Air Operations, Europe

4 Lancasters lay mines in the Great Belt without any loss.

Air Operations, New Guinea

8th Fighter Group P-39s shoot down 4 A6M Zeros over Mount Lawson between 1115 and noon.

Britain, Planning

The orders for the 'thousand-bomber raid' are issued.

Diplomatic Relations

• In London Vyachevslav Molotov signs a 20-year Mutual Assistance Treaty between the USSR and Britain. He also pressed for a second front. Churchill will not commit Britain to such an effort until it is 'sound and sensible', adding, 'Wars are not won by unsuccessful operations.' Molotov then departs for Washington.

  The USSR and Britain sigh a 20-year Mutual Assistance Agreement in London. In June, Molotov, Soviet foreign minister will say of the agreement: 'The treaty consolidates the friendly relations which have been established between the Soviet Union and Great Britain and their mutual military assistance in the struggle against Hitlerite Germany. It transforms these relations into a stable alliance. The treaty also defines the general line of one joint action with Great Britain in the post-war period.' Stalin will actually renege on any agreements reached with Britain regarding the map of post-war Europe.

• Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer has secret 'peace talks' with the Bishop of Chichester in Stockholm.

Eastern Front

Repeated futile attacks fail to provide an exit for the Soviet forces from the Izyum pocket. Heaps of killed and wounded litter the battlefield while the pocket is further reduced, the Soviet troops being hemmed into a space 10 miles deep by 2 miles long. Masses of Soviet soldiers are by this time surrendering to the German troops. During the bitter fighting, Gen Gorodnyansky of the 6th Army is killed.

Midway

Adm Nagumo's 1st Carrier Fleet leaves the Inland Sea. He has the carriers Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, with 2 battleships, cruisers and destroyers as escort. The US Task Force 16, based around the Enterprise (CV-6) and Hornet ) (CV-8), returns to Pearl Harbor from the South Pacific where the Japanese believe it still to be.

North Africa

Rommel begins a new offensive, Operation THESEUS, in the Western desert with holding attacks on the Gazala Line made by the Italian infantry. The Gazala Line is a series of minefields and field fortifications stretching from Gazala to Bir Hacheim. He has 3 German divisions, the 15th and 21st Panzer and 90th light, and 2 Italian, Ariete and Trieste, deployed on his right. On his left, in the Gazala sector, he has Gen Ludwig Crüwell's group. In this group are the Italian X and XXI Corps consisting of the Sabratha, Trento, Brescia and Pavia Divisions and the German 15th Light Inf Brigade.

Picture from before the attack: Panzer III of Rommel's DAK waiting west of the Gazala Line.

Rommel's Tanks Ready to Attack

Gen Neil Ritchie, commanding the British 8th Army, has deployed most of his troops opposite Crüwell anticipating Rommel will attack along the coast so he can head straight for Tobruk. He has XIII Corps to the north with the 1st South African Div in the front line with the British 50th Div flanked by the 2nd South African Div, the 5th Indian Div, the 9th Indian Brigade and the 1st Army Tank Brigade. To the south, on the left of the British line are 2 armored divisions, the 1st and the 7th along with CCI Guards Brigade, the 3rd Group of the Indian motorized brigade and the 29th Brigade of the 5th Indian Div. This will be the portion of the line in which Rommel's tanks will be operating.

The Axis forces are inferior in tanks, 560 to 849 for the Allies, but they have a substantial advantage in aircraft, 704 to 320. Bir Hacheim is held by the 1st Free French Brigade, 5,500 men commanded by Gen Marie-Pierre Koenig. Crüwell attacks the Gazala sector in the early afternoon. Gen Ritchie congratulates himself on having forseen the enemy's movements precisely and deduced correctly the point at which they would try to break through the British line. This attack is a diversion, however. Rommel sends all his armor, both Italian and German, in a wide right hook south of Bir Hacheim. The Italian Trieste Div gets lost and blunders into 150th Brigade between Trigh Capuzzo and Trigh el Abd.

The balance of forces is very much in the Allies' favor. The Germans and the Italians have respectively 400 and 230 tanks but are very short of infantry, especially German infantry. The British have about 850 tanks operational and 150 in reserve. About a quarter of these are the new American Grant type which at last give the British tanks a weapon which can fire a high-explosive shell against antitank gun positions. The British dispositions are faulty, however, with the armor too widely dispersed.[MORE]

Action in the Gazala Area