World War II As It Happened
A MaritimeQuest Daily Event Special Presentation
Tuesday December 17, 1940
Day 474

December 17, 1940: Front page of the Nottingham Evening Post, Nottingham, England.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


December 17, 1940: Front page of The Daily Mail, Hull, England.
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December 17, 1940: Front page of the Birmingham Gazette, Birmingham, England.
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December 17, 1940: Front page of the Press and Journal, Aberdeen, Scotland.
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December 17, 1940: Front page of The Examiner, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


December 17, 1940: Front page of The Sydney Sun, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


December 17, 1940: Front page of The Telegraph, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
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December 17, 1940: Front page of The Lethbridge Herald, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


December 17, 1940: Front page of The Winnipeg Tribune, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the headline: "Winter Invasion Believed Nazi Plan" and the report at top right: "Britons Warned By Beaverbrook Danger Is Near"


December 17, 1940: Front page of the Biddeford Daily Journal, Biddeford, Maine.
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December 17, 1940: Front page of The Evening Star, Washington, D.C.
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December 17, 1940: Front page of The Evening Gazette, Xenia, Ohio.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report at bottom right: "Dutch Subject Hanged As Nazi Spy, 3rd Execution In London"
(You should notice that when a Briton is accused by the Germans of being a spy, the British protest long, loud and hard, but they have no reservation about despatching suspected spies in their own country. It's nothing sinister, it's just the way war is fought.)


December 17, 1940: Front page of The Port Arthur News, Port Arthur, Texas.
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December 17, 1940: Front page of The Helena Independent, Helena, Montana.
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December 17, 1940: Front page of the San Mateo Times, San Mateo, California.
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December 17, 1940: Front page of the Hamburger Neueste Zeitung, Altona, Hamburg, Germany.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
1. Goebbels sprach bei Blohm & Voß.
(Goebbels spoke at Blohm & Voss.)
[Blohm & Voss is a German shipbuilder located in Hamburg, Germany. It was there that the battleship Bismarck had been built.]


December 17, 1940: Front page of the Völkischer Beobachter, the official newspaper of the NSDAP.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
1. 20 Jahr Kampf für das nationalsozoalistische Großdeutschland.
(20 Years of struggle for the National Socialists of the Greater German Reich.)
2. Am 17. Dezember 1920 wurde der Zentralverlag der NSDAP.gegründet.
(The central publishing house of the NSDAP was founded on December 17, 1920.)
Note the report at bottom: "Kretschmer versenkte über 250.000 BRT"
(Kretschmer has sunk over 250,000 GRT.)
[Otto Kretschmer, commanding officer of U-99, was the top scoring U-boat commander of World War II. This report was close to true. He had sunk or destroyed about 209,000 tons to date. He damaged several other ships and captured one as well. By the time he was captured, Kretschmer had sunk 47 ships for a total of over 274,000 tons.]



   
Page published December 17, 2021