On this day during W.W. 2

Sorry I had a long post going, then I lost my internet con., anyway the Low countries fell on this day and a year later Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland. Its to late for me to redo tonite.
Again sorry

Thanks Herr Kaleun, I dont use the mouse its a pad that you move your finger across and sometimes I press more and drag less and before I know it, it’s all gone. There was too much to do all over again.

1940 German troops advanced rapidly into the Low Countries, easly reaching one of their key initial objectives-the Albert Canal. Belgian units had failed to domolish many important bridges in their hurried retreat, facilitating the german armor and infantry advance. Fort Eben Emael fell. It was one of the supposedly solid outer defence points to protect Liege.        British and French troops landed at Aruba and Curacao, in the Dutch West Indies. The occupation was descibed as an effort “to prevent possible German attempts at sabotage in the important oil refineries of these islands”.        Japan demanded the maintenance of the political and economic status quo in the Dutch East Indies.        10th-11th Britian launched the first of its strategic bombing raids on Germany. Eight Whitly bombers attacked communication targets in the areas of Geldern, Goch, Aldekerk, Rees, and Wesel in an effort to impead German troop and supply movements.

1941 10th-11th German bombers directed their heaviest and deadlyest raid of the war on London. Casualties were 1,436 killed and 1,792 injured. Among the historic buildings hit in the raid were West minster Abbey, the House of Commons, and the British Museum. It was the last raid on london for 10 weeks       
11th Former president Hoover said only by staying out of the war could the U.S. aid Britian. He thought “America ia as yet unprepared even for adequate defense; that our people are not united.” Hoover predicted an invasion of Europe would require 5 million soldiers.

1942 A German U-boat penetrated the St.Lawernce River in Canada and torpedoed a trasport.      U.S. submarine S-42 torpedoed and sank the 4,400-ton Japanese mine layer Okinoshima in the Soloman Islands.      In retaliation for the Doolittle raid, the Japanese launched an offensive in China’s Chekiang province.      German troops went back on the attack in the Crimea, recapturing Feodosiya.      German planes sank three British destroyers attempting to disrupt a North Africa bound convoy in the Mediterranean.

1943 The bU.S. 7th Division landed on the Aleutian island of Attu, achiving total tactical surprise. Dense fog aided in the landings.    Churchill arrived in Washington for meetings with Roosevelt and their resective military staffs.

1944 A major offensive was launched by Allied forces in Italy. The U.S. Fifth and British Eighth armies planned to break through the Gustav Line. Operations began after dark with heavy air and artillary bombardment preceeding a frontal ground assult.

1945 An attack by two Corps of the U.S. Tenth Army was launched on Okinawa. Some elements advanced to positions commanding the Islands capital of Naha. Japanese aircraft staged heavy attacks on U.S. ships in the area, damaging the carrier Bunker Hill and two destroyers.      Wewak on New Guinea was occupied by the 6th Australian Division.      German forces on the Aegean Islands surrendered. Soviet troops began mopping-up operations in Austria and Czechoslovakia.

May 12th 1940 Gerneral Heinz Guderian’s XIX Panzer Corps reached the Meuse River.
  13th Churchill declared in the House of Commons that britian would prosecute the war at all costs, for without victory there is no survival. but he added I have nothing to offer but blood toil tears and sweat.        German paratroopers landed in Northeast France. Liege fell. The 7th Panzer division under General Erwin Rommel crossed the Meuse River at Huy, driving a wedge into the thinly held front of the french Ninth Army. General Heorge-Hans Reinhardt’s XLI Panzer Corps crossed the Meuse at Montherme against feeble Ninth Army resistance. Gunderian’s XIX Panzer Corps established bridgeheads south of the Meuse at Sedan, overpowering the French 55th and 71st divisions, which fell back in panic. Many French Rightists assumed the Paris-based troops of the two routed divisions were mostly communists adhering to the anti-war party line, an erroneous conclusion but one which reflected the growing atmosphere of recrimination.        Dutch fortifications were out flanked by the rapidly advancing Germans. Tanks reached the Meuse River between Dinant and Sedan.

1941 12th Japan proposed a general settlement of all its disputes with the U.S. Ambassador Nomura said the proposals would lead to a “just peace in the Pacific”.        Darlan met with Hitler at Berchtesgaden to discuss expanded cooperation between Vichy France and Germany in ecomic and military matters.Hitler sought the use of French bases in North Africa and Syria.        In a further move to placate Germany, Moscow recognized the Pro-Nazi government in Iraq.        German aircraft began operating out of Iraqi and Syrian bases.      A British convoy reached Alexandria with 238 desperatly needed tanks for  the Western Desert Forces.
  13th Australian Prime Minister Robert G. Menzies said U.S. involvment in the war was essential, “for parliamentary liberty and the ordered rights of self-government are our joint and several heritage”.      The U.S. War Department said Labor strikes were seriously delaying military procurement. Firms with Army orders had lost 1.7 million mandays of production since the first of the year because of shutdowns.      Martin Bormannwas named German Nazi party Chancellor, succeeding Hess…

1942 12th The first major contingent of the U.S. Eighth Air Force arrived in England.      German forces renewed their offensive in the eastern Crimea.
  13th Admiral Robert agreed to the immobilization of french ships in ports under his jurisdiction in the West Indies ports.

1943 12th General Jurgen von Arnim surrendered all Axis forces in North Africa. A total of 238,243 German and Italian prisoners were taken. Africa was now cleared of Axis troops. For Montgomery and the British Eighth Army it was a grueling 1,500 miles from El Alamein to Tunis. A final message was sent by General Gustav Fehn, last commander of the Afrika Korps; “Ammunition exhausted. Equipment destroyed. In accordance with orders recieved, the Afrika Korps has fought to the last man. The Afrika Korps must be reborn.      Heia Safari.”      The first Arakan campaign in Burma ended in failure. Maungdaw was evacuated, and the Allied force was back where it started.        Franco of Spain offered to mediate a peace between Germany and the U.S. and Britian if the Allies severed their ties with the Soviet Union.
  13th British Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee formally announced the end of the campaign in North Africa.        The Island of Pantelleria in the Strait of Sicily came under Allied naval and air attack. Allied strategy was to bomb it into submission, then attack Sicily.      Japans powerful lord keeper of the privy seal, Marquis Koichi Kido, confided to the forign minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu, that the war could be ended only by the royal family’s assistabce in bringing the military under control. Shigemitsu had joined the Tojo cabinet in an effort to conclude a peace in China honerable to the Chinese and to avert what was increasingly perceived as a disastrous military outlook in the war against the U.S. Kido, Sigemitsu, and other Japanese leaders, however, could never overcome the destructive momentum of the military’s actions until it was too late. The Emperor was by no means the ultimate decision-maker.

1944 Allied forces in Italy advanced on a broad front, crossing the Rapido River. German resistance was fiercde.        The last of the German troops in the Crimea were evacuated.      Japanese forces gained full control of the Peking-Hankow railroad in China.      In a joint statement, the U.S., Britian and the Soviet Union called upon the Axis satellites of Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria to withdraw from the war of face the consequences of rigorous peace terms.      French Admiral Edmond Derrien was given a life sentance after having been found guilty of collaborationist activity by a French court in Algiers.      More than 800 U.S. bombers, with American and R.A.F. fighter escorts, attacked synthetic oil plants in Germany, knocking several out of production temporarily. Luftwaffelosses were heavy, nearly 200 planes were downed, while the Allies lost 46 bombers and 10 fighters.
  13th French colonial troops captured three key positions in the Abruzzi Mountains and smashed through the Gustav Line. The dramatic breakthrough opened the way for the Allies to move northward. German losses were heavy. More than 1,000 Germans were captured.        One of the few Japanese submarines to operate in the Western hemisphere, the Ro-501, was sunk in the mid Atlantic by an American escort destroyer.

1945 12th German troops on Crete surrendered.      The German Baltic Army laid down its arms.      SS General “Sep” Dietrich was captured.      Tito’s Partisan army claimed the destruction of six German divisions.
  13th Most German resistance ended in Czechoslovakia. Red Army troops concluded all offensive operations.        The Balete Pass on Luzon was cleared by U.S. Army units opening up the Cagayan valley.

May 14 1940 The government of the Netherlands fled to Britian, saying it wanted to prevent ever being placed in such a position that it would have to capitulate. All Dutch resistance in the Netherlands ceased. The commander of the Dutch forces, General Henri Winkelman, surrendered, saying it was necessary “to prevent annihilation.” German Stuka bombers attacked Rotterdam in a brutal raid, the most devastating until then, killing 980 people and destroying 20,000 buildings.      The greatest losses ever suffered by the R.A.F. until then occured when 45 battles and Blenheims out of a force of 109 planes were shot down while attacking German troops concentrations in the Sedan bridgehead.          Roosevelt again wrote to Mussolini , saying “Reports reaching me from many sorces, to the effect that you may br contemplating  early entry into the war, have given me great concern.”  Roosevelt said a further outbreak of war could lead to the “destuction of millions of lives and the best of what we call liberty and culture of civilization.”      French attempts to counterattack near Sedan broke down in confusion. Guderian"s tanks smashed through the  French defenses  and wheeled  to the west in anm effort  to isolate  the Allied forces in Belgium.

1941  Germany declared the Northern part of the Red Sea a combat zone.      A German deligation arrived  in Baghdad to arrange for a formal request from the Rashid Ali government for German troop intervention in Iraq… The situation in Baghdad was raf from stable, however, and the forthcoming invasion of Crete with its large manpower commitment precluded any Immediate direct involvment in Iraq.      R.A.F. aircraft attacked Palmyra and other airfields  in Syria which were being used by the Germans  to attack British troops in Jordan and Iraq. This was the British action  against Vichy controlled Syria.    More troop reinforcements  landed at Singapore.        The Gestapo arrested 3,600 Jews in Paris.

1942 An area  off St Johns, Newfoundland, was mined by a German submarine, The mines were not discovered  untill late the following year.      The U.S. Womans Army Auxilliary Corps (WAAC) was established by the legislation. “Auxilliary” was dropped in 1943 and it became WAC, as an integral part of the Army.        The French high commissioner for Martinique and Guadeloupe agreed to immobilize  three French war ships, accommodating the U.S. which did not want them to end up in German hands and conforming to Vichy’s obligations under the armistice not to turn them over to the U.S.

1943 Pantelleria was blockaded.      A Japanese submarinew torpedoed the Australian hospital ship the Centuar

1944 german opposition was stiff in Italy, but the Allies continued their northward advance. The Rapido bridgehead was strenthened and expanded.

1945 An Austrian republic was reestablishedin Vienna.

May 15th 1940 In a disastrous climax to a futile three days of combat, the R.A.F. lost more of its French dased bombers, bringing the total to 100. Half of the force was lost in 72 hours.      German U-Boats resumed patrolling the western approaches to the North Atlantic after a three month diversion caused by thr Norwegian campaign.      Churchill wrote his first message to Roosevelt as Prime Minister in continuation of their “intimate private correspondence” which had started when Churchill became first sea lord eight months earlier. Churchill outlined his "immediate needs from the U.S., a loan of up to 50 older destroyers, several hundred late model aircraft, antiaircraft guns and ammunition, steel, a prolonged visit to Irish ports by U.S.Navy ships, and Americans use of Singapore, in any way convenient to keep the Japanese quite in the Pacific…

1941 In a broadcast to the people of France, Roosevelt criticized the Vichy government for its collaborationist policies toward Germany: “The people of the United States can hardly believe that the presnt government of France could be brought to lend itself to a plan of voluntary alliance, implied or otherwise, which would apparently deliver up France and it’s colonial empire, including French African colonies and their Atlantic coasts, with the menance which that involves to the peace and safety of the Western Hemisphere.” Petain, at almost the same time, was announcing a policy of closer collaboration with Germany in Europe and Africa.      Roosevelt ordered American guards aboard eleven French ships, including the luxury passenger liner Normandie, which were in U.S. ports, placing them under U.S. jurisdiction.      British Commonwealth armor and infantry counterattacked from Egypt, retaking the Halfaya Pass. (The British force was now reduced to about 25,000 men, Britons, Australian, Indians and South Africans. A major offensive could not be sustained, and the Allies soon withdrew.      Crete came under heavy German aerial attack.

1942 Japan completed the conquest of Burma as remaining British forces crossed into India and the Chinese were pushed back into their own territory along the Burma road.      German forces under Manstein retook Kerch, eliminating the Russians from the Crimea, except for Sevastopol in the southwest corner of the peninsula. The Russian Crimean front suffered 176,000 casualties and most of its armor in the disasterous action. Stalin’s reaction was “You see, that’s where going on the defensive gets you”

1943 the bey of Tunis was ousted.

1944the Ausonia defile was cleared in Italy, and other key points on the Gustav Line to the Allies, led by French Moroccan troops.      British and Indian units finally broke the japanese defenses at Kohima. Other Allied forces reached a point 15 miles from Myitkyina in Burma.      The first groups of 380,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to concentration camps, mostly Auschwitz. (A totalof 250,000 of them to be gassed)

1945 U.S. Eighth Army forces launched new attacks on Mindanao and Negros in the Philippines.      British ships and planes attacked Japanese positions on the Andaman Islands.      Naha, on Okinawa, was captured.      recalcitrant German units in eastern Germany and northern Czechoslovakia ended all resistance.

1939 Finland< Norway, and Sweden spurned nonaggression treaties with Germany, stating none felt threatened by Germany nor did any intend to join alliances directed against the Germans.        Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia accepted Berlin’s offer of nonaggression treaties.

1940 The U.S. navy was ordered to recommission 35 destroyers.

1942 The Russian drive toward Kharkov was halted and the Germans began a slow and costly effort which eventually pushed the front eastward 25 miles

1943 16th-17th R.A.F. Lancaster bombers breached the Eder and Mohne dams in the Ruhr. They were two of Germany’s largest dams and strategically important as suppliers of power for munitions plants.
The Attu campaign which had progressed to slowly for the Americans despite a powerful numerical superiority in troops sudenly turned when the Japanese unexpectedly withdrew to Chichagof Harbor for a final stand.
17th For the first time since Italy entered the war , an Allied convoy passed through the Stait of Gibraltar and steamed across the lenth of the Mediterranean without meeting any Axis opposition. Possession of the North African littoral pemitted safe and free passage for the movement of troops and supplies.

1944 Kesselring ordered German troops out of the Casssino area. Allied troops were already attacking  the  next German defense positions, the Hitler line. The British Eighth Army began a grneral offensive on the flank.      Myitkyina’s airport was taken in a surprise attack by U.S. Marauders.      Street fighting broke out in Loyang, China, between Chinese and Japanese forces.      U.S. and British planes attacked Surabaja, Java, and sank 10 Japanese ships.

1945 Five British destroyers sank the Japanese heavy crusier Haguro in the Malacca Strait. it was the last surface Naval battle of the war.    Dutch troops landed on Tarakan Island, reinforcing the Australians who had encountered stiff opposition from the Japanese defenders.

sorry, the nice weather and gardening, estate paperwork, and an online game of triple A.
May 18th 1940 German forces in Belguim broke through to the coast, capturing Antwerp. In France they reached Amiens. a fifty mile wide gap in the French line was quickly flooded with the advancing Germans who moved 45,000 vehicles in columns  at the rate of 30 miles a day. Cambrai and St. Quentin were captured.        Mussolini abadoned all public pretense of staying out of the war: “Italy is and intends to  remain allied with Germany and  Italy cannot remain absent at a molment in which the fate of Europe is at stake”.        Hitler decreed the reincorporation of Eupen, Malmedy, and Moresnet into the German state.        Marshal Henri Philippe Petain was named vice-premier of France.
19th The French Fourth Armored Division under General Charles de Gaulle launched a counteroffensive against the Germans at Laon but was repulsed.
20th General Paul von Kleist’s panzers reached the English Channel west of Abbeville in France, cutting off the Allied forces to the north
21st Rommel’s 7th Division halted a counterthrust by the British Expeditionary Force south of Arras designed to isolate Gunderlian’s Panzer Corps to the west. The Allies were now forced to retreat westward to the Lys River. No further major offensive action was initiated by Allied forces.

1941 18th Italy took the dalmatian coast and the former Yugoslav Adriatic Islands. Rome also effectively annexed Croatia and placed the territory under the “protection” of the Italian throne. The Duke of Spoleto, a nephew to the king of Italy, was proclaimed Monarch as king Tomislav I…          The German warships Bizmarl and Prinz Eugen left the Baltic port of Gdynia.      Vichy France declared it would resist any British moves in Syria
19th One Hundered Thousand French P.O.W.'s were released by the Germans. French costs for maintaining the German army of occupation were reduced to 240 million francs per day. The gestures were Germany’s response to increased collaboration by Vichy France.              Because of heavy losses of their aircraft on Crete by Luftwaffe raids, the British decided to withdraw their few outnumbered planes from the island. The airfields themselves, however, were not rendered inoperable.
20th Germany invaded Crete. Thje most spectacular air assult of the war was launched at dawn as 22,750 German Paratroopers and Glider borne units landed along the northwestern coast of the island. It was the first time in history an entire invasion force was moved by air. To defend the Island, which was stategicly important to the Allies and the Axis. The British had committed 28,000 troops augmented by two weak Greek divisions of 14,500 men.Crete is 335 miles from Alexandria, 450 miles from the Seuz Canal. The Germans suffered heavy casualties  during the first  days of fighting. Part of the presure was relieved  after the second wave landed much later in the day to the east around Heraklion and Remito. Within ten days the Germans had the island, but they suffered 6,000 dead . German aircraft losses totaled 250. Allied casualties were great to . Only 15,000 Allied solders were evacuated. Three times the number were left behind, dead or to be captured. Crete, in terms of impact led the German command to conclude that the airborne operations were not worth the cost, and no further such assults were attempted. Hitler  two months after the invasion, said,“The day of the Parachutist is over”. Britian’s problems after Crete were immediate. In addition to the losses in manpower, yhe R.A.F. had lost 46 aircraft, and the Royal Navyhad one aircraft carrier, three crusiers and six destroyers sunk, making Britian’s position in the Eastern Mediterrianean precarious.      Soviet spy Richard Sorge in Tokyo advised Moscow that Germany was preparing to invade Russia with a force of between 170 and 190 divisions,which was being massed in Poland. Sorge anticipated the invasion would take place on June 20th, missing the actual date by 2 days.        Germany completed its positioning of forces for the invasion of Russia, massing 120 divisions along the Soviet border.
20th-21st Twenty five small vessals transporting German troops to Greece  were attacked by an overwhelming force of three crusiers and four destroyers off the Coast od Crete. Most of the transports were sunk, and 2,300German troops killed.      A German submarine torpedoed and sank the American frieghter S.S, Robin Moore in the South Atlantic. The ship was en route to South Africa.      Declaring Paris “anextended zone of operations,” The Germans requested all foreign diplomats leave the city by June 10th.      German forces captured the Maleme airfield on crete. A British counterattack failed.

1942 19th German troops completed the capture of the Kerch Peninsula in the Crimea, taking 100,000 Russian prisoners
20th Having intercepted Japanese coded messages and knowing Tokyo’s plan to attack midway and the Aleutians, U.S. forces were ordered deployed to meet the threats, concentrating on Midway and not the diversion to the north.        21st  Hitler called off planes to invade Malta. He decided to wait untill Egypt fell to the Axis.

1943 18th Japanese forces opened a new offensive across the Yangzee River in China. Its ultimate objective was the Chinese capital of Chungking.      The air bombardment od Pantelleria was intensified as the Allies concentrated on two airfields on the Island. Heavy raids continued through June 5th.
19th Churchill addressed a joint meeting of the U.S. House and Senate.      Pantelleria was again subject to heavy bombing.
12st The neutralized French fleet in Alexandria elected to join the Allied war effort.

1944 18th Monte Cassino fell to the Allies. At 9:30 am  Poles of the 3rd Carpathian Division  raised their regimental flag over Monte Cassino, ending the bitter four month strugglr for the Benedictine monastary. The improvised Polish flag was hastily sewn, with pieces of it coming from a Red Cross flag and soldiers handkerchiefs. Menfrom 15 nations participated in the battle. About 20,000 were killed. Another 100,000 were wounded.      The campaign in the Admiralty Islands ended. U.S. losses were 326, while, 3,280 Japanese were killed.      An attempt to seize Myitkyina was turned back by the Japanese, but the rail station fell to Chinese forces.
19th It was publicly revealed that 47 R.A.F. officers had been executed by the Germans when  they were recaptured after escaping from a P.O.W. camp.        British Eighth Army troops failed to breach the Hitler line at Pontecorvo and Aquino. Gaeta was abandoned by the Germans who retreated north of the Liri River.      The Japanese at Myitkyina were partially surrounded.      U.S. forces landed on Wakde Island off the coast of New Giunea.
20th Allied troops occupied the Gaeta peninsula in Italy.      Japanese held Marcus Island was attacked by U.S. Naval aircraft.      Insoemoar Island off New Guinea was secured by U.S. forces, who suffered 43 losses to 759 Japanese killed.
21st Allied fighters launched operational stikes against Axis rail transport in France and Germany.      Wakde Island was secured by U.S. forces, giving the Allied air force a base to cover landing units in the projected invasion of Mindanao in the Philippines.

1945 18th Sugarloaf was taken by U.S. marines. In 10 days of intense fighting for the hill, the 6th Division suffered 2,662 casulalties. A further indication of the leval of combat was that 1,289 Marines were victems of combat fatigue.      Chinese troops reoccupied the port of foochow in Fukien Province.
19th The U.S. 77th Division suffered heavy casualties for the Ishimmi ridge on Okinawa and had to be withdrawn.      The arrival of French troops touched off demonstrations in Syria and Lebanon.      Stalin denied the Polish leaders in Moscow were arrested for political reasons.      Ipo on Mindanao was cleared by the U.S. 45th Division.
20th Japanese troops began pulling outr of Kwangsi Province in China to return to Japan  for defense of the home Islands
21st Himmler was arrested in Bremervorde by a British patrol.      Japanese units at Shuri on Okinawa began withdrawing.      The Japanese supply base at Malaybalay in Mindanao was capture by U.S. 31st Division units.

Thanks again Herr Kaleun,
1941 May 22 Britian warned the Petain government of the consequences of collaborationism: "If the Vichy government , in pursuance of their declared policy of collaboration with the enemy, take action or permit action detrimental to our conduct of the war . . . we shall no longer feel bound to draw any distinction between occupied land and unoccupied territory in the execution of our military plans.        Soviet Deputy Military Attache Khlopov in Berlin, advised Moscow that "The attack of the German Army is reportedly scheduled for june 15, but it is possible that it may begin in the first days of June.        Roosevelt ordered the U.S. Military to make plans for the immidiate occupation of the Azores to forstall german seizure of the Portuguese islands.      The British Navy suffered heavy losses in action around Crete. Two crusiers, Gloucester and Fiji were sunk, and the battleships Warspite and Valiant were damaged.

1945 Heavy rains began pounding Okinawa, hampering operations for almost two weeks.        U.S. 24th Division forces reached Tambongan on Mindanao.

Thanks again Herr Kaleun, the pool is set-up the garden is done, a trip to Niagara Falls (sorry Most Holy next time I’ll cross and we’ll game), and two games of Global this weekend has kept me away but I’ll be back tomorrow with a fresh post.
TANKS again H K

May 29 1940 Germany occupied Ypres, Ostend, and Lille.      Rumania concluded a treaty with Germany, exchanging its oil for German arms.

1941 The Bismark was sunk on the 27th, sorry for not giving ya the story.
29th  The U.S. agreed to train British pilots who would fly American planes exported under lend lease.      british troops on Crete fell back to positions east of Suda Bay.

1942 SS comander for Czechoslovakia Reinhard Heydrich was severly wounded by partisans in an assasination attempt near Prauge. His car was hit by a gernade as Heydrich was being driven to his country residence at Penenske Brezany. The blast severed his spine.      A Japanese midget submarine entered Diego-Suarez harbor in Madagascar and heavily damaged the British battleship Ramilles and sank a tanker with its torpedos.      Rommel withdrew his forces into a bridgehead on the eastern side of the Gazala line, covering supply corridors through the mine fields back to their bases.      The Royal Australian Air Force opened bombing operations against Tulagi in the Solomans.        Molotov arrived in Washington to discuss U.S. arms aid to Russia and to review U.S.-British planning for a second European front in 1942.

1943 Chinese nationalists troops in the Ichang area halted the Japanese advance on Chungking. They promptly went on the offensive.      The remaining Japanese on Attu staged a final counteroffensive, but it was quickly repelled.

1944 The U.S. First Armored and 34th divisions suffered heavy losses on the approaches to Rome.      Goring admitted to Hitler that the Allies had achieved total air superiority on the Italian front: . . . “at the moment  the situation in Italy is such that not a single Luftwaffe aircraft dares show itself.”      Tanks fought each other for the first time in the southwest Pacific area on Biak. the Japanese used armor in an effort to dislodge the Americans east of Parai. More than 500 Japanese were killed before the attack was halted.      The U.S. Navy escort carrier Block Island was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat off the Azores. It was the only American carrier sunk in the Atlantic during the war.

1945 French forces shelled Damascus and Hama in Syria, and the Syrians asked the British for help.      Belgian Socialists called on King Leopold III to abdicate. The Monarch had always been held in low regard by the government in exile and by many Belgiuns for his independent policies Immediatly preceeding the war and his capitulation to the Germans in 1940 without referance to the French and the British who were aiding in Belgiuns defense.

May 30 1940 Mussolini informed Hitler that Italy would enter the war against France within 10 days.

1941 Iraq’s pro-Axis government collapsed. British troops reached Baghdad and Rashid Ali and dozens of his followers (dubbed Ali and the 40 thieves) fled to Iran.

1942 30-31 R.A.F. bombers launched a devastating nite raid on the German cathederal city of Cologne in the first thousand bomber raid of the war. A total of 1,046 aircraft (Wellingtons, Stirlings, Whitleys, Manchesters, Halifaxes, and Hamptons) plus 50 aircraft attacking German fighter bases took off from 52 fields in Britian. Of that number, 898 actually attacked Cologne, dropping 1,455 tons of bombs ( Two-thirds of them incendiaries). More than 12,000 fires were started, 1,700 of them major conflagrations. The crews returning home could see Cologne burning when they were 150 miles away. German records showed the following results: 486 people killed, 5,027 injured, 59,100 made homeless, 18,432 buildings of all kinds destroyed, 9,516 heavily damaged, 31,070 slightly damaged, 328 industrial plants destroyed or damaged (larger factories halted their production from 3-9 months), and half of the cities power supply eliminated. Fourty-two British planes were downed, 12 were damaged so badly they could not fly again, and 104 were damaged and returned to duty.

1943 U.S. forces secured Attu Island. Only a handful of the original 2,350 Japanese forces survived. The U.S. losses were 512.      Vichy announced that the previously immobilized French naval squadron in Alexandria harbor had gone over to the Allies. According to the Laval government, the French ships had been subjected to incessant presure from the British, including the withholding of pay.        Churchill and de Gaulle arrived in Algiers.

1945 Two battalions of U.S. Marines reached the southeast edge of Naha on Okinawa.      Damascus was again bombed by the French.      Tehran asked Britian, the U.S., and Russia to remove their troops from Iran.

MAY 31 1940 Roosevelt called on congress to expand military preparedness “as measured in both machines and men.” In addition to the 3 billion already requested until then, Roosevelt called for further authorizations of 1.3 billion.

1941 An armistice was signed in Baghdad with the British reestablishing controll over the Iraqi government. The cease-fire would take effect when assurances were received “that complete independence of the country and the honor of the Army will be gareanteed.”        The last of the British forces on Crete were evacuated from Sfakion.      British air raid casualties for April and May totaled 11,459 killed and 12,107 injured.

1942 Chiang Kai-shek pleaded with the U.S. to speed up military aid to China.      Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney harbor in Australia, sinking a small boat.      Mosquito aircraft flew their first operational missions-bombing runs and photo reconnaissance over Cologne.      British civilian air raid casualties for the month were 399 killed and 425 injuried.

1943 Admiral Rene Godfroy, commander of the French naval units in Alexandria, formally announced that his ships would join the Allied military effort.        General Guderian tried to talk Hitler out of a summer offensive on the Russian front. Hitler replied, "Your quite right. Everytime I think of this attack my stomach turns.’ (In the end, however, he approved Operation CITADEL, which turned into the disastrous Battle of Kursk.)

1944 Allied troops began boarding ships for  the Normandy invasion.      Powerful counteroffensive were launched by the Germans  north of Iasi, in Russia.      Intensive Allied bombing prior to the Normandy invasion resulted in a months toll of 900 locomotives and 16,000 freight cars destroyed in Nazi occupied western Europe.      For the first time in nearly four years there were no British  civilianair raid victims during a monthly reporting period.

1945 Organized resistance ended on Negros Island in the Philippines.    Japanese forces pulled out of Shuri on Okinawa.      A regiment of the 37th Division began moving northward from Sante Fe through the Cagayan valley on Luzon.      More fighting broke out in Syria. London informed de Gaulle that orders had been issued for British troops to intervene.      Chiang Kai-shek gave up his title as premier but remained president of China.

June 4 1940 The Dunkirk evacuation was completed. British aircraft losses during the operation totaled 180. Nine British and six French ships were sunk or severly damaged. When the last boat had left, the British had left behind 11,000 machine guns, 1,200 artillary peices, 1,50 antiaircraft and antitank rifles, and 75,000 vehicles.        Churchill, in Britians bleakest hour told the house of commons; “We shal not flag or fail. We shalfight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing ground, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.”

1941 A pro-Allied government was restored in Iraq.      The former kaiser, Wilhelm II, died at Doorn in Nazi-occupied Holland, where he had lived in exile since Germany’s loss in World War I. (The kaiser always despised Hitler as an uncouth politician, but he finally congratulated Hitler in a telegram after the fall of France. One of the kaiser’s sons, known as “Auwi”, was an Ss general during world war II, as a dedicated Nazi.

1942 Hitler visited Field Marshal Mannerheim in Finland.      Heydrich died of wounds inflicted by the Czech partisan assassination team near Prague.      A counterattack was launched by the British in Libya.
      4-6 the battle of midway……you’ll read about it tomorrow or the next day.

1943 3rd Japan seized all shipping on the upper Yangtze in Hupei Province.      Waters off Halifax, Nova Scotia, were minned by a German submarine. The field was discovered immediately, but only after the 2,000 ton Panamanian cargo dhip Halma was sunk.

1944 The U.S. Fifth Army entered Rome.While the Germans fought some rear-guard actions, the city was spared the devastation of combat. By nightfall, Allied units were converginging on Rome from all sectyors. Germans withdrawing northward from Rome were hit steadily by Allied aircraft. Rome’s population greeted the Allies enthusiastically after a lengthy period in which the Germans defended southern Italy with incredible determination to delay the inevitable capture of the first Axis capital to fall. Hitler ordered  the Italian capital evacuated, according to Radio Berlin, to avoid putting the city " under the peril of destruction." With eth exception of the rail yards bombed by the Allies, Rome escapted the war reletively unscathed.      Because of bad weather, Eisenhower ordered a 24 hour postponement of D-Day until June 6th      An American antisubmarine force captured a German submarine (U-505) 150 miles off the coast of Rio de Oro (Spanish Sahara), Africa. It was the first enemy ship captured by a U.S. naval boarding party since 1814. The submarine surfaced  when attacked, but the crew abadoned it when it started to sink. American seamenboarded and salvaged it, and the submarine was towed to the U.S.

1945 U.S. Marines landed on the Oroku Peninsula on Okinawa. About half the Naha airfield was cleared.

June 6 1940 French Premier Reynaud assumed control of foregin affairs, dropping Daladier as foreign minister. General Charles de Gaulle was appointed under secretary of war.

1941 Washington authorized the acquision of all idle foreign merchant ships in U.S. waters "for urgent needs of commerce and national defense.      Luftwaffe units in Syria were withdrawn.      Hitler advised the Japanese ambassador, in Berchtesgaden, that Germany might go to war with Russia. He did not  refer to an invasion, but said troop reinforcements were being sent east. “Under such circumstances”, he confided war might be unavoidable between us.

1942 The decisive battle of Midway was fought, marking a turning point in the war in the Pacific. Admiral Chester Nimitz knew a month before that the Japanese were planning to invade Midway and to launch a diversionary assult on the Aleutians. Intercepts of secret Japanese radio messages gave the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet as much knowlage of Japanese intentions as was known by the Japanese planners themselves. Nimitz was ready, and the Japanese were administered a resounding defeat which altered the coarse of the Pacific war. Four Japanese carriers, -Kaga, Soryu, Akagi, and Hiryu were lost, in addition to a heavy crusier the Mikuma. The U.S. carrier Yorktown and a destroyer, the Hammann, were sunk. American air losses were 147 planes, compared to to the Japanese total of 332. Henceforth, Japan was no longer affected by the victory disase, which had marked the first six months of the war, and the Allies shortly went over to the offensive.      German troops opened a massive assult and bombardmet ofSevestopol.

1943 The attacks on Pantelleria were concentrated on shore defensives and gun emplacements.

1944 The greatest amphibious operation in military history was launched as Allied forces under the command of Eisenhower began landing on the Northern coast of France between Cherbourg and Le Harve. H hour for the Americans was 6:30 a.m. , later for the British units because of the tide. Within 24 hours, 176,000 troops were put ashore from 4,000 ships. They were protected by 9,500 aircraft and 600 warships. U.S. First Army forces quickly secured Utah Beach. The British Second Army  overcame most resistance rapidly and drove toward Caen, Only at Omaha Beach were the forces almost totally stymied, but the U.S. V Corps established a firm beachhead by evening.        U.S. 1st Armored Division units advanced 25 miles north of Rome.      U.S. planners set Oct 1 1945 as the date for invading Japan.

1945 The Naha airfield on the Oroku Peninsula was cleared by the U.S. Marines 6th Division