military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) (11/23/89)
From: military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) Thursday, 23 November, 1939 The Chinese city of Nanning is reportedly near capture by Japanese troops. The city lies in flames following three days of aerial bombardment. It is the focal point of a Japanese offensive in the Kwangsi province, with the apparent intent of halting the flow of arms across the French Indo-China border into Japan. The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau intercept and attack a convoy between Iceland and the Faroes. The armed merchantman HMS Rawalpindi intercedes, allowing the convoy to escape, and radios the German presence before she is sunk. In Britain, butter and bacon are rationed. George Tatarescu forms a new Rumanian cabinet, following the resignation of Premier Constantin Argetoianu and his cabinet. Their resignation was prompted by the rejection by Rumanian Ministers of Germany's demands for a virtual monopoly on Rumanian oil and raw materials exports. Germany accuses Britain of having sabotaged merchant ships in 1937 and 1938. British agents supposedly planted "infernal machines with time clocks" in fifteen German, Italian, and Japanese ships, and, it is claimed, used this same method to destroy the liner HMS Athenia. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Bill Thacker military@cbnews.att.com Send submissions for "50 Years Ago" to military-request@att.att.com "Hitler is a gangster, Daladier's a bore, Chamberlain's a counterfeit, and so's the new world war !" - Song sung by the BEF, as reported by Manhattan's Communist paper, "New Masses"