Overnight sees much reduced Luftwaffe activity, meriting a mention on the front page of the Daily Express. But the news is dominated by Neville Chamberlain's resignation. Worn down by the stress of office and age, and now aware that he has a terminal illness, he has resigned from the cabinet, triggering a reshuffle.
Herbert Morrison becomes home secretary and minister of home security, replacing Sir John Anderson, whose reluctance to provide deep shelters has triggered one of the most distressing and potentially dangerous home front crises of the war. Anderson takes Chamberlain's vacated post as Lord President of the Council, and joins the war cabinet.
During the day, typical autumnal weather, with heavy rain and low cloud, prevents any concerted attacks. The Luftwaffe resorts to its standard bad weather operating pattern, and despatches a series of single aircraft to carry out raids throughout the country. Through the gloom, bombs are dropped more or less at random.
A Ju 88 finds the de Havilland works at Hatfield. From a height of 50ft, it machine-guns workers as they run for their shelter trenches and then drops a stick of four bombs on the plant, killing 21 and injuring 70 - more casualties than Fighter Command has taken in over a week. Anti-aircraft fire brings the aircraft down.
Fighter Command losses for the day are limited to one Blenheim, crashing in driving rain during a patrol, killing the whole crew. The Luftwaffe loses nine, including one to a take-off accident and another to an unexplained engine failure.
In Berlin, William L Shirer is back in harness, writing to his diary that something special is expected on the morrow, in a meeting between Hitler and Mussolini at the Brenner [pass]. There is much speculation as to what this will entail.
This is the day that Alan Brooke writes in his diary that he is "beginning to think that the Germans may after all not attempt it [the invasion]. Despite being the man charged with defending England, he must be the only man in the country who was under any illusions that the Germans were still coming. One wonders whether he is serious, or whether he is so focused - building and training his new army - that he has no time to look at the broader intelligence picture.
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