WWII History

1940 Eighty (80) German planes attack Dover harbour; British claim 17 down; Air Ministry accuses Germans of using Red Cross planes for reconnaissance. Germany apologizes to Eire for Wexford bombing. Intense dogfights over London and Home Counties. Britain refuses German proposal to use 64 Red Cross ships to rescue airmen from the English Channel. A […]

1940 All road and rail links between occupied France and Vichy cut by the Germans. Slovak President and Premier meet Hitler and von Ribbentrop at Berchtesgarden. Act of Havana is signed by the US and twenty Latin American countries, agreeing to help any country threatened by the Axis in the Americas. 1941 Finland ends diplomatic

1940 German aircraft sink destroyers Codrington at Dover and Wren off the Suffolk coast. Japan announces its plans for the creation of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. 1941 London is severely bombed by the Luftwaffe, in its first air raid for 10 weeks. German troops liberate Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Guderian’s Panzer Group

World War II Today: July 26: The following events occurred on this date during the course of World War 2. 1940 Secretary-General of League of Nations, Joseph Avenol, resigns. 1941 Three Soviet armies are encircled and destroyed in the Mogilev area. 3,800 Jews killed during a pogrom by Lithuanians in Kovno. Italian motorboats attack Valetta

1940 British claim 25 German planes downed in a day, the highest total so far. Reich Minster of Economics Funk outlines ‘New Order’ for Europe, with forced labor from occupied countries. Compulsory evacuation of women and children ordered from Gibraltar. Swiss Gen. Henri Guisan, commander of all Swiss forces, reacts to an appeasement-oriented speech by Federal

1940 Reports of Lancastria disaster released in London after Churchill’s ban on the news lifted. Neutral French liner Meknes, taking 1,100 French sailors back to France, sunk by German E-boat 572: 400 killed. Red Cross estimates 5.5 million refugees in Vichy France. 1941 The U.S. government denounces Japanese actions in Indochina. US imposes a crude

1940 Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Kingsley Wood announces third War Budget: income lax up 1d to 8s 6d in the £, beer up 1d a pint, purchase tax introduced for first time at 33% on luxuries, war expenditure for the next year estimated at £3,470,000,000. Secretary of War announces that Local Defense Volunteers to

1939 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini sign “Pact of Steel” forming the Axis powers. 1940 British cipher experts at Bletchley Park break the Luftwaffe Enigma code. Britain officially rejects Hitler’s “peace offer.” Britain establishes Special Operations Executive (SOE) under Hugh Dalton to support resistance groups in Nazi-occupied Europe. The XIX Panzerkorps (Guderian) strikes from Abbeville

1940 Czech government-in-exile established in London under Dr. Benes. Hitler orders preliminary planning for invasion of Russia. Romania forced by Germany to give Dobruja province to Bulgaria. 1941 FDR asks Congress to extend the draft. US starts national aluminum salvage drive. France accepts Japan’s demand for military control of Indochina. In occupied Poland near Lublin,

1940 Luftwaffe night-fighters (Me 110s) first shoot down a British plane. President Roosevelt signs the ‘Two Ocean Navy Expansion Act’. This was the first step in preparing America for war against either Germany or Japan, or both. British claim 40 Luftwaffe planes down in a week; British civilian casualty figures for last month announced: 336