Posted on 06/02/2010 4:47:43 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour
News of the Week in Review
Twenty News Question – 12
Impact of the War on the Nation’s Viewpoint (by Hadley Cantril) – 13-14
Answers to Twenty News Questions - 15
Those Gallup numbers are going to swing very quickly...kind of like the Panzers when they swing south.
I read the title to this thread and thought, good God, the Germans are seriously pissy about the French and the Euro debt!
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/jun40/f02jun40.htm
Germans penetrate beaches of Dunkirk
Sunday, June 2, 1940 www.onwar.com
On the Western Front... During the day the Dunkirk perimeter, now manned entirely by French forces, is largely driven in but the Germans still cannot penetrate to the town. The beach area is only two miles long after this advance, however. Both before dawn and after dark the evacuation continues, with 26,256 men being taken off, including the last British unit to leave. Just before midnight the evacuation dies to a trickle. There are still plenty of ships but the French troops have not been given proper orders about where to go and which piers are in use. Many more have gone to earth in and around town and will take no further part in military operations.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/02.htm
June 2nd, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group (Whitley). Bombing - oil plant at Hamburg - Marshalling yards - Osnabruck and Hamm. 10 Sqn. Six aircraft to Hamburg. All bombed, one gunner wounded. 51 Sqn. Six aircraft to Hamburg. All bombed. 58 Sqn. Four aircraft to Osnabruck. All bombed. 77 Sqn. Eight aircraft to Hamm. All bombed, two aircrew wounded.
The ‘British Air Ministry’ announced:
‘During June 1 the RAF supported the retreat operations of the British Expeditionary Force, by attacking bridges, canals, troop columns and rail junctions. Forty German aircraft have been shot down in the Dunkirk area. Thirteen British planes are missing. For the past week our coastal wings have carried on uninterrupted patrol flights to secure the evacuation of Allied troops. Large numbers of German aircraft were shot down in the numerous aerial combats fought during supervision of the transport ships on their journey to England.
London: Lieutenant General Alan Brooke is summoned to the War Office by the C.I.G.S., Sir John Dill who tells him that he is to return to the Cherbourg peninsula in France in order to form a new B.E.F. and so support the French Army. After a long discussion with Dill he is told that Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for War, wants to speak with him. Eden is very charming and expresses sympathy for all the difficulties that lay ahead of Brooke. He finishes by asking Brooke if he is satisfied that he is being sent on a mission that has no chance of military success and every chance for disaster. If there was a political element in the mission, such as keeping France in the war, that is not for him to judge. He is told that when he arrives in France he will take command of all British forces there. (W. Jay Stone)
FRANCE: Dunkirk: A further 26,256 men are taken off. The last of the British 2 Corps. Leaving 60,000 Frenchmen defending the perimeter. During the night another 20,000 British and French are taken off.
Sergeant Leonard Howard left Dunkirk yesterday. He describes the hours he lay waiting to be rescued: “I lay in the sand, in the dunes at Dunkirk, and I slept because I was really completely exhausted. And the next morning I went into the water in the hope of getting a boat, being picked up. And there was no hope. They tried to organise queues but it was very difficult; there was a great deal of panic. I saw British troops shoot British troops ... a small boat came in, and they piled aboard it to such a degree that it was in danger of capsizing. And the chap in charge of this boat decided that unless he took some action ... and he shot a hanger-on. I saw chaps run into the water screaming because mentally it had got too much for them.”
Yesterday morning, Howard and another man found a canoe in which they paddled out towards the rescue boats. “As the rope from this ship finally hit the canoe, it literally sank the canoe and we held onto the rope and were pulled onto the ship.”
Hitler visits a number of locations around Ypres and Vimy where his regiment, the 16. Bavarian Reserve Inf. Rgt. (List), had fought during the Great War.
The itinerary for the day of the visit to the Vimy memorial is described:
Sunday, June 2. Having been woken at 7:30am, and taken breakfast at eight, the party left the chateau half an hour later. They crossed the urban area of Lille to reach Pont-a-Marck where Hitler had a brief meeting with Generaloberst Günther von Kluge commanding 4.Armee. They then drove on to Avelin where they conferred with General der Infanterie Adolf Strauss, the commander of II.Armeekorps. Motoring via Ceclin, Carvin and Lens, the party arrived at Vimy where they visited the Canadian Memorial Park. At the base of the twin pillars of the memorial, General der Infanterie Hermann Hoth of the V.Armeekorps had set up maps detailing the crossing of the Meuse river at Dinant and the tank battle near Cambrai. Hitler then said to Generalmajor Erwin Rommel, the commander of the 7.Panzer Division: “Rommel, we were very worried about you during the attack.” Behind the audience, covered with wooden shuttering put up by the French to protect it from being damaged in the fighting, stood the figure of “Canada in Mourning.”
(p.10 - After the Battle No.117, “Hitler on the Western Front”)
The ATB article also relates that before leaving the Canadian Memorial Park, Hitler stopped to walk over the part of the old front line which had been preserved just as it had been left in 1918, complete with trenches and craters. (Russell Folsom)
EUROPE: Two U.S. passenger ships depart European cities enroute to the U.S. carrying American citizens fleeing Europe. SS President Roosevelt departs Galway, Eire, with 720 passengers while SS Manhattan departs Genoa, Italy, with 1,905 passengers. (Jack McKillop)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 276 June 2, 1940
Dunkirk. British Admiralty stops daytime embarkation due to devastating German bombing yesterday. However, the bulk of the Allied troops have already been evacuated. 19,561 Allied troops embark from Dunkirk harbour & 6,695 from the beaches under cover of darkness. During the day, French defenders (covering the British retreat) start falling back to be evacuated also.
Norway. While Polish and French troops pursue the Germans East towards Sweden, the British begin falling back towards Narvik to be transported home. British aircraft carriers HMS Ark Royal and Glorious arrive to provide air cover for the evacuation of 26,000 British troops.
At 3 AM, U-101 sinks British SS Polycarp 41 miles south of Lands End (all 43 crew picked up by the French merchant Espiguette and landed at Newlyn, Cornwall).
At 6 AM, British boom defense vessel HMS Astronomer sinks 20 miles off the northeast coast of Scotland after taking 3 torpedoes over 6 hours from U-58 (4 lives lost). 52 civilian crew members, one gunner and 48 Royal Navy sailors are picked up by anti-submarine trawlers HMS Stoke City & HMS Leicester City and landed at Rosyth. http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/334.html
Ping
The allies retreat from the “low countries” and Germany is already bombing France. It is pretty amazing how little time it takes them to conduct so many large military operations.
That poll says 71% don’t think we’re giving enough help to the allies and 51% think the US will enter the war. interesting.
The Battleship Washington is the first capital ship launched in 19 YEARS!!! Unbelievable!!
Pretty dark days for Europe
She looks like she will be a great ship once they get the 16 inchers on her.
Can anyone reading Churchill’s note to Ismay regarding immediate priorities in the wake of the successful embarkation from Dunquerque imagine present-day leaders having that steadfast presence of mind.
“Here are my first thoughts,” Churchill wrote...
Washington’s sister ship, the USS North Carolina, is a museum ship in Wilmington NC. I’ve visited her several times. It’s a fascinating blend of technologies, many of which have been lost through obsolescence. The best part of the tour is going into the barbettes below the 16” gun turrets. There is still a full load of projectiles in the shell rooms (I would assume the explosive charges have been removed) and all of the brass powder bag canisters are in the powder rooms (again, I would assume all the propellant has been removed). But you can see how they handled feed the guns through the handling rooms and hoists.
The turrets are massive, but cramped on the inside. The difference is all steel.
The Washington & “Showboat” (North Carolina) were designed as treaty ships, both by tonnage and by armament; they were originally supposed to mount 12 14” guns. However, as it appeared the rest of the world was scrapping the naval treaties, at a very early phase of construction they were converted to 9 16” guns of the same 45 caliber as the guns found on the older West Virginia class. The improved 50 caliber 16” guns were installed on the Iowa class.
I see you can basically get free land in Cuba until 1960. Might as well grab some up. Maybe you will luck out and not have to pay in 1960. Who knows?
See, I thought the Washington and North Carolina were slated for 14” guns. I knew they were upgraded to 16, but I thought that happened after commissioning. When the news article mentioned that it was getting fitted for 16s I just figured I was thinking of another ship. What it was, was they were PLANNED, for 14s and when the Washington and London Treaties were going out the window they went up to the 16 inchers. I was thinking of the right ships, it’s just my timeline was off.
I’m telling you, I’m envious. I would love to go tour the North Carolina. Both ships of this class served with great distinction during the war. The only navy ship I’ve been on beside the USS Recruit in San Diego was the USS Kittyhawk back when I was a cub scout.
I would go with the 30 year deferment on that one. Tell them you’ll be more than happy to make a balloon payment if that government is still in power. The 20 year one may still be remembered if you know what I mean.
Museum ships I’ve visited:
USS Intrepid-Philadelphia (1976; she is no longer there)
USS Olympia-Philadelphia
USS North Carolina-Wilmington NC
USS Alabama-Mobile
USS Texas-Galveston
USS Lexington-Corpus Christi
U505-Chicago
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