NAZI PLANES ATTACK 12 SHIPS, WRECK 3; 35 DEAD IN FLARE-UP OF SEA WAREFARE (1/10/40)

Microfiche-New York Times archives, McHenry Library, U.C. Santa Cruz | 1/10/40 | Raymond Daniell, K.J. Eskelund, Harold Denny

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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[Homer_J_Simpson]

Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

[Homer_J_Simpson]

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Liner Sunk by Mine – 2-3
Merchant Ships Sunk In War – 4
British Soldier Praises Resigned War Secretary – 4
Intense Cold in Moscow Closes Schools, Movies – 4
The International Situation – 4
35 Planes Make Miami-Cuba Jump – 5
Incidents in European Conflict – 5
For United Europe – 6-7
Russians Inactive on Finnish Fronts – 8
Finns Make Front Almost Like Home – 9
$100,000 More is Sent to Finland by Hoover – 9
French Writer Urges War on Russia As Way to End Soviet-Reich Threats – 10
Plea of President Kallio – 11
Nazis Remind Finns of ‘Hate’ for Reich – 11
British Air Force in France Unified – 12-13
52,000 Ton Limit Favored by Stark – 14
Nazis Scoff at Our Plane Output, Doubt Enough Aid for the Allies – 15
Isolationists Defy Atlantic Bombers – 16
U.S. Relief in Poland is Proposed by Fish – 16

[abb]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/jan40/f10jan40.htm

German plans revealed to Allies
Wednesday, January 10, 1940 www.onwar.com

The German Me108 carrying the secret plansOn the Western Front... Two German officers carrying copies of the plan for the attack in the west are forced down when their plane strays off course over Belgium. The plane, on a flight from Munster to Cologne, became lost in thick cloud. It lands at Mechelen, in Belgium. Major Helmut Reinberger, a Luftwaffe staff officer, makes an unsuccessful attempt to burn the papers he is carrying, which are operational plans, complete with maps, for a German airborne attack on the west, to begin on January 14th with saturation bombing attacks on French airfields. They are unable to destroy their documents and the Belgian authorities pass on details to the British and French.

In Germany... Hitler tells his generals that is is his intention to launch an attack on the Western Front on January 17th. The generals raise numerous objections to Hitler’s timetable.

In Stockholm... The Swedish government rejects the Soviet claim that Sweden is pursuing an “unneutral” policy. (A claim made on January 5th.)

In Britain... Widespread complaints about train delays are excused by the Railway Executive on the grounds of the blackout, which prolongs the loading of goods vans and makes for late starting. It also blames unexpected arrivals at ports of shipments of fresh foods, which have to be distributed hurriedly by commandeering trains. Troops movements are also a factor.

[abb]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/10.htm

January 10th, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM: Widespread complaints about train delays have been excused by the Railway Executive on the grounds of the blackout, which prolongs the loading of goods vans and makes for late starting. It also blames unexpected arrivals at ports of shipments of fresh food, which have to be hurriedly distributed by commandeering trains. Troop movements are also a factor.

This doesn’t explain why so many trains run late in the daytime. Even daily commuter journeys habitually take half-an-hour longer than advertised, if not more.

RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group. Daylight Anti-shipping sweep over the North Sea. 77 Sqn, 2 aircraft. 102 Sqn, 2 aircraft. No enemy shipping sighted.

North Sea Reconnaissance - One German aircraft destroyed, one RAF Blenheim lost.

BELGIUM: A German military Me 108 courier aircraft on a flight from Munster to Cologne deviated from its heading due to bad weather while carrying important deployment documents, and had to make an emergency landing at Mechelen-sur-Meuse, Belgium. Luftwaffe headquarters in Berlin is in turmoil after learning of the crash-landing from the German embassy in Brussels. One of the passengers had tried to set fire to papers he had taken from his briefcase, but Belgian soldiers closed in and retrieved the partly burnt papers. The passenger was Major Helmut Reinberger, a Luftwaffe staff officer, and the papers were operational plans, complete with maps, for a German airborne assault on the west to begin on 14 January with saturation bombing of French airfields. Extra.

When told of this Hitler is reported to have said, “It’s things like this that can lose us the war.”

GERMANY: Hitler tells his generals that he has set 17 January as the date for the attack on the Western Front.

The Luftwaffe High Command (the OKL) instructed the German press that it was forbidden to publish any information about the Me 110, Ju 88 and Me 210 bomber aircraft, mine-laying aircraft, one ton bombs, and the aircraft controlling and reporting service [Flugmeldedienst].

U-144 is laid down. (DS)

SWEDEN: The Swedish government rejects the Soviet claim that Sweden is pursuing an “unneutral” policy. (Jack McKillop)

AUSTRALIA: Four passenger liners depart Sydney, New South Wales, carrying the Australian 16th Brigade bound for Egypt. The ships, escorted by the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia, will rendezvous with the convoy carrying the New Zealand 4th Brigade that sailed from Auckland on 6 January. (Jack McKillop)

[BroJoeK]

"52,000 Ton Limit Favored by Stark – 14"

Back to the great battleship debate.

The article notes eight battleships then under construction, plus two more being considered. Those would be:

• Two North Carolina Class 36,000 tons (standard)

  

• Four South Dakota Class, 35,000 tons (standard)

  

• Two Iowa Class ordered, two more under consideration, 45,000 tons (standard)

  

• The issue being debated was whether to add five more of the larger Montana Class, 65,000 tons (standard). Admiral Starke here says, "no".

  

• What's most curious, in all this discussion is lack of mention of the new Essex Class aircraft carriers, 27,000 tons (standard), of which two were authorized in 1938, and 32 eventually ordered, 24 of them completed.
  In the end, the Montana battleships were sacrificed to build more Essex aircraft carriers.
  But already, in January 1940, Admiral Starke is not asking for more battleships.
  I wonder what he knew... ?

  

[Homer_J_Simpson]

That Essex-class assembly line must have been more or less what Yamamoto was thinking about when he said he would have the upper hand in the Pacific for about six months after launching a war with the U.S.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Great pictures of BB’s and carriers, btw. I can understand how someone looking at a battleship could get locked into the idea of their invulnerablility. Compare one of those with its main battery going off to a carrier with a few planes sitting on the flight deck and it looks like no contest.

[tanknetter]

In the end, the Montana battleships were sacrificed to build more Essex aircraft carriers.

Not just the Montanas, but also the resources that would have been required to build an additional set of locks in the Panama Canal that could handle them.

[PzLdr]

Until the Japanese sank H.M.S PRINCE OF WALES and REPULSE off Malaya in December, 1941, no aircraft attack ON A MANEUVERING warship had succeeded in sinking her [BISMARCK comes to mind. Damaged yes, sunk, no]. In the only previous carrier/ surface vessel combat, SCHARNHORST and GNIESENAU sank the British fleet carrier H.M.S GLORIOUS. So no one was certain a carrier could sink a battleship. And as you point out, it appears a mismatch - in favor of the battleship.

[CougarGA7]

Day 42 of the Winter War, January 10, 1940

Northern Finland: another crushing Finnish victory is recorded in the north, this time at Suomussalmi. A second enemy division is destroyed as Finnish troops push onwards to the border.
Photo: SA-KUVA

Soviet troops trapped at Kitelä

• Northern Finland: the Russian 122nd division at Salla begins to retreat towards Märkäjärvi.

• Ladoga Karelia: the vanguard of the Finnish IV Army Corps cuts the road connections of the Russian 56th Army in the area of Pitkäranta.

• Soviet troops are trapped at Kitelä: the bulk of the enemy's 56th Army are trapped inside the Kitelä-Syskyjärvi-Koirinoja triangle, giving rise to the great Kitelä 'motti'.

• The author Hella Wuolijoki travels to Stockholm for unofficial negotiations with Alexandra Kollontai, the Soviet Ambassador in Stockholm.

• The German war correspondent Otto von Zwehl enlists as a volunteer in the Finnish Army. Hitler hears of this and strips him of his German citizenship and military rank.

• Mabel Bonney, correspondent and photographer for the American Life magazine, arrives in Finland.

[CougarGA7]

In a follow up to about the worst job of forshadowing I ever have done (Never post at one a.m. after you have been working since 5:30 am the previous morning). Author Karl-Heinz Freiser in a discussion of the constant planning and re-planning leading up to the Sickle Cut plan describes the January 10th incident as follows:

The an episode occurred in January that cast doubt on all the past planning. This was a typical case of friction, the way von Clausewitz had described it, one of those little grains of sand that can play havoc with the gears of a gigantic military machine. Major [Hellmuth] Reinberger, a general staff officer in the airborne forces, was to travel on official business from Münster to Cologne on 10 January. In the officers club the evening before, he met Reserve Major [Erich] Hoenmanns, a pilot who had been recalled to duty, who persuaded him to come along the his plane. In-flight visibility suddenly deteriorated. In addition, the Rhine was frozen over and could hardly be distinguished from the adjoining riverbanks. Hoenmanns realized that they had drifeted off course and wanted to turn back. At that moment, the engine quit for some inexplicable reason and the aircraft made a crash landing, although nobody was injured. A farmer, who was far from where they had crashed, told them that they were near Mechelen on Belgian territory. Reinberger was very upset to hear that because in his attaché case he carried extracts from the strictly secret deployment plan as well as operations orders fro airborne missions. However, he managed to burn only some of the papers before Belgian gendarmes showed up and arrested both officers.

- Karl-Heinze Frieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West

Half-burned secret documents from the German aircraft that made an emergency landing near Mechelen on 10 January 1940 - Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freidburg i.Br. [Federal Military Archives] (ZA 3/55)

[PzLdr]

Wasn’t Reinberger courtmartialled and executed when he was returned to Germany?

[CougarGA7]

I don't think so. He and Hoenmann's were both sentenced to death, but the sentence as far as I know was never carried out because they spent the war in a prisoner of war camp in Canada. I did a little looking online to see if I could find where I heard that but didn't see anything (must be in one of my books, I'll have to look). I did find this while I was looking which is pretty cool. Here is one of only three known pictures of the wrecked Me108.

[magslinger]

You wouldn't think a petite young lady with a sniper rifle would be more than a match for a six foot 200+ pound bruiser with an MP 38, but let her pick the range of the engagement and I know where my money is.

The BB's had a combat radius of a little over 40 miles. The CV had at that time a combat radius of over 200 miles.

[CougarGA7]

Here it is.

“Hoenmanns and Reinberger were both sentenced to death in absentia, but the sentence was never imposed, because they spent the rest of the war in prison camps, mainly in Canada.”

- Eagles of the Third Reich: Men of the Luftwaffe in WWII by Samuel W. Mitcham Jr.

[magslinger]

Has the term “motti” been defined on this forum? For anyone who may not know, it is a stove length log ready to be split. The Finns would cut the Soviet divisions into short lengths and then split the lengths. The technical military term is defeat in detail.

[CougarGA7]

That’s the first I’ve heard that term so probably not. I like the analogy though.