June 28th, 1941 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Escort carrier HMS Chaser laid down.
ALBANIA: Tirana: Albania declares war on the USSR.U.S.S.R.: Finnish troops push towards Murmansk. A joint Finish-German attack starts on 29 June at 3 am. The attackers are German 2nd and 3rd Mountain Divisions of General Dietl's Mountain Corps and Finnish Detachment Petsamo (Maj. Pennanen) which protects the attack's right flank. Soviet resistance is initially quite light and the Finns' and 2nd Div.'s advance is rapid.
Kovno, LITHUANIA: Local police and freed convicts beat hundreds of Jews to death.
The following Soviet submarines are lost:
S-10 Baltic Fleet Danzig Bay (sunk by German MTBs)
M-99 Baltic Fleet off Hiiumaa Island (mined in Gulf of Finland)
FINLAND: Finnish ship Vetehinen in minelaying operations at Estonian coast.
SYRIA: After withstanding French counter-attacks
all day and without reinforcements (being presumed lost) a company of 2/3 Bn. is
forced off the summit of the Jebel Mazar (dominating the Damascus-Beirut road).
Australian patrols find mountain-top positions of 11/6 Bn. FFL and I/17
Senegalese north of Jezzine abandoned after days of intense artillery fire. Over
Palmyra nine Tomahawks of 3 Sqn
RAAF claim six French aircraft shot down,
three by Flt-Lt A. C. Rawlinson. Glubb Pasha’s Arab Legion captures Seba Biyar
to secure communications of British force besieging Palmyra. 21st Indian Bde (10
Ind Div) enters Syria from Iraq. They advance along the Euphrates but are
delayed by French air attacks, dust and shortage of petrol and water.
(Michael Alexander)
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES:
Hart
moves his quarters ashore from USS
HOUSTON.
U.S.A.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt">Roosevelt signs the papers to create the Office of Scientific Research and Development. Included in its organization are the National defence Research Committee and the newly established Committee on Medical Research.
In the second and final game of the series in Shibe Park, Philadelphia, New York Yankee's centre fielder Joe DiMaggio goes 2-for-5 (single and double) against Philadelphia Athletics' pitchers Johnny Babich and Lum Harris. DiMaggio's hitting streak now stands at 40-games.
Submarines USS Wahoo and Whale laid down.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0207, the unescorted Pluto was torpedoed by U-146 and sank after 30 minutes about 100 miles NNW of Butt of Lewis. The ship had been stopped in the North Atlantic by HMS Suffolk and was first sent to Iceland with ten Royal Marines on board and then to Kirkwall. HMS Northern Duke rescued 26 crewmembers and the ten marines.