1940 The British aircraft carrier Glorious is sunk by the German heavy battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Southwest of Narvik. The evacuation of British and French troops (24,000 men) from Narvik and Harstad is completed. A Norwegian delegation negotiates with the Germans for a peace treaty. Off Norway, German battlecruisers Gneisenau & Scharnhorst sink British carrier HMS Glorious and British destroyers Ardent and Acasta (1537 […]

1940 Allied troops fall back on Bresles front, 60 miles north of Paris. French bomb Berlin. King Haakon of Norway, his family and government, evacuate from Norway to Britain as Germans advance. 1941 The first of five heavy night raids by the RAF begins on Brest as Prinz Eugen shelters there. First US Lend-Lease planes

1940 Home Defense commander Ironside announces the creation of the lronsides, small groups of highly mobile, armed men for defense against parachutists. The Germans begin ‘Operation Red’, the Battle of France with 119 divisions, including 10 Panzer division’s. Army Group B, with 50 divisions, opens the offensive against the French left wing which is anchored

1940 Churchill tells Commons ‘We shall fight on the beaches, in the fields, in the streets and in the hills. We shall never surrender.’ Holiday camps are banned within 10 miles of east and south-east coasts of England and Isle of Wight. German troops enter Dunkirk, taking 40,000 French prisoners and huge quantities of abandoned