Eighty years ago, the British play the imperial card in phony war propaganda

Flushed with its success in the Battle of the River Plate, the Royal Navy received another boost to its morale when the submarine HMS Salmon encountered a flotilla of German warships on a mine-laying operation in the North Sea and attacked them. Her torpedoes damaged two cruisers: Leipzig very severely and Nürnberg rather more slightly. In an excess of enthusiasm the navy reported that one of the cruisers had been sunk, but had to retract the claim the following day. Notwithstanding the propaganda embarrassment two significant Kriegsmarine units had been put out of action for some months. The British Expeditionary Force in France suffered a prime ministerial visit when Neville Chamberlain arrived after a hot and uncomfortable flight; to his great irritation, imaginative newspaper reporters reported that he looked extremely cold on landing, but that might just have been his personality. He met military commanders from both Britain and France and inspected troops without