Multiple air strikes on Barcelona by Spanish insurgents continue night and day. Nine swift rebel bombers dumped new death into Barcelona’s streets today in the eighth raid in twenty-two hours. The toll for the raids was 51 dead and 153 wounded. Three rebel planes raided the government naval base at Cartagena. About a dozen bombs were dropped but the report from the southeastern Mediterranean port gave no details of casualties or damage.
Loyalist troops abandon the Segre battle after 16 days, saying it was never more than a diversion. Crushing of the Spanish government’s salient on the west bank of the Segre River south of Lérida was reported today in rebel dispatches. The loyalists took the Segre sector in northeast Spain on November 7. Rebels were reported to have thrown back the government troops to positions they held before undertaking their offensive. The final operations on the west bank of the river succeeded with the recapture of the village of Seros. The rebel garrison of Seros, which had been cut off near the Seros bridgehead, was relieved as government troops withdrew to the Segre’s east bank.
Hitler ordered his military to prepare for an occupation of Danzig. Adolf Hitler ordered his top military leaders to prepare plans for the invasion of the Free City of Danzig, but careful to include that it was not to include war with Poland.
Angered over decrees lengthening the 40-hour work-week, French workers expanded strikes from the northeast to Paris. Police used tear gas to remove 12,000 workers in a Renault plant. Mobile guards tonight battled strikers occupying the Renault automobile works in Paris. The outbreak accompanied a wave of strikes in northern France and the Paris region which, at the peak, involved more than 74,000 workers. Dozens of men were injured on both sides, and much of the Paris factory’s machinery was reported wrecked before the Renault strikers, estimated to number several thousands, left the plant. The workers had barricaded themselves inside the workshops and barred doors with armored cars and tanks manufactured by the plant.
The guards, commanded by Roger Langeron, Paris police prefect, charged through back entrances after hurling tear gas bombs through the windows. A pitched battle developed inside, with strikers using wrenches and hammers to combat the blows of rifle butts. Premier Édouard Daladier assumed complete control of measures to fight the strikes, and the guards were sent into action as a result. The strikes had been called in opposition to the government’s decree law for lengthening the forty-hour week. The premier told police to clear important Paris factories. Daladier took charge of the antistrike efforts by virtue of his own position as premier and a special decree by President Albert Lebrun giving him authority to act for Minister of Interior Albert Sarraut. The latter is on his way back to Paris from Ankara, Turkey, where he attended President Ataturk’s funeral.
Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Foreign Minister Viscount Halifax meet in Paris with their French counterparts, discussing defense, the Reich, and the Spanish civil war.
Chamberlain and Halifax also call on Duke and Duchess of Windsor in Paris. Chamberlain is rumored to support the duke, the former King Edward, returning to England.
Following the suggestion of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain and Premier Edouard Daladier of France, King Carol II of Rumania called on Reichsführer Hitler today on his way home from visits in London and Paris. King Carol and his son, Crown Prince Michael, spent five hours at Hitler’s mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden, Bavaria. The Rumanian monarch and the Führer conferred in the latter’s study. Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was present. Problems affecting central and southeastern Europe were discussed, especially political, economic and cultural questions affecting Germany and Rumania. During the discussions Crown Prince Michael and other members of the Rumanian staff strolled in the hills. Hitler welcomed his guests at the doorstep of his residence and escorted them to their automobile when they left for Munich to catch their train for Bucharest.
Earlier in the day Hitler received Oswald Pirow, defense minister of the Union of South Africa. The two talked for an hour. Whether Hitler’s demands for colonies were brought up during the discussion was not known.
Jewish leaders in Vienna today estimated the number of dead as a result of recent violent actions against Jews at 70. Forty deaths were attributed to suicides and thirty to injuries. The number of deaths in concentration camps is not known.
Associated Press dispatches from Vienna last night said a new roundup of foreign Jews and those unable to produce satisfactory citizenship documents was under way with an estimated 300 already arrested. Those taken into custody included chiefly Polish and Rumanian Jews whose citizenship was contested by their respective governments.
The Vienna city council has decided to rename 97 streets bearing Jewish names at a cost of $4,000.
Although under official Nazi decrees Jews were allowed to keep business establishments until January 1, Nazi authorities are playing a cat and mouse game with Jewish businessmen. Some Jews are permitted to open their stores for a few hours. Then they are ordered to close them again. The Jews are threatened with arrest if they call at the police station with the text of anti-Jewish decrees in their hands.
Anti-Semitic rioting injures 38 Jewish men and women in Johannesburg, South Africa. Of those injured, two were reportedly shot and one was stabbed. The violence started after fascists broke up an anti-fascist demonstration.
Thanksgiving Day in the United States. President Roosevelt spends the holiday in Warm Springs, Georgia.
A Thanksgiving snowstorm began along the eastern seaboard of the United States that killed 44 people overnight. Snow was reported as far south as Alabama. Air traffic was reported at a standstill all across the eastern states.
Rep. Dies says that Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins should resign. Representative Martin Dies (D-Texas), chairman of the house committee investigating un-American activities, tonight told three executives of the administration to do the country a favor and resign. He said that the resignations of Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, and Works Progress Administration leader Harry L. Hopkins would do more to restore normal conditions in this country than anything else. He also called for a complete cleanout of the army of satellites which these officials brought into office. Dies said that an overwhelming majority of Democrats desire such a purge and believe that it would “restore peace and harmony to the Democratic party and, what is more, confidence in government.”
Dies singled out Mr. Ickes for particular attention. Ickes, irked by disclosures of the Dies committee that he is a member of the American Civil Liberties union, which has been identified before the committee as a communist front organization, yesterday denounced Dies and the committee’s work. Ickes, who was forced to admit membership in the ACLU, attacked Dies and called him “the outstanding zany (fool or simpleton) in our political history.” Evidence given by witnesses before the Dies committee repeatedly has connected other high officials in the Roosevelt administration with the American League for Peace and Democracy, which was organized and controlled by the communists.
“Angels with Dirty Faces,” starring Jimmy Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Pat O’Brien, and the Dead End Kids, premiers. Cagney is chosen “Best Actor” by the New York Film Critics Circle, and is nominated for an Oscar.
The Clifford Odets play “Rocket to the Moon” premiered at the Belasco Theatre in New York City.
National Semi-Pro Basketball Congress authorizes yellow basketball.
Mexico reveals seizure of 2 million acres (3,100 square miles) in the northeast, an extension of the west Texas oil field, from U.S. owners.
Japanese troops are still stalled in their drive south to Changsha. Fighting comes within 20 miles of Hong Kong. In South China warfare came within twenty miles of the British crown colony of Hong Kong when Japanese troops opened a pincer drive to wipe out Chinese forces east of Canton. On the central front, Japanese driving south along the Canton-Hankow Railway were reported to have been stopped.
The Japanese army reported today that operations against guerrillas throughout North China had come to a head with a series of battles in several provinces. The heaviest engagement was said to have been in Shantung province, where Japanese reported 3,500 Chinese were trapped near Chenchiakou. Most of them were killed when they attempted to escape. Near Tungchang, 1,000 guerrillas were reported killed in an all-night battle. Another 2,000 were said to have been killed at Hsuchien, in northern Kiangsu province.
Guerilla troops in Honan and southern Shansi attack and burn Japanese-held rail stations and tracks.
Born:
Oscar Robertson, American Olympic and NBA point guard (Hall of Fame, inducted 1980; Olympics, gold medal, 1960; NBA Champions-Bucks, 1971; NBA All-Star, 1961-1972; Cincinnati Royals, Milwaukee Bucks), in Charlotte, Tennessee.
Nelson Toburen, NFL linebacker (NFL Champions-Packers, 1961; Green Bay Packers), in Boulder, Colorado.
Glen Amerson, NFL cornerback (Philadelphia Eagles), in Munday, Texas.
Charles Starkweather, murderer, in Lincoln, Nebraska (d. 1959).
Carol Mayo Jenkins, American actress (“Fame”), in Knoxville, Tennessee.
David Newell, American actor (Mr. McFeely-“Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”), in O’Hara Township, Pennsylvania.
Died:
Prince Johann Georg of Saxony, 69.
History Diaries 