Air Operations, Aleutians

11th Air Force bombers attack Kiska, sinking a Japanese tanker.

Air Operations, Europe

• 3 Mosquitos are sent to bomb Bremen and Bremerhaven but bomb Wilhelmshaven and the island of Langeoog instead with no losses.
• In minor operations, 65 aircraft lay mines off Lorient and in the Frisians. 1 Hampden is lost.

Air Operations, New Guinea

A 35th Fighter Group P-400 shoots down 2 A6M Zeros near Port Moresby at 1157 hours.

Allied Planning

Churchill arrives in the USA for talks with President Roosevelt and his advisers. There is much discussion of the plans for a Second Front, but it is becoming clear that the conditions for Operation SLEDGEHAMMER (the Second Front in France in 1942) are going to be impossible to meet. This is confirmed during July. Churchill raises the possibility for an attack on French North Africa, to be known at first as GYMNAST and later as TORCH with the president (See July 22).

Atomic Research

The Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb is started.

Column of Soviet prisoners of war from the Ukrainian front. Kharkov, Soviet Union, June 18, 1942.

Soviet Prisoners of War

Battle of the Atlantic

The US freighter Seattle Spirit (5627t) is torpedoed by U-124 with the loss of 4 of her 37-man crew. 33 crewmen, 11 men of the Armed Guard and 7 passengers are rescued by the steamship Perth and the Canadian corvette HMCS Agassiz.

Czechoslovakia, Resistance

The Czech Orthodox Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Prague is where the Czech assasins of Heydrich and their helpers have taken sanctuary. The chaplain Vladimir Petrek hid them in the crypt under the floor. Here, members of the Czech Fire Brigade have had to pump water into the crypt in an attempt to flush out their countrymen after they had been engaged in a heroic battle against SS units. The remaining parachutists take their own lives with their last rounds of ammunition.

Eastern Front

Reinforced by elements of the 17th Army the German 11th Army at Sevastopol takes the 'Maxim Gorki' fort after eleven days of bloody fighting and reaches North Bay. The Germans are now two miles from the harbor and have knocked out all but one of the fortifications defending Sevastopol.

The disaster on the Volkhov runs its course as the Germans counterattacked and isolate the 2nd Shock Army again.

Fortress Maxim Gorki falls to the LIV Corps as the Sevastopol defenses crumble. During the day the Germans also take the Gepau, Molotov, Cheka, Volga and Ural Fortresses.

In the defense line around Sebastopol were many natural caves, which were used as bunkers by the Russian Army or as shelters for the civilian population.

Caves Around Sebastopol

North Africa

Axis forces occupy the area of Gambut, outside Tobruk, site of the landing-strips that should have been used for supplying the fortress. Rommel has completed his maneuver to surround Tobruk. Although his forces are now exhausted, Rommel issues orders for an attack on Tobruk to be begun on June 20. He plans to attack in the southeast sector with 15th and 21st Pzr and Ariete and to drive straight to the harbor. Kesselring brings in every bomber available in the Mediterranean to support the attack. The garrison, though lavishly supplied, is made up of a hodgepodge of units and is not as forcefully led by the South African Gen Klopper as the Australians were during the former siege. The units include the 2nd South African Div, the 201st Guards Brigade, the 11th Indian Infantry Brigade and the 32nd Army Tank Brigade.[MORE]

German field marshal Erwin Rommel observing the field near El Alamein, Egypt, June 18, 1942.

Rommel Near El Alamein

Soviet Union, Politics

The Supreme Soviet meets in Moscow to ratify the Anglo-Soviet alliance.

Turkey

Rail links between Turkey and Central Europe are re-opened. They had been severed in April 1941.

United States, Command

Gen Spaatz takes command of the US 8th Air Force stationed in Britain.