Strikes and lock-outs are now banned in Britain. Arbitration in industrial disputes is compulsory. Machinery in arms factories will run seven days a week, but workers can have one days rest in seven. It will be a criminal offence for an employer in certain vital industries - especially engineering - to engage a worker without government permission. Miners and farm workers will have to stay in their jobs. Plans are being prepared for possible large-scale transfers of population and communal feeding.

These decrees and emergency measures were announced today by Ernest Bevin, the Minister of Labour and National Service. He is rapidly becoming the most powerful member of the cabinet after Mr. Churchill himself.

In summing up the drastic changes in industrial relations and work practices Mr Bevin said: "I cannot have a peacetime economy in wartime. I do not want one soldier to come back and say ‘You sent me there ill-equipped’."

He advised people not to have holidays. When asked what workers were to spend any higher pay on when there was a shortage of goods in the shops, the Labour Minister said: "They should save part of their wages which might be useful when they have a week or two off after the war."

Mr Bevin gave an assurance that all the new controls and restrictions are for wartime only.

London: Many middle-class parents are planning to send their children abroad because of the danger of invasion. They are making private arrangements with relatives in Canada, other Dominions and the United States. The government is also planning an evacuation scheme of five to 16 year olds through the Children’s Overseas Reception Board. Offers to take British children are pouring in.

Broadcasting House: A new voice was heard giving the postscript to the BBC news tonight - the novelist J B Priestley, who talked of the Dunkirk evacuation in tones as downright and northern as Yorkshire pudding. "What was characteristically English about it was the part played by the little pleasure steamers. These ‘Brighton Belles’ left that innocent world of theirs to sail into the inferno to rescue our soldiers. Some of them will never return." He singled out the ferryboat ‘Gracie Fields’: "Now this little steamer, like all her brave and battered sisters, is immortal."

NETHERLANDS: Flight Lieutenant Jimmy James, the co-pilot of a Wellington, was on the way to a mission over Germany when his plane is shot down by anti-aircraft fire. He bails out about 25 miles south of Rotterdam but is captured and taken prisoner. (Richard Goldstein, New York Times and Birmingham Evening Post)

FRANCE: Three German Panzer Corps launch ‘Fall Rot’ [Plan Red], the attack on the Somme.

At 4 a.m. a heavy artillery and air bombardment fell on the sector between the sea and the confluence of the Ailette and Aisne. German infantry attacked on the Ailette, while tanks, followed by infantry, were pushing out from the Peronne and Amiens bridgeheads across the undamaged bridges, west of Amiens (between Picquigny and Longpre).

Weygand sent out an order of the day to the French Army: "May the thought of our wounded and invaded country inspire you with an unshakeable determination to hold firm. The fate of our country, our freedom and the future of our children depend on your resolution...."

This time the French Army responded to its Commander’s appeal.

The Germans soon realised that things were different. It was no longer a rout as on the Meuse. French troops, now seasoned and organised in "hedgehogs" [small squares of mutually supporting strongpoints, armed with 75mm anti-tank guns], held out stubbornly and took a heavy toll of Panzers.

15 Panzer Corps crossed the Somme west of Hangest without much difficulty, by means of a railway bridge which had not been demolished. They were then held up by French colonial troops until 4 p.m. Rommel was then held up at Le Quesnoy. By nightfall the Germans had only established a relatively small bridgehead west of Amiens, and had been stopped in front of the French Tenth Army’s second position.

At the Amiens bridgehead, 14 Panzer Corps ran into a spirited resistance by French 16 Infantry Division and only gained 6 miles.

16 Panzer Corps at the Peronne bridgehead only succeeded in gaining a small strip of land about 6 miles from its start-line.

Edouard Daladier, the Foreign Minister, leaves the government. Charles de Gaulle is appointed under-secretary to the Ministry of National Defence.

Ark sends off single plane A/S patrols (820 Squadron) at 0320 and 0540. However, at 0715 the carrier becomes immersed in a fog bank, forcing her to suspend further air operations until evening.

At 1935, in position 70.15 N, 16.20 E, operations commence anew with an A.D.A. patrol for the task force and a weather patrol to Narvik, the later reporting horrible weather inshore. Further A.D.A. patrols followed at 2047 and 2305 (all from 810 Squadron), another weather patrol going off at the later time as well, reporting the weather was at the minimal levels for operations.

Based on the report, at 2330, the first fighter patrol of the day takes off, three Skuas for 800 Squadron led by Lt. G. R. Callingham. The fighters were forced to stay under the cloud layer, saw no enemy aircraft, and further reported that the expected transports had yet to arrive!

HMS Glorious continues to wait for the weather to clear in order to embark 263 (RAF) and 701 (FAA) Squadrons from Norway. However, at the request of the Army, she is ordered to prepare a bombing mission for the early hours of next morning.

CANADA: Armed merchant cruiser HMCS Prince Henry commenced conversion refit at Canadian Vickers Montreal.

U.S.A.: First automobile drives across Lake Washington Floating Bridge.