Post by 2nd Bat on May 28, 2015 22:06:19 GMT -5
May 22-29th 1940: 75 Years Ago in WW2
May 22nd, 1940:
- The Belgian Army withdraws to Lys, while the German panzer force re-orients itself towards Calais and Boulogne.
- Churchill is in Paris, urging a counterattack, but the French seem incapable of mounting one.
- Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of Britain’s own Blackshirt movement, is arrested in the UK.
- British code-breakers at Bletchley Park break the Luftwaffe’s ‘Red’ Cipher in their first major breakthrough in cracking the German’s Enigma code system.
May 23rd, 1940:
- Rundstedt orders his tank forces to halt even as 2nd Panzer attacks Boulogne and the British evacuate Arras.
- The British Union of Fascists never amounted to much and its strength had peaked well before the War, but the BUF party leader Sir Oswald Mosley is interned anyway by the British government. He will be released in November 1943.
May 24th, 1940:
- Hitler confirms Rundstedt’s halt order, even as the British evacuate 5000 men from beleaguered Boulogne and the trapped northern Army Group starts to reorient its defences.
- The British and French decide to leave Norway after they achieve the capture of Narvik – although they finally have stabilized the front here and fighter aircraft have been flown in to Bardufoss.
May 25th, 1940:
- Belgian troops are driven out of Menin and Lord Gort – fed up with vague French promises of a counter-attack – gives up any thought of concerted action with them. Boulogne falls to the Germans.
May 26th, 1940:
- The Belgians are collapsing, the French are dithering, and the British fall back on Dunkirk where an evacuation will begin this evening.
- Over 850 vessels will participate in the evacuation from large ocean-going ships to tiny open-cockpit sailboats.
- German aircraft sink the cruiser HMS Curlew off Norway.
- General Ironside becomes Chief of Home Defence Forces, while Sir John Dill replaces him as Chief of the Imperial General Staff.
May 27th, 1940:
- It is a close run thing, but British troops in Lille slip out of encirclement and head north; only 8,000 men are lifted out of Dunkirk today.
- The Allied assault on Narvik begins.
- After taking heavy casualties from stubborn British troops in the capture of a trio of French villages, troops from the SS Totenkopf Division massacre 117 British prisoners from the Norfolk Regiment and the Scots Guards.
May 28th, 1940:
- Narvik is taken by an Allied assault – the first Allied victory on land during the war – although its German defenders continue to maintain a defensive perimeter outside the town. King Leopold III surrenders his army to Germany without informing the British and French – who have to scramble to protect their evacuation sites (where another 17,800 men are brought off). The King’s declaration is also against the will of his people, his government and his army; and the Belgians refuse to let him resume the throne at the war’s end.
May 29th. 1940:
- The Germans push on the Dunkirk perimeter at all points and an air battle erupts over the evacuation site, where three destroyers are sunk as 47,310 men are evacuated, and the French decide to let their troops leave too.
- Britain’s Boulton Paul Defiant fighter is an odd duck, but it has some good days: 264 Squadron claims 37 downed German aircraft over Dunkirk, including 19 Stukas but German Messerschmidts will soon learn how to deal with the hunchbacked British fighter plane.
May 22nd, 1940:
- The Belgian Army withdraws to Lys, while the German panzer force re-orients itself towards Calais and Boulogne.
- Churchill is in Paris, urging a counterattack, but the French seem incapable of mounting one.
- Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of Britain’s own Blackshirt movement, is arrested in the UK.
- British code-breakers at Bletchley Park break the Luftwaffe’s ‘Red’ Cipher in their first major breakthrough in cracking the German’s Enigma code system.
May 23rd, 1940:
- Rundstedt orders his tank forces to halt even as 2nd Panzer attacks Boulogne and the British evacuate Arras.
- The British Union of Fascists never amounted to much and its strength had peaked well before the War, but the BUF party leader Sir Oswald Mosley is interned anyway by the British government. He will be released in November 1943.
May 24th, 1940:
- Hitler confirms Rundstedt’s halt order, even as the British evacuate 5000 men from beleaguered Boulogne and the trapped northern Army Group starts to reorient its defences.
- The British and French decide to leave Norway after they achieve the capture of Narvik – although they finally have stabilized the front here and fighter aircraft have been flown in to Bardufoss.
May 25th, 1940:
- Belgian troops are driven out of Menin and Lord Gort – fed up with vague French promises of a counter-attack – gives up any thought of concerted action with them. Boulogne falls to the Germans.
May 26th, 1940:
- The Belgians are collapsing, the French are dithering, and the British fall back on Dunkirk where an evacuation will begin this evening.
- Over 850 vessels will participate in the evacuation from large ocean-going ships to tiny open-cockpit sailboats.
- German aircraft sink the cruiser HMS Curlew off Norway.
- General Ironside becomes Chief of Home Defence Forces, while Sir John Dill replaces him as Chief of the Imperial General Staff.
May 27th, 1940:
- It is a close run thing, but British troops in Lille slip out of encirclement and head north; only 8,000 men are lifted out of Dunkirk today.
- The Allied assault on Narvik begins.
- After taking heavy casualties from stubborn British troops in the capture of a trio of French villages, troops from the SS Totenkopf Division massacre 117 British prisoners from the Norfolk Regiment and the Scots Guards.
May 28th, 1940:
- Narvik is taken by an Allied assault – the first Allied victory on land during the war – although its German defenders continue to maintain a defensive perimeter outside the town. King Leopold III surrenders his army to Germany without informing the British and French – who have to scramble to protect their evacuation sites (where another 17,800 men are brought off). The King’s declaration is also against the will of his people, his government and his army; and the Belgians refuse to let him resume the throne at the war’s end.
May 29th. 1940:
- The Germans push on the Dunkirk perimeter at all points and an air battle erupts over the evacuation site, where three destroyers are sunk as 47,310 men are evacuated, and the French decide to let their troops leave too.
- Britain’s Boulton Paul Defiant fighter is an odd duck, but it has some good days: 264 Squadron claims 37 downed German aircraft over Dunkirk, including 19 Stukas but German Messerschmidts will soon learn how to deal with the hunchbacked British fighter plane.