by
Proposing That We Seize British
Islands in Caribbean
Washington Oct 14 -- "Senate debate on the Neutrality Bill today turned into a free-for-all discussion of colonel Lindbergh's radio speech last night, in the course of which three administration leaders charged him with inconsistency and, in one case, with substantive approval of "the brutal conquest of democratic countries."
"Senator Pittman, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a speech prepared as an analysis of Colonel Lindbergh's speech:
"The most unfortunate part of Colonel Lindbergh's statement is that it encourages the ideology of the totalitarian governments and is subject to the construction that he approves of their brutal conquest of democratic countries through war or threat of destruction through war."
The October 13 thread here posted the first few paragraphs of Lindbergh's speech -- the most reasonable sounding part, no doubt. After that, apparently, his speech went down hill.
The usual historical judgement on Lindbergh is that he was not just "isolationist," but really pro-Nazi. After the US entered the war, Lindbergh found a way to serve -- but in the Pacific, naturally.
CONCLUSIONS of a Meeting of the War Cabinet held at 10 Downing Street, S.W. 1, on Sunday, October 15, 1939, at 12 noon.
...
2. The Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff gave certain further particulars as to the sinking of the Royal Oak.
There had been a continuance of enemy submarine activity of an incoming convoy. The Karamea had been shelled, but was believed to have escaped; the Bretagne*, a French ship, had been sunk; the thrid, the Loch Avon*, had been torpedoed and abandoned, but had not sunk. An attack had been carried out gainst one of the U-boats which had probably caused these losses, and was thought to have been successful. The steamship Louth had been attacked off of Mull of Galloway, but had escaped.
The War Cabinet took not of the above statement.
3. The connection with the preceding Minute the Chief of the Naval Staff said that, now that enemy submarines were operating far out on the Western Approaches, the lack of Berehaven as a base for our anti-submarine forces wasa a serious hindrance. Even if it was not possible to use the base for air reconnaissance and anti-submarines craft, it would be a great help if the Government of Eire would permit our salvage ugs to be stationed at Berehaven. This might prove to be the then end of the wedge.
The War Cabinet -
Invited the First Lord of the Admiralty to consult on this matter with the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs.
* Those two ships are included among those mentioned at the War Cabinet meeting of the previous day as having been torpedoed (W.M.(39) 47th Conclusion Minutes).
Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien, commander of U-47:
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