London, England • January 21, 1943 Arguably one of Germany’s greatest assets early in World War II was the Enigma machine. It could encrypt and decrypt sensitive diplomatic and military messages in billions of ways (actually 10 to the 23rd power). The location of German surface ships and U‑boats and Allied supply convoys in the Atlantic…
Washington, D. C. • January 11, 1942 On this date in 1942 the German Kriegsmarine launched Operation Drumbeat (Unternehmen Paukenschlag, or “roll of the kettledrums”), intending to destroy U.S. coastal shipping, particularly oil shipments from the Gulf of Mexico, and disrupt the stream of troops and key resources (e.g., agricultural products, steel, and oil) crossing…
San Diego, California • December 29, 1939 On this date in 1939 a prototype 4‑engine heavy bomber took off from San Diego’s Lindberg Field on its maiden flight. The flight lasted 17 minutes. Designed by Consolidated Aircraft, the prototype was initially known in-house as Model 32. Besides its distinctive twin tails and slab sides that allowed for…
Washington, D.C. • December 20, 1940 On this date in 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed William Knudsen to head a 4‑member board (Office of Production Management, or OPM) to plan for national defense and coordinate aid to Great Britain following Germany’s total blockade of that island nation in mid-August (Battle of the Atlantic). A Danish…
Berlin, Germany • November 29, 1939 On this date in 1939, nearly 3 months after the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) overran neighboring Poland, launching World War II in Europe, German dictator Adolf Hitler issued Fuehrer Directive Number 9, the first of 2 directives on measures his country would have to take to render the British economy and infrastructure…
Scapa Flow, Northern Coast of Scotland, Orkney Islands • October 14, 1939 Illuminated only by the northern lights (aurora borealis) early on this date in 1939, barely 6 weeks into World War II in Europe, a German Type VIIB diesel-electric submarine under the command of Kapitaenleutnant (Captain Lieutenant) Guenther Prien infiltrated the defenses of Scapa Flow, the newly reactivated…
Washington, D.C. • October 2, 1939 On January 31, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt held a closed-door meeting with the Senate Military Affairs Committee at the White House. Reportedly FDR made the comment that “the frontier of the United States is the Rhine,” meaning France’s eastern border with Nazi Germany. When the statement was leaked…
Little Creek Naval Training Center, Virginia • September 17, 1941 On this date in 1941 the U.S. Navy created a camp for Armed Guard gun training at Little Creek, Virginia, 12 miles/19 km northeast of the huge naval complex at Norfolk. Few people then and even less now have ever heard of this branch of the U.S. Navy….
Washington, D.C. • September 11, 1941 Eight months before Japan’s December 7, 1941, attack on U.S. assets at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Nazi Germany’s navy began mounting a series of U‑boat attacks on cargo ships crossing the North Atlantic from North America to Great Britain, a nation at war with Germany since September 3, 1939. The…
London, England • July 22, 1940 On this date in 1940 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, encouraged by future Prime Minister Winston Churchill, signed the founding charter of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization. For security purposes the SOE’s “cloak and dagger” operations was concealed behind the name “Inter-Service Research Bureau.” (At the time the…