1939
American aviation hero Charles A. Lindbergh makes his first anti-intervention radio speech. The U.S. non-intervention movement is supported not just by Lindbergh, but by former president Herbert Hoover, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Henry Ford and a number of senators and congressmen as well.
The Aircraft Carrier HMS Courageous is torpedoed by U29 (Kapitanleutnant Schuhart) south-west of Ireland, killing 515, but 687 sailors survive.
Kutno and Brest-Litovsk are captured by German troops.
The Red Army invades Poland from the East with a million troops on the pretext of “protecting Poland’s Byelorussian and Ukrainian population.” The Polish government seeks asylum in Romania, where it is interned.
The Polish Air Force scores its last kills during the battle for Poland, by shooting down a German Dornier bomber and a Soviet fighter.
1940
Churchill announces in the Commons that in first half of September 2,000 civilians have been killed and 8,000 seriously injured in air raids; the figure for service casualties, for the same period was 250.
Liner City of Benares, evacuating children to Canada, is sunk by U48; 77 out of 99 children lost, total killed 260.
Hitler postpones Operation Sealion, the plan to invade Britain, until further notice.
1941
The US allocates $100,000,000 to the Soviet Union for the purchase of war materials.
British and Russian troops occupy Teheran, after Iran failed to comply with their demand to expel all Axis nationals.
Beginning of general deportation of German Jews.
1942
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill meets with Soviet Premier Josef Stalin in Moscow as the German Army rams into Stalingrad.
Bitter street fighting in the north west suburbs of Stalingrad.
Peace talks in Madagascar break down.
1943
Stalin announces the capture of Bryansk.
The Germans begin a withdrawal from Salerno as the British 8th Army joins forces with British and U.S. troops in the Salerno bridgehead.
1944
Operation ‘Market Garden’ begins with First Allied Airborne Army drops at Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem to secure bridgeheads, as the British Second Army pushes north into Holland from Belgium, to link up. Canadians launch all-out assault on the Boulogne garrison.
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Monte Altuzzo finally falls to the U.S. 85th Division.
Russian forces push towards Baltic through Estonia.