2 July 1941

1 July 1942

montivideo maru

30 June 1943

Fenton Airfield in Northern Territory, Australia experiences its first bombing raid by the Japanese when a force of twenty seven Mistubishi G4M (Betty) bombers escorted by A6M (zero) fighters attack at 12:50 hours. Three USAAF B-24 Liberator bombers are destroyed and several others are damaged but there are no fatalities.

Named after Dr Clyde Fenton, Northern Territory's first flying doctor, the airfield was primarily used as a base for B-24 Liberators of the RAAF and the USAAF who mounted raids against Japanese targets in the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea and Borneo as well as Japanese shipping.

29 June 1940

HMS Edgehill (X39) is a Royal Navy Q-ship, a heavily armed decoy vessel disguised as a merchantman, sailing with the North Atlantic convoys with the intention of luring U-boats into exposing themselves in surface attacks.

At 00.12 hours she is torpedoed amidships by U-51 but her specially designed buoyant cargo prevents her from sinking. The U-boat surfaces at 01:06 hours to deliver the coup de grace but a third torpedo is required to finish her off at 01:24 hours. Fifteen of her crew of thirty nine died.

Nine Q-ships were commissioned by the Royal Navy for North Atlantic operations but none were able to sink a U-boat. U-51 was a type VIIB U-boat commanded by Kapitanleutnant Dietrich Knorr. Edgehill was sunk on his third patrol and on his fourth, on 20 August 1940, U-51 was sunk by a torpedo from the British submarine HMS Cachalot in the Bay of Biscay with all hands lost, 43 men. Knorr was 28 years old.

28 June 1944

Georg Pfeiffer, General der Artillerie commanding VI Army Corps of Army Group Centre, is killed in action in Mogilev, eastern Belorussia, during Operation Bagration. Operation Bagration was the Soviet offensive which cleared German forces from the Belorussian SSR and eastern Poland in just two months between 22 June and 19 August and led to the almost total destruction of Army Group Centre.

It is uncertain how General Pfeiffer was killed. Varying sources report that his Geländewagen was hit by a Soviet anti-tank shell, that the vehicle was brought to a standstill by machine gun fire and then attacked with hand grenades or destroyed by a Soviet air strike. He was a highly decorated officer who received the first and second class Iron Cross in both the First and Second World Wars, was presented with the German Cross in Gold on 16 January 1942 and the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 15 January 1943. He served during the invasion of Poland, the Battle of France, Operation Barbarossa, at Stalingrad and at Monte Cassino.

He had experienced war twice at its most brutal and horrifying and war finally caught up with him at the age of 54. A man who continues to fight to the end like Georg Pfeiffer must either thrive on combat or really believe in the cause. In his case it was probably both.

27 June 1945

In 1945, Ralph A. Bard was Under Secretary of the US Navy and one of the eight members of the Interim Committee appointed by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to advise President Harry S. Truman on the use of the atomic bomb.


Bard sennds the following message to Stimson today:


MEMORANDUM ON THE USE OF S-1 BOMB:
Ever since I have been in touch with this program I have had a feeling that before the bomb is actually used against Japan that Japan should have some preliminary warning for say two or three days in advance of use. The position of the United States as a great humanitarian nation and the fair play attitude of our people generally is responsible in the main for this feeling.


During recent weeks I have also had the feeling very definitely that the Japanese government may be searching for some opportunity which they could use as a medium of surrender. Following the three-power conference emissaries from this country could contact representatives from Japan somewhere on the China Coast and make representations with regard to Russia's position and at the same time give them some information regarding the proposed use of atomic power, together with whatever assurances the President might care to make with regard to the Emperor of Japan and the treatment of the Japanese nation following unconditional surrender. It seems quite possible to me that this presents the opportunity which the Japanese are looking for.


I don't see that we have anything in particular to lose in following such a program. The stakes are so tremendous that it is my opinion very real consideration should be given to some plan of this kind. I do not believe under present circumstances existing that there is anyone in this country whose evaluation of the chances of the success of such a program is worth a great deal. The only way to find out is to try it out.


They didn't try it out and they didn't find out, the Potsdam Declaration of  26 July making no mention of the possible use of weapons of mass destruction. On 6 August 1945 the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and the second was dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August. 


Would the Japanese have surrendered if they had been warned? Given the American experiences of the Philippines, Saipan and Okinawa and the fact that Emperor Hirohito did not finally broadcast his capitulation speech until 15 August, probably not. But a warning may have made the decision to launch Enola Gay and her payload appear a little less chilling now that we look back. 

26 June 1942

This is an extract from the diary of 24 year old Private J.W. Bickley of the New Zealand Division written on the day before the artillery battle at Minqar Qaim in the Western Desert in North Africa and the subsequent bloody breakout in the early hours of 28 June.


Up before dawn & on again to a good place - for a dug out that is. But about 1500 hrs we moved on again. Dug in again twice and then at dusk got word that the Hun was on top of us. We were hunted round badly & watched Ack-ack fire at Dorniers - none brought down. Then finally after moving about the whole area, we were attached to B Coy. We had to carry in our gear on our backs & I was still digging in at 2 a.m. Couldn't dig in anyway, all stone.

25 June 1945

Motor Minesweeper 168 of the Royal Navy is destroyed by a mine in Genoa harbour with the loss of all 15 crew. One of the men who died was 23 year old James McGroarty, an Ordinary Signalman from Renton in Scotland. James' brother David, an Able Seaman, also died on service on 13 October 1942 at the age of 19.

24 June 1944

Thirteen RAF Lancasters and three Mosquitos of 617 (Dambusters) Squadron make a third attempt to bomb the V2 rocket base at Wizernes in northern France. The previous missions had been aborted due to low cloud but this operation was a success with a number of bombs hitting the railway line and launching tunnel.


A number of aircraft were hit by flak and Lancaster DV403 was lost, crashing at Leulinghem. DV403 was armed with a Tallboy earthquake bomb and had a crew of eight, four of whom died in the crash. James Ian Johnstone DFC died later in hospital in St. Omer and the three surviving crew members were captured and became prisoners of war.

23 June 1942

Churchill's message to Stalin on the anniversary of Operation Barbarossa:


As the Soviet Union enters the second year of the war I, as Prime Minister of Great Britain, which in a few months' time will enter on its fourth year of war, send to you, the leader of the great allied Soviet peoples, a renewed expression of our admiration for the magnificent defence of your armed forces, guerrilla bands, and civilian workers during the past year, and of our firm conviction that those achievements will be equaled and surpassed in the coming months. The fighting alliance of our two countries and of our other allies, to whom there have now been joined the vast resources of the United States, will surely bring our enemies to their knees. You can count on us to assist you by every means in our power.


During the year which has passed since Hitler fell upon your country without warning, friendly relations between our two countries and peoples have been progressively strengthened. We have thought not only of the present, but of the future, and our Treaty of Alliance in the war against Hitlerite Germany and of collaboration and mutual assistance in the post-war period, concluded during M. Molotov's recent visit to this country, has been welcomed as sincerely by the British people as I know it has been welcomed by the Soviet people. That Treaty is a pledge that we shall confound our enemies and, when the war is over, build a sure peace for all freedom-loving peoples.

22 June 1941

And so it begins. Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, is launched at 0300. In an instant, more than 40 million civilians and soldiers are thrown into the meat grinder that will consume them over the next 4 years. This tragic, profligate waste of life becomes all the more poignant with the knowledge that this one day was actually the beginning of the end of the Second World War.