Timeline of World War II (1939)

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

Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 brought many countries into the war. This event, and the declaration of war by France and Britain two days later, mark the beginning of World War II. After the declaration of war, Western Europe saw minimal land and air warfare, leading to this time period being termed the "Phoney War". At sea, this time period saw the opening stages of the Battle of the Atlantic.

In eastern Europe, however, the

divided between the two countries before the end of the month. The Soviet Union began a new military offensive by invading Finland
at the end of November.

The war in East Asia among the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan reached a stalemate, while increasing clashes between Japan and the Soviet Union ended when the two parties agreed in September on a ceasefire.

September

The Allies and Axis powers at the dawn of the German/Soviet invasion of Poland
  • 14 September
    • The Japanese Eleventh Army moving from Yueyang and supported by divisions from Jiangxi begins a major offensive to take the Chinese city of Changsha.[81]
    • British Destroyers escorting the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sink the U-39 after the U-boat's attack against the carrier failed. It was the first sinking of a German U-boat in WW II.[82]
    • The Romanian cabinet under intense German pressure decides that the Polish military and civilian leaderships would be interned if they were to evacuate in Romania.[78]
    • Romanian authorities drastically limit the passage through the country of war materials to be sent to Poland.[78]
  • 23 September: The Estonian government decides to send Karl Selter to Moscow following the Soviet request.[93]
  • 24 September
    • The 6th and 13th Divisions of the
      Xiangjiang River area during the Battle of Changsha.[94]
    • The Führer der Unterseeboote Karl Dönitz greatly relaxes prize rules ordering the sinking without warning of merchant ships that send signals by radio and the attack on smaller Allied passenger ships. He also opens the war on French shipping.[95][96]
    • In Moscow Molotov asks from the Estonian delegation a mutual assistance pact which would give the Soviets naval and air bases. If the Soviet Union doesn't get military bases in Estonia, it will be compelled “to use force against Estonia”.[93]
  • 25 September
    • At the opening in Panama City of the Pan-American conference of ministers of foreign affairs the U.S. Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles asks for their support of a Patrol Zone covering the Americas.[56]
    • Soviet air activity in Estonia. Soviet troops along the Estonian border include 600 tanks, 600 aircraft and 160 000 men.
  • 27 September: In the first military operations by the German Army in Western Europe, guns on the
    Maginot line.[101]

October
  • 5 October
    • 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.[105]
  • 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.
  • 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
      Leningrad
      against Great Britain or the eventual future threat of Germany.
  • 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.[citation needed]
    • The submarine ORP Orzeł completes its voyage reaching the east coast of Scotland.[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.
  • 20 October
  • 21 October
    • Registration begins in the United Kingdom in order to conscript all able-bodied males between 18 and 23.[29]
    • The German prize crew anchors the SS City of Flint in Tromsø, Norway, but are immediately ordered to limit their stay to less than twenty-four hours.[113]
  • 23 October: The seized freighter City of Flint reaches Murmansk in the Soviet Union. Here the prize crew is forced to leave the ship, but the latter is not given permission to leave.[114]
  • 27 October
    • Belgium announces it’s neutrality in the present conflict.
    • Jozef Tiso appoints Vojtech Tuka Prime Minister of Slovakia.[117]
    • The City of Flint is permitted to leave under the control of its prize crew despite the angry protests of the Roosevelt administration.[118]
  • 30 October: The British government releases a report on concentration camps being built in Europe for Jews and anti-Nazis.[121]
  • 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

  • 3 November
    • Finland and Soviet Union again negotiate new borders. Finns mistrust Stalin's aims and refuse to give up territory breaking their defensive line.
    • The seized City of Flint anchors at Haugesund, Norway, claiming medical reasons.[123]
  • 4 November
    • Roosevelt signs into law the amendments to the Neutrality Act: belligerents may buy arms from the United States, but on a strictly cash and carry basis, banning the use of American ships.[124]
    • Hans Mayer sends an anonymous letter to the British
      Naval attaché in Oslo, Captain Hector Boyer, asking if the British wants information from Germany on present and future German weapons. If the answer is positive he requires that confirmation be given by a small change of the German version of the BBC World Service, which is done.[125][126]
    • The German University in Prague loses its autonomy and becomes a Reichsuniversität.[127]
    • The anchorage in Haugesund is judged a violation of international law by Norwegian authorities that during the night board the ship freeing the ship and interning the Germans.[123]
  • 5 November: Hans Mayer sends anonymously his report to the British Embassy in Norway; from there it was sent for evaluation to Whitehall, where it attracted the attention of Reginald Victor Jones, Assistant Director of Intelligence to the Air Ministry, despite the skepticism of many who suspected it being a German plant.[125]
Sonderaktion Krakau begins when the Nazis detain 184 academics at a meeting in Jagiellonian University lecture room No. 66
  • 6 November: Sonderaktion Krakau: In Krakow, Nazis detain and deport university professors to concentration camps.
  • 8 November: Hitler escapes a bomb blast in a Munich beerhall, where he was speaking on the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. British bombers coincidentally bomb Munich.
  • 13 November
    • Negotiations between Finland and Soviet Union break down. Finns suspect that Germans and Russians have agreed to include Finland in the Soviet sphere of influence.[130]
    • The first British destroyer lost in the war is HMS Blanche, sunk by a minefield laid by an U-boat close to the Thames Estuary.[131]
    • The Deutschland arrives home at Gotenhafen, after having only sunk two ships and caught one.[132][130]
  • 15 November: Jan Opletal’s funeral sparks new demonstrations in Prague against the police.[127][133]
  • 20 November: The Luftwaffe and German U-boats start mining the Thames estuary.
  • 24 November: Japan announces the capture of Nanning in southern China.
  • 26 November
    • The Soviets stage the shelling of Mainila, Soviet artillery shells a field near the Finnish border, accusing Finns of killing Soviet troops.
    • Germany and Slovakia sign a border treaty which assigns to the latter the Polish parts of Orava and Spiš together with the territories taken by Poland in 1938.[141]
  • 29 November: The USSR breaks off diplomatic relations with Finland.

December

  • 1 December: Russia continues its war against Finland;
    Mannerheim line
    , an outmoded defensive line just inside the southern border with Russia.
  • 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.[145]
  • 11 December: The Russians meet with several tactical defeats by the Finnish army.
  • 14 December
  • 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.[151][152]
  • 20 December

24 December: Ignoring German objections, Romanian King Carol II permits former Polish President Ignacy Mościcki to leave with his family Romania for Switzerland.[108]

  • 27 December: The first Indian troops arrive in France.
  • 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."[157]

See also

Footnotes

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  3. ^ Kochanski 2012, pp. 61–62.
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  15. ^ Welshman 2010, pp. 43–47.
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  17. ^ Brewing 2022, pp. 141–142.
  18. ^ Wiggam 2018, p. 1.
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  21. ^ Duroselle 2004, p. 411.
  22. ^ Duroselle 2004, p. 414.
  23. ^ Schwarz 1980, p. 19.
  24. ^ Wood 2010, p. 30.
  25. ^ a b Alexander 2002, p. 320.
  26. ^ Prazmowska 2004, p. 181.
  27. ^ Cull 1996, p. 33.
  28. ^ Broad 2006, p. 223.
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  30. ^ Hill 1991, pp. 104–105.
  31. ^ Overy 2010, p. 104.
  32. ^ Wells 2014, p. 177.
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  38. ^ Wood 2010, p. 1.
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  69. ^ Dimbleby 2015, p. 25.
  70. ^ Daniels 2016, p. 37.
  71. ^ Blair 2000, p. 83.
  72. ^ Smetana 2008, p. 171.
  73. ^ Kochanski 2012, p. 62.
  74. ^ Beevor 2012, p. 40.
  75. ^ Menon 2015, p. 60.
  76. ^ Aboul-Enein & Aboul-Enein 2013, p. 133.
  77. ^ Shaw 2016, p. 390.
  78. ^ a b c d Haynes 2000, p. 111.
  79. ^ Haarr 2013, p. 64.
  80. ^ a b Haarr 2013, p. 53.
  81. ^ Macri 2012, p. 166.
  82. ^ a b c Mawdsley 2019, p. 22.
  83. ^ Wylie 2002, p. 202.
  84. ^ a b c d Crowe 1993, p. 88.
  85. ^ Lightbody 2004, p. 43.
  86. ^ Mawdsley 2019, p. 86.
  87. ^ Teich, Kováč & Brown 2011, pp. 195–196.
  88. ^ Haynes 2000, p. 109.
  89. ^ Swanston & Swanston 2010, p. 39.
  90. ^ Moorhouse 2019, pp. 226–227.
  91. ^ a b Tarulis 1959, p. 149.
  92. ^ Haynes 2000, p. 110.
  93. ^ a b Crowe 1993, p. 89.
  94. ^ Dreyer 2013, pp. 236–237.
  95. ^ Dimbleby 2015, p. 40.
  96. ^ Blair 2000, pp. 95–96.
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  98. ^ Wragg 2007, p. 66.
  99. ^ Symonds 2018, p. 19.
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  101. ^ Swanston & Swanston 2010, p. 44.
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  104. ^ Smalley 2015, p. 19.
  105. ^ Redford 2014, pp. 13–14.
  106. ^ a b Miller 1996, p. 45.
  107. ^ Carroll 2012, pp. 135–136.
  108. ^ a b Haynes 2000, p. 112.
  109. ^ Haarr 2013, pp. 238–240.
  110. ^ Haarr 2013, pp. 240–241.
  111. ^ Smetana 2008, p. 180.
  112. ^ Haynes 2000, p. 106.
  113. ^ Carroll 2012, p. 136.
  114. ^ Carroll 2012, pp. 136–137.
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  116. ^ Stahel 2018, pp. 114–115.
  117. ^ Kirschbaum 2007, p. 296.
  118. ^ Carroll 2012, p. 137.
  119. ^ Haarr 2013, p. 251.
  120. ^ Crowhurst 2020, pp. 124–125.
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  124. ^ Daniels 2016, p. 42.
  125. ^ a b Bollinger 2011, pp. 42–43.
  126. ^ Williams 2013, p. 20.
  127. ^ a b c d e Crowhurst 2020, p. 125.
  128. ^ Smalley 2015, pp. 20–21.
  129. ^ Jeffery 2010, 11
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  131. ^ Evans 2010, p. 7.
  132. ^ Miller 1996, pp. 44–45.
  133. ^ Gildea, Warring & Wieviorka 2006, p. 132.
  134. ^ Manchester 1988, p. 565.
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  138. ^ Manchester 1988, p. 570.
  139. ^ Teich, Kováč & Brown 2011, p. 197.
  140. ^ Gilbert 2011, p. 89.
  141. ^ Jesenský 2014, p. 94.
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  147. ^ Mawdsley 2019, pp. 26–27.
  148. ^ Mawdsley 2019, p. 27.
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  152. ^ Mawdsley 2019, p. 28.
  153. ^ Dimbleby 2015, p. 50.
  154. Chicago Daily Tribune
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References

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