1939 in Scotland

Centuries:	18th ; 19th ; 20th ; 21st ;
Decades:	1910s ; 1920s ; 1930s ; 1940s ; 1950s ;
See also:	List of years in Scotland ; Timeline of Scottish history ; 1939 in: The UK • Wales • Elsewhere ; Scottish football: 1938–39 • 1939–40

Last updated December 21, 2024

Incumbents

Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – John Colville

Law officers

Judiciary

Events

2 January – all-time highest attendance for a U.K. Association football league game as 118,730 people watch Rangers beat Celtic in an "Old Firm derby" played at Ibrox Park in Glasgow.^[1]
1 May – RAF Lossiemouth formally opens.
3 September – World War II:
- Declaration of war by the United Kingdom on Nazi Germany.
- Clyde-built liner SS Athenia becomes the first civilian casualty of the war when she is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-30 in the vicinity of Rockall. Of the 1,418 aboard, 98 passengers and 19 crew are killed;^[2] the first survivors are brought in to Greenock.^[1] On 7 September, survivors are visited by John F. Kennedy, son of the US Ambassador and future 35th President of the United States.^[3]
4 September
- Civil servants of the Scottish Office begin to occupy its first office in Scotland, St Andrew's House on Calton Hill in Edinburgh.
- Several Citizens Advice Bureaux are founded in the United Kingdom to provide wartime information to the public, including Citizens Advice Edinburgh in Scotland.^[4]
30 September – Jackie Paterson wins the British flyweight boxing title in an open-air bout in Glasgow.^[5]
14 October – World War II: HMS Royal Oak sunk by a German U-boat in Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands with the loss of 833 crew.^[1]
16 October – World War II: first enemy aircraft shot down by RAF Fighter Command, a Junkers Ju 88 brought down into the sea by Spitfires following an attack on Rosyth Naval Dockyard.^[6]
17 October – World War II: first bomb lands in the U.K., at Hoy in the Orkney Islands.^[7]
28 October
- A dust explosion in the colliery at Valleyfield, Fife, kills 35 people.^[1]
- World War II: First enemy aircraft forced down on British soil by RAF Fighter Command, a Heinkel He 111 brought down near Humbie by a Spitfire flown by Archie McKellar following reconnaissance of the Firth of Clyde.^[8]
30 October – World War II: British battleship HMS Nelson is unsuccessfully attacked by U-56 under the command of captain Wilhelm Zahn off Orkney and is hit by three torpedoes, none of which explode; Winston Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty), Admiral of the Fleet Dudley Pound (First Sea Lord) and Admiral Charles Forbes (Commander-in-Chief Home Fleet) are on board.^[8]
1 December – World War II: German submarine U-21 torpedoes Finnish vessel Mercator off Peterhead and the Norwegian Arcturus in the Firth of Forth.^[1]
2 December – World War II: Swedish cargo ship Rudolf hits a mine and sinks off St Abb's Head.^[1]
4 December – World War II: battleship HMS Nelson is badly damaged by a mine (laid by U-31) at the entrance to Loch Ewe.
12 December – escorting destroyer HMS Duchess (H64) sinks after a collision with battleship HMS Barham (04) off the Mull of Kintyre in heavy fog with the loss of 124 men.^[9]
17 December – Danish cargo ship Bogo sinks off Fife Ness.^[1]
21 December – boom defence vessel Bayonet explodes at Leith.^[10]
HMS Spartiate is established as a Royal Navy shore establishment for Western Approaches Command at St Enoch's Hotel, Glasgow.
Strathcarron Reservoir on the River Carron is completed.

Births

7 March – Duncan Macmillan, art historian
16 April – Donald MacCormick, broadcast journalist (died 2009)
2 May – Mairi Hedderwick, illustrator
4 June – George Reid, politician, Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament 2003-2007
8 June – Gordon Reid, actor (died 2003 in London)
9 June - Eric Fernie, historian
11 June – Jackie Stewart, racing driver
16 July – Don Cameron, balloonist
July – Wes Magee, poet and children's author (died 2021)
23 July – Donald Macgregor, marathon runner (died 2020)
29 September – Jim Baxter, international footballer (died 2001)
19 October – David Clark, Labour politician
31 October – Trish Godman, Labour politician (died 2019)
18 November – Ian McCulloch, actor
Dugald Cameron, industrial designer
The Mulgray Twins, Helen and Morna Mulgray, crime novelists

Deaths

18 April – Ishbel Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, patron and promoter of women's interests (born 1857 in London)^[11]
20 April – William Mitchell Ramsay, archaeologist and New Testament scholar (born 1851)
13 September – Henry Halcro Johnston, botanist, physician, rugby union international and Deputy Lieutenant for Orkney (born 1856)
21 September – George Washington Browne, architect (born 1853)
Robert Bryden, artist and sculptor (born 1865)

The arts

18 May – Cosmo Cinema opens in Glasgow as an art film theatre.^[12]
Erik Chisholm's sonata An Riobhan Dearg is composed.
Ian Niall's novel Wigtown Ploughman: Part of His Life is published under the author's real name, John McNeillie.

Related Research Articles

Scapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. Its sheltered waters have played an important role in travel, trade and conflict throughout the centuries. Vikings anchored their longships in Scapa Flow more than a thousand years ago. It was the United Kingdom's chief naval base during the First and Second World wars, but the facility was closed in 1956.

HMS Royal Oak was one of five Revenge-class battleships built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Completed in 1916, the ship first saw combat at the Battle of Jutland as part of the Grand Fleet. In peacetime, she served in the Atlantic, Home and Mediterranean fleets, more than once coming under accidental attack. Royal Oak drew worldwide attention in 1928 when her senior officers were controversially court-martialled, an event that brought considerable embarrassment to what was then the world's largest navy. Attempts to modernise Royal Oak throughout her 25-year career could not fix her fundamental lack of speed and, by the start of the Second World War, she was no longer suitable for front-line duty.

This is a timeline for the Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945) in World War II.

German submarine U-124 was a Type IXB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She operated in the Atlantic as part of the 2nd U-boat flotilla, both west of Scotland and east of the eastern US coast. She was also present off northern South America.

Events from the year 1939 in the United Kingdom. This year sees the start of the Second World War, ending the Interwar period.

The Norwegian armed forces in exile were remnants of the armed forces of Norway that continued to fight the Axis powers from Allied countries, such as Britain and Canada, after they had escaped the German conquest of Norway during World War II.

German submarine <i>U-331</i> German World War II submarine

German submarine U-331 was a Type VIIC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II, famous for sinking the battleship HMS Barham.

German submarine U-30 was a Type VIIA U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that served during World War II. She was ordered in April 1935 in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which prevented the construction and commissioning of any U-boats for the German navy, and as part of the German naval rearmament program known as Plan Z. She sank the liner SS Athenia (1922) on 3 September 1939, under the command of Fritz-Julius Lemp. She was retired from front-line service in September 1940 after undertaking eight war patrols, having sunk 17 vessels and damaging two others. U-30 then served in a training role until the end of the war when she was scuttled. She was later raised and broken up for scrap in 1948.

German submarine U-74 was a Type VIIB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II.

Royal Naval Air Station Hatston, was a military airfield located one mile to the north west of Kirkwall, on the island of Mainland, Orkney, Scotland, built as a Royal Naval Air Station. It was located near the strategically vital naval base of Scapa Flow, which for most of the twentieth century formed the main base of the ships of the Home Fleet. The airbase was designed to provide accommodation for disembarked Front-Line squadrons and accommodation for disembarked Ship's Flight Aircraft and was home to the Home Fleet Fleet Requirements Unit, 771 Naval Air Squadron.

No. 269 Squadron RAF was a maritime patrol unit of the Royal Air Force that saw service in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlantic U-boat campaign of World War I</span> Prolonged naval conflict between German submarines and the Allied navies during WWI

The Atlantic U-boat campaign of World War I was the prolonged naval conflict between German submarines and the Allied navies in Atlantic waters—the seas around the British Isles, the North Sea and the coast of France.

Events from the year 1945 in Scotland.

Events from the year 1944 in Scotland.

Events from the year 1943 in Scotland.

Events from the year 1918 in Scotland.

Events from the year 1917 in Scotland.

Events from the year 1915 in Scotland.

Events from the year 1914 in Scotland.

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Notable Dates in History". The Flag in the Wind. The Scots Independent. Archived from the original on 23 May 2014. Retrieved 17 July 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
↑ Brennecke, Jochen (2003). The Hunters and the Hunted. Naval Institute Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 1-59114-091-9.
↑ "Unseen letters show how Glasgow helped JFK on road to White House". BBC News . 3 September 2019. Retrieved 3 September 2019.
↑ "History of the Citizens Advice service – Citizens Advice". www.citizensadvice.org.uk. Archived from the original on 18 November 2015. Retrieved 19 October 2015.
↑ "Jackie Paterson: World Champion 1943". A Sporting Nation. BBC. November 2005. Retrieved 18 July 2014.
↑ Duncan, George. "Lesser-Known Facts of World War II" . Retrieved 12 May 2013.
↑ Doyle, Peter (2010). ARP and Civil Defence in the Second World War. Oxford: Shire Publications. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-7478-0765-0.
1 2 Flower, Stephen (2011). No Phoney War. Stroud: Amberley. ISBN 978-1-84868-960-2.
↑ English, John (1993). Amazon to Ivanhoe: British Standard Destroyers of the 1930s. Kendal: World Ship Society. ISBN 0-905617-64-9.
↑ "British naval vessels lost at sea, 1939-45, miscellaneous". The Patriot Files. Retrieved 17 July 2014.
↑ Ewan, Elizabeth; Pipes, Rose; Rendall, Jane; Reynolds, Siân (eds.). The new biographical dictionary of Scottish women. Edinburgh University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9781474436281.
↑ Peter, Bruce (1996). 100 Years of Glasgow's Amazing Cinemas. Edinburgh: Polygon. ISBN 0748662103.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[Notable_Dates-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Notable Dates in History". The Flag in the Wind. The Scots Independent. Archived from the original on 23 May 2014. Retrieved 17 July 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)

[2] Brennecke, Jochen (2003). The Hunters and the Hunted. Naval Institute Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 1-59114-091-9.

[3] "Unseen letters show how Glasgow helped JFK on road to White House". BBC News . 3 September 2019. Retrieved 3 September 2019.

[4] "History of the Citizens Advice service – Citizens Advice". www.citizensadvice.org.uk. Archived from the original on 18 November 2015. Retrieved 19 October 2015.

[5] "Jackie Paterson: World Champion 1943". A Sporting Nation. BBC. November 2005. Retrieved 18 July 2014.

[6] Duncan, George. "Lesser-Known Facts of World War II" . Retrieved 12 May 2013.

[7] Doyle, Peter (2010). ARP and Civil Defence in the Second World War. Oxford: Shire Publications. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-7478-0765-0.

[NPW-8] 1 2 Flower, Stephen (2011). No Phoney War. Stroud: Amberley. ISBN 978-1-84868-960-2.

[9] English, John (1993). Amazon to Ivanhoe: British Standard Destroyers of the 1930s. Kendal: World Ship Society. ISBN 0-905617-64-9.

[10] "British naval vessels lost at sea, 1939-45, miscellaneous". The Patriot Files. Retrieved 17 July 2014.

[11] Ewan, Elizabeth; Pipes, Rose; Rendall, Jane; Reynolds, Siân (eds.). The new biographical dictionary of Scottish women. Edinburgh University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9781474436281.

[12] Peter, Bruce (1996). 100 Years of Glasgow's Amazing Cinemas. Edinburgh: Polygon. ISBN 0748662103.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

v t e Years in Scotland (843–present)
11th century	1001 1002 1003 1004 1005 1006 1007 1008 1009 1010 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016 1017 1018 1019 1020 1021 1022 1023 1024 1025 1026 1027 1028 1029 1030 1031 1032 1033 1034 1035 1036 1037 1038 1039 1040 1041 1042 1043 1044 1045 1046 1047 1048 1049 1050 1051 1052 1053 1054 1055 1056 1057 1058 1059 1060 1061 1062 1063 1064 1065 1066 1067 1068 1069 1070 1071 1072 1073 1074 1075 1076 1077 1078 1079 1080 1081 1082 1083 1084 1085 1086 1087 1088 1089 1090 1091 1092 1093 1094 1095 1096 1097 1098 1099 1100
12th century	1101 1102 1103 1104 1105 1106 1107 1108 1109 1110 1111 1112 1113 1114 1115 1116 1117 1118 1119 1120 1121 1122 1123 1124 1125 1126 1127 1128 1129 1130 1131 1132 1133 1134 1135 1136 1137 1138 1139 1140 1141 1142 1143 1144 1145 1146 1147 1148 1149 1150 1151 1152 1153 1154 1155 1156 1157 1158 1159 1160 1161 1162 1163 1164 1165 1166 1167 1168 1169 1170 1171 1172 1173 1174 1175 1176 1177 1178 1179 1180 1181 1182 1183 1184 1185 1186 1187 1188 1189 1190 1191 1192 1193 1194 1195 1196 1197 1198 1199 1200
13th century	1200s 1210s 1220s 1230s 1240s 1250s 1260s 1270s 1280s 1290s
14th century	1301 1302 1303 1304 1305 1306 1307 1308 1309 1310 1311 1312 1313 1314 1315 1316 1317 1318 1319 1320 1321 1322 1323 1324 1325 1326 1327 1328 1329 1330 1331 1332 1333 1334 1335 1336 1337 1338 1339 1340 1341 1342 1343 1344 1345 1346 1347 1348 1349 1350 1351 1352 1353 1354 1355 1356 1357 1358 1359 1360 1361 1362 1363 1364 1365 1366 1367 1368 1369 1370 1371 1372 1373 1374 1375 1376 1377 1378 1379 1380 1381 1382 1383 1384 1385 1386 1387 1388 1389 1390 1391 1392 1393 1394 1395 1396 1397 1398 1399 1400
15th century	1401 1402 1403 1404 1405 1406 1407 1408 1409 1410 1411 1412 1413 1414 1415 1416 1417 1418 1419 1420 1421 1422 1423 1424 1425 1426 1427 1428 1429 1430 1431 1432 1433 1434 1435 1436 1437 1438 1439 1440 1441 1442 1443 1444 1445 1446 1447 1448 1449 1450 1451 1452 1453 1454 1455 1456 1457 1458 1459 1460 1461 1462 1463 1464 1465 1466 1467 1468 1469 1470 1471 1472 1473 1474 1475 1476 1477 1478 1479 1480 1481 1482 1483 1484 1485 1486 1487 1488 1489 1490 1491 1492 1493 1494 1495 1496 1497 1498 1499 1500
16th century	1501 1502 1503 1504 1505 1506 1507 1508 1509 1510 1511 1512 1513 1514 1515 1516 1517 1518 1519 1520 1521 1522 1523 1524 1525 1526 1527 1528 1529 1530 1531 1532 1533 1534 1535 1536 1537 1538 1539 1540 1541 1542 1543 1544 1545 1546 1547 1548 1549 1550 1551 1552 1553 1554 1555 1556 1557 1558 1559 1560 1561 1562 1563 1564 1565 1566 1567 1568 1569 1570 1571 1572 1573 1574 1575 1576 1577 1578 1579 1580 1581 1582 1583 1584 1585 1586 1587 1588 1589 1590 1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600
17th century	1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 1612 1613 1614 1615 1616 1617 1618 1619 1620 1621 1622 1623 1624 1625 1626 1627 1628 1629 1630 1631 1632 1633 1634 1635 1636 1637 1638 1639 1640 1641 1642 1643 1644 1645 1646 1647 1648 1649 1650 1651 1652 1653 1654 1655 1656 1657 1658 1659 1660 1661 1662 1663 1664 1665 1666 1667 1668 1669 1670 1671 1672 1673 1674 1675 1676 1677 1678 1679 1680 1681 1682 1683 1684 1685 1686 1687 1688 1689 1690 1691 1692 1693 1694 1695 1696 1697 1698 1699 1700
18th century	1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709 1710 1711 1712 1713 1714 1715 1716 1717 1718 1719 1720 1721 1722 1723 1724 1725 1726 1727 1728 1729 1730 1731 1732 1733 1734 1735 1736 1737 1738 1739 1740 1741 1742 1743 1744 1745 1746 1747 1748 1749 1750 1751 1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1759 1760 1761 1762 1763 1764 1765 1766 1767 1768 1769 1770 1771 1772 1773 1774 1775 1776 1777 1778 1779 1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789 1790 1791 1792 1793 1794 1795 1796 1797 1798 1799 1800
19th century	1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819 1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 1825 1826 1827 1828 1829 1830 1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900
20th century	1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
21st century	2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025