Battle of France begins
week from June 3 - 9, 1940

MONDAY, JUNE 3, 1940

Sea War: Last evacuation ships leave Dunkirk (night June 3-4).

• Dunkirk Evacuation:
• Total evacuated: 338,226 men inc. about 120,000 French and Belgians;
• 861 ships and many private craft employed; 243 sunk.
• Aircraft losses: Luftwaffe: over 130, RAF: 106 (87 pilots dead or PoWs).

Picture: the bombed and destroyed Dunkirk after the battle.

Air War: Heavy raid on Paris (Operation Paula): 200 German bombers (20 lost) attempt to destroy aircraft factories and airfields near capital; 254 people killed in suburbs. French lose 33 fighters.

TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1940

Western Front: Germans capture Dunkirk, taking 40,000 French prisoners (rearguard plus many stragglers), and great quantities of abandoned British equipment, inc. 2,472 guns, 84,427 vehicles and motorcycles and 657,566 tons of ammunition and stores.

Picture: miles of abandoned or destroyed British equipment at Dunkirk.

Air War: French Government threatens reprisals for Paris raid (June 3); French bombers attack Munich and Frankfurt (night June 4-5).

Home Front Britain: Churchill tells House of Commons that a week earlier he had anticipated 'the greatest military disaster in our history' but the Dunkirk Evacuation had transformed the situation.
'We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches. . . we shall never surrender. ...'

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1940

Western Front: (MAIN EVENT) BATTLE OF FRANCE BEGINS. Operation Rot (Red): 119 German divsions (with 10 armoured) against 65 French divsions (3 armoured, 3 mechanized cavalry) and 1 British division.
German Army Group B (50 divisions) attacks on the Somme. Army Groups A and C in state of readiness. French defend fortified villages and road blocks tenaciously (Weygand Line). By nightfall Rommel's 7th Panzer Divison is 13 km south of Somme.

Picture: German soldiers take a French village.

Air War: Hauptmann Molders, leading German fighter 'ace', shot down in his Messerschmitt Bf109 near Compiegne and taken prisoner.
30 German bombers attack airfields near British East Coast, little damage. RAF bomb railways in Rhineland (night June 5-6), similar raid on night June 6-7.

Home Front France: Cabinet changes: Prime Minister Reynaud takes personal responsibility for Foreign Affairs; General de Gaulle becomes Under-Secretary for Defence, ex-Prime Minister Daladier leaves Government (at the insistence of Petain and of Reynaud's domineering mistress, Countess de Portes).

THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 1940

France: Despite strong French resistance, Rommel breaks through west of Amiens and advances 20 miles.

Picture: General Erwin Rommel during the Battle of France.

Air War: 21 LeO-451 bombers (11 lost) attack German spearheads at Chaulnes, west of St Quentin, and engage Messerschmitt Bf109s and Bf110s.

Sea War Atlantic: Armed merchant cruiser Carinthia (20,300 t) sunk by U-46 west of Ireland.

Diplomacy: Sir Stafford Cripps appointed British Ambassador in Moscow (the post has been vacant since January 1940).

FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1940

France: Rommel advances 30 miles to Forges-Ies-Eaux, north of Rouen.

Air War: French Naval Air Force attempts token bombing raid on Berlin: converted Centre NC223 4-engined mail­plane makes 13 1/2-hour flight, Bordeaux-Channel-North Sea-Baltic Sea-Berlin(?)-Paris. Crew claim to have attacked Berlin, but bombs apparently fall in open country (night June 7-8).

Picture: Farman 223.4 Jules Verne from Air France, the first 'bomber' which was attacking Berlin in WW2.

Home Front Britain: Late Captain Warburton-Lee awarded first V.C. of WW2 (killed commander of British destroyers in First Battle of Narvik, see April 10).

Sea War: First successful landings by Hurricane fighters on a British carrier, when evacuated from Norway by HMS Glorious.

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1940

France: Rommel advances 45 miles and reaches river Seine.

• German Orders of Battle from 8 June 1940 in the Battle of France

Norway: Evacuation of 24,000 Allied troops from Narvik and Harstad completed: 4-5,000 men evacuated per night since June 3-4. Port installations at Narvik rendered useless. King Haakon and Norwegian Government leave Tromso for England on British cruiser Devonshire.

Sea War: Carrier Glorious and escorting destroyers Acasta and Ardent sunk in desperate battle with Gneisenau and Scharnhorst south west of Narvik. Acasta scores damaging torpedo hit on Scharnhorst. Casualties: British 1,515; German, 48. German Admiral Marschall is dismissed for putting Scharnhorst at risk and failing to carry out planned attack on Harstad (Operation Juno) !

Picture: The aircraft carrier Glorius, with a deck-load of Hurricane and Gladiator fighters evacuated from Norway, was caught by the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and sunk by gunfire. Her sister ship Courageous was sunk soon after the outbreak of WW2 by two torpedos from U-20 in the South-West Approaches, 17 September 1939.

Air War: Captain Wuillame, of Groupe de Chasse (Fighter Group) I/2, flying a Morane-Saulnier MS406, claims three Messerschmitt Bf109 in only 15 seconds over Somme sector.

SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 1940

France: German Army Group A (45 divisions) attacks on the river Aisne. 5th Panzer Division captures Rouen.

Norway: GERMAN-NORWEGIAN ARMISTICE. General Dietl receives surrender of General Ruge at Narvik.