October

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

1939 A German air attack damages the British cruisers HMS Southampton, HMS Edinburgh and the destroyer HMS Mohawk in the Firth of Forth, in Scotland. Heavy German attack on Western Front halted. German bombers attack Forth and Rosyth bridges. 1940 Benjamin O. Davis becomes the U.S. Army’s first African American Brigadier General. U-124 torpedoes and

1940 Bomb holes roof of Balham tube station: 64 killed. Italian submarine Toti sinks British submarine Rainbow. 16 million Americans already registered for National Service. Heavy Luftwaffe raid on London, Birmingham, and Bristol starts 900 fires. Italy demobilizes 300,000 soldiers for the harvest, leaving only 100,000 for upcoming invasion of Greece. 1941 Odessa, a Russian

1939 U47 (Kapitanleutnant Prien) sinks HMS Royal Oak at anchor in Scapa Flow, killing 883. U47 then escapes undetected and returns home to Germany. The press in Germany declare Prien a hero. Polish submarine Orzel arrives in Britain having escaped internment in Estonia. 1940 Luftwaffe bomb falls on Balham Tube station in London, killing 66.

1939 In skirmishes along Maginot Line, French destroy 3 bridges over Rhine. 1940 14-year old Princess Elizabeth made her first public speech, a radio address to the children of the British Commonwealth. Her ten-year-old sister Princess Margaret joined in at the end. 1941 German forces of Army Group Centre capture Kalinin, just 100 miles to