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

...and consequently this country is at war with Germany

Neville Chamberlain (Bundesarchiv)

With these words, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain broadcast to the nation at 11.15 am on Sunday September 3rd 1939 that Great Britain and France had gone to war with Germany due to the latter nation's refusal to withdraw it's troops from Poland. This part of the broadcast is by now well known but the full broadcast, in which millions of listeners heard the tired and disillusioned voice of the British Prime Minister is perhaps not so well known, so the full transcript is repeated below:

"I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room of Number 10 Downing Street.

This morning, the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 am 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 that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently, this country is at war with Germany.

You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different I could have done and that would have been more successful.

Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Germany and Poland but Hitler would not have it.

He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland whatever happened; and although he now says he has put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement.

The proposals were never shown to the Poles nor to us; and although they were announced in a German broadcast on Thursday night, Hitler did not wait to make comment on them, but ordered his troops to cross the Polish frontier.

His actions show convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force.

We and France are today, in fulfilment of our obligations,, going to the aid of Poland, who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack on her people. We have a clear conscience. We have done all that any country could do to establish peace. The situation in which no word given to Germany's ruler could be trusted and no people or country could feel themselves safe has become intolerable.

And now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will play your part with calmness and courage.

At such a moment as this the assurances of support that we have received from the Empire are a source of profound encouragement to us.

When I have finished speaking, certain detailed announcements will be made on behalf of the Government. Give these your closest attention.

The Government have made plans under which it will be possible to carry on the work of the nation in the days of stress and strain that may be ahead. But these plans need your help.

You may be taking part in the Fighting Services or as a volunteer in one of the branches of Civil Defence. If so, you will report for duty in accordance with the instructions you have received.

You may be engaged in work essential to the prosecution of war for the maintenance of the life of the people - in factories, in transport, in public utility concerns or in the supply of other necessaries of life. If so, it is of vital importance that you carry on with your jobs.

Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. It is the evil things that we shall be fighting against - brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution - and against them I am certain that the right will prevail."

And so the broadcast finished, the British people went somewhat resignedly about their business only for the air raid sirens to sound at 11.27 am, just moments after the Prime Minister had finished talking. The reaction everywhere was almost the same; people tended to stand around staring upwards at the skies, perhaps expecting to see the vast fleets of German bombers approaching that according to ex Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin "would always get through", perhaps expecting it to be a practice or simply not knowing what to do, despite all of the Air Raid Precautions that had been forced upon people since the Munich Crisis of a year previously. In the event, the alert was caused by none of these things; supposedly an electrical fault was to blame but that evening the siren went again and once again at 3 am the following morning. All sorts of wild rumours began to circulate - residents of Chelsea heard that there had been an appalling raid upon the East End, which had been left in ruins with thousands killed. Fortunately, these rumours proved to be just that. Just over a year later, the East End would indeed be bombed and in ruins but the apocalyptic death tolls forecast by the Home Office would mercifully never come to pass.

Preparations for war had already begun before Chamberlain's declaration of war; British and French forces had been mobilised on September 1st, with the reservists from the Navy, Army and Air Force receiving their call up telegrams. In the Royal Navy, ships from the Reserve Fleet, many of them veterans of an earlier conflict, were reactivated and brought back into service, quite often being manned by human veterans of the same conflict against the same foe which had ended almost twenty one years previously. The general call-up to create a 'Citizen Army (and Navy and Air Force) would also get into it's stride.

Schoolchildren, expectant mothers and other vulnerable people began to be evacuated from the big cities on September 1st and this operation was largely complete by the time war was declared. When the big air raids failed to materialise, many of these children were to return to the cities, ironically just in time for the Blitz, sometimes with tragic consequences. Many others though, were to remain in safety 'for the duration' which was a phrase that the British people were to get accustomed to over the next six years or so. 

War had looked inevitable for some time and preparations had been put in place to send a British Expeditionary Force, or BEF, across to France as early as Spring 1939. It was fully expected that this new conflict would in many ways be a repetition of the First World War, with fighting taking place along a largely static Western Front and so it was decided to send across a large British force to fight alongside the French as had happened in 1914-18. In the early hours of September 3rd, some ten hours before the formal declaration of war, the passenger ship Isle of Thanet sailed from Southampton with the first advance party of the BEF. Further small movements followed over the next few days, with the main force starting to travel across to France from September 9th.

For the civilian population of Great Britain at least, the declaration of war was followed, apart from the inconvenience of the false air raid alerts, by a period of some nine months or so that became known as 'The Phoney War.' This phrase was something of a misnomer, because at sea at least, the declaration of war was swiftly followed by the harsh realities of death and destruction.

ss Athenia sinking

The Donaldson Liner Athenia had sailed from Liverpool on Saturday 2nd September for Montreal, having also picked up passengers at Glasgow and Belfast and by the time she finally sailed had on board some 1,103 passengers, including over 300 American citizens anxious to escape the coming war. She was also carrying a crew of 315. The Athenia wasn't one of the more glamorous vessels on the North Atlantic run but such was the urgency to escape the coming hostilities, any vessel would do. By the time war was declared, Athenia was well on her way and by the time darkness fell, she was some 250 miles northwest of Inistrahull, Ireland and having earlier received the coded signal 'Total Germany' from the Admiralty, indicating that Britain was at war, was darkened and steering a zig-zag course. She was not alone, for she was being shadowed by the German U-Boat U-30, commanded by Kapitanleutnant Fritz Julius Lemp, who had detected this darkened vessel steering an erratic course at 16:30. By 19:40, Lemp was convinced that the vessel he could see was an Armed Merchant Cruiser, although he made no effort to check his facts. When the two vessels were between Rockall and Tory Island, he fired two torpedoes at the liner, both of which struck with devastating consequences. Once satisfied that his prey was sinking, Lemp departed the scene, making no attempt to rescue survivors or to check exactly what sort of vessel he had sunk.

Fortunately, Athenia though severely damaged, took some fourteen hours to sink which allowed rescue vessels, including the destroyers HMSs Electra and Escort, the Swedish yacht Southern Cross, the Norwegian tanker Knute and the American liner City of Flint to pick up survivors. Sadly, some 98 passengers and 19 crew members perished in the sinking. Amongst those killed was a 10 year old Canadian girl, Margaret Hayworth - the first Canadian killed in the war as well as the first Americans - 28 of them in fact, which raised fears in Germany that America would be dragged into the war almost before it had started. 

Fritz-Julius Lemp with Admiral Donitz (Bundesarchiv)

In Germany, it was quickly realised that a bad mistake had been made. Lemp was sworn to secrecy and the U-boat's log was filleted in order to try and conceal the fact that it had been indeed responsible. Much misinformation was circulated by Dr Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry, even to the absurd lengths that the British had mined the ship themselves, or that Winston Churchill had had a concealed bomb exploded aboard the Athenia, all in order to bring the United States into the war. Whilst most people saw through these lies for what they were, it was not until the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials in 1946 that Admiral Erich Raeder, the then head of the Kriegsmarine admitted the truth that Lemp and the U-30 was indeed responsible. By this time, Lemp was no longer alive to answer for his actions, having been killed when his next command, U-110 was captured in the North Atlantic by HMS Bulldog in the same action that saw the Allies capture their first complete Enigma Machine complete with spare rotor wheels and code books.

There was no Phoney War at sea and whilst this first sinking was as a result of an offensive act by a foe which was to become only too familiar in the coming years, the vigorous prosecution of the war at sea was to be overseen by the man who was to become Nemesis to the Nazis - Winston Churchill.

Published Sources:

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

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

Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters 1939-42 - Clay Blair, Cassell

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