Posted on 08/19/2010 4:42:30 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Plus a special guest map from Michael Korda’s, “With Wings Like Eagles,” showing the air defenses of England and Wales, August 1940.
Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour
Damage Minimized – 2-3
Dover Sees Fights – 3-4
Nazis Again Bomb London Air Bases – 4
9 More Ambulances Bought for Britain – 4
The International Situation – 5
Klan Has ‘Americanism’ Rally at Bund Camp; Members of Both Orders Mingle in Jersey – 6
New Zealanders Follow Closely Developments in Battle of Britain – 7
Rush at Croydon in Raid Watched – 7
British Claims Are Held Reliable; Americans Note Check at Air Base – 8
The Final Plunge of a German Plane on a Raid over England (photo) – 9
Nazi Purpose Seen as Air Supremacy – 10
Spy Peril Fought Grimly in Britain – 11
Soviet Shows New Plane In Aviation Day Display – 11
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the War – 12-13
Best Sellers of the Week * – 14
* Quarterly feature to follow evolution of American reading habits. Here are the earlier lists. They are near the end of the post in each case.
This is fantastic stuff, thanks.
bfl
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/aug40/f19aug40.htm
British evacuate Berbera
Monday, August 19, 1940 www.onwar.com
In East Africa... The evacuation of British forces from Berbera to Aden is completed. Altogether nearly 5700 service personnel and civilians are taken off by Royal Navy cruisers and destroyers. The British have suffered 260 casualties in the brief campaign and the Italian forces 2050. Churchill criticizes the performance of the British forces despite the balance. They are defended, however, by General Wavell, whose Middle East command they are part of.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/19.htm
August 19th, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM:
Churchill is again on the radio, broadcasting about the Battle of Britain. He praises the RAF fighter pilots in saying: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
RAF Bomber Command:
4 Group (Whitley). Bombing - power station at Schornewitz.
51 Sqn. Ten aircraft. One returned early, nine bombed primary, one FTR. [Hitherto, it had not been possible to determine whether missing aircraft had actually reached a target and bombed, but the improvement in W/T procedure eliminated this.]
Battle of Britain:
RAF Fighter Command: Cloudy conditions limit operations. But at 15:15 Two Ju88s of KG51 scored hits with eight bombs on the Admiralty oil depot at Llanreith oil farm, Pembroke, instantly causing a huge conflagration which blazed for several days. Another Ju88 of III/KG 51 struck at Bibury grass airfield, killing an airman and damaging two Spitfires of 92 Squadron. Flt. Lt. T.S. Wade [later Hawker’s Chief Test Pilot] and Plt. Off. J.A. Paterson gave chase and disposed of the raider in the Solent. Wade had to crash-land his Spitfire though.
Intruders also raided East Anglia. 23 bombs fell on residential property in Chelmsford, killing two and injuring five.
Other raids hit Dover Castle, Shoeburyness, Canterbury and Deal Royal Marine Infirmary.
Three cannon armed Spitfires of 19 Squadron destroyed a 7/KG 2 Co17Z off Essex.
Final score for the day - three raiders destroyed, four RAF fighters lost.
The Home Guard is preparing stocks of Molotov cocktails.
At 0154, the British merchant ship Ampleforth (4,576 tons), a straggler from Convoy OA-199, was torpedoed and sunk by U-101 west of the Hebrides in position 56.10N, 10.40W. Nine crewmembers were lost. The master and 28 crewmembers were picked up by destroyer HMS Warwick and landed at Liverpool.
Destroyer HMS Oakley laid down.
Minesweeper HMS Rye launched.
Destroyers HMS Quilliam and Tickham laid down.
Corvettes HMS Abelia and Alisma laid down.
Corvettes HMS Hollyhock, Sunflower, Apostolis and Hyacinth launched.
Submarine HMS Urge launched
Destroyer HMS Liddledale launched.
(Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: U-104 is commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
ITALY:
Rome: The Italian High Command announced:
In British Somaliland our troops have broken through the enemy’s second line of defence, occupied La Faruk and crossed over. They pursued the enemy, who withdrew to his ships, and also bombed these. A British plane was shot down by Italian fighter planes. An enemy air raid on Kassala (East Africa) caused neither casualties nor damage. Another enemy air attack on Addis Ababa airfield resulted in 2 dead and 5 wounded; hits were also scored on two hangars that contained only antiquated equipment.
SOMALILAND: Berbera: A line of African troops clambered from the jetty onto dhows, as the Australian warship HMAS Hobart stood on the horizon. The British were evacuating Somaliland, the capital of which, Berbera fell today. For 16 days 6,000 Imperial troops fought nearly 30,000 Italians. Now mathematics has asserted itself over tactics and Mussolini has tasted his first victory. While the last of the rearguard, the Black Watch, embarked, Indian army engineers blew up the port’s installations. Only the Somali Camel Corps stayed behind, some to go home, others to go into the bush to fight another day.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Quezon declares a “limited state of national emergency”.
AUSTRALIA: Minesweeper HMAS Lithgow laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
CANADA: The first bombing and gunnery school under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan is established at Jarvis, Ontario. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: The USN places its first order for Ryan NR-1 Recruits.
The first production North American B-25 Mitchell, North American Model NA-62, USAAC serial number 40-2165, makes its first flight at Inglewood, California.
The newly formed Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) issues honorary pilot license Number 1 to Orville Wright. (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: UA sank SS Kelet.
U-48 sank SS Viee de Gand. (Dave Shirlaw)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 354 August 19, 1940
Battle of Britain Day 41. As Ju87 Stuka divebombers are susceptible to fighter attack as they pull out of their dive, Göring withdraws the Stukas from bombing British airfields reserving them instead for attacks on shipping convoys in the English Channel. Clouds and rain restrict the morning to reconnaissance flights. As the weather clears in the afternoon, Luftwaffe tries radically different tactics. Single aircraft (mainly Junkers Ju88 twin engine bombers) attack targets along the South coast of England and Wales. Oil storage tanks at Llanreath near Pembroke Dock, South Wales, are bombed. These lone bomber attacks continue overnight, targeting the East coast and Midlands of England. 1 Messerschmitt Bf109 and 4 Ju88’s are shot down. 1 Spitfire is shot down and 1 Blenheim is does not return from reconnaissance over Southern Norway.
U-boats sink 3 steamers off Ireland. Just after midnight, U-48 sinks Belgian passenger ship Ville de Gand (15 killed, 38 survivors). At 1.54 AM, U-101 sinks British SS Ampleforth (9 killed, 29 crew picked up by British destroyer HMS Warwick and landed at Liverpool). At 10 AM, UA sinks SS Hungarian Kelet (6 killed, all of them survivors from Clan Macphee sunk by U-30 on 16 August). 33 crew and 35 other Clan Macphee survivors are picked up by Norwegian merchant Varegg and landed at Galway on 26 August. http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/469.html
Thank you for posting.
Date: 19th August 1940
Enemy action by day/b>
During the morning enemy activity was reduced to a few reconnaissances by single aircraft over the Southern Counties and off the East Coast.
In the afternoon single aircraft carried out widespread bombing attacks on objectives in South Wales, South and South-Eastern England.
North and East Coasts
Reconnaissances were reported off the East Coast of Scotland, near convoys off the Yorkshire Coast and off Great Yarmouth. Later, single aircraft attacked Coltishall, Honington, Stowmarket and Chelmsford.
At 1809 hours, 1 Me110 was intercepted and destroyed off Great Yarmouth.
South East Coasts
During the day approximately 15 reconnaissance flights were plotted in the Thames Estuary and The Straits. Barracks near Dover were attacked by single aircraft at 1500 hours.
South and West Coasts
Frequent reconnaissances were plotted in the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth areas, some of which penetrated inland towards South Wales and Middle Wallop. At 1345 hours, a Ju88 was intercepted and destroyed near Taunton; at 1500 hours, 1 Ju88 was destroyed near Southampton and at 1715 hours, 1 Ju88 was destroyed near the Isle of Wight. Oil tanks at Llanreath (Pembroke); aerodromes at Harwell, Little Rissington and Shrivenham, and targets near Oxford, Swindon, Wroughton and Burley were attacked. One aircraft attacked the balloon barrage at Southampton.
By night
Enemy activity was widespread but for the most part confined to raids by single aircraft. At midnight some 60 raids were plotted. Enemy aircraft were active off the coast and minelaying is suspected from the Thames Estuary to Northumberland. Two raids of 6+ penetrated inland, one to Derby and one to Middle Wallop. Single aircraft raids were mainly active in the Midlands and East Anglia, but raids were also reported in the Portsmouth, Bristol, South Wales, Liverpool, Hull, Newcastle and Edinburgh/Glasgow areas. Humber anti-aircraft guns claim to have destroyed and enemy aircraft at 2315 hours.
________________________________________
Statistics
Fighter Command Serviceable Aircraft as at 0900 hours, 19th August 1940
Casualties:
| Enemy Losses | ||
|---|---|---|
| By Fighters | ||
| Destroyed | Probable | Damaged |
| 1 Me110 | 1 He111 | 1 Ju88 |
| 4 Ju88 | ||
| 5 | 1 | 1 |
| By Anti-Aircraft | ||
| Destroyed | Probable | Damaged |
| 1 unknown | ||
| 1 |
Patrols:
Balloons:
Aerodromes:
Organisation:
Air Intelligence Reports
Home Security Reports
Click cover to read.
Very interesting (and perhaps a little sad) to read of the way Kiwis followed and volunteered for the war, in light of the Australian PM’s announcement that she wants Australia to become a republic.
That Blue-RPX sounds dangerous. I wonder if these people from S.T. Explosive are just feeding the Times a line or if there is some misinterpretation going on here.
As things stand right now, uranium research in the United States is still stagnating. The action taking since the Einstein letter to FDR was composed a year ago had consisted of only setting up a Uranium Committee which has only recently been absorbed by the National Defense Research Council. They have allocated a total of $140,000 towards uranium research, 40,000 of it to research nuclear cross sections in order to firm up some of the physics’ constants, and the other 100k for Fermi-Szilard’s large scale uranium graphite experiment which is only the first step towards creating the first chain reaction.
Meanwhile in Germany, at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute work has begun on designing a wooden laboratory that is to be used as a “uranium burner”. It is being built on the Biology and Virus Research facility and labeled the Virus House to discourage the curious.
Ping to reply #15, which is in reference to a small item on image #11.
Also interesting to read about William Bullitt, still referred to as Ambassador to France. He was once very close to FDR but is now starting to fall out with him over various issues. Bullitt's rivalry with Undersecretary of State and FDR confidant Sumner Welles would end both his and Welles' careers.
Bullitt had passed on information in 1939 from French PM Édouard Daladier that French intelligence knew that Alger Hiss in the US State Department was working for Soviet intelligence. Whittaker Chambers had also given detailed information to Adolf Berle in 1939 about Soviet agents in the government. Nothing was done.
Interesting book ad: “queer... gay, erotic....”
See the ad for John T. Flynn’s critical look at FDR: “Country Squire in the White House.”
Read the entire book here:
http://mises.org/books/countrysquire.pdf
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