1940
Hitler issues Directive No.16, orders for the planning of ‘Operation Sealion‘, the invasion of Britain. Twenty divisions are earmarked for the invasion, but the Luftwaffe must gain air superiority first. All plans are to be ready by mid-August.
Destroyer Imogen sinks in Pentland Firth after collision in fog by the British light cruiser HMS Glasgow.
Japanese Cabinet resigns under army pressure.
Vichy France revokes citizenship of naturalized Jewish citizens.
1941
Army Group South traps 20 Russians divisions in a pocket at Uman.
Vichy France bans Jews from practicing as lawyers.
Lt. Yakov Dzhugashvili, Stalin’s son, is taken prisoner by Germans—he will die as POW in April 1943.
1942
Nazi’s round up 2,887 Jews of Paris are rounded up and sent to Drancy Internment Camp at the Vélodrome d’Hiver for deportation to concentration camps.
US Navy forms Task Force 61, Solomons Expeditionary Force, under Vice Adm. Frank Fletcher, and Task Force 63 over all Allied land-based planes in Southwest Pacific, under Rear Adm. John McCain.
1943
Canadians forces take Caltagirone, 40 miles inland from Syracuse. The Americans take Agringento, before beginning their drive for Palermo. The British finally secure Primosole bridge and Montgomery advances on Catania.
t Kursk, Russia, Germans halt offensive on Hitler’s order.
Theophil Wurm, bishop of Württemburg, writes Hitler to protest deaths in camps.
1944
The Brody pocket begins to form in the northern Ukraine, trapping 40,000 German troops.
The Eighth Army captures Arezzo and reaches the Arno river.
Sixth Army Group (US Seventh Army & French First Army) formed under Lt. Gen. Jacob Devers for Operation Anvil, the invasion of Southern France (later named Operation Dragoon).
Lt. Cdr. Goodwin of New Zealand escapes Japanese POW camp in Hong Kong, swims to mainland China, the only man to escape from Hong Kong.
1945
At 5.30 am, the first atomic bomb is exploded at a test site in Los Alamos, USA.
