A month of war - September 1939

Polish Soldier 1939 - Public Domain via Wikipedia Commons

It has been a strange, uneasy time - at war, but what war? A pause for us all to think, sort ourselves out, with vicious fighting, but distant. Like a song heard from a long way away when you recognise the tune, but cannot make out the words. So far away that you can forget. I sat in the cinema last week, watched news reels, then a film - Rathbone, Hound of the Baskervilles. I'm ashamed to say it was good - so much so that the war slipped from my mind for over an hour. Then the news reel started again. The upbeat announcers, film of young, harried looking soldiers landing in France. Most of the news is grim, if not for us than for those in the firing line.

News Reel: BEF lands in France

Poland. Poor, poor Poland. Smashed by the Germans and the Russians. Conquered and portioned out in just weeks. That was how September was - a roll call of Polish defeats. Pszczyna, Tuchola, Krakow fallen by the 6th. The German Army was at the edge of Warsaw two days later. A siege, like something from the last war, but with aircraft this time too, bombing of a city like the Germans did in Spain. Whole parts of the Polish capital destroyed. Swift, terrifyingly decisive, but the Poles clung on, fighting like rats in the rubble. It was only on the 28th that Warsaw surrendered. With a Polish government in exile in Paris by the 30th, and the last resistance crumbling by the 5th of October, the Soviets rolling up town after town in their turn, you might well ask what we, the British and French, did?

News Reel: German Invasion of Poland

Hitler reviewing troops crossing into Poland.
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S55480 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)]

We sat in fairyland while the country we had pledged to defend has simply been wiped off the map. the first week of our war was spent on paper work - the Dominions deciding, one by one to declare war in turn. Australia, on the same day as we ourselves declared war, then Newzealand, then Canada. In South Africa the government even proposed neutrality - though they were defeated and fell as a result. The new government are in for the fight now. Welcome, of course, but the cities of Poland were burning all the time. The RAF bombed a few German ports ineffectually, and showered the Ruhr with leaflets. The French at least prepared an attack into Germany's Saarland, but halted when Polish resistance seemed to be collapsing.

The SS Athenia was the first victim of the U-boats, back on the 3rd September. It was big news, but seems small, and a long time ago. On the 14th September there was much newspaper talk, speculation, confident assertion in the White Hart in Hingham - the Royal Navy is more than the equal of the Kriegsmarine - Ark Royal was attacked, again by a submarine, off Rockall. Their U-boats are clearly at sea, everywhere they can reach, but the torpedoes missed. All that casual optimism was blown away, just days later. The carrier Courageous went down on the 17th - off Ireland. A carrier sunk in practically home waters. A U-boat who's torpedoes found their mark this time. That relegated new fighting in China to a few column inches at the bottom of the newspaper front page. On the 20th the Navy got a U-boat - revenge of sorts I suppose. The talk is all of the navy getting into its stride, clearing the sea.

News Reel: Sinking of HMS Courageous

Ridiculous. We made commitments to Poland, we failed. The Far East is at war. At home our newspapers are counting the fighting in a plane or two here, a ship, or a submarine. All the while the British Army has been crossing to France to form another 'western front' like the last time.

It is over for Poland. The agony in China is years old. For us it hasn't even begun. We are at war, and we have to put our heart and soul into it, get it done. Yet everything we have done so far feels so naive and feeble - except to send the B.E.F. to die in France again.