June 1942

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The following events occurred in June 1942:

June 1, 1942 (Monday)

June 2, 1942 (Tuesday)

June 3, 1942 (Wednesday)

June 4, 1942 (Thursday)

  • The Japanese aircraft carriers Akagi, Kaga and Sōryū were crippled in the Battle of Midway and scuttled.
  • The Battle of Dutch Harbor ended in Japanese tactical victory.
  • The Hitler and Mannerheim recording is made when Hitler paid a secret visit to Marshal Mannerheim, ostensibly to congratulate him on his 75th birthday. The recording is the only existing one of Hitler speaking in an ordinary tone of voice.
  • The Australian ore carrier Iron Crown was torpedoed and sunk in Bass Strait by the Japanese submarine I-27.
  • German submarine U-625 was commissioned.
  • The wartime romantic drama film Mrs. Miniver starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon was released.
  • Died:
  • Died: (in the Battle of Midway)
    • Robert Boyd Brazier, 25, American aviation radioman (killed in the Battle of Midway);
    • Delbert W. Halsey, 22, American naval officer (killed in the Battle of Midway);
    • Lofton R. Henderson, 39, American marine aviator (killed in the Battle of Midway);
    • Severin Louis Rombach, 27, American naval aviator (killed in the Battle of Midway);
    • Lloyd Thomas, 30, American aviator (killed in the Battle of Midway);
    • Albert William Tweedy, Jr., 22, American Marine Corps aviator (killed in the Battle of Midway);
    • John C. Waldron, 41, American aviator (killed in the Battle of Midway)

June 5, 1942 (Friday)

June 6, 1942 (Saturday)

June 7, 1942 (Sunday)

  • The Battle of Midway ended in a decisive American victory, marking a turning point in the Pacific War.
  • The American aircraft carrier USS Yorktown sank the day after being torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-168 at Midway.
  • The American seaplane tender Gannet was torpedoed and sunk in the Caribbean Sea by German submarine U-159.
  • British Commandos executed Operation Albumen, an overnight raid on German airfields on Axis-occupied Crete. The British managed to destroy 5 aircraft, damage 29 others and set fire to several vehicles and significant quantities of supplies.
  • The Chicago Tribune published a front-page article titled "Navy Had Word of Jap Plan to Strike at Sea", providing clues from which the Japanese might have figured out that the Americans had broken their codes ahead of the Battle of Midway. Navy Secretary Frank Knox demanded that the Tribune be prosecuted, but once the Navy realized that the Japanese did not change their codes after the article appeared, the case was quietly dropped to avoid bringing the enemy's attention to the story.
  • Born: Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan politician, dictator of Libya (official date of birth) (d. 2011)
  • Died: Alan Blumlein, 38, English electronics engineer and inventor (plane crash)

June 8, 1942 (Monday)

June 9, 1942 (Tuesday)

June 10, 1942 (Wednesday)

June 11, 1942 (Thursday)

June 12, 1942 (Friday)

June 13, 1942 (Saturday)

June 14, 1942 (Sunday)

June 15, 1942 (Monday)

  • The 21st Panzer Division reached Sidi Rezegh.
  • In the Battle of Gazala, British forces withdrew from Knightsbridge.
  • Exiled Greek King George II addressed the U.S. Congress in Washington.
  • Operation Harpoon ended with only two of the original six merchant ships completing the journey.
  • The British destroyer Bedouin was attacked by Italian cruisers and aircraft and sunk off the island of Pantelleria.
  • The British destroyer Hasty was scuttled near Crete the day after being torpedoed by German E-boat S-55.
  • The British light cruiser Newcastle was torpedoed in the Mediterranean by the German E-boat S-66 and knocked out of the war until March 1943.
  • During Operation Vigorous the Australian destroyer Nestor was bombed and severely damaged off Crete by Regia Aeronautica aircraft and had to be scuttled the next day.
  • Died: Vera Figner, 89, Russian revolutionary

June 16, 1942 (Tuesday)

June 17, 1942 (Wednesday)

  • Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo was slightly wounded when a Korean nationalist shot him in the left arm outside the old war ministry building in Tokyo. Japanese police returned fire and killed the man identified as 31-year old Park Soowon. The incident was not revealed to the public for two months.
  • Axis forces gained control of the coastal road to Bardia, completing the isolation of Tobruk. The Allies withdrew from Sidi Rezegh, Ed Duda and El Adem.
  • The British destroyer HMS Wild Swan was bombed and sunk in the Bay of Biscay by the Luftwaffe.
  • President Roosevelt signed a bill raising the minimum pay of American servicemen to $50 a month.
  • German submarines U-466 and U-664 were commissioned.
  • This is the cover date of the first issue of Yank, the Army Weekly.
  • Born: Mohamed ElBaradei, Vice President of Egypt, in Cairo
  • Died: Jessie Bond, 89, English singer and actress

June 18, 1942 (Thursday)

June 19, 1942 (Friday)

  • The Second Washington Conference began.
  • A light aircraft carrying German major Joachim Reichel crash-landed on the Eastern Front behind Russian lines. Reichel was killed in the crash and documents he was carrying pertaining to the upcoming German offensive fell into Soviet hands. German High Command debated over how much to revise their plans in light of the security breach but as it turned out, Stalin believed the documents were planted by the Germans in order to deceive the Soviets and ordered them to be ignored.
  • Soviet submarine Shch-214 was torpedoed and sunk in the Black Sea by the Italian motor torpedo boat MAS-571.
  • Died: Alois Eliáš, 51, Czechoslovak general and politician (executed)

June 20, 1942 (Saturday)

June 21, 1942 (Sunday)

June 22, 1942 (Monday)

  • Vichy French Prime Minister Pierre Laval made a radio broadcast in which he stated, "I wish for a German victory, because, without it, Bolshevism tomorrow would settle everywhere." This speech shocked many of the French people who were still holding out hope that the Vichy regime was playing a waiting game with the Germans until France could be liberated in an Allied victory.
  • Erwin Rommel was promoted to the rank of field marshal as a reward for his victory in the Battle of Gazala.

June 23, 1942 (Tuesday)

  • Hitler wrote to Benito Mussolini with "heartfelt advice" recommending that he postpone Operation Herkules and instead "order the continuation of operations to seek the complete destruction of British forces to the very limits of what your high command and Marshal Rommel think is militarily possible with their existing troops. The goddess of fortune in battle comes to commanders only once, and he who fails to seize the opportunity at such a moment will never be given a second chance." Mussolini complied with Hitler's veiled order and postponed Herkules to September.
  • Albert Speer told Hitler that nuclear science would reap benefits in the distant future, but no superbomb could be produced in time to affect the war. The German military decided to abandon nuclear research as a result. That same day, Werner Heisenberg almost died when his experimental reactor at Leipzig suffered a leak that started a fire. Heisenberg and his assistant Robert Döpel extinguished the fire but noticed the sphere was beginning to swell, and both men ran outside before the reactor exploded and the lab was destroyed. Rumor spread that the scientists had been killed in a uranium bomb explosion, and when word of it reached the scientists working on the Manhattan Project, they assumed that the Germans had achieved a sustained nuclear chain reaction and were considerably further ahead in their research than they actually were.

June 24, 1942 (Wednesday)

June 25, 1942 (Thursday)

June 26, 1942 (Friday)

  • The German 11th Army opened its assault on the inner defenses of Sevastopol.
  • The Grumman F6F Hellcat had its first flight.
  • President Roosevelt signed a new law prohibiting the making of unauthorized photographs or sketches of military property such as bases or ships.
  • Soviet destroyer Bezuprechny was sunk by the Luftwaffe at Sevastopol with the loss of 320 men.
  • Born:
  • Died: Gene Stack, 25, American baseball player (pneumonia)

June 27, 1942 (Saturday)

June 28, 1942 (Sunday)

June 29, 1942 (Monday)

June 30, 1942 (Tuesday)

  • German submarine U-158 was bombed and sunk west of Bermuda by an American PBM Mariner flying boat.
  • All remaining Jewish schools were closed in Germany.
  • German submarine U-182 was commissioned.
  • Died: William Henry Jackson, 99, American painter, Civil War veteran and photographer

This page was last updated at 2023-11-16 14:45 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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