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WWII On This Day: May 7

What happened on May 7 during World War II? This date brings together 5 events from 1940, 1944 and 1945, 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

The Norway Debate breaks Chamberlain's parliamentary position

The House of Commons opened a two-day debate on the conduct of the Norwegian campaign on 7 May. Critics focused on planning, equipment, command arrangements and the gap between political intentions and the forces committed. The government won the confidence division with a sharply reduced majority as Conservative members abstained or voted against the government. The result exposed a parliamentary base too narrow for the coalition then required by the war. Labour declined to enter a coalition under Chamberlain. The political crisis moved toward a new prime minister while the…

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1944
Wrecked rolling stock in the severely damaged marshalling yard at Juvisy-sur-Orge after Allied air attacks in 1944.
Bridge B (Fg Off), Royal Air Force official photographer / Imperial War Museums, CL 4170 · Public domain · Source
The Transportation Plan

Eight P-47s demolish the Vernon railway bridge

Eight Ninth Air Force P-47s each carried two 1,000-pound bombs against the steel railway crossing over the Seine near Vernon. The bridge was demolished. Other crossings at Oissel, Orival and Mantes-Gassicourt were badly damaged, ending much of the earlier doubt that tactical aircraft could break major bridges.

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Soviet troops identified by the Commons record with the assault on Sapun Heights in May 1944; used as tight operational attribution for the 7 May breakthrough.
Soviet troops identified by the Commons record with the assault on Sapun Heights in May 1944; used as tight operational attribution for the 7 May breakthrough. Unknown wartime photographer · public domain Source
Sevastopol and the Crimea

The Sapun Heights position breaks

After a Soviet feint against the northern sector on 5 May, the main assault struck the southern approaches on 7 May. Concentrated artillery and infantry attacks forced the Sapun Heights position and opened the route into the Sevastopol perimeter. The breakthrough made continued defence of the fortress untenable. German and Romanian formations began compressing toward the city and the Cape Khersones evacuation beaches.

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The Transportation Plan

Churchill again challenges the civilian cost

Churchill wrote to Roosevelt that he remained unconvinced by the wisdom of the Transportation Plan. The dispute was no longer about whether railways could be damaged. It concerned whether the expected French and Belgian civilian losses were politically and morally acceptable before liberation.

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1945
Anton Mussert, leader of the Dutch NSB, under arrest in The Hague on 7 May 1945.
Anton Mussert, leader of the Dutch NSB, under arrest in The Hague on 7 May 1945. Anonymous photographer / Rijksmuseum, NG-2006-50-89 · CC0 1.0 Source
Occupation, Collaboration and Resistance in World War II

Anton Mussert is arrested as Dutch special justice expands

Anton Mussert, leader of the collaborationist Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging, was arrested in The Hague on 7 May 1945. He was later convicted of high treason and executed on 7 May 1946. His prosecution formed only a small part of the Dutch special postwar justice system. The Centraal Archief Bijzondere Rechtspleging contains records connected to about 425,000 people investigated for suspected collaboration with the German occupier. That number is a measure of investigation, not a count of convicted collaborators. Many of the people in the archive never appeared before a court, were…

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