The First Day of the War: September 3rd 1939

Preparing for War - 1938 (author's photo)

"This morning, the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless the British Government heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such assurance has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany."

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain addressed the British people at 11:15 on that fateful Sunday morning and his words are well known now but reactions around the world varied greatly as might be expected.

In Berlin, the British ultimatum was read aloud to Hitler by Dr. Schmidt, the official translator at the German Foreign Ministry. The Fuhrer sat immobile and gazed in silence. After what seemed a long interval, he turned to Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, who was also present and asked "What now?" According to Schmidt, Hitler had a savage look to his face, as though implying that Ribbentrop had misled him as to the probable British reaction. Ribbentrop answered quietly "I assume that the French will hand in a similar ultimatum within the hour."

In London, even before Chamberlain had spoken, the Royal Navy sent the simple cable "TOTAL GERMANY" to it's ships and bases around the world, followed that evening by a further signal "WINSTON IS BACK" advising, or perhaps warning the fleet that Winston Churchill had been reappointed to his First World War role as First Lord of the Admiralty. 

Advice on Shelters (author's photo)

Barely had the Prime Minister finished speaking, when at 11:27 in London, the mournful note of the air raid sirens, which were to become so familiar over the coming almost six years, announced to the capital that an air raid was imminent. Many Londoners, perhaps remembering Stanley Baldwin's assertion that "The Bomber will always get through" reinforced by having read or seen the movie version of HG Wells' 'The Shape of Things to Come' doubtless felt that this might be the beginning of an apocalyptic future for London as outlined by the likes of Bertrand Russell, or indeed the British Air Staff, who in 1938 predicted that 3,500 tons of bombs could fall on London in the first twenty four hours of a future conflict, causing 58,000 fatal casualties and many more injured. Others were doubtless more sanguine but almost everyone was afraid to a greater or lesser degree, although most kept their fear well concealed. In fact, the alert was a false alarm, caused by a French aircraft which had stumbled into Britain's air defence system. The first air raids on London would not come until a year later and although the raids when they did come would naturally bring death and destruction, the consequences were never as remotely devastating as had been predicted. The 58,000 figure of fatalities confidently predicted for London in 1938, was only just exceeded (by 2,000) across the entire country for the duration of the war.

The spectre of Poison Gas (author's photo)

 

Around the World, the British Empire and Commonwealth followed suit - the idea of Britain as 'The Mother Country' seems quaint and outdated today but it was something that still held sway in 1939. Australia and New Zealand declared war immediately, with New Zealand Prime Minister Michael Savage memorably stating of Britain that "Where she goes, we go!" South Africa at first demurred from declaring war and wished to remain neutral, but the Government was defeated in a parliamentary vote and the new Prime Minister, Jan Smuts, declared war on Germany on September 6th. The Canadian Government followed on September 10th.

In Washington DC, President Roosevelt broadcast to the American people hours after the British and French declaration of war and although he had to tread carefully at this stage to preserve American neutrality, Roosevelt nailed his colours clearly to the mast in his intention to stand firm with the democracies of Europe.

"This nation will remain a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American remains neutral in thought as well. Even a neutral has a right to take account of the facts. Even a neutral cannot close his mind or his conscience."

As yet unknown to his listeners, the President had already resolved to recall Congress so that his Administration could seek a repeal of the arms embargo and at least passively support the democracies against the Nazi regime.

Confirming the news (author's collection)

Even at this early stage of the war, Hitler was anxious about possible American involvement and his anxiety must have been further increased when news reached him that the war had taken it's first casualties in the North Atlantic, when the liner Athenia was torpedoed by the U-30 at 19:43 that same evening. The vessel was carrying 1,103 passengers, including some 300 American citizens anxious to escape the war now overwhelming Europe and who were returning home via the liner's intended destination of Montreal. 

Mindful perhaps of keeping America out of the war and convinced that Britain and France would soon be looking for a political solution anyway, Hitler had already ordered that passenger ships carrying passengers were to be allowed to proceed in safety, even if part of a convoy but Fritz Julius Lemp, in command of U-30 did not bother to check on the credentials of the Athenia and ordered the firing of a salvo of torpedoes at the defenceless liner. Lemp then compounded his error by surfacing and opening fire on the stricken vessel in an attempt to shoot away her wireless aerials. It was at this point, with lifeboats obviously being filled with passengers that the U-Boat commander realized that he had sunk a passenger ship both in violation of International Law and his Fuhrer's order but he made no attempt to atone for his error and merely submerged without offering any assistance. 

The liner had in fact, sent out a distress signal and was remarkably still just about afloat by the time that rescue vessels arrived on the scene, although she sank later the following morning. The 118 persons killed were the first casualties of the Battle of the Atlantic and included 22 American citizens, which caused outrage in the United States and set the majority of public opinion in that country against the Germans from the outset.

Back in England, aside from the Royal Navy's instructions to the fleet, the other services were taking practical steps to take the war to Germany. At RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire that evening, six Hampden bombers of 89 Squadron under the command of Squadron leader Leonard Snaith took off to attack German warships at the great naval base at Wilhelmshaven. An earlier reconnaissance flight by a single Blenheim bomber from RAF Wyton had confirmed the presence of German warships but the failure of the aircraft's wireless to operate at 24,000 feet had caused a delay in reporting the fact until after it's return to base.

The raid, such as it was, was a fiasco; the crews had already been given strict instructions not to bomb civilian establishments, either houses or dockyards and therefore could only bomb the warships if they were at anchor in the harbour rather than alongside for fear of hitting buildings rather than the ships. As they approached Wilhelmshaven, the weather, already poor, became even worse and the cloudbase dropped to 100 feet. Not really knowing for sure where his squadron was, Snaith took the only decision open to him and turned his squadron for home, dumping their bombs into the sea en route. They eventually reached Scampton at 22:30 but fortunately everyone made it home on this occasion. Those on the follow up raids ordered the next day would not be so fortunate; of the fourteen Wellingtons and fifteen Blenheims despatched, five of the Blenheims were shot down and although they managed to land three bombs on the Admiral Scheer, all of these failed to explode. Ten of the Wellingtons became hopelessly lost and some dropped their bombs on the Danish city of Esbjerg, some 110 miles off target, where they killed two people. Clearly, the RAF had much to learn but at least had tried to take some offensive action.

Churchill in defiant mood (IWM)

The Army had already begun to implement plans for a British Expeditionary Force to be sent to France some ten hours before the declaration of war, when the passenger ship Isle of Thanet sailed from Southampton to Cherbourg with the first advance party of what was to become a sizeable force of over 300,000 men, the majority of whom would be evacuated from France less than a year later.

The conflict at sea was a shooting war from the outset but apart from this and some further costly efforts by the RAF in attempting to bomb German naval targets in daylight without fighter protection, the war was soon to settle down into a period of relative inertia known to the British as 'The Phoney War', the French as 'Drole de Guerre' ('Funny War') or in Germany as 'Sitzkrieg' ('Sitting War.')

This somewhat surreal period was typified by an approach to the war that seems farcical now - for example, when British MP Leo Amery proposed that the RAF drop incendiary bombs on the Black Forest, in order to destroy stocks of ammunition thought to be stockpiled there, he received the reply from Sir Kingsley Wood, Secretary of State of Air, that the Forest was 'private property' and therefore could not be attacked. Wood also stated that armaments factories could not be bombed for the same reason and that furthermore, such attacks might provoke the Germans to mount similar attacks on British factories. The activities of the RAF's bomber force was soon to be limited to dropping leaflets on German cities which no doubt had little effect on the civilian population other than increasing their supplies of scrap paper. 

The Phoney War period was to end suddenly with the Norwegian Campaign in April 1940, one consequence of which was the downfall of Chamberlain's Government and it's replacement with a coalition Administration under Churchill, which saw the country through the dark days of the Fall of France and Low Countries, followed by the evacuations from Dunkirk and the Channel Ports to the defiance of the Battle of Britain and The Blitz and which would eventually see the country to victory in 1945.

Published Sources:

The Battle of the Atlantic - John Costello & Terry Hughes, Collins 1977

The Battle of Heligoland Bight 1939 - Robin Holmes, Grub Street 2009

BEF Ships before, at and after Dunkirk - John de S Winser, World Ship Society 1999

Bomber Boys - Patrick Bishop, Harper Press 2007

London at War 1939-1945 - Philip Ziegler, Pimlico 2002

The World at War - Mark Arnold-Foster, Collins 1973

1939: The first wartime Christmas, The Phoney War and a victory at sea

The Graf Spee (Bundesarchiv)

The winter of 1939 was to prove one of the coldest for many years. In Germany there was thick ice in the Baltic, the Kiel Canal and the Rivers Elbe and Jade which hampered trade almost as much as the British naval blockade, which was beginning to affect the supply of food and essential products into the Reich. In France, the soldiers of the newly arrived British Expeditionary Force found the ferocity of the winter had frozen the ground so hard that they were unable to make much progress in digging the trenches and defensive systems that were seen as essential to the sort of war they were expecting to have to fight. In December 1939, the BEF introduced a forces’ leave service so that at least some of the men who had been in France since the previous September were able to spend Christmas at home with their families.

At home in Britain in December 1939, people were beginning to come to terms with the blackout. In September 1939, the casualty figures for road traffic accidents had increased by almost 100 percent over peacetime figures. This didn’t include people who suffered from other blackout-related mishaps, such as falling from railway platforms, walking into canals or falling down steps. By December, the imposition of more severe petrol rationing forced most private cars from the road, so traffic accidents began to decrease almost by default. A slight relaxation in the blackout also permitted civilians to carry hand torches, albeit masked but sufficient to help in finding one’s way around more safely. The dance halls, cinemas and theatres were packed out once again but the cold weather was beginning to play havoc with the public transport system; some main line express trains from Scotland and the north of England ran over a day late!

Although there had been no actual air raids over British cities by December 1939, there was no shortage of alerts, which showed up the many flaws and deficiencies in the ARP system, some of which were still apparent when the shooting war started in the spring and summer of 1940. This then, was the "Phoney War."

At sea however, this phrase was an anathema to the men of the Royal and Merchant Navies. The first ship to be sunk was the liner Athenia, torpedoed by Fritz Julius Lemp in the U-30 with heavy loss of life on 3rd September, just hours after the declaration of war. The Royal Navy had also suffered an early loss when the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous had been torpedoed by U-29 with the loss of 519 officers and men, including her captain. The Royal Navy had begun to sink U-Boats and was beginning the long and painful battle to overcome this menace but in December 1939, despite these and other high profile sinkings, the U-Boat was not a major threat. There were insufficient numbers of ocean-going submarines and without the French Atlantic coast bases that the Germans were later to capture, those submarines that were in commission did not yet have the direct access to the Atlantic convoys that was later to cause such carnage to Britain’s life lines.

In December 1939, the main threat to Britain’s merchant fleet came from the surface raider. Apart from the converted merchant vessels that tended to prey on vessels sailing alone, the Kriegsmarine had three specialised Panzerschiffen, known to the rest of the World as ‘pocket battleships’, so called because they were not armed quite to the same level as the conventional battleship but still powerfully equipped with six 11 inch guns and a heavy secondary armament. They were powered by diesel engines which gave a speed in excess of most British heavy units and more importantly gave these vessels a tremendous level of endurance, especially when operating in tandem with a supply tanker, meeting at pre-arranged rendezvous points in the open ocean.

One such vessel, the Graf Spee (pictured at top), under the command of Kapitan Hans Langsdorff (pictured below), had sailed from Wilhelmshaven shortly before the outbreak of war, on the 20th August 1939 and had been undetected as she sailed via the Norwegian coast and through the Denmark Strait into the Atlantic and her war station in the South Atlantic. The British only realised that she had sailed on the 31st August, some eleven days after she had departed. By then it was too late; units of the British Home Fleet patrolled the area around Norway and the Shetlands but Graf Spee was long gone and especially in these pre-radar days, finding a ship in the Atlantic that did not want to be discovered was like the proverbial needle in the haystack story.

Hans Langsdorff (Bundesarchiv)

It was only when British merchant ships began to disappear in the South Atlantic, around the Cape, off the coast of Lourenco Marques and finally off the coast of South America that British suspicions of a raider at large were confirmed. Graf Spee was operating in tandem with her supply vessel, the tanker Altmark and proved to be a formidable and elusive enemy. The Royal Navy immediately mobilised hunting groups of warships to track down the enemy and one of those hunting groups was the South Atlantic Squadron under Commodore (later Admiral Sir Henry) Harwood, flying his broad pennant in the cruiser HMS Ajax with two further cruisers Exeter and the New Zealand manned Achilles. These vessels more than matched the Graf Spee for speed but were vastly outgunned by the German vessel. Nominally Harwood had a fourth cruiser, the Cumberland but she was at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands undergoing a self-refit, so already Harwood’s force was somewhat depleted. However, Henry Harwood was a shrewd operator and he had been using the intelligence available to him to try and calculate where he could intercept the raider. Many of the British ships sunk by the Graf Spee had bravely transmitted an ‘RRR’ signal together with a position, which indicated that the vessel had been attacked by a surface raider. It was doubly brave to send these warning signals as the Germans threatened dire consequences for any radio officers sending these messages. Fortunately for the British, Kapitan Langsdorff was an honourable man who did not take reprisals against his captives and was scrupulous in his fair and humane treatment of prisoners. The same could not be said of his counterpart, Kapitan Dau of the supply ship Altmark and the British merchant seaman held on board this vessel, whilst not physically harmed, were kept in squalid conditions in one of the ship’s holds. A number of British Merchant Navy officers were transferred to the Graf Spee for her anticipated voyage back to Germany and the difference in the treatment they received on the pocket battleship was notable.

Not all of the vessels intercepted by Graf Spee managed to send an ‘RRR’ report but enough did to allow Harwood to undertake some inspired detective work. Piecing together the reported positions of the sunken vessels, he was convinced that Graf Spee would return to the South Atlantic for one final tilt at the constant stream of British merchantmen heading from the River Plate with much needed meat for the home market.

Having made his dispositions accordingly, Harwood concentrated his three cruisers off the River Plate and waited for Graf Spee to appear. On December 13th 1939, the German pocket battleship obligingly sailed over the horizon. Harwood’s plan for this contingency was to split the enemy’s fire by dividing his own force; the two smaller cruisers Achilles and Ajax formed one division, whilst the more heavily armed Exeter was to fight alone. It was at this early point in the battle that Langsdorff made his first and ultimately fatal error. On approaching the British vessels, Langsdorff wrongly assumed that Exeter was the sole cruiser and that the two smaller vessels were escorting destroyers and closed accordingly to make a quick kill. Once he closed the range and had realised his mistake, it was too late. The three cruisers tore into the pocket battleship and harried her relentlessly. At first Exeter bore the brunt of the raider’s counter attacks and was soon turned into a blazing, sinking shambles with all of her main armament knocked out. At first Captain Bell of the Exeter considered ramming Graf Spee, but he was ordered by Harwood to retire from the battle and was soon heading towards the Falkland Islands which she eventually reached in order to lick her wounds. The remaining two lightly armed cruisers kept up the pressure, closing the range and hitting Graf Spee and hitting hard. Fearing that the two British vessels were leading him onto superior heavy forces, Langsdorff inexplicably turned and ran; heading towards the River Plate, he eventually reached the sanctuary of the River Plate within the territorial waters of the neutral country of Uruguay. She had suffered thirty seven men dead and fifty seven wounded and whilst the ship was in no way mortally wounded, she had been hit over fifty times and had suffered extensive damage. Unknown to the pursuing British forces, there were sixty one British Merchant Navy officers aboard who had fortunately been unhurt in the battle. Once the fighting was over, a different kind of battle was about to begin, involving diplomacy, bluff and counterbluff that was ultimately to cost Langsdorff his life.

Despite the strain he must have been under, Langsdorff once again proved his humanity and sense of honour by releasing his erstwhile prisoners according to international law. Afterwards, these officers to a man had nothing but praise and respect for their former captor.

It was estimated that Graf Spee’s battle damage would take fourteen days and during this time, Langsdorff knew that the British would be mustering reinforcements but what he was not to know was how long it would take for these reinforcements to arrive. It was now the 14th December and the nearest heavy British unit, the battlecruiser Renown and the aircraft carrier Ark Royal could not reach the River Plate until the 19th December but Langsdorff was not to know this. The British ambassador to Uruguary, Eugen Millington-Drake (pictured below with Harwood) and his naval attaché, Captain (later Admiral Sir Henry) McCall, used every trick in the book to conjure up an imaginary British fleet massing just over the horizon. German requests to charter light aircraft to survey this fleet were always rebuffed; no aircraft were ever available. The British also tried their hardest to get Graf Spee interned; Langsdorff must have been in mental turmoil.

Sir Henry Harwood

Faced with an impossible situation, he decided to scuttle his ship and on the 17th December moved his ship into the shallower waters of the River Plate and after evacuating the remainder of his crew, shortly before 20:00 she blew up; demolition charges had been set by the crew and the Graf Spee was no more.

The watching British on the two remaining cruisers, by now reinforced by the Cumberland, which had made a helter-skelter dash from the Falklands watched with incredulity and relief; they had expected another bloody battle and could not have been certain of the outcome. As it was they had won a great victory, partially through hard fighting and partially through bluff but the Royal Navy had won the first major engagement of the war.

For the crew of the Graf Spee, internment in Argentina was on the agenda but for Langsdorff, and honourable man to the end, there was to be no such escape. On the evening of the 19th December, after addressing his officers and men for one last time, he retired to his hotel room, wrote three letters to his wife, his parents and one to the German Ambassador to Argentina. He then shot himself whilst wrapped in the ensign of the old Imperial Navy, rather than the Nazi flag.

Back home, the victorious ships’ companies marched through London and Winston Churchill, not yet Prime Minister but still at that time First Lord of the Admiralty proclaimed that the victory “in a dark cold winter, it warmed the cockles of the British heart.”

For those at sea, there was no Phoney War; for those at home, the war was still distant but 1940 would see a change that would bring the conflict home to everyone.

Published Sources

BEF Ships before, at and after Dunkirk – John de S Winser, World Ship Society, 1999
London at War 1939-1945 – Philip Ziegler, Sinclair Stevenson, 1995
The Battle of the River Plate – Dudley Pope, Secker & Warburg, 1987
The People’s War; Britain 1939-1945 – Angus Calder, Jonathan Cape, 1969
War in a Stringbag – Charles Lamb – Cassell, 1977