Hitler’s lethal retaliation for death of a leading general
Historian Malcolm Goode looks at the events taking place in June 1942
JUNE 4-7
THE Americans and the Japanese fought the battle of Midway. This was the beginning of Admiral Nagumo’s aim to capture the US base on Midway Island and then destroy the US Pacific Fleet commanded by Admiral Chester Nimitz.
Nagumo’s plan began to go wrong when American codebreakers were able to warn the Admiral Nimitz of what was going to happen. This allowed him to gather together the US Pacific Fleet to meet and destroy the Japanese threat. Nagumo had no idea of the US deployment when he first struck Midway.
As a result, the Japanese Carrier Striking Force was decimated by US planes flying from their aircraft carriers. Three of Nagumo’s carriers were bombed and sunk. A fourth, the Hiryu, then crippled the US Carrier Yorktown before being hit by American aircraft. The Japanese attempt to destroy the American fleet had failed, they had lost half of their aircraft carrier fleet together with nearly three hundred aircraft. This defeat put the Japanese Naval Force in the Pacific on the defensive for the rest of the war.
JUNE 4
S.S General Reinhard Heydrich, the ruthless deputy governor of occupied Czechoslovakia and architect of the Nazi genocide program, dies after an attack by British-trained Czech agents.
Heydrich was travelling in an open top car without an escort when the agents struck. In retaliation, Hitler ordered that more than 1,000 Czechs accused of anti-nazi activities were to be murdered. 3,000 Czech Jews were deported for extermination and 150 Berlin Jews were killed. The Nazis then totally destroyed the Czech village of Lidice (pronounced Lid dee chee). All of the men were executed and every woman and child were sent to concentration camps.
In 1975, the film Operation Daybreak, which told the story of Heydrich and his assassination, became a box office hit.
JUNE 18
A SECOND Washington Conference took place in the United States between Winston Churchill and the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Their aim was to agree a strategy for Europe for 1942 to 43. It was agreed that conditions for a ‘Second Front’ in France were not yet suitable, so Churchill proposed an invasion of North Africa.
Roosevelt accepted that Europe could not be successfully attacked at that time so agreed with the North African option, which would be given the codename Operation Torch.
JUNE 21
NEWLY promoted Field Marshall Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps had been giving the Allied forces a very difficult time, pushing them back towards the border from Libya to Egypt.
On this day the allied garrison at Tobruk in Libya unexpectedly fell to the attacking German and Italian forces. Some 30,000 men, rations and fuel were seized.
Rommel continued to chase the retreating Allies, taking Mersa
Matruh on the 28th. General Sir Claude Auchinleck, the commander of the British Middle-east force, took personal charge of the Eighth Army and established a fortified line from El Alamein for 40 miles to the impassable Quattra depression.
Despite the very aggressive efforts, the Africa Corp failed to penetrate the Allied line.
This caused Rommel to stop what had been a rapid advance, to hold his current position, especially as his lines of supply in the Mediterranean were being strained by British air and sea attacks, assisted by intelligence from the code breakers at Bletchley Park.
JUNE 25
MAJOR General Dwight D. Eisenhower assumes command of the ever expanding US forces in Europe.