page_title: Timeline of the United Kingdom home front during World War II
section_title: 1939
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of the United Kingdom home front during World War II / 1939
caption_attribution_description: English: Scan of the front cover of a British (adult) WW2 Identity Card dated 1943
context_page_description: This is a Timeline of the United Kingdom home front during World War II covering Britain 1939–45.
context_section_description: 3 June 1939
  The Military Training Act, Britain's first peacetime draft, comes into force. All men aged 20–21 are now liable to call-up for four years military service as 'Militiamen'.
  24 August 1939
  Given the worsening situation in Europe, Parliament is recalled and immediately enacts the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939, granting the government special legislative powers for the duration of the crisis.
  Army reservists are called up.
  Civil Defence workers are put on alert.
  25 August 1939
  The National Defence Companies (a voluntary reserve force of former servicemen) are mobilised to protect "vulnerable points".
  30 August 1939
  The Fleet proceeds to its war stations. The Royal Navy is much stronger than Germany's. It has eight battleships versus zero for Germany; seven aircraft carriers versus zero; two battle cruisers versus five; 66 cruisers versus six; 100 destroyers versus 17, 67 submarines versus 57; and a merchant fleet five times larger.
  1 September 1939
  In response to the German invasion of Poland and the prospect of war with Germany, plans for the evacuation of children and nursing and expectant mothers from London and other areas deemed vulnerable to German air attack are put into action.
  The Blackout begins.
  The British Army is officially mobilized.
  2 September 1939
  Under intense criticism from the House, Neville Chamberlain abandons an offer to negotiate peace terms between Germany and Poland and agrees to present an ultimatum to Hitler.
  3 September 1939
  Shortly after 11:00 Chamberlain announces to the nation that his ultimatum has expired and that Britain is at war with Germany.
  Twenty minutes later the first air raid sirens are sounded in London.  They are a false alarm.
  Chamberlain reforms his Government, creating a small War Cabinet which includes Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty.
  The National Service (Armed Forces) Act is passed. All men aged 18–41 are now potentially liable for conscription.
  7 September 1939
  The National Registration Act is passed, introducing identity cards.
  23 September 1939
  Petrol rationing introduced.
  27 September 1939
  The first war tax is revealed by the Cabinet, including a significant increase in income taxes.
  1 October 1939
  Call-Up Proclamation: all men aged 20–21 who have not already done so must apply for registration with the military authorities.
  6 October 1939
  With the end of formal Polish resistance the Phoney War begins; It lasts until April 1940. There was little military action, although the Allies (Britain and France) began economic warfare, and shut down the German surface raiders. They created elaborate plans for numerous large-scale operations designed to swiftly and decisively cripple the German war effort. These included opening a French-British front in the Balkans; invading Norway to seize control of the Germany's main source of iron ore; and a strike against the Soviet Union, to cut off its supply of oil to Germany. Only the Norway plan came to fruition, and it was too little too late in April 1940.
  November 1939
  London schools start to reopen because of evacuee children returning to the capital.
caption: Identity Card – 1943
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