World War II calendar
What happened on June 1 during World War II? This date brings together 8 events from 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.
Large Luftwaffe formations attacked shipping, the harbour, the beaches and troops moving toward embarkation points. Fighter Command operated from southern England but could not maintain continuous visible cover. Smoke, cloud and combat inland meant that soldiers on the ground often saw German aircraft without seeing the RAF patrols engaging them.
Continue in Dunkirk: Operation Dynamo →
German air attacks sank or disabled several destroyers during the day's evacuation work, including Keith, Basilisk and Havant. The losses led the Admiralty to restrict the use of modern destroyers in daylight. Smaller warships, older destroyers, ferries and other vessels continued operating.
Continue in Dunkirk: Operation Dynamo →About 39,000 members of the British Expeditionary Force remained inside the contracted sector at the start of the day. British units withdrew from the frontier and canal positions toward La Panne and Dunkirk while French divisions took over sectors needed to cover the following evacuation phase.
Continue in Dunkirk: Operation Dynamo →
After the final evacuation ships had sailed, the organised British and Dominion troops left around Sfakia were ordered to cease resistance. Their ammunition, food and communications were insufficient for a conventional defence, and no further large naval lift was planned. German forces accepted the surrender of large groups while patrols spread through southern Crete. Some Allied soldiers avoided capture and moved into the mountains, often with the help of Cretan civilians, creating a separate history of escape, resistance and occupation. The fall of Crete closed the eight-campaign opening sequence of…
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Around 4,000 German airborne troops were killed in twelve days, roughly a quarter of the parachute arm, and some 284 aircraft were lost. Student called it the grave of the German parachutists. Hitler concluded that the day of the parachute troop was over and that surprise had been the whole of its value. Germany never mounted another airborne invasion; its parachute divisions fought as elite infantry for the rest of the war, at Cassino and in Normandy.
Bomber Command attempted another mass raid against Essen on 1–2 June. Fewer aircraft reached the target and the results were much less concentrated. The contrast demonstrated that numbers alone did not guarantee effect. Weather, marking, navigation and the shape of the target remained decisive.
Continue in Operation Millennium →
Two nights after Cologne, 956 aircraft took off against Essen, including 347 from Operational Training Units. The force was large enough to overload the German defences, but thin cloud covered the target and removed the visual conditions that had helped the Cologne attack. Bombing scattered across the Ruhr. Oberhausen and Mülheim suffered heavily, while Essen itself escaped much of the intended concentration and Krupp's works again received little damage. Thirty-one bombers failed to return, a lower percentage loss than might have been expected over Germany's most heavily defended industrial region.…
Continue in Area Bombing Begins →
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force established its forward command post at Southwick House, above Portsmouth, within sight of anchorages filling with the invasion fleet. Assault troops were sealed into marshalling areas along the south coast, briefed, issued with French currency and cut off from all outside contact. The operation now turned on a variable no staff could control. Overlord needed a rising tide near dawn so demolition parties could clear the beach obstacles, a late-rising moon for the airborne drop, and a sea calm enough to launch landing craft far…
Continue in Operation Overlord →