Timeline of World War II (1939)

This is a timeline of events of World War II in 1939, from the start of the war on 1 September 1939. For events preceding September 1, 1939, see the timeline of events preceding World War II.

1939, clockwise from top left: Captain Juutilainen at the Winter War's Battle of Kollaa, HMS Courageous (50) (pictured) sunk by U-29, Imperial Japanese Army soldiers at the Battle of Changsha, Hitler reviews a Wehrmacht victory parade following the successful invasion of Poland

Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, and Britain and France's declaration of war on Germany two days later marks the beginning of World War II. After the declaration of war, western Europe saw very little land or air active military confrontation at first, and the period was termed the "Phoney War". In eastern Europe, however, the agreement between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed on 23 August opened the way in September for the Soviet Union's invasion of eastern Poland, which was divided between the two invaders before the end of the month. The Soviet Union starts a new military offensive by invading Finland at the end of November.

September

The Allies and Axis powers at the dawn of the German/Soviet invasion of Poland

October

  • 1 October: Latvian representatives negotiate with Stalin and Molotov. Soviets threaten an occupation by force if they do not get military bases in Latvia.
  • 2 October: The Declaration of Panama is approved by the American republics. Belligerent activities should not take place within waters adjacent to the American continent. A neutrality zone of some 300 miles (480 km) in breadth is to be patrolled by the U.S. Navy.[49]
  • 3 October
    • British forces move to take over part of the frontier defenses manned by French troops.[75]
    • Lithuanians meet Stalin and Molotov in Moscow. Stalin offers Lithuania the city of Vilnius (in Poland) in return for allowing Soviet military bases in Lithuania. The Lithuanians are reluctant.
  • 4 October: The French forces retreat from the Saarland in Germany, and return behind the Maginot Line.[56]
  • 5 October
    • Latvia signs a 10-year Mutual Assistance Pact with the Soviet Union, which allows the Soviets to have 25,000 men in military bases in Latvia. Stalin promises to respect Latvian independence.
    • Reacting to the news that German surface raiders are targeting commercial shipping, the British First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound orders the creation of eight hunting forces together with the French to scout the Atlantic and destroy the surface raiders.[76]
  • 6 October
  • 9 October
  • 10 October
    • The last of Poland's military surrenders to the Germans.
    • The leaders of the German navy suggest to Hitler they need to occupy Norway.
    • British Prime Minister Chamberlain formally declines Hitler's peace offer in a speech held in the House of Commons.
    • Lithuania signs a 15-year Mutual Assistance Pact with the Soviet Union, which allows the Soviets to have 20,000 men in military bases in Lithuania. In a secret protocol, Vilnius is made Lithuanian territory.
  • 11 October: An estimated 158,000 British troops are now in France.
  • 12 October
    • French Premier Édouard Daladier declines Hitler's offer of peace.
    • Finland's representatives meet Stalin and Molotov in Moscow. Soviet Union demands Finland give up a military base near Helsinki and exchange some Soviet and Finnish territories to protect Leningrad against Great Britain or the eventual future threat of Germany.
  • 13 October: In the midst of the night the U-47 under the command of Günther Prien infiltrates Scapa Flow and sinks the British battleship HMS Royal Oak, killing 833 crewmen.[64]
  • 14 October: Finns meet Stalin again. Stalin tells them that "an accident" might happen between Finnish and Soviet troops, if the negotiations last too long.
  • 16 October: The Luftwaffe made its first air raid on Britain when it sent a dozen Junkers Ju 88 after ships off Rosyth, in particular the battlecruiser HMS Hood. The raid was unsuccessful, failing to land any hits while the group commander Helmuth Pohle was shot down.[70][79]
  • 17 October: The Luftwaffe launches a new raid on Britain, this time targeting the British fleet anchored at Scapa Flow, again with limited success, with only the decommissioned HMS Iron Duke being hit.[70][80]
  • 18 October:
    • First Soviet forces enter Estonia. During the Umsiedlung, 12,600 Baltic Germans leave Estonia.
    • Adolf Eichmann starts deporting Jews from Austria and Czechoslovakia into Poland, executing the Nisko Plan.
  • 19 October: Portions of Poland are formally inducted into Germany; the first Jewish ghetto is established at Lublin.
  • 20 October
    • The "Phoney War": French troops settle in the Maginot line's dormitories and tunnels; the British build new fortifications along the "gap" between the Maginot line and the Channel.
    • Pope Pius XII's first encyclical condemns racism and dictatorships.
  • 21 October: Registration begins in the United Kingdom in order to conscript all able-bodied males between 18 and 23.[25]
  • 23 October: The seized freighter City of Flint reaches Murmansk in the Soviet Union. Four days later it is permitted to leave still under the control of its prize crew despite the angry protests of the Roosevelt administration. The Murmansk incident would also have lasting consequences by alienating the American public opinion.[78]
  • 26 October: Germany annexes the former Polish regions of Upper Silesia, West Prussia, Pomerania, Poznan, Ciechanow (Zichenau), part of Łódź, and the Free City of Danzig and creates two new administrative districts, Danzig-West Prussia and Posen (later called District Wartheland or Warthegau); the areas of occupied Poland not annexed directly by Germany or by the Soviet Union are placed under a German civilian administration called the Generalgouvernement.[81]
  • 27 October: Belgium announces that it is neutral in the present conflict.
  • 28 October: Hitler, worried on one side by the protests received by the American and Norwegian governments, and on the other by the danger of losing a warship with such a prestigious name, orders the Deutschland to return home.[82]
  • 30 October: The British government releases a report on concentration camps being built in Europe for Jews and anti-Nazis.[83]
  • 31 October: As Germany plans for an attack on France, German Lieutenant-General Erich von Manstein proposes that Germany should attack through the Ardennes rather than through Belgium – the expected attack route.

November

December

  • 1 December: Russia continues its war against Finland; Helsinki is bombed. In the first two weeks of the month, the Finns retreat to the Mannerheim line, an outmoded defensive line just inside the southern border with Russia.
  • 2 December: The Red Army takes Petsamo.[98]
  • 4 December: The British battleship HMS Nelson is incapacitated for six months by yet another magnetic mine left this time by the U-52 off Loch Ewe.[94][99]
  • 5 December: The Russian invaders begin heavy attacks on the Mannerheim line. The Battles of Kollaa and Suomussalmi begin.
  • 7 December: Italy, Norway and Denmark again declare their neutrality in the Russo-Finnish war. Sweden proclaims "non-belligerency", by which it could extend military support to Finland, without formally taking part in the war.[100]
  • 11 December: The Russians meet with several tactical defeats by the Finnish army.
  • 12 December: The escorting destroyer HMS Duchess sinks after a collision with the battleship HMS Barham off the Mull of Kintyre in the North Channel with the loss of 137 men.[101]
  • 13 December: The battle of the River Plate off Montevideo, Uruguay. The Royal Navy's hunting group F, composed of three cruisers (Exeter, Ajax and Achilles), attacks off the estuary of the River Plate the German warship Admiral Graf Spee and heavily damages it.[102]
  • 14 December
  • 15 December: Soviet Army assaults Taipale, Finland during the Battle of Taipale.[105]
  • 17 December: The Admiral Graf Spee is forced by Uruguay to leave Montevideo harbor; given freedom of choice by Berlin, the ship's Kapitän zur See, Hans Langsdorff, orders the scuttlling of the vessel just outside the harbour. The ship's captain and its crew are interned by Argentinian authorities.[106][107]
  • 18 December
  • 20 December: Captain Hans Langsdorff commits suicide in Argentina.[108]
  • 27 December: The first Indian troops arrive in France.
  • 28 December
  • 31 December: German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels makes a radio address reviewing the official Nazi version of the events of 1939. No predictions were made for 1940 other than saying that the next year "will be a hard year, and we must be ready for it."[112]

See also

Footnotes

  1. Mitter 2013, p. 173.
  2. Kochanski 2012, p. 59.
  3. Kochanski 2012, pp. 61–62.
  4. Teich, Kováč & Brown 2011, p. 195.
  5. Liddell Hart 1970, pp. 28–29.
  6. Maier et al. 1991, p. 103.
  7. Manvell & Fraenkell 2007, p. 76.
  8. "Address by Adolf Hitler - September 1, 1939". fcit.usf.edu. Retrieved 2023-09-28.
  9. De Felice 1996, pp. 670–674.
  10. Brecher & Wilkenfeld 1997, p. 393.
  11. Crowe 1993, p. 84.
  12. Duroselle 2004, p. 409.
  13. Manchester 1988, p. 519.
  14. Welshman 2010, pp. 43–47.
  15. Overy 2013, p. 237.
  16. Brewing 2022, pp. 141–142.
  17. Duroselle 2004, p. 411.
  18. Duroselle 2004, p. 414.
  19. Schwarz 1980, p. 19.
  20. Wood 2010, p. 30.
  21. Alexander 2002, p. 320.
  22. Prazmowska 2004, p. 181.
  23. Cull 1996, p. 33.
  24. Broad 2006, p. 223.
  25. Crowson 1997, p. 178.
  26. Hill 1991, pp. 104–105.
  27. Overy 2010, p. 104.
  28. Wells 2014, p. 177.
  29. Delaney 2018, p. 35.
  30. High 2010, p. 24.
  31. Adamthwaite 2011, p. 94.
  32. Mawdsley 2019, pp. 3–4.
  33. Maier et al. 1991, p. 138.
  34. Wood 2010, p. 1.
  35. Blair 2000, p. 74.
  36. Mawdsley 2019, p. 21.
  37. Holland 2016, pp. 117–118.
  38. Delve 2005, p. 162.
  39. Holland 2016, p. 118.
  40. Haarr 2013, pp. 227–229.
  41. Mauch 2011, p. 98.
  42. Wylie 2002, p. 246.
  43. Smalley 2015, p. 17.
  44. Blair 2000, p. 68.
  45. Delaney 2018, p. 236.
  46. Wylie 2002, p. 222.
  47. Dimbleby 2015, pp. 27–28.
  48. Daniels 2016, p. 36.
  49. Morison 2001, pp. 14–15.
  50. Stultz 1974, p. 61.
  51. Weinreb et al. 2010, p. 43.
  52. Hough & Richards 1990, pp. 66–67.
  53. Maier et al. 1991, p. 107.
  54. Dimbleby 2015, p. 14.
  55. Elleman & Paine 2006, p. 122.
  56. Jackson 2004, p. 75.
  57. Dimbleby 2015, p. 25.
  58. Daniels 2016, p. 37.
  59. Blair 2000, p. 83.
  60. Kochanski 2012, p. 62.
  61. Beevor 2012, p. 40.
  62. Menon 2015, p. 60.
  63. Haarr 2013, p. 64.
  64. Mawdsley 2019, p. 22.
  65. Wylie 2002, p. 202.
  66. Mawdsley 2019, p. 86.
  67. Swanston & Swanston 2010, p. 39.
  68. Dimbleby 2015, p. 40.
  69. Blair 2000, pp. 95–96.
  70. Mawdsley 2019, p. 24.
  71. Wragg 2007, p. 66.
  72. Symonds 2018, p. 19.
  73. Swanston & Swanston 2010, p. 44.
  74. Symonds 2018, pp. 19–20.
  75. Smalley 2015, p. 19.
  76. Redford 2014, pp. 13–14.
  77. Miller 1996, p. 45.
  78. Carroll 2012, chapter 10
  79. Haarr 2013, pp. 238–240.
  80. Haarr 2013, pp. 240–241.
  81. "1939: Key Dates". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 2020-09-30. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  82. Haarr 2013, p. 251.
  83. "Chronology of the Holocaust (1939)". Jewish Virtual Library. Archived from the original on 2022-09-22. Retrieved 2010-05-25.
  84. Hastings, Max The Secret War: Spies, Codes And Guerrillas 1939–45 (London: William Collins, 2015) ISBN 9780007503742 Chapter 2.1
  85. Daniels 2016, p. 42.
  86. Bollinger 2011, pp. 42–43.
  87. Williams 2013, p. 20.
  88. Smalley 2015, pp. 20–21.
  89. Jeffery 2010, 11
  90. Haarr 2013, p. 248.
  91. Evans 2010, p. 7.
  92. Miller 1996, pp. 44–45.
  93. Manchester 1988, p. 565.
  94. Mawdsley 2019, p. 23.
  95. Manchester 1988, p. 570.
  96. Gilbert 2011, p. 89.
  97. The Historical Atlas of World War Two. 2010. p. 41.
  98. "The Winter War". WW II Database. Archived from the original on October 14, 2015. Retrieved November 7, 2015.
  99. Gilbert 2011, p. 92.
  100. Wangel, Carl Axel, Sveriges militära beredskap 1939–1945 (Swedish),1982, p. 61.
  101. Haarr 2013, pp. 66–67.
  102. Mawdsley 2019, pp. 26–27.
  103. Mawdsley 2019, p. 27.
  104. "LEAGUE OF NATIONS' EXPULSION OF THE U.S.S.R." League of Nations. Archived from the original on 2015-06-24. Retrieved 2010-06-04.
  105. "1939 Timeline". WW2DB. Archived from the original on 2017-08-17. Retrieved 2011-02-09.
  106. Dimbleby 2015, pp. 48–50.
  107. Mawdsley 2019, p. 28.
  108. Dimbleby 2015, p. 50.
  109. Darrah, David (December 29, 1939). "Britain Extends Food Rations to Meat and Sugar". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 1.
  110. Mawdsley 2019, pp. 22–23.
  111. Blair 2000, p. 125.
  112. "The New Year 1939/40". Calvin College. Archived from the original on November 7, 2015. Retrieved November 7, 2015.

References

  • Adamthwaite, Anthony P. (2011) [1st pub. 1977]. The Making of the Second World War. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-90716-0.
  • Alexander, Martin S. (2002) [1st pub. 1992]. The Republic in Danger: General Maurice Gamelin and the Politics of French defence, 1933-1940. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52429-6.
  • Beevor, Antony (2012). The Second World War. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-08407-9.
  • Blair, Clay (2000) [1st pub. 1996]. Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939–1942. New York: Modern Library. ISBN 0-679-64032-0.
  • Bollinger, Martin (2011). Warriors and Wizards: The Development and Defeat of Radio-Controlled Glide Bombs of the Third Reich. Annapolis, MY: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9781612510026.
  • Brecher, Michael; Wilkenfeld, Jonathan (1997). A Study of Crisis. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-10806-9.
  • Brewing, Daniel (2022). In the Shadow of Auschwitz German Massacres against Polish Civilians, 1939–1945. Berghahn Book. ISBN 9781800730892.
  • Broad, Roger (2006). Conscription in Britain, 1939-1964: The Militarisation of a Generation. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 0-714-65701-8.
  • Carroll, Francis M. (2012). Athenia Torpedoed: The U-Boat Attack that Ignited the Battle of the Atlantic. Annapolis, MY: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-61251-155-9.
  • Crowe, David M. (1993). The Baltic States And The Great Powers: Foreign Relations, 1938-1940. Boulder, CO & Oxford, UK: Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-0481-4.
  • Crowson, N. J. (1997). Facing Fascism: The Conservative Party and the European Dictators, 1935 -1940. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-15315-8.
  • Cull, Nicholas John (1996). Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign Against American "Neutrality" in World War II. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511150-8.
  • Daniels, Roger (2016). Franklin D. Roosevelt: The War Years, 1939-1945. Urbana, IL - Chicago, IL - Springfield, IL: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-03952-2.
  • De Felice, Renzo (1996) [1st pub. 1981]. Mussolini il duce: Lo Stato totalitario, 1936-1940 (in Italian). Torino: Einaudi. ISBN 88-06-13997-5.
  • Delaney, Douglas E. (2018) [1st pub. 2017]. The Imperial Army Project: Britain and the Land Forces of the Dominions and India, 1902-1945. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-870446-1.
  • Delve, Ken (2005). Bomber Command 1936-1968: An Operational & Historical Record. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 1-84415-183-2.
  • Dimbleby, Jonathan (2015). The Battle of the Atlantic: How the Allies Won the War. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-241-97211-3.
  • Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste (2004) [1st pub. 1985]. France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 [La Décadence 1932-1939]. New York, NY: Enigma Books. ISBN 978-1-929631-15-5.
  • Elleman, Bruce A.; Paine, S.C.M., eds. (2006). Naval Blockades and Seapower: Strategies and counter-strategies,1805-2005. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-35466-8.
  • Evans, A. S. (2010). Destroyer Down: An Account of HM Destroyer Losses, 1939–1945. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 978-1-84884-270-0.
  • Gilbert, Martin (2011) [1st pub. 1983]. Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939-1941. Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College Press. ISBN 978-0916308292.
  • Haarr, Geirr H. (2013). The Gathering Storm: The Naval War in Northern Europe, September 1939 - April 1940. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 978-1-84832-140-3.
  • High, Steven, ed. (2010). Occupied St John’s: a social history of a city at war, 1939–1945. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. ISBN 978-0-7735-3750-7.
  • Hill, Christopher (1991). Cabinet decisions on foreign policy: The British experience, October 1938 -June 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-39195-4.
  • Holland, James (2016) [1st pub. 2015]. The War in the West - A New History: Volume 1: Germany Ascendant 1939-1941. London: Corgi Books. ISBN 9780552169202.
  • Hough, Richard; Richards, Denis (1990) [1st pub. 1989]. The Battle of Britain: The Greatest Air Battle of World War II (W. W. Norton, NY ed.). Hodder & Staughton. ISBN 978-0-393-30734-4.
  • Jackson, Julian (2004). The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280550-9.
  • Jeffery, Keith (2010). MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7475-9183-2.
  • Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher; Keay, John; Keay, Julia (2010) [1st pub. 1983]. The London Encyclopaedia. London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4050-4925-2.
  • Kochanski, Halik (2012). The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-06814-8.
  • Liddell Hart, B. H. (1970). The History of the Second World War. London: Pan Books. ISBN 0-304-93564-6.
  • Manvell, Roger; Fraenkell, Heinrich (2007). Heinrich Himmler: The SS, Gestapo, His Life and Career. Skyhorse Publishing In. ISBN 1-60239-178-5.
  • Maier, Klaus A.; Rohde, Horst; Stegemann, Bernd; Umbreit, Umbreit (1991). Germany's Initial Conquests in Europe [Die Errichtung der Hegemonie auf dem europäischen Kontinent]. Germany and the Second World War. Vol. 2. Translated by McMurry, Dean; Osers, Ewald. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-822885-6.
  • Manchester, William (1988). The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932–1940. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co. ISBN 0-316-54512-0.
  • Mauch, Peter (2011). Sailor Diplomat: Nomura Kichisaburō and the Japanese-American War. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-1-68417-506-2.
  • Mawdsley, Evan (2019). The War for the Seas: A Maritime History of World War II. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-19019-9.
  • Menon, Vapal Pangunni (2015) [1st pub. 1957]. Transfer of Power in India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-7937-3.
  • Miller, Nathan (1996). War at Sea: A Naval History of World War II. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511038-2.
  • Mitter, Rana (2013). Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-618-89425-3.
  • Morison, Samuel Eliot (2001) [1st pub. 1947]. The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939-May 1943. Champaign, IL: Illinois University Press. ISBN 0-252-06963-3.
  • Overy, Richard (2010) [2009]. The 1939: Countdown to War. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-141-04130-8.
  • Overy, Richard (2013). The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 978-0-141-92782-4.
  • Prazmowska, Anita (2004) [1st pub. 1987]. Britain, Poland and the Eastern Front, 1939. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52938-7.
  • Redford, Duncan (2014). A History of the Royal Navy: World War II. London: I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-78076-546-4.
  • Schwarz, Urs (1980). The Eye Of The Hurricane: Switzerland In World War Two. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN 0-89158-766-7.
  • Smalley, Edward (2015). The British Expeditionary Force, 1939-40. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-49419-1.
  • Stultz, Newell M. (1974). Afrikaner Politics in South Africa, 1934-1948. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-02452-4.
  • Swanston, Alexander; Swanston, Malcolm (2010) [1st pub. 2008]. The Historical Atlas of World War II. Edison, NJ: Chartwell Books. ISBN 978-0-785-82702-3.
  • Symonds, Craig L. (2018). World War II at Sea: A Global History. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190243678.
  • Teich, Mikuláš; Kováč, Dušan; Brown, Martin D., eds. (2011). Slovakia in History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521802536.
  • Wells, Anne Sharp (2014). Historical Dictionary of World War II: The War against Germany and Italy. Lanham, MY - Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8108-5457-4.
  • Welshman, John (2010). Churchill's Children: The Evacuee Experience in Wartime Britain. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-957441-4.
  • Williams, Allan (2013). Operation Crossbow: The Untold Story of the Search for Hitler’s Secret Weapons. New York: Random House. ISBN 9781409051732.
  • Wood, Ian S. (2010). Britain, Ireland and the Second World War. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2327-3.
  • Wragg, David (2007). Sink the French: The French Navy After the Fall of France 1940. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 978-1-84415-522-4.
  • Wylie, Neville, ed. (2002). European Neutrals and Non-Belligerents during the Second World War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-64358-9.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.