12-13 June 1941 RAF Bomber Command drops 445 tons of bombs on the Ruhr - the heaviest tonnage delivered to date.
12-13 June 1941 The first operational sortie over Germany by a bomber squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). Four Vickers Wellingtons of 405 (Vancouver) Squadron RCAF bomb Schwerte Marshalling yards. The RCAF eventually provide an entire bomber group [No.6 (RCAF) Group] in Bomber Command.
12 June 1942 Flight Lieutenant A.K. Gatward and Sergeant G. Fern of No.236 Squadron fly at low level to Paris in a Bristol Beaufighter. They proceed to fly along the Champs Elysees before dropping a large French tricolour over the Arc de Triomphe and strafing the Gestapo headquarters in the city.
12 June 1944 The Victoria Cross is posthumously awarded to Pilot Officer A.C. Mynarski of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), a mid-upper gunner who gave his own life in an attempt to save that of a fellow crew member during a low level attack on marshalling yards at Cambrai. The aircraft involved was Avro Lancaster X KB726 of No.419 (RCAF) Squadron, RAF Bomber Command.
12 June 1940 In a desperate attempt to support French troops fighting in Normandy, a further two divisions (the 52nd Lowland Division and the 1st Canadian Division) are landed at Cherbourg. It wasn't the whole of 1st Cdn Div that went to France with the second BEF, just a Brigade Group, as far as I'm aware. 1st Canadian Brigade Group. Royal Canadian Regiment Hastings and Prince Edward Island Regiment 48th Highlanders of Canada 1st Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery.
12-13 June 1944 June RAF Bomber Command commences a new bombing campaign against German oil targets, when 303 aircraft (286 Avro Lancasters and 17 de Havilland Mosquitoes) attack a synthetic oil plant at Gelsenkirchen. The attack was extremely accurate, halting oil production for several weeks. During the latter months of 1944 and early 1945, RAF Bomber Command and US 8th Army Air Force raids on oil refineries and production facilities crippled German fuel production, severely limiting the fighting ability of the German armed forces - particularly the Luftwaffe.
ESCANABA (June 13, 1943) The U.S.C.G. Escanaba (WPG-77), was a 1,005 ton Algonquin Class U.S. Coast Guard gunboat escorting convoy GS-24 from Narsarssuak, Greenland, to Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, was sunk at 5.10am. The 165ft ship exploded and sank in just over three minutes taking 101 members of her crew with her. All died in the explosion or from hypothermia in the 39 degree cold water. Only 2 men survived the sinking, picked up by the tug Raritan some minutes later. A year earlier, on June 15, 1942 the Eacanaba had rescued twenty-two men from the SS Cherokee and on February 3, 1943, rescued 132 survivors from the SS Dorchester. It is not known what sunk the Escanaba, mine or torpedo. German sources records no U-boat attacks at that time. In its home port, Grand Haven, Michigan, the community raised enough money to build another vessel bearing the name Escanaba. A memorial service is held every year to honour the ship and its gallant crew.
HMS BOADICEA (June 13, 1944) British destroyer, 1,360 tons, commissioned in 1931 and sunk off Portland Bill, Dorset, by two torpedoes launched from a German Junker 88 aircraft. The Boadicea was operating ahead of Convoy EBC-8 on its way to Normandy. One torpedo struck near the forward magazine causing it to explode. The other exploded in its wake. Nine officers, including the captain Lt. Cdr. F.W. Hawkins, and 166 ratings died. There were only 12 survivors.
June 13, 1944 Germans launch V-1 rocket attack against Britain On this day in 1944, Germany launches 10 of its new V1 rockets against Britain from a position near the Channel coast. They prove to be less than devastating. Mired in the planning stages for a year, the V1 was a pilotless, jet-propelled plane that flew by air-driven gyroscope and magnetic compass, capable of unleashing a ton of cruise missile explosives. Unfortunately for the Germans, the detonation process was rather clumsy and imprecise, depending on the impact of the plane as the engine quit and the craft crash-landed. They often missed their targets. This was certainly the case against Britain. Of the 10 V1, or Reprisal 1, "flying bombs" shot at England, five crashed near the launch site, and one was lost altogether-just four landed inside the target country. Only one managed to take any lives: Six people were killed in London. The Germans had hoped to also mount a more conventional bombing raid against Britain at the same time the V1s were hitting their targets-in the interest of heightening the "terror" effect. This too blew up in their faces, as the Brits destroyed the German bombers on the ground the day before as part of a raid on German airfields.
13 June 1944 The V1 flying bomb campaign opens. During the course of this day, Flakregiment 155(W) launched the first ten V1 flying bombs (codenamed Divers by the Allies) against Britain from launch sites in the Pas de Calais. The designated target for the missiles was Tower Bridge, however, due to technical failures only four weapons crossed the coast. Three exploded on open ground some distance from the centre of London and caused no casualties and the fourth fell at Bethnal Green, 2 miles from the aiming point, killing six people and injuring a further nine.
13 June 1941 - Australians involved in Battle of Jezzine, Syria. 1945 - Australians capture Brunei Spider
On this day in 1940, Parisians awaken to the sound of a German-accented voice announcing via loudspeakers that a curfew was being imposed for 8 p.m. that evening-as German troops enter and occupy Paris. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had tried for days to convince the French government to hang on, not to sue for peace, that America would enter the war and come to its aid. French premier Paul Reynaud telegrammed President Franklin Roosevelt, asking for just such aid-a declaration of war, and if not that, any and all help possible. Roosevelt replied that the United States was prepared to send material aid-and was willing to have that promise published--but Secretary of State Cordell Hull opposed such a publication, knowing that Hitler, as well as the Allies, would take such a public declaration of help as but a prelude to a formal declaration of war. While the material aid would be forthcoming, no such commitment would be made formal and public. By the time German tanks rolled into Paris, 2 million Parisians had already fled, with good reason. In short order, the German Gestapo went to work: arrests, interrogations, and spying were the order of the day, as a gigantic swastika flew beneath the Arc de Triomphe. While Parisians who remained trapped in their capital despaired, French men and women in the west cheered-as Canadian troops rolled through their region, offering hope for a free France yet. The United States did not remain completely idle, though. On this day, President Roosevelt froze the American assets of the Axis powers, Germany and Italy.
On this day in 1941...... British and Empire desert forces in North Africa launch Operation Battleaxe, an attempt to relieve Tobruk. Despite every available Allied aircraft (105 bombers and 98 fighters) being used in support of ground operations, and the arrival of reinforcements from Egypt, the operation was a failure, and highlighted the need for effective air-ground communication.
Following an assessment of Exercise Spartan, Tactical Air Forces (TAFs) are created as replacements for RAF Army Co-operation Command. The exercise tested the efficiency of Army co-operation squadrons under mobile conditions, and was effectively a rehearsal for the invasion and liberation of Northwest Europe.
14 June 1944 Australian 35th Battalion occupy Hansa Bay, New Guinea. On June 12, 1944 patrols of the Australian 35th Battalion reached Hansa Bay, probing as far as the Sepic River. The Japanese had abandoned large stores making it one of the largest dumps captured in the New Guinea campaign to that date. At the end of the war, jeeps and other equipment were dumped into the bay. Japanese Shipwrecks At least 35 Japanese ships and US aircraft litter the harbor and black sand beach. All lie in shallow water less than 25M covered in coral and fish. Some are too deep to inspect without scuba equipment, others are only in 4-6M of water, from the air raids in 1943 - 44.
14 – 15 June 1944 The German light forces based on the Channel ports constituted a threat to the Anglo-US amphibious build-up in the Bay of the Seine and had already inflicted losses by minelaying and direct attack. The RAF was called upon to deliver concentrated attacks the two major bases in the area on successive nights. Striking at such short rang (30 miles) the heavy bombers were able to achieve a high degree of accuracy; they were, however, much assisted by the local flak commander, who forbade the AA defences to open fire on the first wave as Luftwaffe minelaying aircraft were also in the area. The German losses were crippling…. German Torpedo Boats. Falke, Jaguar, Mowe. German Minesweeper. M.103, M.402, M.507, M550 Also sunk was the German E-boat depot ship Nachtigall.
June 15, 1943 The "Blobel Commando" begins its cover-up of atrocities On this day in 1943, Paul Blobel, an SS colonel, is given the assignment of coordinating the destruction of the evidence of the grossest of Nazi atrocities, the systematic extermination of European Jews. As the summer of 1943 approached, Allied forces had begun making cracks in Axis strongholds, in the Pacific and in the Mediterranean specifically. Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, the elite corps of Nazi bodyguards that grew into a paramilitary terror force, began to consider the possibility of German defeat and worried that the mass murder of Jews and Soviet prisoners of war would be discovered. A plan was devised to dig up the buried dead and burn the corpses at each camp and extermination site. The man chosen to oversee this yearlong project was Paul Blobel. Blobel certainly had some of that blood on his hands himself, as he was in charge of SS killing squads in German-occupied areas of Russia. He now drew together another kind of squad, "Special Commando Group 1,005," dedicated to this destruction of human evidence. Blobel began with "death pits" near Lvov, in Poland, and forced hundreds of Jewish slave laborers from the nearby concentration camp to dig up the corpses and burn them-but not before extracting the gold from the teeth of the victims.
TRENTO (June 15, 1942) Italian cruiser badly damaged by British torpedo-carrying aircraft south-west of Crete while attacking the Harpoon convoy en route to Malta. The Trento was taken in tow by its escorting destroyer but was then hit by two torpedoes from a British submarine and sinks. Of its complement of 1,151 men there were 602 survivors, a death toll of 549.
SS CHEROKEE (June 15, 1942) US passenger/freighter proceeding down from Iceland, joined up with a convoy heading for Boston. On board the freighter were 41 army enlisted men, 4 Russian naval officers and an army air force pilot. Around midnight, two torpedoes from a German U-boat struck the Cherokee causing two huge explosions which sank the ship almost immediately and taking to the depths 89 men including 65 of her crew and one Armed Guard gunner. There were 22 survivors rescued by the US Coast Guard cutter UCCGC Escanaba.
