June 23rd, 1940 (SUNDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:FRANCE:
Paris: Pierre Laval is appointed vice-premier of France. General de Gaulle is officially cashiered by General Weygand. de Gaulle was then sentenced to death _in absentia_, and all his possessions on French territory were confiscated. (Antoine Capet)
The first British commando raid fails to capture German guards and defence information at Bordeaux.
Paris: Hitler tours Paris accompanied by the three intellectuals he likes the best: two architects, Albert Speer and Hermann Giesler, and a sculptor, Arno Breker.
Hitler flew to Le Bourget airport at 4am, and entered the city which he said he had ordered his troops to spare "because it was important to preserve this culture for generations to come." His visit was recorded by a photographer and a cine-cameraman. At Les Invalides he gave orders for the remains of the son of the Emperor Napoleon I to be brought from Vienna to lie next to his father. "That was the finest and greatest moment of my life." said Hitler. At the Opera he asked the Usher, who refused a 50-mark tip to show him near-forgotten rooms which he knew of from architectural plans. Hitler boasted of his knowledge.
17 French Morane fighter planes of 1 Squadron, 1st Fighter Group and 2 Squadron, 2nd Fighter Group took off to assault the motorised units of Guderian in the Rhone valley. They found no tanks but 2nd Lt. Marchelidon of 2 Squadron shot down a German Henschel Hs126 reconnaissance plane. This was the last French kill of the campaign.
Destroyer HMCS Restigouche engaged in
French evacuation operations off St Jean de Luz engaged in French evacuation
operations.
ITALY: Rome: The Italian High Command announced:
‘ The Regia Aeronautica has continued its activity in the Mediterranean. It has successfully bombed the naval base at Alexandria, the present site of the British Fleet. Italian aircraft have bombed Bizerta and enemy vehicles in the eastern Mediterranean. One Italian aircraft has not returned. Our operations in North Africa have proved successful. Our aircraft took vigorous measures against armoured cars . One four-engined British aircraft was shot down. The enemy bombed the city of Trapani, but inflicted damage only on civilian dwellings. There were 20 dead and 38 wounded.’
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: HMS Ark Royal arrives at Gibraltar. She joins Force H under Sir James Somerville.
EGYPT: Cairo: The British Middle East Air Force in Egypt announced:
‘During the night of Friday to Saturday, three Italian aircraft flying over Alexandria and its environs, dropped 20 bombs at random on the city, seaport and surrounding villages; additional bombs fell into the sea.’
INDIAN OCEAN: Off French Somaliland Italian submarine 'Toricelli' is sunk by
destroyers HMS KANDAHAR and HMS Kingston and sloop HMS Shoreham. During this action,
destroyer HMS Khartoum suffers an internal explosion and sinks in shallow water off Perim
Island. She is a total loss.
Brooks Rowlett adds: This is one of those cases which isn't
really clear and may constitute an Italian success. The Italians at least partly claim it
and the British don't really acknowledge the possibility that the Italian claim is
justified
This was a >surface action<. The TORICELLI exchanged gunfire with the British
vessels and scored a hit on KHARTOUM, amidships, in the vicinity of the torpedo tubes. I
believe it was actully after the close of the action that an air flask exploded on a
torpedo in the tube. Splinters from the torpedo and tube cut into other torpedoes and
tubes in the mount; the superstructure and deck, and a fire started. With the involvement
of the torpedoes and their warheads, the fire became impossible to control....
The point being, that it is entirely likely that the air flask exploded because a splinter
from the Italian shell hit, had penetrated the tube and torpedo and nicked the flask (with
air at a few hundred PSI) which eventually ruptured with explosive force. The British have
contended that it was a mere accidental coincidence.
Mike Yaklich adds: Meanwhile, on June 23rd another Italian submarine found itself involved in a dramatic surface shoot-out. The TORICELLI had been assigned to the area off the well-defended French port of Djibouti. In an encounter with Allied escorts it, too, had been damaged, leaving the vessel unable to submerge. Nonetheless, the TORICELLI's skipper, Lt-Commander Pelosi, decided to try to run the Straits of Perim on the surface, benefiting from the cover of darkness to the greatest possible extent. In a nail-biting passage Pelosi had managed to manoeuvre the boat through the area of the thickest Royal Navy patrols during the night, but shortly after dawn on the 23rd the TORICELLI was sighted by the enemy gunboat SHOREHAM. Soon the Italian sub was being chased not only by the SHOREHAM, but also by another gunboat and three RN destroyers, the KINGSTON, KHARTOUM, and KANDAHAR. Realizing that he could not outrun his pursuers, at about 5:30 am Pelosi decided to turn and fight. The decision was virtually suicidal. The TORICELLI was another large, long-range boat, but it mounted only a single 100-mm deck gun (plus four 13.2-mm AA machineguns on two twin mounts). The five British ships chasing it had a combined firepower of eighteen 4.7-inch (120-mm) and four 4-inch guns, not to mention copious light automatic AA weapons. But the Italian sub initiated the engagement by firing the first shot. Moreover, the Italian shooting was very good. Their second 100-mm round struck the SHOREHAM, causing enough damage that the British gunboat immediately left the fight and headed back to its base. As the fight continued, the TORICELLI managed to evade some 700 shells (and about 500 rounds from the automatic AA as the vessels closed) over the course of the next 35 minutes, remaining completely unscathed by all the metal directed its way.
Meanwhile, its own gunners continued to score, now hitting the destroyer KANDAHAR, starting fires which apparently caused that ship to blow up and sink shortly after the conclusion of this spirited little engagement. The Italian sub also managed to empty all eight of its torpedo tubes, not hitting anything but forcing the enemy vessels to take evasive action, and further postponing the inevitable. That inevitable moment finally came, a little less than forty minutes into the fight, when a British shell struck square on the TORICELLI's conning tower. Lt-Commander Pelosi was wounded, although he continued to direct his sub's actions, but more importantly the TORICELLI's steering was knocked out, leaving the boat out of control. At this point the plucky Pelosi gave the order to abandon ship, and the TORICELLI was scuttled. Most of his crew was picked up by the British and taken back to Aden as prisoners, where the British officers who had been present expressed their admiration for the courageous and effective Italian fight against long odds. They feted Pelosi at a testimonial dinner, and the British admiral commanding at Aden insisted on meeting the Italian sub-driver personally.
Sloop
HMS Pathan is torpedoed and sunk by Italian submarine Galvani in the Indian
Ocean off Bombay at 18 56N 72 45E. 5 of the crew are killed and 22 are wounded.
It had not been thought that Axis submarines operated so far to the East. (Galvani
is rammed and sunk by HMS Falmouth on the following day.)
CANADA: Sgt. Henry A. Larsen leaves Vancouver on the RCMP schooner St. Roch bound for Halifax via the Northwest Passage; ship will take southerly route through Arctic islands, and after two winters trapped in the ice, will reach Halifax Oct. 11, 1942; first ship to make the voyage from west to east, and in both directions, and to circumnavigate North America; St. Roch declared national historic site in 1962; berthed at Vancouver Maritime Museum.
Armed yacht HMCS Vison departed Halifax for conversion and arming Pictou Nova Scotia.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Rescue tug HMS Coringa lost in North Atlantic due to unknown reasons.