May 28th, 1940 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group (Whitley). Bombing - road/rail communications at Givet, Avesnes, Guise and Hirson. 77 Sqn. Eight aircraft. One returned early U/S, one FTR. 102 Sqn. Six aircraft. One returned early U/S, four bombed.Westminster: After a speech in the House by Churchill the War Cabinet met at 4 o'clock. Halifax did feel that better terms might be secured now, rather than after a defeat. Churchill did not want to go to a conference table with the Germans for, among other reasons, if they did and negotiations came to an impasse and the British left the table all the good will and willingness to fight for their liberty that the British people now had would evaporate. In effect, continuing the war would then be impossible. Chamberlain said that the negotiations involved a considerable gamble. The Labour members, Atlee and Greenwood were for no negotiations.
Churchill's problem was not just to obtain a favourable vote in the War Cabinet but to keep Halifax in the cabinet. If Halifax were to resign over the issue at this point, Churchill's position as Prime Minister would be weakened, if not made impossible. Better to keep Halifax in the tent pissing out than outside pissing in.
At this time, 5 o'clock, Churchill asked the War Cabinet to adjourn momentarily and to resume at 7 o'clock. What took place now was what some say was Churchill's coup. He met with the Outer Cabinet (Cabinet less the War Cabinet) in his room in the House. He told the Cabinet the situation in France and of his resolve to continue fighting no matter what the cost. He went on at some length in this manner raising the spirits of members of the Cabinet. No one expressed the faintest flicker of doubt and at then end of his talk members came up to him, slapped him on the back and congratulated him. Churchill now knew that his position was secure.
He returned to the War Cabinet at 7 o'clock and told the members what had just transpired; of the feeling amongst the Cabinet that they should continue the war. There was no more talk of negotiations. (Jay Stone) (63)
ASW trawler HMS Lady Rosemary commissioned.
NORTH SEA: ASW trawler HMS Thuringia mined and sunk in North Sea.
FRANCE: Dunkirk: 17,800 men are taken off. One destroyer has been lost in addition to various small
craft.Minesweeping trawler HMS Thomas Bartlett mined and sunk off Calais.
Somme: This evening, the French 4th Armoured Division (de Gaulle) with 140 tanks , 6 battalions and 6 artillery groups arrives opposite Abbeville and immediately launches into an attack. By nightfall the first objective is taken.
The 2nd Battalion of the 'Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler' under the temporary command of Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Mohnke secure the village of Wormhoudt after heavy fighting.'...a batch of 80-90 men (made up of the 2nd Battalion, the 4th Cheshires and some artillerymen from a passing convoy) were murdered by the SS in a barn on the outskirts of Wormhoudt. Of the battalion prisoners, there seem to have been about fifty men from D Company (together with Captain Lynn-Allen, the only officer in the group) and some from A Company. They were double-marched to the barn and thrust at with bayonets on the way. Wounded and unwounded alike were then herded into the barn. Captain Lynn-Allen immediately protested. He was answered with taunts, and several hand-grenades were thrown among the crowded troops, killing and wounding many of them. Survivors were taken out to be shot, in batches of five. After this had happened twice, those left behind refused to come out; whereupon the Germans fired indiscriminately into the barn until they judged that none were left alive. They judged wrongly; a few men did survive, thanks perhaps to the self-sacrifice of CSM A Jennings and Sergeant J Moore, who threw themselves on the top of grenades and were killed instantly by the explosion.' (92)(Adrian Weale)
Amplifying the above:
The massacre at Wormhoudt undertaken at the behest of SS-Hstf.Mohnke usually takes second place (if mentioned at all) to the SS-TK atrocity the day before on May 27, 1940 at Le Paradis during the heavy fighting for the La Bassee canal. I have read the latter atrocity explained away by SS apologists as an _isolated_ incident by an undisciplined 'rogue officer' (ie.SS-Obstuf.Fritz Knoechlein), from a second line unit which had previously been desensitized to human suffering by their participation in the brutal KZ system (SS-Totenkopf Division). The actions of the SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler at Wormhoudt on the next day show that the incident was neither 'isolated', nor the product of a second-line formation, for if the burgeoning militarized SS had an elite unit at the time, it was most certainly the SS-LAH. (Also, none of the 'mitigating' factors usually dredged up in defence of the SS like, 'ideological fervor' - 'war of annihilation' etc. used in conjunction with atrocities in the East, are at play here, nor would be in any great measure for further Waffen-SS atrocites on the Western front later in the war.) The same Wilhelm Mohnke (b. 15 Mar, 1911) was also implicated in a cycle of similar atrocities at Fontenay le Pesnil in Normandy in June 1944, where, as a Regimental CO of the 12.SS-HJ Pz.Div., he was implicated in the murder of 35 Canadian POWs; and during the December 1944 Ardennes Offensive, when, as Divisional CO of the LSSAH Panzer Division (Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler), his troops murdered US POWs at Malmedy and elsewhere, and took the lives of numerous Belgian civilians in brutal reprisal killings during the division's short-lived advance. (Russ Folsom)(110)
The U.S. Ambassador to France, William C. Bullitt, sends a telegram to Secretary of State Cordell Hull urging that the U.S. Navy sends a cruiser to Bordeaux, France to (1) provide the French police with arms and ammunition to quell a "Communist uprising" and (2) to take the French and Belgium gold reserves to the U.S. He also urges that the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet be sent to the Mediterranean to assist the British and French in keeping German attacks away from the U.S. President Roosevelt agrees with point (2) above and the heavy cruiser USS Vincennes (CA-44) and two destroyers are ordered to the Azores to be in position to pick up any gold shipment.
BELGIUM: Bruges: On orders from King Leopold, Belgian forces laid down their arms at 1100 hours today. At Ypres, a few units without communications continued fighting for two hours.
Leopold’s action has been denounced as "illegal and unconstitutional" by his cabinet ministers, who have fled to Paris. Britain’s liaison officer to the Belgian king, Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, passed on a message from King George VI appealing to Leopold to escape and lead resistance from England. Leopold brushed this aside, saying that it was a repetition of what his ministers had been saying. "The cause of the Allies is lost," he said.
It has been learnt that Leopold decided to surrender several days ago after an all-night row with his ministers, during which he refused to allow them to be seated. Then, two days ago, the king sent this message to the Allies: "The Belgian command intends to continue the fight to the very end. But the limits of resistance have now practically been reached."
Yesterday he sent General Derousseaux, his deputy chief of staff , to ask the Germans for an armistice. Almost six hours later, after having been fired upon by German troops, Derousseaux returned with the answer: "The Fuhrer demands unconditional surrender." Leopold capitulated.
This morning the German High Command made a further demand, requiring Leopold to give unhindered passage through the Belgian lines to the sea. Half an hour later German columns were moving on Ostend and Dixmude and encountering resistance from British forces led by Lt. Gen Alan Brooke.
GERMANY: General Keitel, the 'Chef der Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht' announces that only a 'Gerichtsherr' or commander of the Waffen-SS or Police is competent to pass judgement and sentence on members of the SS and Police. (Russ Folsom)(109)
U-121 commissioned.
U-177, U-178, U-179, U-180 ordered.
NORWEGIAN CAMPAIGN: RN: AA cruiser HMS Cairo is badly damaged off the town of Narvik itself, just as French and Polish troops under French command complete its capture.
Two Dornier Do 26s are shot down by Hurricanes when ferrying troops to
Rombaksfjord, and one crash lands are Narvik where the pilot, Graf Schack, and 10 troops
are captured.
U.S.S.R.: Soviet submarines M-121 and M-122 laid down.
CANADA:
HMCS Caribou and Renard depart Halifax for Quebec City for naval conversions.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: MS Brazza sunk by U-37 at 42.43N 11.00W.
At 1630, the Julien was shelled and sunk by U-37.