Operation Weserubung: Some of the Norwegian ports are several days’ sail, so the first Kriegsmarine ships participating in the operation sail today, 3 April 1940. Almost nobody is told the destination, they could be invading England for all the grunts know.
There are 11 task forces for the invasion, each directed at a different major city such as Oslo, Copenhagen and Trondheim. Two pocket battleships, 3 heavy and 4 light cruisers, 14 destroyers and 31 U-boats provide cover at sea, with constant Luftwaffe protection.
There is unaccustomed tension in the atmosphere in neutral quarters in Berlin tonight. It is the result of the accumulation of small bits of evidence initiated by increased military activity with the first awakenings of Spring and culminating in a speech delivered by Field Marshal Hermann Göring to the German Youth this morning. The direct inference that may be drawn from these intimations is that the static military policy of the first seven months of this war is soon to be exchanged for a dynamic course. For in his broadcast speech to the German Youth, the text of which has not been released, Marshal Göring said that Chancellor Hitler had prepared the Reich’s forces. “for a decisive blow in the west.” “It is there,” he went on, “that the decisive blow must be struck. Tomorrow you may have to take the places of your fathers and brothers who have fallen.”
The Allies are responsible for this war, Marshal Göring declared, and fate will give them the answer for their frivolity. He added: “And this fate will be theirs, through us. Now they will learn what it means to attack Germany.” Marshal Göring indicated, furthermore, that an example of the “Blitzkrieg” tactics that finished Poland in eighteen days should be heeded by the French and British. “Our enemies should take note,” he added. “We are not weaker as the result of those blows, rather endlessly stronger,” Marshal Göring asserted. “Just as we struck a blow there, we will strike them — of this I am sacredly convinced — when the time comes to show that Germany is determined to make an end of this war. “With our rear and flanks free, our mighty German armed forces on land, sea and in the air stand opposite England and France in the West as a closed iron block. The determining blow must fall there. For this decision the Führer has called all his forces together. When each does his duty, the decision cannot be other than German victory.”
Neville Chamberlain performed a reshuffle of his war ministry. Lord Chatfield resigns his post as Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence. Winston Churchill became chairman of the Military Coordinating Committee, Kingsley Wood became Lord Privy Seal, The Lord Woolton became Minister of Food, Robert Hudson took over as Minister of Shipping and Hugh Elles became Chief of the Operational Staff of Civil Defense Services. The position of Minister for Co-ordination of Defence was abolished and its duties dispersed across other departments.
Winston Churchill resigns as Minister for the Coordination of Defense and is appointed to chair the Ministerial Defense Committee, significantly increasing his responsibilities, even though he had not been successful in his previous post. One of his first acts is to obtain consent for the mining of the Norwegian Leads.
The British cabinet approved Operation WILFRED, Winston Churchill’s plan to mine the sea routes between Norway, Sweden and Germany and for Anglo-French landings in Norway to forestall a German invasion there, which British intelligence believed was imminent. However, the British government still dithered about implementing the plan due to Norway’s neutrality.
On the Allied side, there remains much sentiment for an Allied invasion of Norway. However, the inefficiencies of war by committee surface, as the French and British cannot agree on details or, in fact, a plan at all. Leaks to the British press also have given the public the impression that it is only the British who are interested in invading Norway, whereas there is no hint that the Germans have the same idea and are actually acting on it.
The Times, in one of those later-awkward editorials, proclaims “All Scandinavia breathes easier today” because the threat of Allied or German military intervention “is largely over.”
British intelligence advised of a German military buildup in northern German ports, suggesting that an invasion somewhere in Scandinavia was imminent.
Colonel Oster of the German Abwehr alerts the Dutch military attaché and a contact in the Vatican about the impending German invasion of Denmark and Norway.
There are skirmishes along the border in France.
The Nazis discontinue old-age pensions first established by Bismarck, rationalizing that after final victory, the “plutocrats in Paris and London” will take care of that.
The Luxembourg Government provides all 300,000 residents with an evacuation plan in case of “emergency.”
A French military tribunal, pushing the government’s drive to stamp out Communist influence in France, today imposed maximum five-year sentences on 36 former Communist members of the chamber of deputies. Eight other of 44 on trial for disseminating Communist propaganda also were found guilty but because of extenuating circumstances re-received suspended four-year sentences. All lose their civil rights, however, and must pay fines ranging up to 5,000 francs (about $112.50).
Premier Paul Reynaud told America tonight that “France and England are strong and strong enough to win” the war and would accept no “phony” peace with Chancellor Hitler. France has “forged the weapon” against totalitarian Germany and “now we are going to use it,” he said.
Relations between the Vatican and Germany have deteriorated since the visit of Joachim von Ribbentrop, German Foreign Minister, to the Pope, it was admitted in a Vatican English broadcast last evening.
In Rumanian oil quarters it is said the Germans are continuing their petroleum purchases on a large scale and that they have recently bought from one Rumanian company 47,000 tons of oil.
While deliveries of farm products and raw materials by Russia to Germany still are being carefully hidden by both sides, causing much guessing and speculation abroad, the best available information indicates shipments are gradually getting under way although it may still take considerable time before the quantities expected by Berlin will be reached.
A pro-Axis government came to power in Iraq.
Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal succeeded Air Marshal Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt as Air Officer Commanding in Chief of Bomber Command. Portal advocated strategic area bombing against German industrial areas instead of bombing of specific factories or plants. He gave the first order to bomb Berlin on August 25 1940 which resulted in the shift of the Luftwaffe from bombing RAF airfields to bombing London.
Flight Lieutenant Ryder of No. 41 Squadron RAF became the first RAF pilot to be shot down on home defense duties when he ditched his Spitfire fighter in the sea off Redcar, England, United Kingdom after bringing down a Heinkel 111 bomber. Ryder and the German crew were picked up safely.
A British Short Sunderland flying boat on patrol off Norway attacked by six Junkers Ju 88 aircraft successfully shot one down, forced another to land immediately, and drove the rest away.
The RAF turns to an age-old solution to inform base of information from reconnaissance planes without breaking radio silence: homing pigeons. The RAF has a fleet of 500,000 homing pigeons to carry messages back to the UK. The homing pigeons are amazingly reliable and can fly through all sorts of whether and deliver the mail, though at times it takes a few days.
The first echelon of Kriegsmarine ships sails for the invasion of Norway. The supply ships bound for Narvik are disguised as civilian cargo ships. Over the next few days 26 merchantmen carrying 8,105 tons of Army stores, 2,660 vehicles and 1,641 horses set out, plus four tankers with fuel for the warships that would be carrying the invasion force.
Polish submarine ORP Orzeł, now part of Royal Navy’s 2nd Submarine Flotilla, under the command of Vice-Admiral Max Horton, leaves Rosyth to take up station off Kristiansand.
The British trawler Gorspen was bombed and severely damaged in the North Sea 20 nautical miles (37 km) east by south of Muckle Flugga, Shetland Islands by a Heinkel He 111 aircraft of KG26, Luftwaffe and was abandoned by her crew. The Luftwaffe claimed she was sunk.
The British trawler Sansonnet was bombed and sunk in the North Sea 18 nautical miles (33 km) east by south of Muckle Flugga by a Luftwaffe aircraft. All ten crew were lost.
Destroyers HMS Javelin, HMS Juno and HMS Eclipse departed convoy HN.23B after dark to proceed directly to Rosyth for duty escorting convoy ON.25
Convoy OG.24 forms at sea for Gibraltar.
Convoys OA.120G and OB.120G joined to form convoy OG.24 with fifty-four ships. On the 3rd, destroyer HMS Wakeful detached to escort convoy HG.24, and destroyer HMS Montrose detached on the 4th. French destroyer Lynx and auxiliary patrol vessel Minerva escorted the convoy from the 3rd to 8th. The convoy was joined near Gibraltar by destroyer HMS Velox from the 6th to 8th, when the convoy arrived at Gibraltar.
Convoy FN.136 departed Southend, escorted by destroyer HMS Vimiera and sloop HMS Londonderry. The convoy arrived at the Tyne on the 5th.
Convoy MT.43 departed Methil, escorted by destroyer HMS Vivien, sloop HMS Pelican, and anti-submarine trawlers of the 23rd Anti-Submarine Group. The convoy arrived in the Tyne later that day.
Convoy FS.137 departed the Tyne, escorted by destroyer HMS Vivien and sloop HMS Pelican. The convoy arrived at Southend on the 5th.
The War at Sea, Wednesday, 3 April 1940 (naval-history.net)
Destroyers FORTUNE and FORESTER en route from Plymouth to the Clyde conducted an anti-submarine search in 49 36N, 06 36W after a depth charge attack by destroyers WAKEFUL and VENETIA brought up oil. Destroyers FORTUNE and FORESTER arrived in the Clyde at 2015/3rd.
Destroyers JAVELIN, JUNO, and ECLIPSE departed convoy HN.23B after dark to proceed directly to Rosyth for duty escorting convoy ON.25.
Heavy cruisers DEVONSHIRE and BERWICK and destroyers ZULU and KELVIN arrived at Rosyth in preparation for Norway operations. Destroyers ZULU and KELVIN had departed Scapa Flow at 1815/2nd.
Destroyers ESK (D.20), ICARUS, IMPULSIVE, and IVANHOE arrived at Scapa Flow at 0600 with minelayer TEVIOTBANK. The destroyers refueled, departed Scapa Flow at 1100/3rd, and arrived at Sullom Voe at 1925/3rd.
Destroyer DIANA departed Rosyth to take part in a Bomber Command Interception exercise. After the exercise, destroyer DIANA proceeded to the Humber to repair asdic direction gear. Destroyer DIANA arrived at Hull at 0645/5th.
Destroyer BEAGLE brought the British CIGS back from Boulogne, arriving at Dover at 1730.
Convoys OA.120G and OB.120G joined to form convoy OG.24 with fifty-four ships. On the 3rd, destroyer WAKEFUL detached to escort convoy HG.24, and destroyer MONTROSE detached on the 4th. French destroyer LYNX and auxiliary patrol vessel MINERVA escorted the convoy from the 3rd to 8th. The convoy was joined near Gibraltar by destroyer VELOX from the 6th to 8th, when the convoy arrived at Gibraltar.
Convoy FN.136 departed Southend, escorted by destroyer VIMIERA and sloop LONDONDERRY. The convoy arrived at the Tyne on the 5th.
Convoy MT.43 departed Methil, escorted by destroyer VIVIEN, sloop PELICAN, and anti-submarine trawlers of the 23rd Anti-Submarine Group. The convoy arrived in the Tyne later that day.
Convoy FS.137 departed the Tyne, escorted by destroyer VIVIEN and sloop PELICAN. The convoy arrived at Southend on the 5th.
NORWEGIAN CAMPAIGN
FIRST GERMAN SHIPPING MOVEMENTS
The German supply ships for the Norwegian invasion began to leave Hamburg. At 0200/3rd, steamers RAUENFELS (8460grt), ALSTER (8514grt), and BARENFELS (7569grt) departed for Narvik. At 2100/4th, steamer SAO PAULO (4977grt) departed for Trondheim. At 0200/5th, steamers LEVANTE (4769grt), and MAIN (7624grt) departed for Trondheim. At 0200/7th, steamer RODA (6780grt) departed for Stavanger.
German tanker KATTEGAT (6031grt) departed Wilhelmshaven for Narvik to refuel the German invasion Group I. German tanker SKAGERRAK (6044grt) departed Wilhelmshaven on the 4th for Trondheim to refuel German invasion Group II. In addition, German tanker JAN WELLEM (11,776grt) departed Murmansk during the evening of 6 April for Narvik.
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Trawler GORSPEN (208grt) was bombed and badly damaged by a German He.111 of KG.26, and abandoned 31 miles northeast of the Outer Skerries, 20 miles east by south of Muckle Flugga. The entire crew was rescued. (Note: Luftwaffe records claim she was sunk)
Trawler SANSONNET (212grt) was sunk by German bombing eighteen miles east by south of Muckle Flugga.
Heavy cruiser DORSETSHIRE was at Simonstown with defects. On 18 April, she was able to proceed to Devonport for refitting completed on 7 June.
In the nation’s capital today, President Roosevelt received from Senator Bilbo, and tentatively accepted, an invitation to speak in Mississippi during his contemplated visit to the Pacific Coast next Summer. He discussed domestic and foreign affairs with Senator King and relief conditions in North Dakota with Governor Moses of that State.
The Senate completed Congressional action on the $92,035,408 First Deficiency Bill, considered the resolution providing for extension of the trade treaty program, received the Davis bill to create a Congressional Budget Service and recessed at 5:35 PM, until noon tomorrow.
The House received the $785,999,094 War Department Appropriation Bill, discussed various legislative proposals, and adjourned at 5:19 PM, until 11 AM, tomorrow. The Labor Committee reported amendments to the National Labor Relations Act and the Dies committee questioned witnesses regarding Communist party activity in Massachusetts.
Tuesday’s elections impressed many quarters that the Draft Roosevelt movement had been strengthened within the Democratic Party but there also were predictions of Democratic troubles in November. None disputed the fact that presidential prospects of Thomas E. Dewey had been increased by his 2 to 1 victory over Senator Vandenberg of Michigan in the Wisconsin Republican presidential primary. Politicians were impressed by an eastern city man proving a big vote getter in western farmlands. On the Democratic side, President Roosevelt’s adherents dealt a blow to the anti-third term campaign of Vice- President Garner with a 3 to 1 victory in Wisconsin and margins running as high as 5 to 1 in New York City.
The strength shown by Thomas E. Dewey in the Wisconsin Republican primary came as a great surprise to conservative party leaders in Washington. Those supporting Senator Taft or Senator Vandenberg had hoped to defeat the young New Yorker in his first major battle and thereby stop him in coming primaries.
A Senate appropriations subcommittee, despite President Roosevelt’s admonition against such increases, today added $25,000,000 for rivers and harbors and flood control projects to raise the total in the pending War Department civil functions measure $70,000,000 above the House-approved figure and about $53,000,000 above Bureau of the Budget estimates. This action coincided with an attack in the House by Representative John Taber, Republican, of New York, on the Senate for its “spending” proclivities. Ignoring the rules of comity which preclude a member of one legislative unit from attacking the other body, the economy leader said: “I wish the Senate could have some regard for the taxpayers and the credit of the United States.”
A single prospective juror, a Negro, was seated tentatively in the jury box in the Brooklyn Federal Court yesterday as the trial of seventeen men indicted for conspiring to overthrow the government of the United States by force, and for the alleged theft of munitions and other government property, began before Judge Marcus B. Campbell.
Beginning Tuesday, April 30, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt will make her debut as the star of a commercial radio program to be broadcast nationally twice a week for fifteen minutes over the Red Network of the National Broadcasting Company, it was announced last night.
A young Boston Communist told the Dies committee today the Young Communist league had branches at Harvard and some of the country’s other best-known schools, but defied the committee to make him name students involved. The witness risking a committee contempt citation was Thomas Francis Patrick O’Dea, better known as “Pat,” president of the Young Communist league of Massachusetts. Seventy-five to 100 of the 350-odd members of the Young Communist League of Massachusetts are students in New England colleges and universities, O’Dea told the Dies Committee investigating un-American activities today.
The House began consideration today of the War Department’s 1941 Appropriation Bill, providing $785,999,094 to carry forward the national defense program.
The House Labor Committee approved today a bill to amend the National Labor Relations Act, offered yesterday by its chairman, Representative Mary T. Norton, and instructed her to use “all possible parliamentary procedures” to have the measure considered.
A jury deliberated 15 minutes late today to find Robert Emanuel, 23, of Indianapolis, guilty of first degree murder in the “one cent” slaying last Feb. 5 of Floyd Brumbaugh, 42, a Goshen, Indiana, tourist. The jury recommended life imprisonment. Conviction of Emanuel was termed the “shortest and strangest” trial in Las Vegas history. In three days of a trial a jury was chosen, arguments made and a verdict returned. Emanuel, who pleaded not guilty, confessed on the witness stand. He walked into the Las Vegas police station after hitchhiking across the desert with Brumbaugh, placed a gun before the desk sergeant and said “I’ve just killed a man.” He said he shot Brumbaugh for his money, but found only one cent in his pockets.
A new wonder-working chemical named sulfathiazole, the latest “relative” of the sulfanilamide group of “magic bullets,” which promises to become the greatest weapon against a host of deadly bacterial infections for which no effective measures existed until now, was described in Cleveland today before the annual congress of the American College of Physicians.
The American fishing vessel Lone Eagle was sunk off Point Arguello, California in a collision with U.S. Navy destroyer USS Crosby (DD-164). Her seven crew were rescued by USS Crosby.
Alexander Cambridge, the Earl of Athlone, was appointed the 16th Governor-General of Canada. The appointment of the 66-year-old Earl of Athlone, King George’s uncle and Queen Mary’s brother, as Governor General of Canada, succeeding Lord Tweedsmuir, who died in Montreal on February 11, was announced tonight.
Alexander Augustus Frederick William Alfred George Cambridge, first Earl of Athlone, younger brother of Queen Mary, is one of the most distinguished soldiers of the royal family. He has served in India, South Africa, France and Belgium. Since 1936 he has been personal aide de camp to his nephew, King George VI, and has lived in close touch with the royal household.
Canada’s supreme task in the present conflict is to make every sacrifice short of impairing her as a sovereign nation, to bring the United States into the war on the side of the Allies, Attorney General Gordon Conant of Ontario said here tonight.
A writer in the Communist Youth organ Komsomblskaya Pravda in Moscow today declares the session of the Japanese parliament has disappointed hopes that the new Cabinet would soon liquidate the war in China. He labels it as a new cabinet with the same old policy.
Second Battle of Wuyuan: Chinese 8th War Area recovers Hsishantzu as Japanese forces withdraw to the east. The Battle of Wuyuan ended in Chinese victory.
The Chinese Air Force was officially reported today by Chungking to have destroyed thirty Japanese planes in a raid yesterday on the Japanese Army’s main North China air base at Yangcheng, South Shansi Province. In additional raids, the Chinese said, their airmen bombed and fired Japanese gasoline tanks and munition dumps at Yochow, Hunan Province. The Shansi raid was described as retaliation for Japanese attacks on unfortified cities, including Sian and Loyang.
Destruction of a mission of the American Christian and Missionary Alliance during a Japanese air raid on March 19 on Taiping, in Anḥwei province, was reported in dispatches received here today. The Chinese caretaker was killed in the bombing.
The Norwegian cargo ship Produce ran aground in the Paracel Islands and was wrecked.
There is no question of any change in British policy on the Far East, Parliament was assured today. Viscount Halifax, Foreign Secretary, explained in the House of Lords that Great Britain still recognized the Nationalist Government of China at Chungking and wished to see the Sino-Japanese war settled on equitable terms. This attitude, however, is not incompatible with a wish to see Anglo-Japanese relations on a better footing, the Foreign Secretary said. For that reason he praised British Ambassador Sir Robert L. Craigie’s recent speech in Tokyo, which had given rise to reports that Britain would recognize Japan’s conquests in China.
An indicated weakening of Japan’s economic structure, caused by the strain of the continuing war in China, was the outstanding factor reported in a survey of the economic conditions in Japan in 1939 and made public today by the U.S. Commerce Department.
A spokesman for the Japanese Admiralty issued a warning to the British Navy today not to institute a close-range blockade of the Russian port of Vladivostok by saying that any “illegal” activity would compel the Japanese Navy to “take action.”
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 149.65 (+1.73)
Born:
Tom Hall, NFL flanker and safety (Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings, New Orleans Saints), in Wilmington, Delaware (d. 2017).
José Vidal, Dominican MLB outfielder and pinch hitter (Cleveland Indians, Seattle Pilots), in Batey Lechuga, Dominican Republic (d. 2011).
John Windsor, NBA power forward (San Francisco Warriors), in Kansas City, Missouri.
Roger Burman, English head of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, in Birmingham, England, United Kingdom.
Died:
Ernst Heilmann, 58, German socialist politician (murdered at Buchenwald concentration camp).
Naval Construction:
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type VIIC U-boat U-376 is laid down by Howaldtswerke AG, Kiel (werk 7).
The U.S. Navy Gar-class submarine USS Grayback (SS-208) is laid down by the Electric Boat Co. (Groton, Connecticut, U.S.A.).
The Royal Navy British Power Boat 70 foot-type motor anti-submarine boat HMS MA/SB 7 is commissioned.
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