Yesterday Tomorrow

June 8th, 1942 (MONDAY)

GERMANY: Berlin: Hitler lays a laurel wreath, and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra plays the funeral march from Wagner's opera Gotterdammerung, at the state funeral of Reinhardt Heydrich.

AUSTRALIA: Sydney: A week after the spectacular raid in Sydney Harbour, Japanese submarines shelled the major cities of Sydney and Newcastle today. However, little damage was caused and there were no casualties.

The attack on Sydney is believed to have been made by the submarine I-24 which launched one of the midget submarines in the Sydney Harbour raid. At 2.15 this morning, a Sydney patrol spotted gunfire flashes south east of the MacQuarrie light. Within five minutes the submarine had fired ten shells, only four of which exploded. All fell in residential districts. Five minutes later, air-raid sirens were sounded when an unidentified aircraft was sighted over the city.

At about the same time - after a similar incursion by an aircraft - a submarine opened fire on the seaport of Newcastle. Twenty-four shells landed near the power station and customs house, causing some damage but no casualties. The bombardment stopped when shore batteries opened up on the submarine.

A convoy system has been adopted following the shelling of two merchant ships off the Australian coast. One of the ships blew up and sank.

TERRITORY OF ALASKA: The crew of a USN PBY-5A Catalina of Patrol Squadron Forty One (VP-41) based at Dutch Harbor, Unalaska Island, Aleutian Islands, spots four transports and two destroyers in Kiska Harbor; flying to Attu Island, they spot the Japanese forces. This is the first indication that the Japanese have occupied these two islands.

The Royal Canadian Air Force's No. 111 (Fighter) Squadron equipped with Curtiss Kittyhawk Mk Is arrives at Elmendorf Field, Anchorage, Territory of Alaska and is placed under the operational control of the US Army Air Forces' XI Fighter Command. Maxim M. Litvinov, the Soviet Ambassador to the U.S., informs the U.S. Government that the Soviets agree to a Lend-Lease air route being established between Alaska and the Soviet Union.

U.S.A.: The Soviet Ambassador to the U.S., Maxim M. Litvinov, informs Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt">Roosevelt's assistant, that the Soviet Government has agreed to a Lend-Lease air corridor being established between the Territory of Alaska and Siberia.

The European Theater of Operations US Army (ETOUSA) is established by presidential directive. Major General James E. Chaney is designated commander of all US forces in ETOUSA.

CARIBBEAN SEA: U-302 torpedoes and sinks an armed merchant tanker approximately 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Cape Blanco, Venezuela.

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