World War II Diary: Wednesday, December 21, 1938

Photograph: German troops in a trench during close-combat training at a military academy in Döberitz, Germany, 21st December 1938. (Photo by FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Lord Gort recommended the British Chiefs of Staff that the United Kingdom must assist France in the defense of the Low Countries should they be challenged by Germany. To achieve this, he advocated the improvement of British infantry and armored divisions.

Britain will spend £20 million to reinforce private homes to withstand air raids. Sir John Anderson outlined a government plan in the House of Commons to construct steel air-raid shelters in back yards around Britain. The cost was set at £20 million for 20 million persons.

Captain Anthony Eden, former British foreign secretary, returned to England tonight from the United States. Soon after his arrival political sources disclosed that he has been invited by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to rejoin the cabinet early in the new year. The cabinet is worried by complaints over the rearmament muddle and it was suggested that Eden would be given the job of heading the defense departments. Whether he will consent to emerge from political exile was not divulged. Eden quit as foreign secretary last February after clashing with Chamberlain over the latter’s policy of appeasing dictators, particularly Premier Mussolini of Italy. At the time the British government began negotiating with Italy for a friendship accord.

The General Confederation of Labor called upon the French nation today to boycott Japanese merchandise which it said was “spattered with the blood of Chinese workers and peasants.” “Not one penny for the imperialist brigands,” said the plea. “Refuse all Japanese merchandise and you will aid rapid victory and civilization.” At the same time the Association of Friends of the Chinese people issued a detailed list of Japanese objects sold in France and named several chains of stores where they were on sale.

The Nazi drive for seizing all unemployed persons in Germany and compelling them to work on Reichsführer Hitler’s system of automobile highways, fortifications on the western border facing France, or other projects “benefitting the public welfare” is well under way. It was announced today that in a raid in Hamburg on institutions for the destitute, Salvation Army homes, and inns in the harbor district, 118 jobless persons were apprehended. They were given medical inspections. Ninety-nine were found to be physically fit. The remaining nineteen were declared “partly qualified for work.” The physically fit were sent to work the same day.

Nazi Germany banned Jews from serving as midwives.

Poland’s Parliament asks for a speedy emigration of all Jews.

Rumania releases 130 pro-Nazi Iron Guards from concentration camps.

Hoping to stop terrorism, Slovakia’s Cabinet plans a plebiscite in areas ceded to Hungary.

Eight Catalan towns in Spain today bore the brunt of insurgent bombing attacks. At least twenty-seven persons were killed and eighty-nine wounded, most of the victims in Manresa, thirty miles northwest of Barcelona, the loyalist capital. It was the first bombing of the war in that city of about 30,000 persons. Twelve were killed and sixty-five wounded as the bombs hit the center of the city and destroyed thirty houses.

Tarrega, thirty miles east of Lérida. was heavily bombed for forty-five minutes. Communications were crippled when twenty-five planes dropped 200 bombs, killing seven and wounding fourteen. Two pursuit planes escorted the bombers, reports said, flying low to machine-gun the city. Two thousand rescuers tonight were reported to be pulling bodies from the wreckage. One person was killed in the bombing of Borjas Blancas by ten planes. Vich, bombed earlier, counted seven dead and ten wounded. Also bombed were Calaf, Valls, Vilallonga, and Pla de Cabra.

Spanish rebels were reported concentrating thousands of troops on the Tarragona front of eastern Spain tonight for a large-scale offensive against Barcelona. A continuous stream of troops was said to be moving up to Ebro River trenches in northeastern Spain from concentration points where they have been assembling for a month. The offensive is expected to start soon. It was understood in frontier circles that the bend of the Ebro River, where rebel forces on November 17 cleaned out a pocket held by the government for four months, had been picked as the weakest spot in the government lines.

The United States agrees to sell 500,000 bushels of wheat per month, for six months, to the Red Cross for distribution in Spain.

Compulsory registration of all Soviet workers and employees will be started Jan. 15 under a decree of the council of national commissars. Workers will be provided with identity cards under the measure, which will enable Dictator Stalin’s government to blacklist persons who lost their jobs because of drunkenness, sabotage, or absenteeism. The Moscow Pravda said the program represented a drastic attempt to bring order in the chaotic conditions in Russian industries. A similar plan was proposed seven years ago, but was dropped as the result of workers’ objections, which in many centers led to bloodshed.

Workers will be given booklets which will list their transfers from jobs, their education, salaries, bonuses, and will describe their ability. More than 30,000,000 booklets have been printed in the languages of the republics comprising the Soviet Union. Unless a person possesses one, he cannot be employed in government institutions. Persons losing their booklets will be subject to a fine of 25 rubles (5 dollars).

Germany tries to deliver a protest over Secretary Ickes’ speech of December 18, calling it “coarse and insulting.” Acting Secretary of State Welles rejects the protest. He says that Germany has shocked the American people, and points out the insults that German newspapers print against U.S. leaders.

A report gained strength on Capitol Hill today that the Works Progress administration, the New Deal’s greatest spending agency, is slated for a burial without honors at the next session of congress. Informed congressmen predicted that the WPA and its system of work relief will go out of existence and a new method of distributing federal funds for the relief of unemployment substituted. Some thought the social security board might take over the job; others believed a new department of welfare, such as suggested in the reorganization program, but under the strict control of congress, would be set up to provide for the unemployed.

President Roosevelt and his advisers are said to have reluctantly agreed to dissolution of the WPA because of the stigma attached to the administration of that organization by Harry Hopkins. Senator James F. Byrnes, chairman of the special committee to investigate unemployment and relief, sounded the keynote of the multitudinous objections to the WPA in a recent New York speech when he urged that congress provide a new formula governing the spending of government funds for the jobless. If unemployment relief is to be established as a permanent function of government, he declared, he wanted a change in the method of spending. Byrnes is regarded as a supporter of the Roosevelt administration. That the WPA and its methods will furnish the first big legislative struggle of the coming congress was assured today when Deputy Administrator Aubrey Williams asserted that unless congress voted for additional funds, the WPA program will be forced to suspend operations February 7. The appropriation of one billion, 425 million dollars for the agency had been supposed to keep it going until March 1.

A charge that the congressional investigation of the Tennessee Valley authority has been “incomplete and one sided” thus far was made today by the Republican minority of the committee. Senator James J. Davis (R-Pennsylvania) and Representatives Thomas A. Jenkins (R-Ohio) and Charles A. Wolverton (R-New Jersey) joined in a statement asserting that virtually all of the testimony presented to the committee has been from present or former officers and employees of the TVA. The committee is drafting a report to be made to congress. It has been indicated that it will ask that it be authorized to continue its investigation.

“Up to the present time only one side of the many activities to be investigated has been covered and we of the minority have continually complained of the failure to have thorough audits and investigations by trained investigators, auditors, and accountants,” the minority statement read. “Until this is done the public will not know the whole truth with respect to essential facts. From the beginning we favored a larger appropriation, so that the investigation could be done thoroughly. With the present appropriation exhausted and important portions of the task assigned to the committee unfinished, we have favored a continuation of the investigation and the appropriation of additional funds adequate to make the investigation complete.”

A demand that President Roosevelt and his leaders in congress make public their position on the question of continuing a congressional investigation into un-American activities was voiced today by Representative Martin Dies (D-Texas). Dies is chairman of the group which has disclosed the workings of communist, Fascist, and Nazi organizations in the United States. The infiltration of communists into the New Deal administration was revealed during the inquiry. President Roosevelt on two occasions has denounced the committee, which has a Democratic majority, for “unfairness” and attempting to injure New Deal candidacies.

“I want the President and his leaders to tell the American people exactly where they stand on the question of continuing my investigation,” Dies said. “I want to be dealt with frankly and honestly and I think the President, Speaker Bankhead, and Majority Leader Rayburn should state their attitude.” Dies intends to ask the next congress for $150,000 to continue the investigation. He was given only $25,000 by the last congress with the understanding that he should have the coöperation of government departments in the work. This cooperation was refused.

U.S. Navy Captain Charles Pownall was named the commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6).

A broken wheel throws 14 rail cars off the tracks 45 miles from Mexico City, killing 40 people. Most were government employees heading to Veracruz on holiday.

Argentina threw the Pan-American Conference into an uproar tonight by rejecting a completed draft of a declaration on continental solidarity and defense and tossing in her own resolution with the implication the delegates could take it or leave it. Isidoro Ruiz Moreno, Argentine delegation head, on the basis of instructions received from President Roberto Ortiz of Argentina, said the rejected draft constituted a military alliance and is therefore unacceptable to Argentina.

Japan reviles Britain and the United States in newspapers, painting the United States as a tool of Britain.

The Japanese were reported by foreign sources today to have rushed troops into Manchukuo to put down disturbances caused by units of China’s 8th Route Army which had crossed into the Japanese-dominated state. Reports from Peking said from fifteen to twenty train loads of Japanese had been crossing the border daily at Shanhaikwan for several days. The Chinese press reported trouble also was brewing in Formosa where Formosans and Chinese residents were opposing Japan’s strict war measures.

Meanwhile, Chinese reported new victories on the central front. Breaking the long deadlock on the Canton-Hankow railway, the Chinese said they had recaptured Matang station, nine miles south of Yochow, gateway to Hunan province, inflicting 300 casualties. They also asserted Chinese guerrillas in Shantung province, North China, had recaptured Changkiu, 30 miles north of Tsinan, destroying two railway stations. Three thousand fresh Japanese troops were said to have arrived at Linfen, Shansi province, to reinforce units now attempting to pacify southwestern Shansi.

Windows are smashed and motorists attacked in Burma.

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 149.58 (-0.88).

Born:

Larry Bryggman, American actor (Dr. John Dixon-“As the World Turns”), in Concord, California.

Naval Construction:

The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type VIIB U-boat U-52 is launched by F. Krupp Germaniawerft AG, Kiel (werk 587).

The Royal Navy “J”-class destroyer HMS Javelin (F 61, later G 61) is launched by the John Brown Shipbuilding & Engineering Company Ltd. (Clydebank, Scotland).

The Royal Navy Tribal-class destroyer HMS Ashanti (L 51, later F 51, finally G 51) is commissioned. Her first commanding officer is Commander William Gronow Davis, RN.