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WWII On This Day: June 10

What happened on June 10 during World War II? This date brings together 8 events from 1940, 1942, 1943 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1940
German mountain troops landing in Norway, April 1940.
Photo: Bagn Bygdesamling – Valdres Folkemuseum, Norway · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Operation Weserübung

Norwegian forces in mainland Norway capitulate

After the Allied withdrawal and the government's departure, the remaining Norwegian command agreed to cease organised resistance on the mainland on 10 June. The agreement ended sixty-three days of fighting inside Denmark and Norway. German occupation now extended across the Norwegian mainland and its major ports and airfields. Norway's government, merchant fleet, naval units and personnel abroad remained active in the Allied war. The military campaign had ended on Norwegian soil while the Norwegian state continued operating beyond it.

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German troops in northern France during the campaign of 1940.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-299-1808-10A · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Battle of France 1940

Italy declares war on France and Britain

Mussolini declared war on France and Britain on 10 June as the French military position deteriorated across the northern half of the country. Italian forces prepared an offensive across the Alpine frontier while the French Army of the Alps held fortified mountain positions and guarded approaches through difficult terrain. The declaration added a second armistice problem to the French government's crisis. Fighting in the Alps would continue until the separate Franco-Italian agreement signed on 24 June.

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1942
The ruins of Lidice after German forces destroyed the village in June 1942.
The ruins of Lidice after German forces destroyed the village in June 1942. Library of Congress, LOT 2391 [item] · Public domain Source
Reprisal and Massacre

Lidice is destroyed

German security forces surrounded Lidice during the night of 9–10 June. On 10 June, 173 men were shot. Women were deported, mainly to Ravensbrück, while children were separated; eighty-two were later murdered at Chełmno and a small number selected for Germanisation. The village was then burned, demolished and altered so that the settlement itself would disappear. Lidice Memorial records 340 murdered residents in the full destruction and deportation sequence. The destruction was publicised across occupied Europe and beyond, giving the operation the exemplary function its planners intended. Rebuilding the village…

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1943
A German Messerschmitt Bf 110 attacks B-17F Flying Fortresses of the 91st Bomb Group over Europe in January 1944.
U.S. Army Air Forces / National Archives, NAID 204888701 · Public domain in the United States · Source
The Combined Bomber Offensive

The formal Pointblank directive

The directive marked the official beginning of the Combined Bomber Offensive as a developed campaign. Its immediate purpose was to reduce the German fighter force and the industries supporting it before the invasion of France. The RAF and USAAF remained free to apply different operational methods, which made Pointblank a coordinated strategy rather than a single integrated bombing command.

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1944
Allied commanders in the Normandy campaign, 1944.
Allied commanders in the Normandy campaign, 1944. IWM B 5323 · IWM Non-Commercial Licence Source
Operation Overlord

Montgomery's tactical headquarters comes ashore

21st Army Group established its forward headquarters in Normandy. With Caen holding out, Montgomery began shaping the campaign around drawing German armour onto the British and Canadian sector in the east, so the Americans could break out in the west where the defence was thinner. Whether this was the original design or a rationalisation of the failure to take Caen on D-Day has been argued ever since. Its effect is not disputed: the great bulk of German panzer strength was committed around Caen and stayed there.

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A later view of the Distomo massacre memorial, marking the village where 218 civilians were killed on 10 June 1944.
A later view of the Distomo massacre memorial, marking the village where 218 civilians were killed on 10 June 1944. AlMare · CC BY-SA 3.0 Source
Reprisal and Massacre

Distomo is massacred after fighting with partisans nearby

On 10 June 1944 troops of the 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division entered Distomo after a clash with ELAS partisans in the surrounding area. Soldiers killed civilians throughout the village and burned houses. The recorded death toll is 218. Distomo became one of the best-documented Greek cases in which anti-partisan combat was followed by direct violence against the civilian population, and it later stood at the centre of legal disputes over compensation. The massacre occurred within a wider pattern of German security operations in Greece during the final year of…

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Men of the 16th Infantry Regiment wading ashore from a landing craft at Omaha Beach, 6 June 1944.
“Into the Jaws of Death” · CPhoM Robert F. Sargent, US Coast Guard · NARA 26-G-2343 · Public domain · Source
Omaha Beach

The American beachheads connect

The Omaha lodgement linked with Gold to the east and, by 10 June, with the Utah sector through the expanding American front. Omaha had ceased to be an isolated beachhead. Its significance shifted from survival to supporting the larger Normandy campaign.

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The preserved main street of Oradour-sur-Glane, left in ruins after the massacre of 10 June 1944.
The preserved main street of Oradour-sur-Glane, left in ruins after the massacre of 10 June 1944. Wikimedia Commons contributor · reusable under the licence stated on the File page Source
Reprisal and Massacre

The population of Oradour-sur-Glane is assembled and killed

A detachment of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich surrounded Oradour-sur-Glane and ordered the population to assemble. Men were separated into several execution sites while women and children were taken to the church. The men were shot, the women and children were killed in the church, and the village was looted and burned. The Centre de la mémoire d’Oradour now records 643 victims. The ruins were preserved after the war, leaving the destroyed street plan as part of the memorial itself. The operation destroyed a functioning community in a…

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