Air Operations, Europe

11 Blenheims carry out a daylight raid on Bremen factory targets at roof-top height.

Battle of the Atlantic

• U-69 sinks the British steamer Robert L. Holt (2918t) from dispersed Convoy OB-337 northwest of the Canary Islands. The entire crew of 56 are lost including Vice-Adm N. A. Wodehouse.
• U-123 sinks the British steamer Auditor (5444t) 600 miles northwest of the Cape Verde Islands with the loss of 1 crewman. 51 of the crew land at St Michael Island, Azores and 24 more land at San Antonio Island, Cape Verde Islands.
• The British ocean boarding vessel Cavina intercepts the German steamer Frankfurt (5522t) in the middle of the North Atlantic. The ship scuttles herself. 26 survivors are picked up, 20 crewmen are missing.

Eastern Front

The Germans capture Ostrov, south of Pskov.

The Finnish 14th Inf Div makes good progress along the Repola axis against sparse resistance.

The 6th Panzer Div easily penetrates the Stalin Line as the 1st Panzer Div enters Ostrov. The Stavka orders the fortification of the Luga River Line to stop the German advance on Leningrad. However, Gen Markian Popov's Northern Front is short of ment and equipment and is having to commit forces to fend off Finnish attacks in Karelia. The German 16th Army, covering the army group's southern flank, is being held back by Hitler's insistence that it protect the junction with Army Group Center.

Timoshenko organizes a counterattack using the 22nd Army at Polotsk against the LVII Panzer Corps; the 20th Army, with the V and VII Mechanized Corps in support (1,000 tanks each), agaisnt the XXXIX Panzer Corps at Lepel; and the 21st Army in the south near the Pripet Marshes.

The 3rd Panzer Group continues the advance on Kiev as the Soviet 18th Army manages to escape across the Dniester River, being subjected to Luftwaffe attack as it does so. The German 6th Army is divided into two groups: the northern group supports the 3rd Panzer for the drive on Kiev, the southern group will link up with XIV and XLVIII Panzer Corps and will swing south to join up with the 11th Army to encircle the Soviet 6th, 12th, 18th and 26th Armies.[MORE]

A German Panzer IV Almost Falls off a Russian Bridge

Italian East Africa

The garrison of Debra Tabor, about 6,000 men commanded by Col Angelini, is forced to surrender. The last Italian forces in Ethiopia surrender at Amba Alagi.

United States, Home Front

In an Independence Day broadcast Roosevelt says that the United States 'will never survive as a happy and fertile oasis of libety surrounded by a cruel desert of dictatorship'.

Yugoslavia

Tito (Josip Broz), general secretary of the Yugoslav Communist party, announces a Communist resistance movement in Yugoslavia known as the Partisans. This is the first use of this term which will become common during the war. Tito has popular support and proposes a Yugoslavian federation that overrides ethnic and national differences.