RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group (Whitley). Bombing - aircraft factory and industrial works.

10 Sqn. Six aircraft to aircraft factory Bremen. Five bombed.

51 Sqn. Six aircraft to industrial works Ruhr. All bombed.

FRANCE: RN: Operation 'Aerial' ends with over 215,000 servicemen and civilians saved.

Canadian destroyers HMCS Fraser (Crusader or C-class known as River class in the RCN, Cdr. Wallace Bourchier Creery, CBE, RCN, CO) and HMCS Restigouche (ex- HMS Comet) in company with cruiser HMS Calcutta (light anti-aircraft cruiser, Carlisle or C-class) are sailing towards Bordeaux, returning from evacuation duty, a destroyer on each of the cruiser's bows. While still in the Gironde Estuary line astern is ordered and Fraser on Calcutta's starboard bow, turned to port intending to turn inward and run down the cruiser's starboard side. Calcutta thought she intended to cross her bow and run down the port side and she therefore turned to starboard and in poor visibility sheered through Fraser's forecastle sinking her, with the loss of 60 lives (47 Canadian, 13 RN). Restigouche rescued 101 of Fraser's crew. This happened at 45 44N 01 31W, during Allied evacuation operations. There are 130 survivors in total. (Alex Gordon and Dave Shirlaw)(108)

The Armistice between Germany and France becomes effective today.

After five days of costly fighting the Italians just manage to breach the French advanced positions at Maurienn and Queyras, but are unable to descend the high Alpine valleys. On the Cote d’Azur some Italian elements coming down from the mountains, infiltrate at Menton, but a little stronghold at Saint-Louise bridge, on the coast road at the frontier, manned by an officer, an N.C.O. and seven men, holds out until the armistice.

France observes a day of national mourning.

Despite a call by the Petain government in Bordeaux to cease hostilities, French colonies show no sign of giving up the battle against Germany. At least one commander, General Nogues in North Africa, has refused orders from Petain to return to France. French generals in Somaliland have cabled their support for the Allies; calls have come from Syria and Lebanon for France to continue the fight; and the French governor-general in Indochina has refused to lower the tricouleur.

MAP

GERMANY: Ten days of official celebrations begin.

ITALY: Count Ciano writes, "Starace, returning from the front, says that the attack on the Alps proved the total lack of preparation of our army, an absolute lack of offensive means, and complete lack of capacity in the higher officers. Men were sent to a useless death two days before the armistice, employing the same technique that was employed more than twenty years ago. If the war in Libya and Ethiopia is conducted in the same way, the future is going to hold many bitter disappointments for us…” Rodolfo Graziani, Army Chief-of-Staff at the start of Italy’s war, echoed Starace, admitting in private that Italian tactics had not progressed much beyond the level of Alexander the Great’s Macedonian phalanx.

(In 1940 Achille Starace was Chief-of-Staff of the Blackshirt militia.

For eight years (until 1939) he had been Secretary of the Fascist Party.

Fanatic in his devotion to both Mussolini and physical fitness, he ordered local Party functionaries to bicycle to work and do push-ups in their offices every morning; required all civil servants— including school-teachers— to wear uniforms; and gave demonstrations, clad in black gym attire, jumping from a springboard through flaming hoops. In Ethiopia, he led 3,400 Blackshirts in 435 trucks on a highly publicized but largely unopposed march to Gondar (the Italians had bought off the ranking local Ethiopian warlord). Starace was killed by Italian partisans in 1945, after being shown the body of Mussolini, which he gave the Fascist salute before being shot and strung up alongside the Duce. )

Marshal Badoglio presses Italo Balbo to plan for an invasion of Egypt but rules out an immediate advance. (Mike Yaklich)

FRENCH INDOCHINA: Japanese authorities pressure the French in Indochina to block the transit of supplies to the Chinese Nationalists. They ask for the closing of a railroad line and permission for a Japanese inspection of the closure.

Japan took advantage of the fall of France by warning the French administration in Indochina that it must stop helping the Chinese Nationalist government in Chungking immediately. The protest was delivered by Japan's foreign minister, Mr. Tani, to the French ambassador.

He was warned that France's governor in Indochina must stop the transit of war materials across the Chinese border or face severe repercussions. At the same time Japan has formally asked Germany and Italy to preserve the status quo in Indochina. Reports that Japanese forces are massing on Hainan Island have increased fears that Japan is about to invade the French colony. French and British ships have been told not to call at Indochinese ports. (Marc Small)

CANADA: Lt(A) Alexander Beaufort Fraser Fraser-Harris RN awarded DSC.
HMCS Givenchy commissioned as accommodation vessel for Fishermen's Reserve.

The Democratic Party platform for 1940 stated:

"To this generation of Americans it is given to defend this democratic faith as it is challenged by social maladjustment within and totalitarian greed without. The world revolution against which we prepare our defence is so threatening that not until it has burned itself out in the last corner of the earth will our democracy be able to relax its guard. ...

"We Must Strengthen Democracy Against Aggression

"The American people are determined that war, raging in Europe, Asia and Africa, shall not come to America.

"We will not participate in foreign wars, and we will not send our army, naval or air forces to fight in foreign lands outside of the Americas, except in case of attack. We favor and shall rigorously enforce and defend the Monroe Doctrine.

"The direction and aim of our foreign policy has been, and will continue to be, the security and defence of our own land and the maintenance of its peace.

"For years our President has warned the nation that organized assaults against religion, democracy and international good faith threatened our own peace and security. Men blinded by partisanship brushed aside these warnings as war-mongering and officious intermeddling. The fall of twelve nations was necessary to bring their belated approval of legislative and executive action that the President had urged and undertaken with the full support of the people. It is a tribute to the President's foresight and action that our defence forces are today at the peak of their peacetime effectiveness.

"Weakness and unpreparedness invite aggression. We must be so strong that no possible combination of powers would dare to attack us. We propose to provide America with an invincible air force, a navy strong enough to protect all our seacoasts and our national interests, and a fully-equipped and mechanized army. ...

"Experience of other nations gives warning that total defence is necessary to repel attack, and that partial defence is no defence."

The Republican Party platform said:

"Instead of Providing for the Common defence the Administration, notwithstanding the expenditure of billions of our dollars, has left the Nation unprepared to resist foreign attack. ...

"It has failed by disclosing military details of our equipment to foreign powers over protests by the heads of our armed defence.

"It has failed by ignoring the lessons of fact concerning modern, mechanized, armed defence. ...

"The Republican Party is firmly opposed to involving this Nation in foreign war. ...

"We declare for the prompt, orderly and realistic building of our national defence to the point at which we shall be able not only to defend the United States, its possessions, and essential outposts from foreign attack, but also efficiently to uphold in war the Monroe Doctrine. ... [W]e deplore explosive utterances by the President directed at other governments which serve to imperil our peace; and we condemn all executive acts and proceedings which might lead to war without the authorization of the Congress of the United States.

"Our sympathies have been profoundly stirred by invasion of unoffending countries and by disaster to nations whole ideals most closely resemble our own. We favor the extension to all peoples fighting for liberty, or whose liberty is threatened, of such aid as shall not be in violation of international law or inconsistent with the requirements of our own national defence."

Will O'Neil

Changes in the US income tax laws are introduced in Congress. They will add an additional 2,200,000 people to the income tax rolls. The increase is necessary to pay for increased expenditures for armaments.

The War Department authorised the Parachute Test Platoon, thereby forming the first US airborne troops. (Gene Hanson)