Northern Catalan towns in Spain are bombed, and two British ships are damaged by insurgent-dropped bombs. Government dispatches said five insurgent planes plunged 50 bombs on the port section of Barcelona at 11 a.m., several projectiles striking the British ships Stanwell and Stangrove. No casualties were reported. Many were reported killed and wounded during raids last night on the villages of Torregrasa, Tudela de Segre, Puig, Pelt, and Artesa de Segre. These towns are in Northern Catalonia near Borgas Blancas, which was a target last week for violent bombing attacks. The insurgents made a thrust at dawn today in the Nules sector of the eastern front which the government said it had repulsed. At first believed to have been a renewal of the long-dormant drive to the coast of Valencia, the attack did not develop and was taken as one of a series of raids which the insurgents have been making for prisoners and to obtain information in preparation for an expected general offensive on Valencia,
Four new corps are added to Germany’s army, bringing it to 1 million strong.
Jewish quarters today said that arrests of Jews are continuing in various parts of Germany. Many who stayed hidden away from their homes during the arrest wave of November 10 now are being rounded up quietly, reports said. Word also came from the Nazi dominated Free City of Danzig of large-scale raids in search of Jews within the last few days. All Jewish boarding houses, hotels, and homes in Danzig, Zoppot, and Olive were said to have been searched. It was reported that Jews who could not prove they had regular employment or who could not produce passports were pushed across the border of neighboring Poland.
A police decree in Nazi Germany by Reinhard Heydrich authorized presidents of administrative districts to order restrictions on freedom of movement for Jews.
Among the Jews arrested during Kristallnacht, the release of young people under the age of sixteen was ordered, as was the release of “front fighters” (this was an exemption granted by the government of Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1935 to German Jews who had fought for Germany during the First World War but faced dismissal from official posts under anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Nazi Germany). This was not kindness; the thousands of Jews arrested were seriously taxing the existing concentration camp infrastructure. The total number of prisoners in concentration camps had doubled in an instant.
The first prototype Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor, D-ACON, began its flight from Berlin, Germany, to Tokyo, Japan, to demonstrate the long-distance capabilities of the new civil airliner. The Condor took off from Flugplatz Berlin-Staaken at 3:53 p.m., on 28 November, and flew to Basra, Kingdom of Iraq. The Great Circle distance between the two cities is 2,305 miles (3,710 kilometers). The Condor arrived at Tachikawa Airfield in the western part of Tokyo at 10:40 p.m., 30 November.
With France on the eve of a general strike of 5,000,000 workers and his own political future at stake, Premier Édouard Daladier early this morning requisitioned all public services and warned that civil servants who take part in the protest strike tomorrow against the government’s decree laws will be liable to dismissal. The public services include subway and bus systems, and water, gas, and electric plants. The premier, who yesterday returned curt “no” to proposals for a compromise with organized labor, thus showed he is determined to make good the pledge he gave the nation in a radio speech Sunday night to break the strike by all available means.
The extent to which the premier’s drastic measures will cripple the demonstration is not yet clear. Leaders of the national labor federation, which includes the majority of French industrial workers and many governmental employees, denounced the requisition measure as illegal and continued preparations for a showdown. An eleventh-hour effort to patch up the differences by compromise was to be made today. Terms of the compromise probably will be a promise by labor leaders to call off the strike in return for the government’s pledge to summon parliament as soon as possible to let the deputies vote on the stringent economy decrees and suspension of the forty-hour week which brought on a strike movement.
An attempt to avert the twenty-four-hour general strike was made yesterday by moderate political leaders with the blessing of several war veterans’ groups. The general labor federation was to be asked to call off the strike in return for an advance pledge by the government to negotiate over grievances. But when the delegation, headed by L. O. Frossard, president of the Socialist and Republican union and former minister of public works, tried to lay this peace formula before Daladier, they were informed over the telephone by the premier that he refused to make any commitments before the strike is called off. Union spokesmen gave an equally firm refusal.
Premier Daladier addresses France by radio, asking citizens to support the government.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2 premieres in Moscow, USSR.
British troops surround an Arab band south of Haifa, with air support. Eleven Arabs die, and four British soldiers are wounded. A bomb injures several Jewish men in Haifa, and two Arab men are killed in a sniping incident. Overall, authorities claim violence has been significantly reduced.
The acting comptroller general of the United States today presented to congress objections to expenditures by the Tennessee Valley authority totaling more than 6 million dollars. In a vigorous letter to the congressional committee investigating the TVA, Richard N. Elliott, the acting comptroller general, protested that the attempts of the general accounting office to audit TVA spending had been blocked in many instances by officials of the authority. Numerous examples of interference by TVA officials with investigators for the general accounting office were cited by Elliott. He disclosed the disinclination of the TVA to reveal details of spending on a strawberry project, a dairy herd purchase and sale, the printing of social and athletic circulars, and other experiments embarked upon by the government in connection with its trial of state socialization.
Because of obstacles put in the way of the accounting office, its auditors first noted exceptions to expenditures totaling $18,731,910, Elliott informed the committee. The TVA then permitted an additional inspection of its files and submitted additional evidence in support of its transactions, and the auditors removed exceptions to amounts totaling $12,634,382. There remain, however, Elliott reported, exceptions to amounts totaling $6,157,528 which have been recommended by the auditors.
President Roosevelt today approved the report of a Filipino-American committee which decided after nineteen months’ study that full and final independence should be granted the Philippines on July 4, 1946, as now scheduled, but that mutually beneficial economic arrangements should be continued for fifteen years thereafter. The suggestion of President Manuel L. Quezon of the Philippine commonwealth that the date of independence might be advanced to 1938 or 1939 appeared abandoned in as much as Quezon likewise endorsed the joint report, made public in Washington today.
United Air Lines Trip #6 departed from Seattle, Washington, at 8:28 PM on November 28th, 1938, bound for San Diego, California. Heading for a stop at Oakland, the plane went off course and strayed over the Pacific. At 5:45 on the morning of the 29th, she went down just off Point Reyes, California. Seven of the nine people aboard were swept off the plane as it began to batter against the rocky shore. The Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) found that probable cause of the crash of United Airlines Trip #6 was the, “Failure of the pilot to definitely establish the position of the aircraft through standard orientation procedures within a reasonable time after intersecting a leg of the Oakland radio range at 3:17 A.M., and of company flight dispatchers, charged with the responsibilities of directing the operation of the trip, to properly safeguard the flight, resulting in forced landing of the aircraft at sea due to exhausted fuel supply.”
None of the men promised by the AFL show up for work at the Chicago stockyards. Negotiations with the CIO continue.
German immigrant artist George Groz becomes an American citizen.
Chicago White Sox 25-year-old pitching star Monty Stratton has his leg amputated following a hunting accident.
Quarterback Davey O’Brien of Texas Christian University won the Heisman Trophy.
General Hideki Tojo, Vice Minister of War, tells Japan’s munitions manufacturers that the country must be able to fight wars on two fronts: China and the Soviet Union.
Japan and Great Britain cannot see problems regarding China eye to eye and are dangerously near, if not already in, the mudslinging stage. This became apparent to observers here today in speeches by Japanese leaders and newspaper editorials attacking England. Lieutenant General Hideki Tojo, vice minister of war, warned that “it has become impossible to anticipate when Great Britain will look the new situation in East Asia in the face and awaken to the realization that cooperation with Japan is the only true means of solving the problem.”
He charged that Britain was backing Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, China’s dictator, to the limit because of fear that the success of Japan’s continental policy may disturb the foundation of British rights and interests in China and may menace. Singapore, Australia and India. Therein, he said, lies Britain’s assistance to Chiang. Tojo said that inquiry into the causes of continued resistance by the generalissimo reveals this is due largely to British, Soviet Russian, and French assistance, both material and spiritual, to the Chinese national government. This being so, he said, Japan must be prepared for a long military campaign. He sounded a plea to leaders of munitions and other wartime industries not to relax their efforts.
“A Soviet-Japanese conflict apparently is inevitable,” Tojo said. “There is every possibility that Russia and China may band together as soon as the soviet completes preparations. There is no doubt that the Soviet Union is hastily replenishing heavy industries and bolstering armaments in preparation for a conflict.” The vice minister of war declared the attitude of the United States toward the Chinese-Japanese war was neutral, but said “I must call attention to the fact that the United States government is sticking to old treaties and is unwilling to recognize the changed situation in the Far East.”
Three Chinese residents were killed yesterday by shells falling three miles inside the British crown colony of Hong Kong where hundreds of Chinese soldiers sought refuge from Japanese mopping up the surrounding territory. Several British soldiers were endangered by stray shells and machine-gun bullets, but none was hit. Only one town in the border area was left in the hands of Chinese guerrillas, at whom the Japanese were aiming their campaign around Hong Kong. It was estimated 1,000 guerrillas clung to possession of the town of Stataukok. Fires were raging in other nearby towns. Chinese soldiers fleeing into the British territory surrendered 450 rifles, hand grenades, several field guns, and other equipment. Among the refugees were 800 poorly clad, hungry Chinese troops.
Still 40 miles from Changsha, the Japanese force is said to be digging in for the winter. Other divisions are arrayed from Taien to Hankow, and north to Yochow.
Chinese communist politician Mao Tse-Tung (later translated Mao Zedong) (44) weds Jiang Qing (24) in a small private ceremony.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 146.14 (-2.31).
Born:
Ernie Ladd, AFL defensive tackle (AFL Champions-Chargers, 1963; AFL Pro Bowl, 1962-1965; San Diego Chargers, Houston Oilers, Kansas City Chiefs) and professional wrestler, in Rayville, Louisiana (d. 2007).
Naval Construction:
The U.S. Navy stores ship USS Aldebaran (AF-10), sole ship of her class, is laid down by the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. (Newport News, Virginia, U.S.A.).
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