The novelty is wearing off.
6 More Ships Sunk; British Weigh Ban on Reich Exports – 1-3
Merchant Ships Sunk in War – 3
Nazi Listing of Veendam For Sinking Is ‘Mistake’ – 4
British See Nazis in Mine Offensive - 5
German magnetic mines prove threatening
Tuesday, November 21, 1939 www.onwar.com
In Britain... The brand-new British cruiser, Belfast, is seriously damaged by a German magnetic mine in the Firth of Forth. The destroyer Gypsy is sunk by a magnetic mine. The Japanese passenger liner Terukuni Maru is struck by a German mine as well, in the Thames estuary.
In London... Prime Minister Chamberlain announces that German merchant shipping will be seized in retaliation for indiscriminate mine warfare. All goods in Britain, earmarked for shipment to Germany, are confiscated.
In Bratislava... In a treaty signed with Germany, Slovakia is given 225 square miles of former Polish territory (which Poland had progressively annexed from Czechoslovakia in 1920, 1924 and 1938).
In the North Atlantic... The German battle cruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst begin a sortie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Belfast_(C35)
HMS Belfast is an ex-Royal Navy Town-class cruiser and now a museum ship operated by the Imperial War Museum. Commissioned in August 1939 shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Belfast spent much of the early war years undergoing repairs after being damaged by a German mine in November 1940. Recommissioned in November 1942, she saw action escorting Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union during 1943 and participated in the Battle of North Cape in December of that year. In June 1944 Belfast took part in Operation Overlord supporting the Normandy landings. She saw further action during the Korean War.
Decommissioned in 1963 following a number of overseas tours Belfast was initially expected to be disposed of as scrap. After a campaign by a private trust she was preserved as a museum ship and berthed on the River Thames in the Pool of London. Opened to the public in 1971 Belfast has been maintained as a branch of the Imperial War Museum since 1978. In Royal Navy service for 24 years HMS Belfast was, in the view of historian and Imperial War Museum director Noble Frankland, capable of representing “a whole generation of [historical evidence]”.[2] A popular tourist attraction, Belfast receives around a quarter of a million visitors per year.[3] As a branch of a national museum, Belfast is supported by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, by admissions income and the Imperial War Museum’s other commercial activity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Scharnhorst
Scharnhorst’s first wartime operation was a sortie into the Iceland-Faroes passage, which lasted six days from 21-27 November 1939, with Gneisenau in which she sank the British Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Rawalpindi, although her victim fought a tough defensive battle.[10] The Rawalpindi’s Captain, Edward Coverley Kennedy (father of naval Historian Ludovic Kennedy[11]), had been notified at around 15:30 hrs that a large warship had been sighted. Kennedy identified it as the Deutschland. Sighting another large ship, Kennedy thought it was a British Heavy Cruiser, and hoped it would be Rawalpindi’s savior. He therefore ignored the warning shots fired by Scharnhorst. Unfortunately the ship sighted was Gneisenau, and Kennedy found himself surrounded. The ensuing battle lasted just 15 minutes. Scharnhorst eventually sank the ship, killing 238 of the crew, including Kennedy. The German squadron stopped to rescue 38 survivors from the freezing seas. The German commanders on both Gneisenau and Scharnhorst commented on the bravery of the Captain and his crew.[12]