Diplomacy: Petain requests Germany's and Italy's armistice terms via Spanish Ambassador and the Vatican; he broadcasts to French Army and people: '... it is necessary to stop the fighting.'

Sea War: Evacuation ship Lancastria (16,243 t) bombed and sunk at St Nazaire : only 2,477 rescued out of 5,000 British, French and Belgians aboard (inc. civilians). Italian submarine Provana rammed and sunk by French sloop La Curieuse off Oran.

France: Rommel races towards Cherbourg, covering 150 miles in the day.

Home Front Britain: Churchill broadcasts: 'We have become the sole champions now in arms to defend the world cause.'

Neutrals, Baltic States: SOVIET FORCES OCCUPY ESTONIA AND LATVIA. Left-wing government formed in Lithuania.

Neutrals, USA: British Purchasing Commission takes overall outstanding French arms contracts and offers to purchase as much war material as US can produce.

TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 1940

France: Rommel captures Cherbourg; 5th Panzer Division captures Brest. All large French towns to be surrendered without resistance. Civil administrators and military forces to await arrival of Germans. General Legentilhomme, French commander in Somaliland, declares for de Gaulle.

Picture: German reconaissance unit during the advance in France.

Air War: 70 German bombers raid East England; 11 killed at Cambridge (night June 18-19). Similar raids on most nights to end of month. Total German losses over England, June 5-30: 11 bombers.
Evacuation of last RAF squadrons from France completed.

Sea War Atlantic: All French and Allied shipping evacuated from Brest and naval installations and harbour works destroyed. New French battleship Richelieu leaves Brest for Dakar (arrives June 23). Uncompleted battleship Jean Bart towed out of St Nazaire; fuelled under German air attack and sails under half-power for Casablanca (night June 18-19; arrives 22). 30,600 British and Allied troops evacuated from Cherbourg; French battleship Courbet gives covering fire. French troopship Champlain (28,100 t) crippled by mine (finally sunk by U-65, June 21) in Bay of Biscay.

Sea War Pacific: British liner Niagara (13,400 t), carrying £ 2.25 Millions of gold, mined and sunk off Auckland, New Zealand (gold salvaged from record depth of 148 yd in 7 weeks).

Home Front France: De Gaulle broadcasts from London.

Home Front Britain: Churchill declares in Commons: 'Let us so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire lasts for a thousand years men will say, "This was their finest hour ! " '

Diplomacy: Hitler and Mussolini meet in Munich.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1940

Western Front: Germans capture Brest naval base, and begin crossing river Loire on broad front. Cadets of Saumur Cavalry School under Colonnel Michon prevent German 1st Cavalry Division from crossing Loire.

Air War: Italian aircraft raid Bizerta. Germans bomb Bordeaux: 63 killed, 180 injured (night June 19-20).

Sea War: 19,000 Polish and British troops evacuated from Bayonne and St Jean-de-Luz, near Franco-Spanish border (operation completed June 25).

Home Front Britain: Children's Overseas Reception Board established to send 20,000 schoolchildren to the Dominions for the duration of the war.

THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1940

France: Germans capture Lyons. Saumur Cadets forced to surrender when ammunition supplies for their training weapons run out (200 cadets killed, June 19-20).
Italian offensive on the Riviera (extended along entire Franco-Italian frontier to Mt Blanc, June 21).

Sea War: Gneisenau torpedoed off Trondheim by British submarine Severn.

Picture: the British submarine Severn torpedoed the German battlecruiser Gneisenau and immobilized her for several months.

Home Front Britain: Entire output of Thompson sub-machine guns (300 t per week) to be delivered from US manufacturers in weekly shipments.

Home Front France: Petain broadcasts: he describes the defeat of France as 'inevitable' and compares the 185 British, American and Italian divisions supporting the French Army in May 1918 with the 10 British divisions of May 1940.

Diplomacy: French authorities in Indo-China bow to Japanese threat and halve transit of arms to China via Haiphong.

FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1940

Diplomacy: Hitler attends Franco-German armistice negotiations in Forest of Compiegne.

Air War: 50 German aircraft make scattered night raids over many parts of England, guided by radio beams.

Secret War: Specially equipped RAF Anson aircraft detects radio beam transmitted from Germany in direction of Rolls-Royce works, Derby. Counter-measures are quickly devised against this system (German code name Knickebein, or 'bent leg').

Sea War Atlantic: Two U-boats disappear: U-122 (June 21) and U-102 (June 30) missing off North Channel (Irish Sea); possibly sunk by mines. Two 'Special Service Vessels' (decoy ships) sunk by U-boats, West of Ireland: Prunella (June 21) and Williamette Valley (June 29).

Neutrals, Rumania: King Carol forms 'National Party' inc. members of Iron Guard (Jews excluded from membership).

Neutrals, USA: Death of Co!onnel Thompson, inventor of the Tommy Gun (a sophisticated sub-machine gun), aged 80.

SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 1940

France: (MAIN EVENT) ARMISTICE BETWEEN FRANCE AND GERMANY signed at Compiegne by General Keitel (Germany) and General Huntziger (France). Signing ceremony takes place in Marshal Foch's old railway carriage, previously used for signature of Armistice, November 11, 1918. Armistice terms: Germany to occupy two-thirds of Metropolitan France inc. entire Channel and Atlantic coastlines; all major industrial areas; Alsace-Lorraine and Paris. French armed forces to be disarmed and demobilized, with exception of token defence forces; French Fleet to be disarmed and demobilized under German and Italian supervision; France to pay costs of German army of occupation. French PoWs to remain in Germany until signature of peace treaty.
Three French armies (400,000 men) surrender in Vosges pocket, west of Maginot Line. Germans occupy Lorient.

Picture: Marshal Foch's railway carriage from 1918, used again for the armistic between France and Germany in 1940.

Air War: Italian three-engines SM81 bombers raid Alexandria; 25 casualties (night June 22-23).

Sea War Atlantic: U-46 attacks British Force H as it battles against hurricane-force winds en route from Scapa Flow to Gibraltar; Carrier Ark Royal probably hit, but torpedoes fail to explode.

Neutrals, Baltic States: Left-Wing Governments formed in Estonia and Latvia.

SUNDAY, JUNE 23, 1940

France: Italians occupy Riviera resort of Menton described by Italian commentators as a 'strongly fortified town' !

Sea War: Uncompleted French destroyer Lansquenet escapes from Gironde Estuary, West France, under German artillery fire (arrives Casablanca, June 27). Italian submarine Galvani sinks sloop Pathan (Royal Indian Navy) off Bombay; Italian submarine Torricelli sunk in gun battle with three British destroyers and a sloop off Perim (Persian Gulf); destroyer Khartoum also sunk.

France: General de Gaulle forms French National Committee in London. Hitler makes sightseeing tour of Paris.

Picture: Hitler on sightseeing tour in Paris in front of the Eiffel Tower. Left to him his main architect Albert Speer and to his right the leading sculptor Arno Breker.

Secret War: First unsuccessful British Commando raid on Boulogne.

Home Front France: Laval appointed Vice-Premier and Minister of State.

Air War: French bombers raid Palermo (Sicily).

Neutrals, Egypt: Coalition Government of Aly Pasha Maher falls. The Wafdist (Nationalist) Party leader Nahas Pasha refuses to form new government. New weak Coalition Government formed under Hassan Pasha Sabry (June 28).