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• Weather data for 30 Oct 1939

• Leutnant Wilhem Zahn in German submarine U-56 fired three torpedoes at the battleship HMS Nelson off the Orkney Islands in Scotland, United Kingdom. Two of the torpedoes hit home but fortunately both proved to be duds. ww2dbase [AC]
• British anti-submarine Trawler HMS Northern Rover out from Grimbsy, north-east Lincolnshire, England, United Kingdom, was sunk with a torpedo fired from German submarine U-59 (Oberleutnant zur See Harald Jürst) at 2335 hours. The trawler had been requisitioned by the Admiralty to be used against German submarines, as an armed boarding vessel and to be used as contraband hunters. U-59 attacked as the Northern Rover was patrolling the Kirkwall area, 100 miles west of Sumburgh Head in the Shetland Islands. The Commander, Lieutenant H. M. Macpherson RN and the 25-man crew were lost. ww2dbase [Main Article | HM]

• An act was signed in Moscow, Russia which formally annexed occupied Polish territories. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• The 4,666-ton steam merchant Cairnmona was making her way to Newcastle, England, United Kingdom with a cargo of copper and grain and 3 miles off Rattray Head, Aberdeenshire, northeast Scotland, United Kingdom when she was torpedoed by German submarine U-13 (Kapitänleutnant Karl Daublebsky von Eichhain) at 2250 hours. The Cairnmona had been dispersed from convoy HX-5 and would be the only ship sunk from it. Three crew were killed in the explosion, the master, Fred Wilkinson Fairley and 41 crew members took to lifeboats and were later picked up by the British drifter HMS River Lossie. ww2dbase [Main Article | HM]

30 Oct 1939 Interactive Map