A memorial to the children of Lidice who were killed by the Nazis in World War II. The Germans mistakenly took revenge on Lidice for the killing of a German official. Click to enlarge.
By: Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
In Washington, D.C., the U.S. on June 5 declares war against Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. The Japanese occupy Attu Island, in the Aleutians off Alaska. In North Africa, the British Eighth Army under Gen. Neil Ritchie launches a major counter-attack against Rommel in “the Cauldron,” near Sidi Muftah. It fails, and the British suffer heavy tank losses.
On June 6, the Luftwaffe joins in the bombardment of Sevastopol. In North Africa, the British 150th Infantry Brigade is overrun by Rommel’s troops at Sidi Muftah, Libya, with 4,000 soldiers taken prisoners. The British lose another 230 tanks trying to retake the area. Off Recife, Brazil, the German commerce raider Stier sinks the American liberty ship SS Stanvak Calcutta. In San Francisco, the Wartime Civil Control Administration reports that 99,770 U.S. West Coast residents of Japanese ancestry have been moved to internment camps inland.
Four divisions of the German 11th Army assault Sevastopol from the north on June 7. In the Aleutians, the Japanese occupy the island of Kiska. In the Aegean Sea, British commandos conduct a raid on an airfield on German-occupied Crete. They destroy five planes, damage 29 others and set fire to numerous vehicles and significant quantities of supplies.
A Japanese submarine fires several shells into a residential section of Sydney, Australia, on June 8, but only minor damage results. Gen. Douglas MacArthur suggests to U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall that an offensive be launched in the Pacific, with the targets being New Britain, New Ireland and New Guinea.
On June 9, following the lavish state funeral of Reinhard Heydrich in Berlin, Adolf Hitler — infuriated by Heydrich’s death — orders reprisals. (Heydrich had been mortally wounded in an assassination attempt by two Czech Army sergeants on May 27.) German intelligence wrongly identifies the Czech village of Lidice as complicit in hiding the two assassins. The entire population of the village is gathered up. Over 190 men and boys are executed by firing squads, while 203 women and 105 children under 15 are deported to concentration camps. The village is burned to the ground, with remains of any buildings dynamited. All animals in the village, including pets, are slaughtered. The site of the village is eliminated by covering it with topsoil and planting it over with crops. Roads and a stream are re-routed around the area. The Nazis document everything on film. Two weeks later, the small Czech village of Ležáky, also accused of aiding the assassins, receives the same treatment. In all, it is estimated that over 1,300 people die in reprisals over the death of Reinhard Heydrich.
In North Africa on June 10, after two weeks of fighting in the defense of Bir Hakeim, Libya, the 1st Free French Brigade (which includes Foreign Legionnaires and a battalion of infantry from French Polynesia) is finally overwhelmed and retreats, freeing Rommel’s forces to turn the Gazala Line and move northward. The stubborn defense of the French, however, gives the British Eighth Army time to somewhat regroup. In northwestern Bosnia, 37,000 German and Croatian troops launch a campaign against approximately 3,000 anti-Axis Yugoslav partisans. At the end of the two-month operation, 25,000 civilians and some 1,700 partisans are dead. Axis forces suffer 7,000 killed.
While Soviet defenders at Sevastopol are fighting the German 11th Army, attacking from the north, a major attack on the city is made on June 11 by the Romanian Mountain Corps and the German 30th Army Corps. A vigorous Soviet defense successfully stops both attacks. In North Africa, the Germans break out of “the Cauldron” at Sidi Muftah, in Libya, and turn northward toward Tobruk, with the Allies in retreat before them. Two Allied convoys set out for Malta with desperately needed food, oil and ammunition — one from Gibraltar, the other from Alexandria, Egypt. The strategy is that the Axis forces would concentrate on the convoy they find first, thereby enabling the other to get through.
