WW2 Tweets from 1940

Japan's Foreign Minister, Hachiro Arita, has announced on the radio: we will create a "new order in Asia- unity into a single co-prosperity sphere revolving harmoniously around Japan."

Luftwaffe reconnaissance planes have spotted obstacles on cricket pitches; excited German intelligence conclusion: "British working class are sabotaging the sport of plutocrats!"

To block landings by German gliders open spaces in southern Britain, including parks, cricket pitches & golf courses, are being strewn with old cars.

Troops of the Imperial Japanese Army now surrounding Hong Kong, blocking food from entering European-controlled city.

US President has signed the Alien Registration Act into law: all non-American citizens in USA must register with FBI, to catch spies & "5th columnists". Advocating overthrow of government is now illegal.

Churchill declining to make radio speech encouraging American public to support Britain: "We shouldn't pay much attention to eddies of US opinion. Only events will move them."

Boris Vasilev, Romanian child: "The Russians descend like locusts- but mother will not leave Bessarabia: 'We'd better die where our parents did than flee!"

Red Army invading eastern Romania are performing first acts of Soviet occupation: blowing up selected churches & arresting priests to deliver to the NKVD.

Gheorge Popa, ex-colonel in Russian Imperial Army, greeted Red Army officers in full dress uniform from the Great War: "Be welcome in God's name!" They've arrested him.

Soviet occupiers of Romania have 'black lists' of suspicious people to be arrested: doctors, civil servants, lawyers & "capitalists", eg. restaurant owners.

Hitler has replied to plea for help from Germany's erstwhile ally, King Carol of Romania: surrender Bessarabia (17,000 miles sq of east Romania) to the demands of the USSR.

London Times claims that Germans are inflicting "refined cruelty" on British prisoners of war at Malines: "All the men's helmets have been replaced by top hats, bowlers, bonnets, berets to make the PoWs look clownish."