366 Days

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June

News Headlines

1

ALLIES DISRUPT GERMAN DEFENSES IN FRANCE

London, England • June 1, 1944 In June 1942 members of the French Resis­tance pro­vided British intel­li­gence with a copy of the top-secret blue­print of portions of Adolf Hitler’s Atlan­tic Wall—part of the defenses against the anti­ci­pated Allied in­va­sion of West­ern Europe. The map had been spirited from the office of the German public works […]

2

CHURCHILL-DE GAULLE MISSTEP ON D-DAY EVE

London, England · June 2, 1944 In June 1943 in Algeria, North Africa, the Free French founded the French Com­mit­tee of National Libera­tion. Much poli­tical maneu­vering was needed to merge the Free French, whose nu­cleus con­sisted of French­men who had escaped German capture at Dunkirk, the Channel port in North­eastern France (May 26 to June […]

3

GLIDER PHASE OF D-DAY BEGINS

RAF Aldermaston and Ramsbury Airfields, England · June 3, 1944 On this date in 1944 in Aldermaston, England, men of the 434th Troop Carrier Group and the 101st Air­borne Divi­sion began moving 52 CG‑4A gliders and C‑47 Sky­train tow planes onto the air­field to lead the glider phase of Oper­a­tion Over­lord, the in­va­sion of Nazi-occu­pied France. […]

4

NORMANDY INVASION SET FOR JUNE 6

London, England · June 4, 1944 Tomorrow, June 5, 1944, a Monday, was to have been the big day, the Allied in­va­sion of a 50‑mile stretch of Ger­man-occu­pied beach on the French Nor­man­dy coast. The in­va­sion, code­named Oper­a­tion Over­lord, had been pushed from May, when the weather had been perfect, to June to allow another […]

5

RESIDENTS WITNESS LIBERATION BY FIRELIGHT

Sainte-Mère-Église, Liberated France · June 5, 1944 On this date in 1944 the people of Sainte-Mère-Église on the Coten­tin Penin­sula in Nor­man­dy, France, retired to their beds on the eve of the largest air- and sea­borne in­va­sion in history—Oper­a­tion Over­lord. As early as 1942, U.S. mili­tary planners had been eyeing this cross­roads town. If the […]

6

ALLIES STORM NORMANDY BEACHES

Normandy, Liberated France · June 6, 1944 It was a cloudy D-Day. Already Hermann Goering’s Luft­waffe had sur­ren­dered air suprem­acy over the Eng­lish Chan­nel, when on this date in 1944 in Nor­man­dy, France, the U.S. First Army under Gen. Omar Brad­ley assaulted Utah and Omaha beaches, while to the east Brit­ish and Cana­dian units of […]

7

KING, GOVERNMENT FLEE NORWAY TO ENGLAND

Tromsø, Occupied Norway • June 7, 1940 Within days of the German invasion of neutral Denmark and Nor­way on April 9, 1940 (Oper­a­tion Weser­uebung), it became clear that the Nor­we­gian armed forces could not resist the more power­ful Wehr­macht (German armed forces), bris­tling with modern wea­ponry and sup­ported by highly effec­tive air cover. Caught largely […]

8

GERMAN NAVY SINKS BRITISH CARRIER GLORIOUS

Berlin, Germany · June 8, 1940 In an operation remarkable for its precision and bold­ness, Germany launched Opera­tion Weser­uebung, the invasion of Norway on April 9, 1940, seized its capital, Oslo, and captured the impor­tant port of Narvik in Northern Nor­way. Nar­vik boasted an ice-free harbor during the long Scan­di­na­vian winters, and it was the rail […]

9

HEYDRICH’S DEATH UNLEASHES HORRIFIC REPRISALS

Berlin, Germany · June 9, 1942 On this date in 1942, with the full leadership of the Third Reich in atten­dance, Nazi “martyr” Rein­hard Hey­drich was eulo­gized in one of the most elab­o­rate fune­rals ever staged in Berlin. (Hey­drich had been added by Adolf Hitler to the “honor­ary list of the Fallen of the Nazi […]

10

ITALY DECLARES WAR ON FRANCE, BRITAIN

Rome, Italy · June 10, 1940 On March 18, 1940, at the Brenner Pass on the Italian-Austrian border, Adolf Hitler and Ital­ian strong­man Benito Mus­so­lini met face to face. Hitler had requested the sum­mit in order to force the Duce (Italian, “leader”) to take sides within the frame­work of the German-Ital­ian Pact of Steel, signed […]

11

ITALY BOMBS MALTA ISLAND FORTRESS

Malta, Central Mediterranean · June 11, 1940 On this date in 1940, one day after Italy entered World War II on the side of Axis part­ner Nazi Ger­many, the Ital­ian Royal Air Force opened a nearly non­stop series of air raids on the Medi­ter­ra­nean is­land of Malta. Lying 50 miles off the Sicilian coast and 200 miles north of […]

12

NAVY FLIERS FIND RICH TARGETS IN MARIANAS

Off the Mariana Islands, Central Pacific · June 12, 1944 On this date in 1944 in the Mari­a­nas, U.S. carrier aircraft began attacking Jap­a­nese defenses on Saipan, Tinian, and Guam in prep­a­ra­tion for the three-week battle on Sai­pan. On July 9 U.S. Marines declared Sai­pan secured, calling the battle for the island “the decisive battle of […]

13

NAZI V-1 FLYING BOMBS TERRORIZE LONDON

London, England · June 13, 1944 Beginning on this date in 1944 in London, one week after the Allied D‑Day landings in Nor­mandy, France (Opera­tion Over­lord), the Germans unleashed their pilot­less flying “retali­a­tion wea­pon,” Ver­geltungs­waffe‑1, on England. Adolf Hitler crowed to his rocket pio­neer Wern­her von Braun, “This will be retri­bu­tion against England. With it […]

14

GERMAN TROOPS ENTER PARIS; FRENCH GOVERNMENT FLEES

Paris, Occupied France · June 14, 1940 On this date in 1940 German troops marched into a half-empty Paris, forcing the French govern­ment to move to Tours, then to Bor­deaux on the French Atlantic coast, where for the third time since the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–71 it set up an im­promptu national head­quarters. In a […]

15

FIRST U.S. RAID ON JAPAN SINCE DOOLITTLE’S

Chengtu, China · June 15, 1944 On this date in 1944 67 B-29 Super­for­tresses took off from their base in Chengtu, main­land China, to release 221 tons of bombs on the Impe­rial Iron and Steel Works at Yawata on the southernmost Japa­nese home island of Kyū­shū. This was the first attack on the Japa­nese home­land since […]

16

BOMBERS BLAST VIENNA OIL REFINERIES

Foggia Airfield Complex, Southeast Italy · June 16, 1944 On this date in 1944 nearly 600 B‑17 Flying Fortresses and B‑24 Liberators from the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force took off from bases in Foggia, Italy, to attack oil refin­er­ies around Vienna, Austria, and Bra­tislava, Czecho­slo­va­kia. After Romania, Austria was the big­gest Axis crude oil pro­ducer, […]

17

STALIN SEIZES LATVIA, HITLER HALTS WAR AGAINST FRANCE

Munich, Germany · June 17, 1940 On this date in 1940 Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, drawing on pro­vi­sions of the sec­ret pro­to­col in the August 1939 Molotov-Rib­ben­trop Non­aggression Pact with his Nazi ally, ordered an attack on the Baltic state of Lat­via. (The 1939 pro­to­col had already returned divi­dends to the two con­spira­tor […]

18

CHURCHILL TO BRITISH: “BRACE YOURSELVES”

London, England · June 18, 1940 Four days after the fall of Paris to Ger­man invaders, Charles de Gaulle, a tall (6 ft, 4 in), young (49), rela­tively un­known French gene­ral who had escaped to Eng­land on June 17, 1940, ad­dressed the French people in a radio broad­cast from Lon­don on this date in 1940. In a cele­brated […]

19

U.S. ARMY ACTIVATES SECRET INTELLIGENCE SCHOOL

Camp Ritchie, Maryland • June 19, 1942 On this date in 1942 the U.S. Army activated the Mili­tary Intel­li­gence Training Center (MITC) at Camp Ritchie. Former pro­perty of a failed ice com­pany, the rural site was con­verted into a sum­mer training camp for the Mary­land National Guard in 1926. Six­teen years later the U.S. Army […]

20

FRENCH RESISTANCE, WEHRMACHT CLASH

Mont Mouchet, South-Central France • June 20, 1944 During the Allied invasion of France (Operation Overlord), the Maquis and other French resis­tance groups played a vital role in delaying the arri­val of German rein­force­ments to the Normandy beach­head as well as in the even­tual Allied vic­tory in France. The FFI, or Fifis (Forces Fran­çaises de […]

21

ROMMEL ROUTS BRITISH, TAKES TOBRUK STRONGHOLD

Cairo, Egypt · June 21, 1942 After a disorderly retreat by the British Eighth Army into Egypt following Erwin Rommel’s break­through of the Gazala Line in mid-June, the Desert Fox (Rommel’s popular nick­name) stormed the British-held Mediter­ranean for­tress and harbor of Tobruk in Eastern Libya on this date in 1942. The newly minted German field […]

22

JAPAN’S LEADERS PUSHED TO END WAR

Tokyo, Japan · June 22, 1945 Beginning in the summer of 1944 Japanese mili­tary prowess fast approached ter­mi­nal collapse in the Pacific. Between mid-June and early August, Saipan and Guam in the Mari­anas fell to superior Amer­i­can forces. Peleliu and Angaur in the Palau Islands were in Amer­i­can hands by the end of Novem­ber 1944. […]

23

SOVIET BLITZKRIEG KNOCKS GERMANS OFF BALANCE

Moscow, Soviet Union • June 23, 1944 On this date in 1944 along a 450-mile front some 2.4 mil­lion Soviet front­line and support troops, 5,200 tanks, and 5,300 air­craft smashed through German lines in present-day Bela­rus (White Russia and Belo­russia in some earlier sources). Sabo­tage of rail net­works and bridges by guer­rillas several days before June 23 impeded German […]

24

EISENHOWER TO COMMAND U.S. FORCES IN EUROPE

London, England · June 24, 1942 On this date in 1942 Maj. Gen. Dwight D. Eisen­hower arrived in London, Eng­land, to assume adminis­tra­tive and opera­tional com­mand of the Euro­pean Theater of Opera­tions, United States Army. Set up 16 days earlier, ETOUSA directed U.S. ground, air, and ser­vice opera­tions north of Italy and the Medi­ter­ranean coast. When […]

25

BRITISH INTERN GERMANS, ITALIANS

London, England · June 25, 1940 Under the threat of imminent invasion from Nazi Ger­many, the Brit­ish govern­ment on this date in 1940 began in­terning all sus­pect aliens living in the United King­dom. Thou­sands of Germans, Austrians, and Italians, including Jewish refugees from the Nazis, were placed behind barbed wire in England (race­tracks and un­finished […]

26

CHERBOURG’S CAPTURE TO REPLACE LOST MULBERRY

Cherbourg, France · June 26, 1944 On June 19–21, 1944, a violent gale hit the two huge Mul­berry arti­ficial har­bors that the Allies had built in Eng­land, towed across the Eng­lish Chan­nel under danger of wind, weather, and enemy air attack, and planted off the Nor­mandy beaches on D‑Day-plus eight (June 14). The pre­fab­ri­cated har­bors with […]

27

RED ARMY OVERRUNS PARTS OF ROMANIA

Bucharest, Romania · June 27, 1940 On this date in 1940 Red Army troops invaded Roma­nia in the wake of Roma­nian King Carol II’s refusal to cede the east­ern terri­tories of Bes­sa­rabia and North­ern Buko­vina to the Soviet Union (see map). These terri­tories had been assigned to the Soviet sphere of in­flu­ence in a secret pro­to­col […]

28

OILFIELDS, STALINGRAD TARGETS IN SUMMER CAMPAIGN

Along the Eastern Front · June 28, 1942 On this date in 1942 on the Eastern Front, Adolf Hitler launched Ger­many’s second sum­mer cam­paign against the Soviet Union in two years. (The first had been Opera­tion Bar­ba­rossa begun the previous June, which had been intended to knock the Soviet Union out of the war in […]

29

BLOODBATH IN GERMAN CAPITAL, OTHER CITIES

Berlin, Germany · June 29, 1934 Late on this date in 1934 German Chancellor Adolf Hitler unleashed an extraor­di­nary mur­der spree known as the “Night of the Long Knives” (“Nacht der Langen Messer”). Presi­dent Paul von Hinden­burg’s doctors had leaked the news that the 86-year-old Ger­man military hero had only months to live. Hitler feared […]

30

JAPAN DROPS WAR PLANS AGAINST SOVIETS

Tokyo, Japan · June 30, 1941 On September 19, 1931, soldiers of the Kwantung Army (even­tually the largest, most pres­ti­gious branch of the Impe­rial Japa­nese Army) invaded Man­chu­ria in North­east China from their base at Port Arthur (present-day Dalian or Lüshun Port) and estab­lished a pup­pet state they called Man­chu­kuo. This event was a mas­sive […]

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