Maj. Gen. Lewis Brereton, WWII (public domain via Wikipedia)
80 Years Ago—June 28, 1942: Germans begin a summer offensive toward Stalingrad and the Caucasus. US Army Middle East Air Force is formed in Cairo, Egypt, under Maj. Gen. Lewis Brereton.
Nazi saboteur trial, Washington, D.C. The special seven-man military commission opens the third day of its proceedings in the trial of eight Nazi saboteurs in the Department of Justice building (Library of Congress: cph.3c34579)
80 Years Ago—June 27, 1942: Two more German saboteurs are arrested in Chicago; all eight who landed in US by U-boat earlier in June are now imprisoned.
The White Rose resistance group, students at the University of Munich, begins distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets.
First destroyer escorts (DE-1 and DE-2), USS Bayntun and USS Bazely are launched at Boston Navy Yard, MA; both will soon be commissioned into the British Royal Navy.
German Panzer Mk III above Mersa Matruh, Egypt, late June 1942 (German Federal Archive: Bild 101I-785-0293-45)
80 Years Ago—June 26, 1942: Germans and Italians attack British at Mersa Matruh, Egypt.
First flight of Grumman shipboard XF6F-1 Hellcat fighter plane.
Gen. Sir Claude Auchinleck, WWII (Imperial War Museum)
80 Years Ago—June 25, 1942: Gen. Sir Claude Auchinleck replaces Lt. Gen. Neil Ritchie over British Eighth Army in Egypt.
Australian and US troops land at Milne Bay, New Guinea to build an airfield.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 31 Dec 1943 (US National Archives: USA C-2182)
80 Years Ago—June 24, 1942: Maj. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower arrives in Britain to assume command of US European Theater of Operations (ETOUSA), including North Africa.
German troops under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel invade Egypt.
Allied POWs begin work on a 294-mile extension of the Burma-Thailand Railway under brutal conditions.
Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-3 at RAF Pembrey after German pilot Oberleutnant Armin Faber landed there by mistake, 23 Jun 1942 (Imperial War Museum: MH 4190)
80 Years Ago—June 23, 1942: RAF captures first German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter plane, which lands by mistake in Wales.
President Roosevelt signs bill deferring married men from the draft “until reservoir of single men exhausted.”
In German physicist Werner Heisenberg’s lab at Leipzig, an aluminum sphere filled with uranium in a heavy water bath explodes, destroying the building; Heisenberg narrowly escapes.
US poster, WWII
80 Years Ago—June 22, 1942: Germans take Bardia, Libya.
France announces “la relève”: for every three French volunteers who go to work in Germany, the Germans will release one French POW; 200,000 will volunteer until word of poor work conditions shuts down volunteering.
US Flag Code becomes public law, regarding the Pledge of Allegiance and treatment of the flag.
German generals Erwin Rommel and Fritz Bayerlein in Tobruk, Libya, late June 1942 (German Federal Archive: Bild 101I-785-0299-08A)
80 Years Ago—June 21, 1942: German forces under Rommel take Tobruk, Libya, after a long siege (33,000 POWs).
Erwin Rommel is promoted to Field Marshal.
Japanese submarine I-25 shells Fort Stevens, OR, at mouth of the Columbia River, no damage, the first enemy attack on a US continental military installation since the War of 1812 and the only one of WWII.
Crater resulting from Japanese shelling of Fort Stevens, OR, 21 June 1942 (US National Archives: 299678)
German saboteur George Dasch, who turned himself and his fellow saboteurs in to the FBI, 25 June 1942 (US Army photo)
80 Years Ago—June 20, 1942: Japanese submarine I-26 shells Estevan Point Lighthouse and a radio-direction-finding station on Vancouver Island, BC, no damage; first enemy shelling of Canada since the War of 1812.
Four Polish prisoners escape from Auschwitz concentration camp disguised as SS guards in an SS car; this leads to tattooing of prisoners a month later.
The New York Times publishes a report by the World Jewish Congress that the Germans had killed 1 million in a “vast slaughterhouse for the Jews.”
In New York City, the FBI captures three of the German saboteurs landed by U-boats a week earlier.
“Malaria Moe” malaria prevention cartoon published by the US Army in the South Pacific, WWII (National Museum of Health and Medicine)
80 Years Ago—June 19, 1942: Germans execute Alois Eliáš, former prime minister of Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, for resistance work, the only head of state executed by the Nazis.
US Army activates Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, MD; the “Ritchie Boys” who train there include many Jewish men who had fled Germany.
German saboteur George Dasch, who had landed in New York by U-boat on June 13, turns himself in to the FBI.
US pharmacies are urged to turn in quinine supplies over 10 ounces (used to prevent and treat malaria).
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