World war II timeline - November 1939

4 November 1939	In the United States, Congress amends the 1937 Neutrality Act, allowing belligerent nations to buy American arms for cash if they provide the transport. Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyadieslav Molotov sends an invitation to the Finnish Ambassador in Moscow to negotiate on political issues. (Stalin feels that war with Germany is unavoidable, and wants to improve land and sea protection of Leningrad.)
6 November 1939	Australia agrees for its five destroyers at Singapore to be moved to the Mediterranean, to release British destroyers for anti-submarine work in the Atlantic. In return, two British cruisers would be sent to Australia as protection against armed raiders. Adolf Hitler postpones an attack on the West from November 12 to mid-January.
8 November 1939	The annual "Old Fighters" convention meets in Bürgerbräukeller in Munich, Germany. Adolf Hitler speaks for about an hour, accusing Great Britain of fighting for her own imperialist motives. In Munich, Germany, a bomb explodes in Bürgerbräukeller, fifteen minutes after Adolf Hitler left the building. Eight are killed, sixty-three injured. George Elser set the bomb in a gap under a wood panel, possibly arranged by Heinrich Himmler. (In January 1946, General Georg Thomas of the German Army General Staff accuses Reinhard Heydrich of staging the explosion to end the peace movement of high army officers.)
9 November 1939	Finland rejects Russian demands for an exchange of territory.
11 November 1939	French Colonel Charles de Gaulle urges general headquarters that French tanks be formed into armored divisions rather than be dispersed as infantry supports. His ideas are rejected. In England, Dr. R.V. Jones submits The Hitler Waffe report, listing seven possible secret German weapons, with  being long-range guns and rockets. The Belgian Army cancels military leaves. Belgian police along the French border receive orders to clear roads to allow for French forces entering into Belgium.
13 November 1939	Finnish delegates return to Helsinki from Moscow after negotiations failed to satisfy Soviet demands for moving the border 30-40 miles and the lease of the Hanko Peninsula for a naval base to protect the Gulf of Finland. Britain resumes aerial leaflet drops over Germany. (The drops continue until April 9, 1940, when German forces invade Denmark and Norway.)
15 November 1939	German pocket-battleship Admiral Graf Spee sinks Africa Shell in the Mozambique Channel. The British naval attaché in Oslo, Norway, receives a seven-page anonymous report on German radar and weaponry, including naval rockets, and mentioning Peenemünde as a location of research. (The report is generally regarded at the time as a German hoax.) Britain accepts responsibility for Australian defence.
18 November 1939	German forces begin deploying new magnetic mines in the ocean. A German mine sinks Dutch liner Simon Bolivar off the east coast of Britain.
20 November 1939	Adolf Hitler issues Directive No. 8 "For the Conduct of the War". Code-words for the day prior to attack on the West will be Danzig (proceed) and Augsburg (delay). If Holland shows no resistance, the invasion is to take on the character of a peaceful occupation. Centres of population in Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg are not to be attacked without strategic military necessity.
21 November 1939	British destroyer Gipsy is sunk by a mine off the east coast of Britain. German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau leave German ports. Japanese liner Terukuni Maru is sunk in the North Sea by a German mine.
22 November 1939	A German magnetic mine lands in mud off Shoeburyness, England. It is recovered, stripped, and evaluated by a team from HMS Vernon, revealing the secret of its magnetic polarity. The underwater mine is activated when subjected to a magnetic field of 50 milligauss. British ships can now install degaussing systems to make them invisible to the mines.
23 November 1939	British armed merchant cruiser Rawalpindi sights the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau between the Faeroe Islands and Iceland. They battle, and the Scharnhorst sinks the Rawalpindi.
26 November 1939	Finland rejects the Soviet demand for military bases on her territory. A shooting incident occurs between Finland and the Soviet Union. Soviets claim Finns killed three privates and one officer from seven shells. Finns claim they fired none. Polish trans-atlantic liner Pilsudski is sunk by a mine or torpedo.
27 November 1939	Dutch liner Spaarndam strikes a mine of the Thames estuary and sinks.
28 November 1939	The Australian Cabinet approves the dispatch of the 6th Division to the Middle East, after completing basic training. After then receiving further training, the Division would be sent to France to counter an expected German offensive in the spring. The Soviet Union sets up the Finnish People's Liberation Government under Finnish exile Otto Kuusinen at Terijoki.
29 November 1939	Adolf Hitler issues Directive No. 9, "Instructions for warfare against the economy of the enemy". Tasks of the Navy and Air Force against England include mining, blocking, and destroying ports, attacks on merchant shipping, destroying storage facilities for oil, food, and grain, and destroy industrial plants. London, Liverpool, and Manchester are listed as handling 58% of total imports.
30 November 1939	Soviet Union forces attack Finland, commencing with air raids on Helsinki.