March 1940

March 1940 was the third month of that leap year. It began on a Friday and ended after 31 days on a Sunday

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The following events occurred in March 1940:

March 1, 1940 (Friday)

March 2, 1940 (Saturday)

March 3, 1940 (Sunday)

  • A bomb exploded in the Luleå offices of the Swedish communist newspaper Norrskensflamman, killing five.[6]
  • Sumner Welles met Hermann Göring at Carinhall. Like Hitler, Göring blamed the war on Britain and France. Welles found Göring to be as cold and ruthless as the other Nazi leaders but thought he was at least capable of taking a broader view of international relations.[7]
  • Italy sent a note to Britain protesting the British blockade of German coal shipments to Italy.[8]
  • Born: Germán Castro Caycedo, journalist and writer, in Zipaquirá, Colombia (d. 2021); Owen Spencer-Thomas, television and radio journalist, in Braughing, Hertfordshire, England

March 4, 1940 (Monday)

  • The Home Office announced that women would not be asked to work more than 60 hours a week in British factories, and youth under 16 would not be required to work more than 48. In World War I, women were frequently working as many as 70 hours a week.[9]
  • Died: Hamlin Garland, 79, American writer

March 5, 1940 (Tuesday)

March 6, 1940 (Wednesday)

March 7, 1940 (Thursday)

March 8, 1940 (Friday)

March 9, 1940 (Saturday)

  • The Finns evacuated their last toeholds in the Gulf of Viipuri.[10]
  • Britain released the captured Italian coal ships and announced that Italy would be allowed to continue to import German coal, but only via overland routes.[2][5]
  • Born: Raúl Juliá, actor, in San Juan, Puerto Rico (d. 1994)

March 10, 1940 (Sunday)

  • Joachim von Ribbentrop arrived in Rome for a two-day meeting with Benito Mussolini. It was agreed that Mussolini would have a face-to-face meeting with Hitler soon to discuss Italy entering the war.[15][19]
  • Sumner Welles flew to London and met with Lord Halifax.[20]
  • Hitler gave a speech at the Berlin Zeughaus on Heroes' Memorial Day.[21]
  • Born: Chuck Norris, martial artist and actor, in Ryan, Oklahoma; Dean Torrence, one-half of the rock and roll duo Jan and Dean, in Los Angeles

March 11, 1940 (Monday)

  • The French battleship Bretagne and cruiser Algérie departed Toulon with 147 tons worth of gold, bound for Canada where the French gold reserves would be kept for safekeeping.[2]
  • German submarine U-31 was sunk in the Jade Bight by British aircraft, the first time a U-boat was sunk from the air.[22] U-31 was later raised by the Germans, repaired and returned to service.
  • Sumner Welles had tea with King George VI, who made clear his hope that no peace negotiations would take place until the Nazi regime was destroyed.[23] Welles then spoke with Neville Chamberlain, who reiterated the points from his Birmingham speech of February 24.[24]
  • German submarine U-101 was commissioned.
  • Died: John Monk Saunders, 42, American novelist, screenwriter and film director (suicide)

March 12, 1940 (Tuesday)

  • The Moscow Peace Treaty ending the Winter War was signed. Russia received 16,000 square miles (41,000 km2) of Finnish territory.[10]
  • Sumner Welles met Winston Churchill. In Welles' account of the meeting he wrote that "Mr. Churchill was sitting in front of the fire, smoking a 24-inch cigar, and drinking a whiskey and soda. It was quite obvious that he had consumed a good many whiskeys before I arrived." For almost two hours Welles listened to Churchill deliver "a cascade of oratory, brilliant and always effective, interlarded with considerable wit."[25]
  • The Republican Party presidential primaries began in New Hampshire.
  • German submarine U-99, one of the most successful U-boats of the war, was commissioned.
  • Born: Al Jarreau, jazz singer, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (d. 2017)

March 13, 1940 (Wednesday)

  • Hostilities between the Soviet Union and Finland ceased at 11 a.m.[10] The three-month long Battle of Kollaa ended in Finnish victory, though the war was lost.
  • Field Marshal Mannerheim addressed the Finnish Army: "Peace has been concluded between our country and the Soviet Union, an exacting peace which has ceded to Russia nearly every battlefield on which you have shed your blood on behalf of everything we hold dear and sacred. You did not want war. You loved peace, work and progress; but you were forced into a struggle in which you have done great deeds, deeds that will shine for centuries in the pages of history."[26]
  • Indian nationalist Udham Singh assassinated Sir Michael O'Dwyer (in revenge for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre) at Caxton Hall in London.
  • Born: Candi Staton, soul and gospel singer, in Hanceville, Alabama
  • Died: Ira Flagstead, 46, American baseball player

March 14, 1940 (Thursday)

March 15, 1940 (Friday)

March 16, 1940 (Saturday)

  • The Battle of Wuyuan began.
  • A British civilian was killed in a German air raid for the first time in the war when fourteen Junkers Ju 88 bombers attacked the British fleet at Scapa Flow.[28]
  • The foreign ministers of the Baltic states held a conference in Riga. They agreed to share information in order to prevent the Soviet Union from playing them off against each other.[15][29]
  • Sumner Welles, now back in Rome, met with King Victor Emmanuel III in the morning and then Mussolini again that evening.[30] Welles thought that Mussolini seemed to be in better spirits than he was at their first meeting.[31]
  • Born: Bernardo Bertolucci, film director and screenwriter, in Parma, Italy (d. 2018); Jan Pronk, politician and diplomat, in Scheveningen, Netherlands; James Wong, Cantopop lyricist, in Panyu, Guangzhou, China (d. 2004)
  • Died: Selma Lagerlöf, 81, Swedish author and Nobel laureate in literature

March 17, 1940 (Sunday)

March 18, 1940 (Monday)

  • Hitler met with Mussolini at the Brenner Pass in the Alps. Hitler made it clear that German troops were poised to launch an offensive in the west and that Mussolini would have to decide whether Italy would join in the attack or not. Since Italy was still not ready for war, Mussolini suggested that the offensive could be delayed a few more months, to which Hitler replied that Germany was not altering its plans to suit Italy. The two agreed that Italy would come into the war in due course.[19]
  • Sumner Welles and Myron Charles Taylor met Pope Pius XII.[15] Taylor asked the pope if there would be revolution in Italy should Mussolini bring the country into the war. The pope seemed surprised at the question and after careful consideration replied that Italian public opinion was overwhelmingly against joining the war, but that there would not be any rebellion for at least some time if Italy did enter.[31]

March 19, 1940 (Tuesday)

  • In retaliation for the air raid on Scapa Flow, the RAF attacked the German seaplane bases of Sylt and Hornum.[2]
  • Harold Macmillan sparred with Neville Chamberlain in the House of Commons over whether the government had done all it could to help Finland.[33]

March 20, 1940 (Wednesday)

  • The entire French cabinet resigned. Although Prime Minister Daladier won a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies 239-1, there were so many abstentions among the 551 members that he recognized the vote as a defeat.[34]
  • Sumner Welles ended his diplomatic tour of Europe and boarded a ship heading back to the United States.[15]
  • Died: Alfred Ploetz, 79, German physician, biologist and eugenicist

March 21, 1940 (Thursday)

March 22, 1940 (Friday)

  • Soviet military personnel began to arrive in the Finnish port of Hanko, which had been leased to the Soviets for 30 years as part of the Moscow Peace Treaty.[2][6]
  • Born: Dave Keon, ice hockey player, in Noranda, Quebec, Canada; Haing S. Ngor, physician, actor and author, in Samrong Yong, Cambodia, French Indochina (d. 1996)

March 23, 1940 (Saturday)

March 24, 1940 (Sunday)

  • The French destroyer La Railleuse was sunk off Casablanca by the accidental explosion of one of its own torpedoes. 28 crewmen were killed and 24 wounded.[40]

March 25, 1940 (Monday)

March 26, 1940 (Tuesday)

March 27, 1940 (Wednesday)

March 28, 1940 (Thursday)

  • The Anglo-French Supreme War Council met in London and agreed that neither Britain nor France would make a separate peace with Germany. The Council also agreed upon Operation Wilfred, a plan to lay mines in Norwegian coastal waters in the hopes of provoking a German response that would legitimize Allied "assistance" to Norway.[43]

March 29, 1940 (Friday)

March 30, 1940 (Saturday)

March 31, 1940 (Sunday)

  • Winston Churchill gave a speech over the radio titled "Dwelling in the Cage with the Tiger", a metaphor he used to describe the precarious geographical situation of the Dutch. As with his January 20 speech, Churchill primarily spoke about neutral countries and said, "It might have been a very short war, perhaps, indeed, there might have been no war, if all the neutral States, who share our conviction upon fundamental matters, and who openly or secretly sympathize with us, had stood together at one signal and in one line. We did not count on this, we did not expect it, and therefore we are not disappointed or dismayed ... But the fact is that many of the smaller States of Europe are terrorized by Nazi violence and brutality into supplying Germany with the material of modern war, and this fact may condemn the whole world to a prolonged ordeal with grievous, unmeasured consequences in many lands." In the wake of the Altmark Incident and with Operation Wilfred about to go into action, Churchill said of Germany's neutral neighbors that "we understand their dangers and their point of view, but it would not be right, or in the general interest, that their weakness should be the aggressor's strength, and fill to overflowing the cup of human woe. There could be no justice if in a moral struggle the aggressor tramples down every sentiment of humanity, and if those who resist him remain entangled in the tatters of violated legal conventions."[47]
  • The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic was established.
  • Britain introduced paper rationing to publishing and printing industries.[2]
  • Born: Barney Frank, politician, in Bayonne, New Jersey

References

  1. "Sumner Welles Meets Von Ribbentrop". World War II Today. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  2. "1940". World War II Database. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  3. Black, Conrad (2003). Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom. PublicAffairs. p. 544. ISBN 978-1-61039-213-6.
  4. "Welles Report, 1940 - March 2". Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  5. Mercer, Derrik, ed. (1989). Chronicle of the 20th Century. London: Chronicle Communications Ltd. p. 527. ISBN 978-0-582-03919-3.
  6. "1940". MusicAndHistory. Archived from the original on August 29, 2012. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  7. Manvell, Roger; Fraenkel, Heinrich (2011). Goering: The Rise and Fall of the Notorious Nazi Leader. Skyhorse Publishing. pp. 237–238. ISBN 978-1-84832-600-2.
  8. "Italy Threatens to Break Pact with England". Chicago Daily Tribune. March 5, 1940. p. 4.
  9. Rue, Larry (March 5, 1940). "British Women Get 60 Hr. Week in War Industry". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 5.
  10. Trotter, William (1991). A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939–1940. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books. p. 273. ISBN 978-1-56512-249-9.
  11. "Stalin Orders the Katyn Forest Murders". World War II Today. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  12. "Italian Coal Ships Seized by British". Spokane Daily Chronicle. Spokane, Washington: 1. March 5, 1940.
  13. "Simo Hayha." Finnish Sniper • Simo Hayha • The White Death. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2017.
  14. Martin, Robert Stanley (May 31, 2015). "Comics By the Date: January 1940 to December 1941". The Hooded Utilitarian. Archived from the original on December 4, 2015. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  15. Chronology and Index of the Second World War, 1938–1945. Research Publications. 1990. pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-0-88736-568-3.
  16. "Welles Report, 1940 - March 7". Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  17. Orr, Peter David (2005). Peace at Daggers Drawn. Baltimore: PublishAmerica. p. 87. ISBN 978-1-4137-4829-1.
  18. "Welles Report, 1940 - March 8". Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  19. Corvaja, Santi (2008). Hitler & Mussolini: The Secret Meetings. New York: Enigma Books. pp. 97–101. ISBN 978-1-929631-42-1.
  20. "Welles Arrives in London by Air; Meets Halifax". Chicago Daily Tribune. March 11, 1940. p. 3.
  21. Donahue, Neil H.; Kirchner, Doris, eds. (2005). Flight of Fantasy: New Perspectives on Inner Emigration in German Literature 1933–1945. Berghahn Books. p. 175. ISBN 978-1-57181-002-1.
  22. Davidson, Edward; Manning, Dale (1999). Chronology of World War II. London: Cassell & Co. p. 29. ISBN 0-304-35309-4.
  23. "Welles Report, 1940 - March 11 (a73d02)". Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  24. "Welles Report, 1940 - March 11 (a73e02)". Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  25. "Welles Report, 1940 - March 12". Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  26. "Mannerheim Addresses the Finnish Army". World War II Today. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  27. Schultz, Sigrid (March 15, 1940). "Germans Asked to Give Metal for Hitler Gift". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 1.
  28. "Air Raif on Scapa Flow Kills First Civilian in Britain". World War II Today. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  29. Myllniemi, Seppo. "Consequences of the Hitler-Stalin Pact for the Baltic Republics and Finland." From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia, and the World, 1939–1941. Ed. Bernd Wegner. Providence and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1997. p. 87. ISBN 978-1-57181-882-9.
  30. Trohan, Walter (March 17, 1940). "Welles to Get Plea By Pope for U. S. Peace Move". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 10.
  31. Miller, Robert L. (2008). "FDR's Diplomatic Initiative to Mussolini". The New York Military Affairs Symposium. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  32. Forrester, Wade (March 17, 2014). "March 17, 1940: Spring Training All Star Game for a Good Cause". On This Day in Sports. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  33. "Progress of the War". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). March 19, 1940. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  34. "Daladier Quits; Pick Reynaud". Brooklyn Eagle. Brooklyn. March 20, 1940. p. 1.
  35. "Events occurring on Thursday, March 21, 1940". WW2 Timelines. 2011. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  36. Ruhlmann, William. "Woody Guthrie – Library of Congress Recordings, Vol. 1". AllMusic. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  37. "Events occurring on Saturday, March 23, 1940". WW2 Timelines. 2011. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  38. "Mutiny in Dartmoor Prison". Townsville Daily Bulletin. Townsville, Australia. March 25, 1940. p. 5.
  39. Borelli, Stephen (2005). How about That! The Life of Mel Allen. Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing, LLC. p. 51. ISBN 978-1-58261-733-6.
  40. "Naval Events, March 1940 (Part 2 of 2)". Naval History. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  41. "Britain Forbids War Captives to Use Nazi Radio". Chicago Daily Tribune. March 26, 1940. p. 1.
  42. "Events occurring on Wednesday, March 27, 1940". WW2 Timelines. 2011. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  43. "Events occurring on Thursday, March 28, 1940". WW2 Timelines. 2011. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  44. "Reports on the Foreign Policy of the Government". histdoc.net. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  45. "Chronology 1940". indiana.edu. 2002. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  46. Kowal, Barry (December 22, 2014). "Your Hit Parade (USA) Weekly Single Charts From 1940". Hits of All Decades. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  47. Churchill, Winston. "Dwelling in the Cage with the Tiger". ibiblio. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
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