TODAY: Monday June 21, 2021

ON THIS DAY

45 years ago (1976)

We revealed that Joe Gormley, President of the National Union of Mineworkers, would tell his union’s finance department that he would not accept a £6-a-week pay rise voted him by pitmen’s leaders.

And the union’s general secretary Lawrence Daly indicated he too was willing to give up the increase.

The pair became embroiled in a row about how their personal finances squared with their backing for a further period of voluntary wage restraint by their members.

102 years ago (1919)

Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttled the German fleet at Scapa Flow, Orkney, making the nine soldiers who died the last casualties of the First World War.

The High Seas Fleet had been impounded under the terms of the Armistice as negotiations took place over the fate of the ships.

76 years ago (1945)

The Japanese island of Okinawa finally fell to US troops after 82 days of bloody fighting and would provide the Americans with an air and naval base to launch a sustained attack on the mainland. Some 90,000 Japanese and 12,500 Americans died in the conflict.