Air Operations, Europe

23 Bostons are sent to bomb the Lannion airfield, but only 11 reach the target and drop their bombs. 1 Boston is lost at sea.

Air Operations, New Guinea

5th Air Force B-17s from the Bismarcks attack Rabaul.

Battle of the Atlantic

The US tanker Hagan, en route to Havana, Cuba, is torpedoed and sunk by U-157 losing 6 of those on board. 38 survivors reach the Cuban coast by lifeboat the next day.

Black Sea

A Russian supply convoy is destroyed by Ju-88s while unloading at Sevastopol.

Caribbean

• The unarmed US freighter American (4846t), en route to New Orleans, is torpedoed by U-157. 3 of the 41-man crew die in the attack, the remaining crew members are rescued by the steamship Kent.
• The British motor vessel Ardenvohr (5025t) is torpedoed and sunk by U-68 northeast of the Panama Canal without loss.

China

After 4 days' fighting the Chinese are force to withdraw from Chuhsien.

Eastern Front

The German Army Group South makes slow progress against the Sevastopol fortifications. The fortress is defended by seven rifle divisions, one dismounted cavalry division, two brigades of infantry and three of naval rifleman, several armored battalions, one anti-tank regiment and forty-five groups of naval guns. There are 101,000 men altogether with 600 guns and 2,000 mortars. On the German side Gen von Manstein commands a force of seven divisions, plus two Rumanian divisions with outstanding artillery support including mortars and siege guns of exceptionally larger caliber.

The 1st Pzr Army and von Paulus' 6th Army drive the Russians back on a broad front east of Kharkov, capturing Volchansk and Kupyansk and reaching the Oskol River.

The Soviet 52nd Army, trying to punch a way through to the encircled 2nd Shock Army, is forced to retreat by the Luftwaffe.

The 2nd Panzer Army holds an attack by the Soviet Western Front.

The German 6th Army launches Operation WILHELM, aimed at destroying the Soviet 28th Army near Volchansk to facilitate the smooth running of the forthcoming German offensive into the Caucasus.

North Africa

Assault groups of the Afrika Korps break into the enemy positions at Bir Hacheim. During the day the Free French defenders still hold out but at night 2,700 of them are successfully evacuated leaving their wounded behind. They successfully rejoin the Allied forces. The British lavish praise on the French general whose courageous defense has forced Rommel to delay his final attack on Tobruk for so long. But it is still Rommel who has won the day.

Occupied Czechoslovakia

The SS depopulate and totally destroy the village of Lidice near Prague. Some of the inhabitants are suspected in helping the assassins of Heydrich. 173 men and boys are shot, 198 women and 98 children are deported to a concentration camp.

Karl Frank, Heydrich's deputy, immediately threatens reprisals unless the assassins are found. Although there is very little evidence to support his assumption, Frank decides that Lidice should be punished for having harbored the assassins. Hitler orders that this mining village be 'wiped from the face of the earth' in retaliation.

During the night of June 9/10, SS troops surrounded Lidice and at 02:00 hours the villagers were woken and driven to the main square. The men were separated from the women and children. They were told to take food to last for three days and any valuables if they so wished. This was for an 'inspection' they were told, and then they would be returned. The women and children were taken to the schoolhouse and the men to the farm of the Horak family. At the school there were tow SS men with tow suitcases where they were told to deposit their valuables. Then they assembled in the classroom and were checked against their police identity cards to ensure all were present. Trucks to the city of Kladno then transported the women and children. Some 197 men were killed and the women and children were sent to concentration camps. On june 12 it was announced that the village of Lidice had been destroyed. The village was then bulldozed and it took volunteers almost a year to raze it completely.

The bodies of the men and boys over age 16 of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, murdered by the Nazis on June 10, 1942, in reprisal for the assassination of SS Leader Reinhard Heydrich.

Reprisal Murders of Lidice Men

SS Officers Sift through the Rubble of Lidice

Pacific

The carrier Wasp and the battleship North Carolina with cruisers and destroyers pass the Panama Canal to join the Pacific Fleet. There are now 4 large US carrers in the Pacific.