1940 Germans enter Paris as Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division takes Le Havre. The French government leaves Tours for Bordeaux. Army Group C, with 24 divisions, prepares to cross the upper Rhine to attack the Maginot Line in Alsace. All remaining British troops in France are ordered to return to England.

Spanish troops enter Tangier. British troops capture Fort Capuzzo and Maddalena, destroy the fixed guns and emplacements and then retire back to Egypt.

1941 President Roosevelt orders the freezing of all German and Italian assets, as well as those of occupied countries.

The RAF begins fighter sweeps over Northern France.

Croatia joins the Tripartite Pact.

Hitler meets with his top generals to discuss matters concerning the upcoming campaign against the Soviet Union. The ‘Lucy’ spy ring passes information to the Soviet Union, detailing the start date for a German attack as the 22nd June.

1942 Air Marshal Harris is recognized for his achievements with the recent 1,000 bomber raids with a knight-hood.

German troops of the 16th Regiment of the 22nd Airlanding Division take Fort Stalin in Sevastopol.

Auchinleck tells Ritchie that Tobruk must be held, a fact that Churchill reiterates to him. The Eighth Army now holds a line directly in front of Tobruk, running from the coast to Acroma, then southeast to El Adem and then directly south to Bir El Gobi.

The first axis attacks are made against the ‘Harpoon’ and ‘Vigorous’ convoys. ‘Harpoon’ loses a freighter and receives damage to a cruiser from an axis air attack off the Tunisian coast. ‘Harpoons’ escorting aircraft carriers turn back at this point. In the late afternoon, the ‘Vigorous’ convoy passes out of air cover range and promptly losses two freighters to axis air attacks. Another freighter is forced to return to Alexandria as it is deemed to slow.

1943 RAF Coastal Command begins daily patrols over the Bay of Biscay with aircraft equipped with new detection devices to locate and destroy German U-boats leaving and entering their bases on the French coast.

A German report shows that 100,000 cases of typhus were reported on the Russian front during 1942, with a fatality rate of 15%.

1944 His Majesty the King and de Gaulle visit the Normandy front (separately). Carentan is finally in U.S. hands after a week’s fighting in Normandy.

The allies take Orvieto, 65 miles Northwest of Rome.

1940 General Sir Edmund Ironside, C-in-C of British Home Forces, completes plans for the defense of Britain against German invasion.

On the orders from General Weygand, C-in-C of the French Army, the French forces opposing the advance of Army Group A withdraw to the South, offering little resistance. The Germans cross the River Marne, consolidate bridgehead South of the Seine and claim to have occupied Rheims. Four French divisions and most of the British 51st Highland Division is cut off and captured by Rommel at St. Valery-en-Caux.

The Soviet Union issues an ultimatum to Lithuania, demanding that the Red Army be allowed to occupy the country.

RAF bomb docks in Tobruk, Libya.

Italian submarine Bagnolini sinks British cruiser Calypso south of Crete.

1941 The RAF raids the Ruhr, Rhineland and German ports in the first of 20 consecutive night raids.

The German pocket battleship L¸tzow (formerly Deutschland) is attacked and damaged by RAF aircraft off the southern coast of Norway.

1942 Rommel, having now brought up tank reserves, could now muster 124 tanks against the 248 British tanks. He therefore attacked the British positions between Knightsbridge and El Adem, trapping much of the British armor.

1943 The RAF launches a heavy raid on Bochum in the Ruhr. The Luftwaffe carries out a night attack against Plymouth.

King George VI lands in Morocco, only his second sanctioned visit of the war to forces overseas.

1944 U.S. troops fighting for Carentan, link up with British troops, thereby completing a solid line along a 50-mile battle front. So far, the allies have landed 326,000 men and 54,000 vehicles onto the Normandy beaches.

Rosenberg orders operation ‘Hay Action’, the kidnapping of 40,000 Polish children aged ten to fourteen for slave labour in Germany.

1945 Eisenhower is awarded the Order of Merit and becomes the first U.S. recipient.

1940 Householders in possession of Anderson shelters must by law have them up and earthed by today.

The German forces capture Rheims.

Paris prepares for siege as the Luftwaffe pounds the city.

The RAF attacks Turin and Genoa with 36 Whitley bombers.

RAF attack German ships in Trondheim harbour, Norway.

Australia and New Zealand declare war on Italy.

South Africa declares war on Italy. RAF bomb airfields and petrol dumps in Italian East Africa and Libya. British armored cars cross into Libya from Egypt and ambush a number of Italian trucks near Fort Capuzzo. ItalianÂaircraft bomb Aden and Port Sudan.

Italian troops invade France along Riviera and in Alps, but do not advance.

Italian planes bomb Malta in the first of 3340 air raids over the next three years. Paris is declared an open city.

1942 U-boats begin laying mines off Boston, Delaware and Chesapeake Bay.

The court-martial of a German army captain Michael Kitzelmann ends in Orel. Kitzelmann, who won an Iron Cross Second Class for bravery, has spoken out against atrocities being committed on the eastern front. “If these criminals should win,” he has told his fellow officers, “I would have no wish to live any longer.” Kitzelmann’s wish is granted. He is shot by a firing squad that day.

The United States and the Soviet Union signed a lend lease agreement to aid the Soviet war effort.

Simultaneous British convoys set sail for Malta from Gibraltar and Alexandria. The Gibraltar convoy (codenamed  Harpoon’), consisted of 5 freighters and a US tanker. It was initially escorted by a battleship, 2 aircraft carrier, 3 cruisers and 8 destroyers and was later reinforced by an anti-aircraft cruiser and 9 destroyers. The Alexandria convoy (codenamed ‘Vigorous’), had eleven freighters and was escorted by 7 light cruisers and 26 destroyers.

1943 Operation ‘Corkscrew’, the invasion of Pantelleria meets little resistance after a 20-day aerial bombardment of the island.

The US 8th Air Force raids the German naval base at Wilhelmshaven (200 B-17s), while the RAF attacks Munster and Dusseldorf.

1944 The US Fast Carrier Attack Force (TF 58) begins bombing the Mariana Islands in preparation for invasion.

The Battleship USS Missouri commissioned at Brooklyn, NY.

1945 SEAC estimate that 108,240 Japanese have been killed in Burma since February 1944.

1940 The remaining troops of the Norwegian Army (6th Division) surrender, after Norway surrenders unconditionally.

Italy declares war on Britain and France, effective from the 11th June 1940.

President Roosevelt condemns Germany and Italy and promises material aid to both Britain and France

1941 British advance breaks through Vichy opposition in Syria.

The United States wins contract for Bolivia’s entire tungsten supply, depriving Japan of the mineral, vital to strengthening metal alloys in arms production.

1942 Prague radio announces the extermination of Lidice, a village of about 2,000. All the men were shot and women sent to concentration camps. All buildings are razed to the ground as a reprisal for Heydrich killing.

Another German offensive in the East begins as two German armies of 33 division, five of them Panzer, attack from Kharkov on the Volchansk Front, a massive assault that will roll on until the 26th,scattering the Russian forces ahead of them.

Panzer Army Afrika finally captures Bir Hacheim, a strongpoint fiercely defended by Foreign Legionnaire’s of the Free French Forces. The British Eighth Army is pushed towards the Egyptian border.

British tea planter uses elephants to rescue 68 Burmese refugees fleeing Japanese across the Daphna River, India.

The United States approves construction of “Big Inch” pipeline to transport crude oil from Texas to northeast states, bypassing U-boats.

1943 A co-ordinated air offensive is begun, with the US 8th Air Force, flying precision bombing missions by day and RAF Bomber Command, flying area saturation missions by night, against major German cities.

1944 German counterattacks against Allied invasion forces are unsuccessful for lack of armoured reserves in the area.

Troops of the 2nd SS Panzer Division ‘Das Reich’ massacre the inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane in France.

1945 The Australian 9th Division makes two landings in Brunei Bay, Borneo.

1940 German forces advancing South from the Somme capture Rouen on the Seine.

The British 51st Highland Division and part of the French 10th Army withdraw towards St-Valery-en-Caux, hoping to be evacuated to England.

The French government evacuates from Paris to Tours.

Norway officially surrenders to Germany.

1941 Fire Service Council established in Britain, with 1,400 local brigades being merged in to 32 regional ones.

British advance 40 miles into southern Syria and the Lebanon capturing Tyre in the process.

Italian casualties for May announced as 1,948 killed, 5,204 wounded and 27,292 missing.

Two thousand soldiers put an end to the strike at North American Aviation in Inglewood, CA that threatened crucial aircraft production.

1942 Heydrich lies in state in Berlin. Himmler calls him, ‘a noble, honest and decent human being’.

The Japanese high command announces that “The Midway Occupation operations have been temporarily postponed.”

1943 Tito is wounded during a German air attack.

1944 U.S. forces advancing from Utah Beach capture St. Mere-Eglise and cut the crucial road and rail links on the Cherbourg peninsula. Rommel puts all German forces in Normandy onto the defensive.

The RAF fly from French airfields for first time since 1940.

The U.S. Fifth Army is now 50 miles Northwest of Rome.

The Russians launch a heavy assault on the Finnish forces in the Karelian Isthmus to the North of Leningrad, in an attempt to force them out of war.

1945 Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki announces Japan will fight to the very end rather than accept unconditional surrender.

On Luzon, US Sixth Army takes Bagabag, sealing off Japanese in Cagayan Valley.

The Japanese on Okinawa’s Oroku peninsula are reported as trapped.

Tokyo radio says that 4.93m Japanese have been displaced by the bombing in the last three months.

Yugoslav partisans agree to withdraw from Austria and Trieste.

Los Angeles holds a parade for Generals George Patton and Jimmy Doolittle.

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 killed on 3 ships).

Discovery of neptunium (Np), element 93, by Edwin McMillan & Philip Adelson at the University of California, Berkeley.

1941 RAF launch biggest bombing raid yet on Germany with 360 aircraft.

British, Commonwealth and Free French forces invade Syria and the Lebanon (‘Operation Explorer’) with air and naval support. The British offer Syria independence in an effort to stimulate Syrian revolt against their Vichy rulers. Vichy France protests vigorously at these British proposals.

1942 Fifteen Poles, including 12 women are publicly hanged in Poznan. The bodies left hanging for 48 hours as a warning.

US Army, European Theater of Operations (ETOUSA) formed under Major General James Chaney, replacing USAFBI (US Army Forces in British Isles).

Due to victory at Midway, US cancels the invasion alert for the US West Coast.

1943 The United States begins the “V-Home” campaign to encourage rationing, scrap collection, and other patriotic wartime activities.The

The Los Angeles City Council bans wearing of zoot suits in effort to stop Zoot Suit Riots.

The Japanese battleship Mutsu explodes by accident at Hiroshima, Japan, 1121 killed.

1944 The U.S. Fifth Army continues its drive North in Italy, taking Civita Castellana.

The RAF uses 12,000-lb “Tallboy” bomb against train tunnel in Saumur, France.

On the Adriatic coast of Italy, British find Germans have retreated, and they advance.

1945 SHAEF reveal the details of the German plans to exterminate all Jews in Europe by the summer 1946.

The United States and Australian naval Task Group 74.3 bombards Brunei Bay on Borneo.

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 flown to Maine and shoved over border into Canada, because neutrality laws forbid landing in Canada.

1942 General Erich von Manstein hurls his troops in the grand assault on the besieged port of Sevastopol in a two-pronged assault. The Soviets resist fanatically in excellent fortifications. The Germans gain ground but take heavy casualties, and have to bring in reinforcements to take the city. However, the continuous German attacks wear down the defenders ammunition supplies, which must be brought in by sea through a tight German blockade maintained by the Luftwaffe, E-boats, and Italian midget submarines.

All Jews over six are forced to wear the ‘Star of David’ in Occupied France.

The Japanese make landings on Attu and Kiska Islands in the Aleutian Islands.

In the Battle of Midway, carrier USS Yorktown sinks due to damage by Japanese submarine I-168 the previous day, but the US is victorious in the major turning point of the Pacific War; from now on, the Japanese will be on the defensive.

Maj. Gen. Clarence Tinker, commander of US Seventh Air Force, is killed when his plane is lost off Midway, the first Native American to reach rank of major general and the first US general killed in WWII.

1944 British troops liberate Bayeux, five miles inland from the Normandy coast. All beachheads are reported as established.

The British 2nd Division is now only 55 miles from Imphal.

Mokmer airfield on Biak is captured by U.S. troops.

The Americans take Civitavecchia on the western coast of Italy.

1945 King Haakon VII returns to Norway, on the fifth anniversary of his leaving the country.

The first allied cargo ship for three years enters Wewak Harbour, in New Guinea.

US Marines cut off Oroku Peninsula on Okinawa.