1939 “Elections” are held in Soviet-occupied Poland now called “Western Byelorussia” and “Western Ukraine.” The USSR confiscates all property including bank accounts, and replaces Polish currency with the ruble. Poles are fired from their jobs and thrown into jail as the NKVD compiles lists for deportation. Factories, hospitals, schools, are dismantled and shipped to the USSR.

1939 The Luftwaffe starts attacks against North Atlantic convoys. As war heats up with Germany, the British war cabinet holds its first meeting in the underground war room in London. The Germans start deporting Poles from Posen (Poznan), largest city of western Poland (250,000 people), in their attempt at establishing “pure and Germanic provinces” in

1939 Pope Pius XII publishes his first encyclical, Summi pontificatus,decrying racism, dictators, and treaty violations. 1940 Italian planes bomb Cairo for the first time, also bomb US-run oil facilities in Bahrain. 1941 The Aircraft Carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) commissioned under Capt. Marc Mitscher. Germans massacre 2300 Serbians in Kragujevac in response to partisan killing of 10

1939 Germany officially incorporates western Poland into the Reich. 1940 Convoy HX-79 (49 ships), sailing from Halifax in Canada to Britain, is attacked by 5 U-boats between the 19th and 20th October in the North Atlantic. The British lost 12 ships for 75,063 gross tons, while not a single U-boat was lost. The destroyer Venetia sinks

1939 The Russians prepare to hand over 30,000 Polish soldiers and refugees to the Nazis who respond with their own prisoner exchange. The first Jewish ghetto is established in Lublin. 1940 Britain reopens the Burma road, which had been closed for three months on the condition of progress being made towards peace between Japan and

1939 French troops are pushed back in the Saar region. President Roosevelt prepares to sign an executive order closing all U.S. ports to submarines from belligerent nations. 1941 Destroyer USS Kearny damaged by German torpedo off Iceland;11 Americans are killed. US House of Representatives allow merchantmen to be armed. Taganrog on the Sea of Azov