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http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/19.htm

June 19th, 1941

EUROPE: In tit-for-tat reprisals, Germany and Italy expel the US consuls. Germany and Italy requested United States consular staffs to evacuate territories under their control by July 15, following United States request of June 16 for German consular evacuation by July 10.
GERMANY: Berlin: News comes of a German-Turkish pact to respect each other’s neutrality and to further the economic interests of both states.

Berlin: The German News Bureau reported:

The most recent reports indicate that the British have lost more tanks than was earlier estimated: When we cleared up the battlefield, we found 200 British tanks destroyed or immobilised by German and Italian guns, which the British were forced to abandon when they retreated.

U-619, U-620 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)

SYRIA: Heavy fighting between Vichy forces and an Indian Battalion near Damascus, Syria.

Generals Lavarack and Wilson decide to concentrate Aust 7 Div (Maj-Gen Allen) on coastal sector as offering best prospects of advance. In Mezze, 5 Ind Bde remains cut off and hard-pressed by French armour.

Australian attack on Merdjayoun is again repulsed after fighting in outskirts. Brig Berryman continues to pound Merdjayoun with artillery. (Michael Alexander)

CANADA: Corvette HMCS Moose Jaw commissioned.

Corvettes HMCS Kamloops and Chilliwack arrived Halifax from builders in Victoria and Vancouver respectively. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.A.: In a baseball game at Yankee Stadium in New York City, Yankee star Joe DiMaggio goes 3-for-3 against Chicago White Sox pitchers Eddie Smith and Buck Ross. DiMaggio’s home run and two singles extends his hitting streak to 32-games. (Jack McKillop)

The breakfast cereal “Cheerios” is invented. These O-shaped 1/2-inch (12.7 mm) diameter, .0025 ounce (71 mg) cereals with 400 equalling one serving are originally called “Cheerie Oats.” (Jack McKillop)

Destroyers USS Redoubt and Roebuck laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)

"A few days before the offensive started we received an order from the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (O.K.W.) which has since become known as the ‘Commissar Order '.
The gist of it was that all political commissars of the Red Army whom we captured were to be shot out of hand as exponents of Bolshevik ideology. Now I agree that from the point of view of international law the status of these political commissars was extremely equivocal. They were certainly not soldiers, any more than I would have considered a Gauleiter attached to me as a political overseer to be a soldier.
Neither could they be granted the same non-combatant status as chaplains, medical personnel or war correspondents. On the contrary, they were - without being soldiers - fanatical fighters, but fighters whose activities could only be regarded as illegal according to the traditional meaning of warfare. Their task was not only the political supervision of Soviet military leaders but, even more, to instill the greatest possible degree of cruelty into the fighting and to give it a character completely at variance with the traditional conceptions of soldierly behavior. These same commissars were the men primarily responsible for the fighting methods and treatment of prisoners which clashed so blatantly with the provisions of the Hague Convention on land warfare.

Whatever one might feel about the status of commissars in international law, however, it inevitably went against the grain of any soldier to shoot them down when they had been captured in battle. An order like the Kommissarbefehl was utterly unsoldierly. To have carried it out would have threatened not only the honor of our fighting troops but also their morale.
Consequently I had no alternative but to inform my superiors that the Commissar Order would not be implemented by anyone under my command. My subordinate commanders were entirely at one with me in this, and everyone in the corps area acted accordingly. I need hardly add that my military superiors endorsed my attitude. It was only very much later, however, that all the efforts to get the Commissar Order rescinded were ultimately successful - when it had become clear, namely, that the order simply incited the commissars to resort to the most brutal methods to make their units fight on to the end."

[The fact that the rest of the army probably shared my view became apparent when I took command of Eleventh Army. The Commissar Order had not been carried out there either. The few commissars who were shot in spite of this had not been captured in action but picked up in the rear areas and sentenced as either the leaders or organizers of partisans' groups. Their cases were handled in accordance with military law.]

LOST VICTORIES
FIELD-MARSHAL ERICH VON MANSTEIN

http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/2011/06/day-658-june-19-1941.html

Day 658 June 19, 1941

Syria. Indian and Free French troops launch a two-prong attack on Damascus, along the 2 roads from the South. Free French are held up at Qadim, 4 miles South on the road from Deera. 5th Indian Infantry Brigade marches across country to the village of Mezze at 5.30 AM (3 miles West of Damascus on the road from Quneitra, behind the Vichy French lines) but they lack support and become surrounded.