military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) (10/24/89)
From: military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) Tuesday, 24 October, 1939 The Soviet Union and Germany conclude a mutual trade agreement, under which the USSR will supply 1 million tonnes of grain and fodder to Germany. Germany, in return, is to supply certain military hardware, including the partially-completed heavy cruiser, Lutzow, which is not delivered until April, 1940. A "large hoard" of gold, smuggled from Warsaw via Rumania and Syria, arrives in Paris. The American freighter City of Flint is captured by a German raider and taken to Murmansk, where the German prize crew has been temporarily detained. German sources claim that the City of Flint was carrying contraband war materials. Finland discloses that she has lost virtually all of her export trade, of which 40% was with Britain, as a result of U-boat warfare against neutral shipping. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Bill Thacker military@cbnews.att.com Send submissions for "50 Years Ago" to military-request@att.att.com "Red Russia, once she got a whip hand over the Finns, would be strategically placed to threaten Scandinavia, unless Germany exerted a counter-thrust..." - Time Magazine