I’m a little confused. This is the second post referring to a sinking by the GRAF SPEE. But she was scuttled in 1939. How can she be sinking ships in 1940? Ditto Prien’s sailing for Scpa Flow. That op also took place in 1939. What’s up?
Did I do that yesterday, too? I will check. The site puts the same date from each year one after the other. I copied the wrong date for 10/8. Thanks for the catch.
October 8th, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM:
Battle of Britain: Attack on Rootes’ works at Speke, Liverpool.
Losses: Luftwaffe, 14; RAF, 4.
Westminster: Churchill reports that civilian deaths from air raids, at one time reaching 6,000 a week, have halved.
“On that particular Thursday night 180 persons were killed in London as a result of 251 tons of bombs. That is to say, it took one ton of bombs to kill three-quarters of a person.
Statisticians may amuse themselves by calculating that after making allowance for the law of diminishing returns, through the same house being struck twice or three times over, it would take ten years at the present rate for half the houses of London to be demolished. After that, of course, progress would be much slower.”
USS Aulick (DD-258), commissioned as HMS Burnham (H-82), and USS Branch (DD-197), commissioned as HMS Beverley (H-64), USS Hunt (DD-194), commissioned as HMS Broadway (H-90), USS Laub (DD-263), USS McLanahan (DD-264), commissioned as HMS Bradford (H-72), commissioned as HMS Burwell (H-94), USS Satterlee (DD-190), commissioned as HMS Belmont (H-46), and USS Edwards (DD-265), commissioned as HMS Buxton (H-96), as part of the destroyers-for-bases deal. (Ron Babuka)
GERMANY: U-107 commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: Baseball
* The motion picture “The Long Voyage Home” is released today. Directed by John Ford, this war drama, based on four short Eugene O’Neill plays, stars John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell, Ward Bond, Barry Fitzgerald, Mildred Natwick and Arthur Shields. The plot involves the crew of the freighter SS Glencairn as the ship sails across the Atlantic in the early days of World War II. The film is nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture (it loses to “Rebecca”) and five technical awards.
* The motion picture “Too Many Girls” is released today. Directed by George Abbott, this musical comedy featuring music by Rogers and Hart stars Lucille Ball, Richard Carlson, Ann Miller, Frances Langford in addition to Eddie Bracken and Desi Arnez in their film debuts; appearing in uncredited roles are Iron Eyes Cody, Jay Silverheels and Van Johnson (also making his film debut). The plot has four men being hired to protect a footloose woman (Ball) at Pottawatomie College in Stopgap, New Mexico. Lucy and Desi met while making the film and were married on 30 November 1940. (Jack McKillop)
The government advises US citizens in the Far East to leave.
Richardson again travels to Washington to protest basing of his fleet at Pearl Harbor. Meets with Roosevelt and argues volubly with him over this. (Marc Small)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-31 was attacked by the British submarine Trident. First the submarine fired 4 torpedoes, all of which missed U-31. When the British sub began to fire its gun, U-31 crash-dived. The Trident followed up with some explosive charges, but without result. This was the third time that U-31 was attacked by an enemy submarine during this patrol. The commander wrote sardonically in the war diary - “Main task of this patrol was to play the target ship for British submarines”.
U-58 sank SS Confield in Convoy HX-76. (Dave Shirlaw)