Former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned his positions as Lord President of the Council and as a member of the War Cabinet because he was suffering from terminal bowel cancer. Prime Minister Winston Churchill shakes up the Cabinet. After thinking about it for almost two weeks, he finally accepts the resignation of Neville Chamberlain, the former Prime Minister. Chamberlain, unbeknownst to almost everybody, including himself, has terminal cancer and has not been at work since 19 September due to his illness. Chamberlain leaves his position as Lord President of the Council and Sir John Anderson replaces him. John Reith, the broadcasting baron, moves from the Ministry of Transport to First Commissioner of Works. Herbert Morrison, the Labour MP who has been Minister of Supply, succeeds Sir John Anderson as Home Secretary. Sir Kingsley Wood, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Ernest Bevin, Minister for Labour and National Service, join the War Cabinet.
Vichy France passed anti-Semitic laws that excluded Jews from positions in the army, government, commerce, industries, and the press. The law was signed by Philippe Pétain, Pierre Laval, Raphaël Alibert, Marcel Peyrouton, Paul Baudouin, Yves Bouthillier, Charles Huntzinger, and François Darlan.
The Vichy Supreme Court at Riom formally committed former Generalissimo Maurice Gustave Gamelin, former Premier Edouard Daladier and former Air Minister Guy la Chambre to trial today for responsibility in France’s “war guilt” case. The government, it was announced, also will present a demand for formal commitment of others of those now held in administrative custody. They include former Premiers Leon Blum and Paul Reynaud, and former Minister of the Interior Georges Mandel. No definite date has been fixed for the trial.
The acquittal of Georges Mandel on treason charges before a Moroccan military court was revealed today as a major blow to the hopes of making the former Interior Minister the chief criminal in France’s forthcoming war guilt trials.
Ramon Serrano Suner, the Spanish minister of government, postponed tonight his scheduled departure for Madrid amid unofficial forecasts of a new meeting between German and Italian leaders. Whether negotiations with Spain over its war role would be discussed was not disclosed.
Reports from Rome that Chancellor Hitler and Premier Mussolini are to meet for a personal discussion at the Brenner Pass tomorrow were neither confirmed nor denied in official quarters tonight.
All Jews in Warsaw are notified that they are to move into the Jewish district (ghetto).
Shaky Rumanian-British relations suffered a sharp setback today with the disappearance of a second prominent Briton within thirty-six hour and a summary Rumanian rejection of Britain’s protest over treatment of five more of her nationals accused of sabotaging oil operations.
The political and ideological submission of Norway to Germany has not saved the country from the fate common to all German-conquered territories—namely, more or less open expropriation of food reserves for Germany’s benefit.
The question of Malta is high on the British War Cabinet’s agenda. It now is inescapable that the Germans are not going to launch an invasion of England in 1940, so the question arises of where they might strike instead. Heretofore the Mediterranean has been an almost exclusively Italian responsibility for the Axis (aside from a few Luftwaffe raids on Malta), but it seems a likely priority for Hitler. The highest levels of the British government are set in motion to review the situation.
London, Worcester, Birmingham, and Wellingborough in England, United Kingdom were attacked by single-bomber raids. The British suffered damage at the De Havilland aircraft factory at Hatfield, while the Germans lost one Ju 88 bomber to ground-based anti-aircraft fire. Overnight, London was the target of several small German raids.
By now, on 3 October 1940, the battle has settled down to a predictable routine. The Luftwaffe sends across Jabo (fighter-bomber) raids during the day, along with occasional medium bombers mixed in, and reserves the real bombing runs for after dark. However, there is a new element about to be introduced to the Channel Front: the Italians. While not yet operational, the Italian air force units assigned to bases in Belgium begin sending observers on Luftwaffe missions. The Italians drop various odd items over England such as medallions extolling Benito Mussolini which mystifies the people on the ground.
The weather turns nasty. While a bad day for large-scale operations, it is an excellent one for “pirate raids” by lone bombers against select targets. During the morning, the Luftwaffe sends over one bomber after another, some targeting London and others RAF airfields. Birmingham, Wellingborough, the Isle of Gra (Shell offices), Rushden and the airfields at North Weald, St. Eval, and Debden catching some bombs that cause damage of random intensity.
One morning raid that accomplishes something takes place at Hatfield shortly before noontime, when a Junkers Ju 88 hits the de Havilland aircraft factory. Several important buildings are destroyed, slightly delaying the Mosquito program and killing 21 and injuring 70 more. The bomber is brought down at by anti-aircraft fire (it comes in very low) at Hertingfordbury (see picture below).
Shortly after noon, a bomber causes light damage at the Mining & Engineering Co. at Worcester. Another at about 13:30 attacks RAF Upwood, but accuracy is poor and no significant damage is done. A gas plant at Banbury receives attention around 14:40 and is put out of action with moderate damage.
Not long after 15:00, some Luftwaffe bombers stumble upon a convoy near Selsey and bomb it, but do no damage. Woodley, Cosford, Wyton, Tatsfield, Skegness, Stanton Harcourt, White Waltham, and St. Merryn are bombed, but very little damage is reported at any of those locations.
The poor weather continues through the night, and the solo raids continue. They are almost all against London, with a few forays to RAF Gravesend and Ford, but the damage is light.
RAF Fighter Command barely takes to the skies, and the only British loss is a Blenheim of No. 600 Squadron based at Hornchurch which crashed while returning to base.
British Losses:
Blenheim L4905, No. 600 Squadron
Suffered engine failure during routine patrol in heavy rain. Crashed into trees on high ground at Broadstone Warren.
P/O C.A. Hobson killed.
Sgt. D.E. Hughes killed.
AC2 C.F. Cooper killed.
Overall, the score for the day is 9 losses for the Luftwaffe and only the one Blenheim for the RAF.
RAF Bomber Command dispatches 7 Blenheims on daylight cloud-cover raids to Germany and the Channel ports. 5 aircraft bombed various targets. 6 further Blenheims on sea sweep. No losses.
RAF Bomber Command: There is some confusion over what operations were carried out on this night. Bomber Command’s Operations Record Book says that no operations were carried out because of unfavorable weather conditions but other records indicated that 6 Blenheims and 3 Wellingtons attacked various targets on the French and Dutch coasts. There were no losses.
Light cruiser HMS Sheffield departed the Clyde with destroyer HMS Versatile to escort Convoy WS 3 A (slow) from Liverpool bound for the Middle East.
Destroyer depot ship HMS Woolwich, after refitting at Liverpool, departed for duty in the Mediterranean Fleet.
HMS Sheffield joined British troopships Oropesa (14,118grt, convoy commodore), Dorset (10,624grt), Port Chalmers (8535grt), Khedive Ismael (7290grt), Erinpura (5143grt), Perthshire (10,496grt), and Highland Brigade (14,134grt) escorted by destroyers HMS Havelock, HMS Highlander, HMS Harvester, HMS Hurricane, HMS Witherington, HMS Viscount, and HMS Versatile.
HMS Sheffield turned the convoy over to heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland on the 13th. The convoy arrived at Freetown on the 16th.
After D/F readings of a probable enemy ship sixty miles off Bergen, battlecruiser HMS Hood, heavy cruisers HMS Berwick and HMS Norfolk, and available destroyers at Scapa Flow were brought to one hour’s notice. Destroyer HMS Matabele was recalled from Moray Firth patrol and arrived at Scapa Flow at 1420.
Destroyer HMS Cleveland arrived at Scapa Flow at 1300 to work up prior to joining the Nore Command.
Scapa Flow to arrive before dawn on stations — ISIS 18 miles 315° from Kinnaird Head, Duncan 15 miles 315° from Clythness. The destroyers left Moray Firth that evening and returned to Scapa Flow.
Destroyers HMS Brilliant, HMS Beagle, and HMS Bulldog arrived at Rosyth as replacements for the 5th Destroyer Flotilla destroyers sent to the Western Approaches.
Anti-aircraft ship HMS Alynbank arrived at Scapa Flow after covering convoy OA.223 near Bell Rock.
Italian submarine Glauco attacked a British transport without success in 36N, 06W.
British trawler Framlingham (169grt) was damaged by German bombing twenty miles south of Fastnet.
British trawler Iwate (314grt) was damaged by German bombing five miles northwest of Mizzen Head.
Battleships HMS Malaya and HMS Ramillies, aircraft carrier HMS Eagle, light cruiser HMS Ajax, anti-aircraft ship HMS Coventry, and destroyers HMAS Voyager, HMAS Vendetta, HMAS Vampire, HMAS Waterhen, HMS Dainty, HMS Decoy, HMS Diamond, and HMS Defender departed Alexandria to exert a threat upon enemy Libyan convoys and cover Crete. Also, light cruiser HMS Ajax and anti-aircraft ship HMS Coventry conducted exercises with aircraft carrier HMS Eagle. Ajax and Coventry arrived back at Alexandria on the 5th.
Convoy OB.223 departed Liverpool escorted by destroyer HMS Scimitar, corvettes HMS Heartsease and HMS Coreopsis, and anti-submarine trawlers HMS King Sol and HMS St Zeno. Corvette Heartsease was detached on the 5th and the other escort ships on the 6th.
Convoy FN.298 departed Southend, destroyer HMS Woolston and sloop HMS Black Swan. The convoy arrived at Methil on the 5th.
Convoy FS.299 departed Methil, escorted by destroyer HMS Verdun and sloop HMS Lowestoft. The convoy arrived at Southend on the 4th.
Armed patrol trawler HMS Forfeit (262grt) attacked a submarine contact at 1500/2nd in 57-42N, 3-52W. Destroyers HMS Duncan and HMS Isis departed Convoy SL.50 departed Freetown escorted by armed merchant cruiser HMS Pretoria Castle to 16 October and armed merchant cruiser HMS Alcantara for the day only. On 21 October, destroyer HMS Clare and corvettes HMS Anemone and HMS Clematis joined the convoy and on the 25th, anti-aircraft ship HMS Curacoa joined. The convoy arrived at Liverpool on the 26th.
Today in Washington, President Roosevelt conferred with Senator Hayden of Arizona, W. A. Ayres of the Federal Trade Commission and other visitors. The White House stated that the President would deliver a radio address at Dayton, Ohio, on October 12 in which he will report to the United States and the LatinAmerican republics on the rearmament program.
The Senate approved a bill authorizing $150,000,000 for housing workers in defense industries; passed the $199,000,000 Civil Functions Deficiency Appropriation Bill and the $1,482,000,000 Defense Deficiency Appropriation Bill; approved the conference report on the Ramspeck Civil Service Bill and recessed at 5:57 PM until noon tomorrow.
The House sent to conference the Civil Functions Deficiency Appropriation Bill, completed Congressional action on the $1,482,000,000 Defense Deficiency Appropriation Bill, passed a bill suspending civil liabilities of trainees and guardsmen called to military service and adjourned at 5:37 PM until noon tomorrow. The Smith committee resumed hearings on the National Labor Relations Board.
The Congressional session’s last big defense appropriation bill $1,482,000,000 for conscription and other military purposes received final congressional approval today with a minimum of discussion and opposition. Quickly the measure slipped through the senate. A little later the house unexpectedly accepted a $12,700,000 increase written into the measure by the senate. That action made the bill ready for President Roosevelt’s signature, without the usual formality of resolving house-senate differences “in conference.”
Attorney General Jackson held in an informal opinion made public today that companies which have been held by the National Labor Relations Board to have violated the National Labor Relations Act are barred from obtaining government contracts. The ruling was regarded in some quarters as a potential menace to the national defense program. A large number of corporations which have contracts under the defense program have appeals pending from rulings of the NLRB that they had violated the Wagner act.
Among these are Bethlehem Steel Company, General Motors Corporation, Ford Motor Company, Todd Ship Yards Corporation and others whose production is regarded as vital to the rearmament program for which Congress has appropriated billions of dollars. Mr. Jackson held that a conviction by the Labor Board would prevent a company from obtaining government contracts unless the conviction was reversed by the courts.
Appearing for the first time in a campaign platform with his running mate, Senator Charles L. McNary, Wendell Willkie called tonight for legislation to change the administration of the Wagner labor relations act. The Republican presidential nominee, speaking after a long ovation in floodlighted Forbes field, said in his prepared text that he would use the office of president to try to unite the divided forces of labor. Willkie, hurriedly making deletions to keep within his radio time, did not read this section of his address, which also said that a “divided labor movement is the natural prey of unscrupulous politicians.”
President Roosevelt will review the country’s defense preparations in an address Saturday, October 12, from his special train at Dayton, Ohio. The report will include a discussion of the draft. The talk, which will be broadcast over three major circuits and transmitted by short wave broadcast to South America, is expected to serve as a reply to recent criticisms made by Wendell L. Willkie. In announcing the address Stephen Early of the White House secretariat stated that it would be “nonpolitical” and addressed equally to the Latin-America nations and the United States. The theme, Mr. Early said, would be the same as Mr. Roosevelt expressed two days ago to a group of military leaders from the other American republics — “one for all and all for one.”
Without consulting Tammany Hall or the State committee, the Democratic National Committee has reserved Madison Square Garden in New York for a political rally on Monday, October 28, it was learned today. Although no definite program for the meeting has been developed it was suggested that the principal speaker at the meeting would be President Roosevelt. Plans for an earlier address by the President in Dayton, Ohio, on October 12, in which he will make a “non-political” report on the nation’s defenses, were announced in Washington.
The new deal prevented a “very probable revolution in the United States during the 1932-1933 depression,” Henry A. Wallace said tonight in a vigorous defense of government spending. The Democratic vice-presidential nominee told a Butte, Mont., audience, that new deal spending supported private capital in depression years. “Private capital was scared stiff during the 20’s by economic conditions and it continued to be scared when dictators began to rise to power,” Wallace said. “We had to do what we did. If we had not, there was serious danger of a revolution in this country. Even had there been no revolution, a great many lives might have been lost. “With reasonable allowance for human mistakes, there has been more sound value protected or created by the present government than any created by the speculative orgies of the great stock market boom.”
Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, an original third term proponent, will invade the west next week to attack Wendell L. Willkie’s public power record. Ickes, often referred to by critics as the new deal’s “hatchet man” and “sandbagger,” will speak in Denver, Colo., Portland, Ore., and Seattle, Wash.
Two trains of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway collide head-on east of Morning Sun. Nobody is killed, but one of the train engineers commits suicide soon afterward.
Parachute troops have been adopted as a new branch of the Army. Secretary Stimson announced at a press conference today the creation soon of the first such unit at Fort Benning, Georgia. It will be known as the 501st Parachute Battalion, with a strength of about 500 men, and will be commanded by Major William M. Miley. The forty-eight enlisted men and two officers who have been taking experimental training at Fort Dix will form the nucleus of the battalion and they will be augmented at once by selected volunteers from regular Army infantry regiments. As soon as practicable the members of the unit will be apportioned to form nuclei of additional parachute battalions.
The U.S. Navy Department orders all dependents in the Far East be sent home. Admiral Hart is ordered to keep this secret.
Lieutenant-Colonel George Patton is promoted to General.
1940 World Series, Game Two:
Bucky Walters gives the National League its first Series game victory since Carl Hubbell beat the Yankees in 1937. Detroit struck first as Bucky Walters allowed two leadoff walks in the first, then an RBI single to Charlie Gehringer and ground-ball RBI double-play to Hank Greenberg, but the Reds tied it in the second on four singles off Schoolboy Rowe, two of which by Eddie Joost and Billy Myers scoring a run each. Next inning, Jimmy Ripple’s two-run home run put the Reds up 4–2. Back-to-back doubles by Walters and Billy Werber made it 5–2 Reds in the fourth. The Tigers got a run in the sixth on Hank Greenberg’s RBI double after a walk and forceout in the sixth, but nothing else besides Pinky Higgins’s leadoff double in the fifth as the Reds tied the series heading to Detroit. Walters gives up only 3 hits, but is lucky to escape the jittery first inning.
Detroit Tigers 3, Cincinnati Reds 5
It is understood in Pan-American diplomatic quarters here that the United States Government is conducting conversations with most South American republics, if not all of them, for establishment of local naval, land and air bases, which then would be made available for use by the armed forces of any American country. One of the first steps to be completed in this cooperation between the United States and South American republics for continental defense, it is expected, will be an arrangement by which the United States will help finance the construction of these bases.
Wives of all American employees of the Standard Vacuum Oil Co. in China were reported today to have been ordered to sail for the United States by the first available boats. No reason for the order was given, but observers expressed belief it was due to disturbed Japanese-American relations.
Britain has decided to reopen the Burma Road, main Chinese supply route, on October 17, after a thorough exchange of views with Washington, it was understood tonight. The reported decision was considered Britain’s first answer to the new German-Italian-Japanese alliance and was believed by many to mark the beginning of the end of a British appeasement policy in the Far East. Pursuant to an agreement with the Japanese to prevent any confrontations over Hong Kong, the British in India have kept the Burma Road from there into China closed since mid-summer. However, that agreement was only for three months, and the British now announce that they will re-open the critical supply route to Chiang Kai-shek’s beleaguered forces centered on Chungking. The Japanese, of course, want the route to remain closed.
Prince Kan’in Kotohito, Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff since 1931, retires at the age of 75. He is succeeded by Sugiyama Hajime. Prince Kotohito remains an influential advisor throughout the war.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 135.09 (+0.12)
Born:
Jean Ratelle, Canadian NHL centre (Hall of Fame, inducted 1985; All-Star, 1970-1973, 1980; New York Rangers, Boston Bruins), in Lac Saint-Jean, Quebec, Canada.
Mike Troy, American swimmer (Olympics gold medals, 200m butterfly, 4×200m freestyle relay, 1960), in Indianapolis, Indiana (d. 2019).
Alan O’Day, American singer and songwriter (“Undercover Angel”; over 100 songs for the Muppet Babies), in Hollywood, California (d. 2013).
Sheila Fearn, British actress (“The Likely Lads”; “George and Mildred”), in Leicester, England, United Kingdom.
Naval Construction:
The Royal Navy Shakespeare-class minesweeping trawler HMS Macbeth (T 138) is launched by the Goole Shipbuilding & Repairing Co. Ltd. (Goole, U.K.); completed by Amos & Smith.
The Royal Navy MMS I-class motor minesweeper HMS MMS 2 (J 502) is launched by George Forbes (Peterhead, England, U.K.).
The Royal Canadian Navy Bangor-class (VTE Reciprocating-engined) minesweeper HMCS Clayoquot (J 174) is launched by the Prince Rupert Dry Dock and Shipyards Co. (Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada).
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type VIIB U-boat U-76 is launched by Bremer Vulkan-Vegesacker Werft, Bremen-Vegesack (werk 4).
The Royal Canadian Navy Flower-class corvette HMCS Rimouski (K 121) is launched by the Davie Shipbuilding and Repairing Co. Ltd. (Lauzon, Quebec, Canada).
The Royal Navy Flower-class corvette HMS Freesia (K 43) is launched by Harland & Wolff Ltd. (Belfast, Northern Ireland).
The Nihon Kaigun (Imperial Japanese Navy) Shimushu-class Kaibōkan (escort ship) HIJMS Kunashiri (国後) is commissioned. Her first commanding officer is Commander Shimizu Toshio.
The Royal Navy Flower-class corvette HMS Hyacinth (K 84) is commissioned. Her first commander is Lieutenant Commander (retired) Francis Babington Proudfoot, RN.
History Diaries 