LEGISLATIVE SESSION ENDS AFTER VOTING CITY FUNDS; TEACHER PAY CUT IS BARRED (3/31/40)

Microfiche-New York Times archives, Cabrillo College Library | 3/31/40 | Warren Moscow, Raymond Daniell, G.H. Archambault

[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]

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Evolution of Plan Yellow, October 1939-January 1940
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941 – The Imperial Powers, 1 September 1939

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm

[Homer_J_Simpson]

New Truce is Made – 2-3
Churchill Stiffer on Neutral Rights – 4
Allied Plane Losses Total 357, Nazis Say – 4
Text of Radio Address by Winston Churchill – 5-6
The International Situation – 6
‘Violent’ Nazi Fire Pounds Key Points – 8
Weygand in Paris, Talks with Premier – 8
130 U.S. Warships to be Used in ‘War’ – 9
U.S. Voters Still Strongly Favor Allies, Survey by Gallup Institute Indicates – 10
Uprising in Ecuador Reported Prevented – 10
Apathy of Parents is British Problem – 11
Paris Puts Historic Sites Under Government Care – 11
Twenty News Questions (from News of the Week in Review) – 12
Answers to Twenty News Questions - 13

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/mar40/f31mar40.htm

German armed merchant cruiser sails

Sunday, March 31, 1940 www.onwar.com

In the North Atlantic... The first German armed merchant cruiser, Atlantis, sails for operations against Allied shipping. It will prove to be the most successful raider. In a cruise lasting until November 22, 1941 she will sink 22 ships of 145,700 tons.

[BroJoeK]

Much cud to chew over today! :

1. "Republicans Bow on Major Points"
   Don't we always? Isn't "bowing" what Republicans were made for, according to the NY Times?

2. "Mr. Churchill said the Allies were going to win the war..."
   Does Churchill then have any idea how desperate things will very soon become?

3. Nazi propaganda says allies lose 357 planes destroyed in battle, to 85 German planes lost.
   And where does the NY Times report -- fair and balanced -- the Allies' response?

4. US government to document Nazi propaganda efforts in America.
   Seems like a good idea.
   Wonder why they stopped doing that for wars the Democrats oppose?

5. The "Phony War" seems to be heating up in France.
   Wonder if this heralds anything important?

6. US Admiral James O. Richardson announces the Pacific naval war games, which will:
   • move the fleet to Hawaii,
     
   • practice attacks from aircraft carriers on the battleships at Pearl Harbor,
     
   • from which the fleet will never return,
     
   • and for complaints about which Richardson will be summarily fired by President Roosevelt, in November 1940.

7. There are just no two ways about it:
   
   • 84% of Americans still favor Allied victory over 1% who want the Germans to win.
     
   • But only 23% think the US should send our own troops to help out, even if France and Britain can't hold off the Germans.

8. Finally: 20 questions:
   -- exquisitely designed to remind all of us know-it-alls that we certainly, definitely and abysmally DO NOT! ;-)

   Thanks again Homer.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Finally: 20 questions:
-- exquisitely designed to remind all of us know-it-alls that we certainly, definitely and abysmally DO NOT!

I'd wager that the percentage of readers getting #3 correct - at least for the first place-name - would be higher if it were asked a couple weeks from now. In 1940 and possibly even in 2010.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/31.htm

March 31st, 1940

UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Bomber Command: Reconnaissance of Germany.

RAF Fighter Command: Luftwaffe aircraft attacked the Orkneys, Shetland and shipping in the North Sea. aircraft driven off by fighters; 1 German aircraft severely damaged. No damage on land.

BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC:

U-boats start withdrawing from the Western Approaches in preparation for the German invasion of Norway.

Losses. 2 ships of 11,000 tons.

1 U-boat.

Merchant Shipping War.

Losses. 43 ships of 96,000 tons.

ITALY: Mussolini warns King Victor Emmanuel III that Italy will join the war.

GERMANY: The German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis (ex SS Goldenfels), known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 16 and to the Royal Navy as Raider-C, sets off on a mission to catch and sink Allied merchant ships. Atlantis had been a merchant ship, but was converted to a commerce raider with six 5.9-inch (15 cm) guns, one 75 mm gun on the bow, and two twin-37 mm and four 20 mm automatic cannons all of which were hidden, mostly behind pivotable false deck structures. A phony crane and deckhouse on the aft section hid four of the 5.9-inch guns. The ship also had two waterline torpedo tubes, a 92 mine compartment, and two Heinkel He-114B seaplanes for reconnaissance. The Atlantis donned various disguises in order to integrate itself into any shipping milieu inconspicuously. Commanded by Kapitän zur See Bernhard Rogge, the Atlantis roamed the Atlantic and Indian oceans. She sank a total of 22 merchant ships (146,000 tons in all) and proved a terror to the British Royal Navy. (Jack McKillop)

FINLAND: In Soviet Union there is founded Socialist Karelo-Finnish Soviet Republic. Its territories include those recently conquered from Finland. The new republic’s leader is none else but Otto Wille Kuusinen, the Finnish emigrant communist and the recent Prime and Foreign Minister of the so-called Finnish People’s Government. In Finland this move is seen as yet another evidence that Stalin prepares to annex the rest of Finland at the first opportunity. (Mikko Härmeinen)

[CougarGA7]

Here's a little more on these new merchant raiders.

The Germans had used adapted merchantmen in the First World War, initially as minelayers and then as auxiliary cruisers (Hilfskreuzer). When their conventional warships and then the auxiliary cruisers had been swept from all the world's oceans except the North Sea, they turned to the disguised raider, with which they scored some spectacular successes even as late as the beginning of 1918. Inspired by this example and mindful of the tiny conventional raiding-forces at his disposal, Raeder planned before the war to arm twenty-five suitable merchant-men with a main armament of 5.9inch guns plus torpedoes, AA- and machine-guns. In the end only ten were completed, of which the first six sailed in spring 1940, starting with the Atlantis on March 31. She proved to be the most successful, sinking nearly 150,000 tons of shipping (three times as much as the Graf Spee and seven times the haul of the Deutschland) before she was sunk by HMS Devonshire twenty months later.

- Dan Van der Vat, The Atlantic Campaign, pp 178-179.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/

Day 213 March 31, 1940

Following French backtracking on mining the River Rhine (due to their fear of German reprisal bombings), British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain calls off mining the Norwegian coast planned for April 5. Chamberlain tells the French ambassador in London Charles Corbin “No mines, no Narvik!” This act of bravado leads to a delay which will prove to be costly.

German armed merchant cruisers (Hilfskreuzer) Atlantis, Orion and Widder depart from Kiel, with WWI battleship SMS Hessen acting as an icebreaker, for operations against Allied shipping. Atlantis will prove the most successful German commerce raider, sailing 100,000 miles and sinking 22 ships (over 140,000 tons) in a voyage lasting 602 days (until November 22, 1941). http://www.bismarck-class.dk/hilfskreuzer/atlantis.html

Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Wilhelm Behrens falls overboard from U-43 and drowns in the Atlantic.

[henkster]

Interesting article on the planned naval maneuvers. It posits a fight between heavy surface units and a fast carrier/cruiser task force. I wonder how that worked out in the game. Oh, and if I were the navy, I would concentrate really hard on that “unglamorous” Part IV of their exercise...