World War II Database

• Home
• » Events
• » WW2 Timeline
• » 11 Sep 1939

• British submarine Triton tropedoed and sank British submarine Oxley by mistake. ww2dbase [CPC]
• HMS Cumberland on passage to Rio de Janeiro. Aircraft sighted German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee and tanker Altmark but enemy ships escaped interception. ww2dbase [Admiral Graf Spee | Cumberland | DS]

• Georg von Küchler was awarded Clasp 2nd Class to his Iron Cross. ww2dbase [Georg von Küchler | CPC]
• "Lord Haw-Haw", began broadcasting his "Germany calling" programme on Radio Hamburg. The name was eventually linked to William Joyce, a naturalised US citizen who had been brought up in Ireland, had been Propaganda Director of Osward Moseley's (qv) British Union of Fascists and who had fled to Berlin a week before the outbreak of war. By 1940 30 per cent of the British population would be regularly tuning in to Radio Hamburg for his programme. ww2dbase [Hamburg | AC]

• Wolfgang Falck shot down two Polish aircraft, a bomber and a reconnaissance aircraft. ww2dbase [Wolfgang Falck | CPC]

• Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Germany. ww2dbase [CPC]

• Air Vice Marshal Arthur Harris assumed command of British Royal Air Force Bomber Command's Lincolnshire-based No. 5 Group with his headquarters at St. Vincent's House in Grantham. No. 5 Group was the sole operator of the Handley-Page Hampden bomber with six Hampden squadrons available at the outbreak of war - Nos. 44 and 50 Squadrons based at Waddington, 49 and 83 Squadrons based at Scampton, and 61 and 144 Squadrons at Hemswell. Harris would command the group for fourteen months before being appointed G. O. C. Bomber Command on 22 Feb 1942. ww2dbase [Arthur Harris | AC]

• Franklin Roosevelt wrote to Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain, encouraging them to communicate with him personally, ie. bypass the official diplomatic channels. ww2dbase [Franklin Roosevelt | CPC]

11 Sep 1939 Interactive Map