Posted on 10/22/2009 5:57:47 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
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William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
‘The Phoney War’ was a phrase coined by the American Press. Like so many vivid Americanisms it soon came to be adopted on both sides of the Atlantic. It has become firmly established as a name for the period of the war from the collapse of Poland in September, 1939, until the opening of Hitler’s Western offensive in the following spring.
Those who coined the phrase meant to convey that the war was spurious – because no great battles were being fought between the Franco-British and German forces. In reality, it was a period of ominous activity – behind the curtain. In the midst of it all a strange accident befell a German staff officer. The incident gave Hitler a fright, and in the following weeks the German military plan was completely changed. The old one would have had nothing like the same chance of success as the new one attained.
But all this was unknown to the world. The people everywhere could only see that the battlefronts remained quiet, and concluded that Mars had fallen into a slumber.
B.H. Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War
Bush’s fault.
http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/1939/october_22_1939_97861.html
October 22, 1939 in History
Event:
1st TV NFL game-Eagles vs Dodgers
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1939/oct39/f22oct39.htm
Goebbels calls Churchill a liar
Sunday, October 22, 1939 www.onwar.com
In Germany... The propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, calls Winston Churchill a liar in a radio broadcast.
On the Western Front... Sporadic artillery exchanges take place. The no-man’s-land on the Moselle-Rhine is described as a sea of mud.
In Occupied Poland... Soviet elections are held in the Soviet controlled western Ukraine and western Belorussia (formerly Polish territory).
In Ankara... British General Wavell and French General Weygand leave at the conclusion of successful talks with the Turkish General Staff.
In India... The Congress Party declines to support the British war effort and condemns British imperialism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Edinburgh_(16)
Edinburgh was launched on 31 March 1938, and was immediately attached to the 18th Cruiser Squadron at Scapa Flow, in Scotland, as part of the British Home Fleet. For a time, she was assigned to patrol between Iceland and the Faroe Islands, but in 1939, she was transferred to the 2nd Cruiser Squadron, serving with the Humber Force.
However, Edinburgh was still in the Firth of Forth when the Luftwaffe made their first raid on the naval bases at Rosyth on 16 October 1939. She sustained minor damage from the attack, but no direct hits.
Nazi patrol boat hit a nazi mine.
Ouch.
I guess the phoney war could also have been called “Pre-game warm-ups or practice”.
I like the story of the Tramp Steamer that got the better of a U-boat. Is it true though? Do we know which U-Boat it was?
do you realize how few people owned TV sets in 1939? It was still a new thing. Experimental I guess.
http://www.profootballhof.com/history/decades/1930s/first_televised_game.aspx
The 1930s and the First Televised Game
Ebbets Field Hosts Football History
The now-essential relationship between pro football and television actually began on October 22, 1939. That’s when the National Broadcasting Company earned a spot in pro football history by becoming the first network to televise a pro football game.
A meager crowd of 13,050 were on hand at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field on that now-historic day when the Philadelphia Eagles fell to Brooklyn’s Dodgers 23-14. The game included play by three future Hall of Famers - quarterback Ace Parker and tackle Bruiser Kinard for the Dodgers and end Bill Hewitt for the Eagles.
Five hundred-or-so fortunate New Yorkers who owned television sets witnessed the game in the comfort of their own homes, over NBC’s experimental station W2XBS. Many others saw the telecast on monitors while visiting the RCA Pavilion at the World’s Fair in New York where it was scheduled as a special event.
According to Allen (Skip) Walz, the NBC play-by-play announcer, only eight people were needed for the telecast. Walz had none of the visual aids -monitors, screens or spotters - used today, and there were just two iconoscope cameras. One was located in the box seats on the 40-yard line and the other was in the stadium’s mezzanine section.
“I’d sit with my chin on the rail in the mezzanine, and the camera was over my shoulder,” remembered Walz. “I did my own spotting, and when the play moved up and down the field, on punts or kickoffs, I’d point to tell the cameraman what I’d be talking about.”
The television log records of that day say that the game began at 2:30 p.m. and ran for exactly two hours, thirty-three minutes and ten seconds. By comparison today’s games run almost three full hours. Of course there were no commercial interruptions during the 1939 game. There were, however, interruptions of another sort.
“It was a cloudy day, when the sun crept behind the stadium there wasn’t enough light for the cameras,” according to Walz. “The picture would get darker and darker, and eventually it would go completely blank, and we’d revert to a radio broadcast.” Such an occurrence would create a furor today, but in 1939 it was simply technology at its best.
Maybe trclaf will check in with Donitz's diary entry for today. Though he wouldn't necessarily know which boat was involved for a few days.
Thats an awesome story
As edited, revised and liberalized as history books, I think I’ll stick with them.
"I'll be right there honey. Hey, they're showing the Eagles-Dodgers football game on the television set. I'll be darned, this is swell. Hey, would you mind bringing me a bottle of beer from the refrigerator? And maybe some peanuts."
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/N/htmlN/nationalbroa/nationalbroa.htm
RCA, which had been merely a sales agent for the other companies emerged in the 1930s as a radio manufacturer with two networks, a powerful lineup of clear channel stations, and a roster of stars who were unequaled in the radio industry. From this position of power RCA research labs under the direction of Vladimir Zworykin set the standard for research into the nascent technology of television. NBC began experimental broadcasts from New York’s Empire State building as early as 1932. By 1935 the company was spending millions of dollars annually to fund television research. Profits from the lucrative NBC radio networks were routinely channeled into television research. In 1939 NBC became the first network to introduce regular television broadcasts with its inaugural telecast of the opening day ceremonies at the New York World’s Fair of 1939. RCA’s goal was to produce and market receivers and programs, to become the driving force in the emerging industry.
http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/television/
Chronology of
Television
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