World War II As It Happened
A MaritimeQuest Daily Event Special Presentation
Saturday May 4, 1940
Day 247

May 4, 1940: Front page of The Midland Daily Telegraph, Coventry, England.
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May 4, 1940: Front page of The Daily Mail, Hull, England.
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May 4, 1940: Front page of the Manchester Evening News, Manchester, England.
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May 4, 1940: Front page of the Press and Journal, Aberdeen, Scotland.
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May 4, 1940: Front page of The Examiner, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia.
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May 4, 1940: Front page of The Sydney Sun, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
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May 4, 1940: Front page of The Lethbridge Herald, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
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May 4, 1940: Front page of the Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
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May 4, 1940: Front page of The Bakersfield Californian, Bakersfield, California.
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Note the headline and report in column 8: "Planes Sink Battleship, Cruiser In Furious Raid"
(The Germans "officially" reported that they had sunk a battleship, cruiser and damaged nine transports. This report must have terrified thousands of British people, who were now wondering if their loved ones were dead or alive. [Reports were not top headlines and were less detailed in the British newspapers, but they were there.] However, once again, the Germans boast, was overblown. The Luftwaffe had made concentrated attacks on the British ships, and did in fact sink two destroyers, HMS Afridi and the French destroyer Bison. They also sank an anti-submarine trawler HMT Gaul, but no battleship, cruiser or transport had been hit or damaged.

The German naval staff officers had a much different attitude toward the reports of their pilots. They wrote;
"..reports to date do not yet fully confirm the sinking of a battleship. Despite various statements from witnesses it still seems possible that a cruiser or even a large destroyer has been mistaken for a battleship."
It was not the German naval staff who made statements to the press, that came from the Propaganda Ministry.)


May 4, 1940: Front page of the Syracuse Herald-Journal, Syracuse, New York.
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May 4, 1940: Front page of the Biddeford Daily Journal, Biddeford, Maine.
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May 4, 1940: Front page of The Port Arthur News, Port Arthur, Texas.
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May 4, 1940: Front page of the San Mateo Times, San Mateo, California.
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May 4, 1940: Front page of the Hamburger Neueste Zeitung, Altona, Hamburg, Germany.
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1. Stukas vernichten britisches Schlachtschiff.
(Stukas destroy British battleship.)
2. Schimpflicher Verrat an norwegischen Truppen.
(Shameful betrayal of Norwegian troops.)


May 4, 1940: Front page of the Völkischer Beobachter, the official newspaper of the NSDAP.
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1. Auch Namsos wird von dem Briten geräumt.
(Namsos also evacuated by British.)



   
Page published May 4, 2021