Battle of the Atlantic
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The British aircraft carrier Courageous is sunk by U-29 under the command of Cmdr Otto Schuhart while on anti-submarine patrol off the southwest of Ireland. 514 of 1,200 are dead. 48 aircraft are also lost. Her escorting destroyers had failed to alert her to the presence of the U-boat. The carrier Ark Royal had a lucky escape on 14 September from a submarine attack while similarly misemployed. After these incidents the carriers are withdrawn from such work. Courageous has been one of the most effective of the British carriers.
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]Occupied Poland
As the Germans begin their campaign to reduce the Poles to slave status and annihilate the Polish Jewry, so the Soviets bring their own brand of terror to eastern Poland. They immediately subjugate the population fo communist misery as they steal Polish lands and businesses, freeze bank accounts and currency, and treat the Poles with general contempt. They will also send 1.5 million Polish workers to the Soviet Union, fewer than half of them will return. In the Kolyma gold mines, for example, the annual death rate of Polish slaves alone rose to more than 50 percent in 1940. After 8 hours of inhumanly hard work, Polish workers received a bowl of potato soup and a slie of frozen black bread.
[]Poland
- Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet Foreign Minister declares that the Polish government has ceased to exist. The order is given for Soviet troops to advance and occupy eastern Poland. Naturally because of the German attack there is almost no defense in the east. The Soviets employ 2 Army Groups or Fronts consisting of 24 infantry divisions, 15 cavalry divisions and 2 tank corps. The Poles have only 18 battalions in the east of their country. The Soviets will push toward the west, stopping at the Bug Riverand effectively absorb 125,000 square miles of Polish territory and 13 million Polish citizens.
- German Army Groups North and South link up at Wlodawa on the River Bug. The Germans occupy Brest-Litovsk. The Germans then evacuate some of the areas and cities they have occupied including Lvov. This is done in accordance with the terms of the non-aggression pact of 23 August with the Soviet Union.
- The Polish president, Ignacy Moscicki, his government and the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish armed forces, Marshal Rydz-Smigly, resign and take refuge in Rumania.
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