Air Operations, Carolines

• In support of the upcoming Marianas invasion, V Bomber Command B-24s mount attacks to neutralize airfields on Peleliu Island in the Palau Islands, the Woleai Atoll, and Yap Island.
• XIII Bomber Command B-24s attack the airfield on Alet in the Puluwat Islands and airfields on Satawan Island.
• 25 XIII Bomber Command B-24s attack the Truk Atoll.
• During the night, VII Bomber Command B-24s attack the Truk Atoll and Ponape Island.

Air Operations, CBI

• 5 10th Air Force B-25s attack the Imphal-Tiddim road.
• More than 40 10th Air Force fighter-bombers attack Kadu, Mogaung, and Myitkyina.

• 14th Air Force B-25s, P-51s, and P-40s complete more than 200 sorties throughout the day against numerous targets in the Tungting Lake region.
• Fighter-bombers and 3 308th Heavy Bomb Group B-24s attack shipping in the South China Sea.
• 76th Fighter Squadron P-51s down 3 Ki-43 'Oscar' fighters near Siangyin during the morning.
• 3rd CACW Fighter Squadron P-40s down 2 Ki-4 'Oscars' in an engagement near Ichang at 1330 hours.

• More than 20 10th Air Force B-25s airlift ammunition to Imphal.

Air Operations, Europe

• 401 aircraft bomb airfields at Flers, Le Mans, Laval and Rennes all situated south of the Normandy battle area. Included in this total are 206 Lancasters, 175 Halifaxes and 20 Mosquitos of Nos. 1, 4, 6 and 8 Groups. Bomber Command documents do not give any reason for these raids other than they may have been to prevent these airfields from being used for German reinforcements being brought by air because all the railway systems were blocked. All the attacks are successful.
• 2 Halifaxes are lost on the Laval raid.
• 108 Lancasters and 4 Mosquitos of No. 5 Group along with 5 Pathfinder Mosquitos attempt to bomb a railway junction at Étamps, south of Paris. The marking is accurate but late, and the bombing spread from the railway junction into the town.

• 36 Mosquitos are sent to Berlin, 24 Halifaxes and 4 Stirlings lay mines off Brest, and there are 2 Serrate patrols and 13 RCM sorties.
• There are no losses.

Air Operations, New Guinea

• V Bomber Command A-20s attack port facilities at Manokwari.
• 5th Air Force B-24s, B-25s, A-20s, and P-39s, and RAAF aircraft, mount continuous attacks against numerous targets in and around Wewak.
• Elements of 2 US Army aviation engineer battalions begin constructing a new airfield on Owi Island in the Paidado Islands.

Atlantic

In the Normandy area the US destroyer Meredith (DD-726) is sunk by a horizontal bomber after suffering damage by a mine on the previous day. Two LSTs are sunk by torpedos from German surface craft: LST-314 and LST-376.

Burma-India

Adm Mountbatten sends an instruction to Gen George Giffard, Commander of the British-Indian 11th Army Group: the area of Dimapur-Kohima-Imphal road must be cleared of the enemy by July 15, so as to go on to the liberation of the Imphal plain and the area between Yuwa and Tamanthi and then to an offensive across the Chindwin after the end of the monsoon rains.

Eastern Front

The Russians start an offensive on the Finnish front. The 21st and 23rd Armies attack with air support along a 14-km-wide coastal sector or the Karelian Isthmu. 3,000 guns obliterate the Finnish advance positions, but Russian tanks make little progress by nightfall.

The Leningrad Front begins probing attacks against the South Eastern Army. The 7th and 32nd Armies have 202,000 men for the attack, while the 21st and 23rd Armies have 189,000.

Italy

The US 34th Div takes Tarquinia in the US VI Corps sector. In the early hours of the morning Viterbo also falls, without a shot fired, to the US 1st Arm Div. In the British 8th Army sector a new line of battle between the XIII And the X Corps is fixed along the Tiber, so that some units of the XIII Corps, the British 6th Arm Div and 4th Div, pass to the X Corps. In the XIII Corps sector the South African 6th Arm Div makes contact at Viterbo with units of the American 1st Arm Div and pushes on in the direction of Orvieto, while the British 6th Arm Div continues its advance toward Terni.

The US 1st Arm Div, as well as the 85th and 88th Divs, is withdrawn from the front, while the US IV Corps takes over responsibility for the sector occupied by the US VI Corps, whose headquarters is moved to Naples, and the 36th Div of Gen Willis D. Crittenberger. The withdrawn units are to prepare for the invasion of the south of France.

Italy, Politics

The President of the Italian Council of Ministers, Marshal Badoglio, resigns and Ivanoe Bonomi, a premier before Mussolini assumed power, is invited to form a new government. The Cabinet now includes Count Carlo Sforza, Professor Benedetto Croce and the Communist leader, Palmiro Togliatti.

New Guinea

In the area of the Hollandia-Aitape beachhead the Americans break the Japanese resistance and get back to the Tirfoam river, but they are held up there because one infantry regiment has to be taken out of the line for the landing on Numfoor Island. An Australian fighter squadron reaches Tadji airfield in the Aitape area.

Pacific

2 Japanese destroyers are sunk by US submarines off the Bonin Islands, the Matsukaze by the submarine Swordfish (SS-193), and in the Celebes Sea, the Tanikaze by the submarine Harder (SS-257). Although a good day of hunting, such sinkings are now unexceptional as US submarines inflict a grievous toll on Japanese merchant and military shipping.

Western Front

The American 4th Div makes significant progress in its advance on Cherbourg. The 22nd Regt forces the 169 men defending the Azeville fortifications, 4 reinforced concrete casemates camouflaged as civilian dwelling-houses linked by covered trenches and armed with 150-mm guns and machine-guns, to surrender. A task force is then sent through the breach opened at Azeville, with Quineville as its objective. The 82nd and 101st Airborne Div mount attacks, the first on the Merderet River, the second, to the south, against Carentan.

In the central sector the US V Corps, the 38th Regt of the 2nd Div, enters Trévières, where the 9th Regt, from the east, pushes on toward Rubercy. Troops on the left flank of the 1st Div reach Agy and Dodigny. The landing of the US 2nd Arm Div begins. In the British 2nd Army sector, the I Corps encounters strong resistance in the Caen area. Allied aircraft are now operating from landing grounds in France.

Images from June 9, 1944

Pegasus Bridge, June 1944, Transport moving across the Caen Canal Bridge at Benouville. The bridge was renamed Pegasus Bridge, after the mythical winged horse on the formation sign of British airborne forces.

Transport Moving Across the Caen Canal

Mortar Crew, Headquarters Company, Regina Rifle Regiment. Normandy, 9 June 1944

LCI-35 Landing on June 9, 1944 - Sword Beach

Troops on Utah Beach in Normandy, France on June 9, 1944, take shelter behind a sea wall while awaiting orders to move inland during the invasion by allied troops in June 1944. (AP Photo)

Troops on Utah Beach in Normandy

Royal Navy personnel of an ostacle clearance unit blowing up German beach obstacles at La Riviere, Normandy, 9 June 1944.

Royal Navy Clearing Beach Obstacles

Panther of 3. Panzerkompanie I./SS-PzRgt 12, after attack made in the end of morning at Norrey-en-Bessin, commanded by an Heer officer, Hauptmann Lüdemann (KIA 14.06.1944) who replaced SS-Hauptsturmführer von Ribbentrop (WIA 03.06.1944). 9 June 1944.

Panther of 3. Panzerkompanie I./SS-PzRgt 12

Portrait of 18-year-old German Schutzstaffel Corporal Otto Funk of the 25th Grenadier Regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) after a failed attack on Allied troops at Norrey-en-Bessin, northwest of Caen

18-year-old German Schutzstaffel

American Soldiers and Equipment Being Landed near Colleville-sur-Mer, 9 june 1944

Knocked out Panzer, Lehr Division in Normandy, 9 June 1944

M4 Sherman tank named Hurricane rolls onto a beachhead in Northern France, 9 June 1944. This tank has the Deep Wading kit installed for operation in water

Sherman Tank Rolls onto a Beachhead

Allied Ammunition Dump Somewhere in Normandy, 9 June 1944

Nazi Forces Held Prisoner by the British 2nd Army on Juno Beach, 9 June 1944