World War II As It Happened
A MaritimeQuest Daily Event Special Presentation
Friday, December 22, 1939
Day 113

December 22, 1939: Front page of the Derby Daily Telegraph, Derby, England.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in column 4: "Rescue Trawler Bombed"
(The Danish ship was Bogo (not Bogoe) and the trawler was River Earn.)
Also note the report in column 4: "Raeder Resigned, Rumour"
(Großadmiral Erich Raeder had tendered his resignation on several occasions, however Hitler refused each time. He did finally resign in Jan. of 1943 after a major disagreement with Hitler.)
Also note the report in column 4: "British Tanker Mined"
(The ship was mined again on Oct. 26, 1943, this time the ship was grounded to avoid sinking, but was a total loss.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of the Manchester Evening News, Manchester, England.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of The Star, Sheffield, England.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report at bottom: "Another German Warship Reported Sunk"
(The unverified report was completely false. Gneisenau was, at that time, at the Kriegsmarine Werft in Kiel, Germany undergoing repairs. It is also untrue that HMS Salmon had fired her torpedoes at Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, but had torpedoed the cruisers Leipzig and Nürnberg on Dec. 13th.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of the Press and Journal, Aberdeen, Scotland.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report at bottom left: "Order of Lenin For Herr Von Ribbentrop"
(Proof that even an evil dictator can be fooled. Joachim von Ribbentrop was the Nazi Foreign Minister who brokered the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which divided Poland between German and Russia. It also promised a peace between Germany and Russia. The real purpose for the pact was to fool Stalin into believing that Germany would not attack Russia. The pact was needed by Germany in order to give Hitler enough time to build up troops and equipment to attack Russia, without Russia massing forces against Germany first. It worked.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of The News, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in column 5: "Lindbergh Resigns"
Also note the report in column 6: "School of Sabotage In New York"
(The report states that members of a union affiliated with the CIO (a known communist union) pled guilty to conspiring to commit acts of violence. Even in wartime communists embedded in free nations were embarked on a task to destroy freedom.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of The Lethbridge Herald, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in column 4: "65,000-ton Battleships are Now Being Considered By U.S. Navy"
(This report was accurate, but the ships were never constructed. They would have been the Montana Class.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of the Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
Note the photo at top of the casket of Kapitän zur See Hans Langsdorff, commanding officer of the German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of Het Volksdagblad, Amsterdam, Netherlands. (Dutch communist paper.)
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of The Bakersfield Californian, Bakersfield, California.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the headline: "WPA Shuts Down Project in Kern to Oust Radical Leader"
(They were doing all they could to get rid of a communist who was working at a high level at the project. Back in the 1940's even people in California understood how dangerous communists were. Sad that it is no longer understood today in the U.S.A.)
Also note the report in column 5: "Nazi Fleet Steams to Battle Positions"
(A report from a "reliable source" which was unreliable. While some German ships were always on patrol, the only two battleships were, at this time, in dock undergoing repairs and there were no major cruiser operations ongoing.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of The Lowell Sun, Lowell, Massachusetts.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of the Biddeford Daily Journal, Biddeford, Maine.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of The Helena Independent, Helena, Montana.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


December 22, 1939: Front page of the Hamburger Neueste Zeitung, Altona, Hamburg, Germany.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
1. Beute eines deutschen U-Bootes: 80 000 To.
(German U-boats claim 80,000 tons.)
2. Eisenbahnunglück in Mitteldeutschland.
(Railroad accident in central Germany.)



   
Page published Dec. 22, 2020