World War II As It Happened
A MaritimeQuest Daily Event Special Presentation
Tuesday November 12, 1940
Day 439

November 12, 1940: Front page of the Manchester Evening News, Manchester, England.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report at top left: "Convoy Ships Elude Raider In Atlantic"
(This is about the attack on convoy HX-84.)
 
Also note the report in column 3: "Almost Gone...Do Your Best"
(This may have been the last radio signal from SS Balmore. The ship had been attacked by German aircraft and sank shortly after sending this signal. None of the twenty-seven men aboard survived.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of The Daily Mail, Hull, England.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of the Nottingham Evening Post, Nottingham, England.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in column 4: "Shortage Of Eggs - Food Official's Warning - No Vitamised Bread This Year"
(Just a short list of the shortages faced by wartime Britain. We are beginning to get a small taste of what they went through, but this time it's not the Germans causing the problem.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of the Press and Journal, Aberdeen, Scotland.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of The Examiner, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of The Sydney Sun, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of The Telegraph, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
Note the report in column 4: "U.S. Must Stay Out Of War, Says U.S. Ambassador Kennedy"
(Notice the denial made by Kennedy in column 5. More on this in The Cedar Rapids Gazette below.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of The Lethbridge Herald, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of The Winnipeg Tribune, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the repot at bottom right: "Ready To Leave New York"
(You would think the British would know better than to announce that this ship was about to sail, but alas, there is the photo and the report for all the world, including German spies, to see.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of the Biddeford Daily Journal, Biddeford, Maine.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of The Evening Star, Washington, D.C.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of The Evening Gazette, Xenia, Ohio.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of The Port Arthur News, Port Arthur, Texas.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of The Helena Independent, Helena, Montana.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in column 7: "Hawaiians Vote In Favor Of Statehood"


November 12, 1940: Front page of The Cedar Rapids Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in columns 5-6: "Kennedy Denies He Gave Interview On Britain And Repudiates Quoted Words"
(This denial was in response to a report from Nov. 10; "Quote Kennedy: Democracy In England Done" [See The Cedar Rapids Gazette of Nov. 10, 1940.] And also the report in the Brisbane newspaper above.

Kennedy admits he "talked" to a reporter, but claimed the conversation was "off the record." If I was the former Ambassador to the United Kingdom, I would say I never said that as well. But Mr. Kennedy had a history of making disparaging remarks about Britain and her people. To say he was an outright Nazi supporter may not be completely accurate, but he was about as close to a Nazi supporter as one could get.

On Sept. 27, 1940 Joseph P. Kennedy, sent a cable to Secretary of State Cordell Hull in which he said the following;

"I was delighted to see that the president said he was not going to enter the war, because to enter this war, imagining for a minute that the English have anything to offer in the line of leadership or productive capacity in industry that could be of the slightest value to us, would be complete misapprehension... It breaks my heart to draw these conclusions about a people that I sincerely hoped might be victorious, but I cannot get myself to the point where I believe they can be of any assistance to the cause in which they are involved. If by chance we should ever come to the point of getting into this war we can make our minds that it will be the United States against Germany, Italy and Japan, aided by a badly shot to pieces country which in the last analysis can give little."

Mr. Kennedy also had a history of making remarks about Jews. To learn more about the loathsome creature Joseph P. Kennedy was, see the following, which was well known by people around Kennedy, but in the interest of time I have copied the text from the Wikipedia page.

According to Harvey Klemmer, who served as one of Kennedy's embassy aides, Kennedy habitually referred to Jews as "kikes or sheenies". Kennedy allegedly told Klemmer that "[some] individual Jews are all right, Harvey, but as a race they stink. They spoil everything they touch." When Klemmer returned from a trip to Germany and reported the pattern of vandalism and assaults on Jews by Nazis, Kennedy responded, "Well, they brought it on themselves."

On June 13, 1938, Kennedy met in London with Herbert von Dirksen, the German ambassador to the United Kingdom, who claimed upon his return to Berlin that Kennedy had told him that "it was not so much the fact that we want to get rid of the Jews that was so harmful to us, but rather the loud clamor with which we accompanied this purpose. [Kennedy] himself fully understood our Jewish policy." Kennedy's main concern with such violent acts against German Jews as Kristallnacht was that they generated bad publicity in the West for the Nazi regime, a concern that he communicated in a letter to Charles Lindbergh.

Kennedy had a close friendship with Viscountess Astor, and their correspondence is replete with anti-Semitic statements. According to Edward Renehan:
As fiercely anti-Communist as they were anti-Semitic, Kennedy and Astor looked upon Adolf Hitler as a welcome solution to both of these "world problems" (Nancy's phrase). ... . Kennedy replied that he expected the "Jew media" in the United States to become a problem, that "Jewish pundits in New York and Los Angeles" were already making noises contrived to "set a match to the fuse of the world."

By August 1940, Kennedy worried that a third term for President Roosevelt would mean war. Laurence Leamer in The Kennedy Men: 1901-1963 reports: "Joe believed that Roosevelt, Churchill, the Jews, and their allies would manipulate America into approaching Armageddon." Nevertheless, Kennedy supported Roosevelt's third term in return for Roosevelt's promise to support Joseph Kennedy Jr. in a run for Governor of Massachusetts in 1942. However, even during the darkest months of World War II, Kennedy remained "more wary of" prominent American Jews, such as Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, than he was of Hitler.

Kennedy told the reporter Joe Dinneen:
It is true that I have a low opinion of some Jews in public office and in private life. That does not mean that I. ... believe they should be wiped off the face of the Earth. ... Jews who take an unfair advantage of the fact that theirs is a persecuted race do not help much. ... Publicizing unjust attacks upon the Jews may help to cure the injustice, but continually publicizing the whole problem only serves to keep it alive in the public mind.

Notice that he is quoted to have said that he did not want the Jews "wiped off the face of the earth." It does not take too much thought to wonder where he might have learned that that was exactly what Hitler and the Nazi regime had planned for the Jews. It would appear that Mr. Kennedy knew, in 1940, what was going to happen to the Jews, and as you can read for yourself, he did nothing to stop it and even more or less agreed with Hitler's policy. As I said, a loathsome creature.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of the San Mateo Times, San Mateo, California.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in columns 6-7: "52 Dead In Nation As Blizzard Hits East"
(Don't believe anyone who tells you deadly storms did not happen in the northeast before climate change, because they happened all the time.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of the Hamburger Neueste Zeitung, Altona, Hamburg, Germany.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
1. 20 Kilometer Unterseekabel zwischen Malta und Gibraltar von den Italienern zerstört.
(20 Kilometers of submarine cable between Malta and Gibraltar destroyed by the Italians.)
2. Molotows Empfang in Berlin.
(Molotov's reception in Berlin.)


November 12, 1940: Front page of the Völkischer Beobachter, the official newspaper of the NSDAP.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
1. Schlag auf Schlag - 5 Dampfer mit 37.000 BRT. durch Stukas versenkt.
(Blow for blow - 5 steamships at 37,000 GRT. sunk by Stukas.)
2. Ein weiterer britischer Geleitzug am Montag aufgerieben.
(Another British convoy wrecked on Monday.)



   
Page published November 12, 2021