May 2nd, 1940 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group. Bombing - Stavanger and Fornebu airfields.
51 Sqn. Six aircraft. All bombed Fornebu. Severe opposition. One crew abandoned aircraft on return.
58 Sqn. Six aircraft to Stavanger. One returned U/S, four bombed. Light opposition.
Blenheims of 107 Sqn. raid Stavanger and Rye aerodromes in daylight. Wellingtons raid Rye at night.
RAF Coastal Command: Escorting ships evacuating British forces from Norway.
Destroyer ORP (ex-HMS) Garland commissioned.
NORWEGIAN CAMPAIGN: Namsos, Norway. Lt. Richard Been Stannard (1902-77), RNR, of HMS Arab (trawler of 15th A/S Striking Force), showed great courage during 31 attacks on his ship from 28 April to 2 May, in one case saving a jetty ablaze from burning ammunition, and is awarded the VC.
Under heavy Luftwaffe bombardment, Allied forces start to evacuate Namsos; 5,400 soldiers embark today. The evacuation of Mauriceforce is scheduled for the nights of May 1 and 2. A dense offshore fog settled in yesterday and most of the French and British relief ships lay to, waiting for it to lift. General Carton de Wiart, unaware of the offshore weather, had all his men out of hiding and waiting down by the battered docks. Morning found them still waiting. There was barely time to get them back under cover before the first German reconnaissance planes arrived at daylight. Not until late today does the fog lift and the rescue begin.
Åndalsnes: After midnight the last available cruiser edged in,
expecting to retrieve a 240 man read guard - and instead found almost 1,000 soldiers
waiting on the dock. All of them crammed aboard, and by 2 a.m. on May 2 the last of
Sickleforce’s survivors were away. Behind them they left 1,402 men of the 148th and
15th Brigades, either killed, wounded or POW. This afternoon when advance elements of the
German 196th Division march into Åndalsnes, they found the port ruined by bombs of the
Luftwaffe - and empty of British troops.
HMS Ark Royal and HMS Glorious, in company with battleship HMS Valiant, heavy cruiser HMS Berwick, and destroyers HMS Fury, HMS Encounter, HMS Escort, HMS Fearless, HMS Acheron, HMS Antelope, HMS Fortune, and HMS Kimberley continue to steam towards Scapa. HMS Furious in dockyard hands at Greenock. (Mark Horan)
ITALY: Rome: Mussolini proposes a bargain with Roosevelt; he will refrain from invading the USA if the President keeps America out of the war in Europe.
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Collingwood laid down Collingwood, Ontario.