military-request@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) (06/19/91)
From: military-request@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) Monday, 16 June, 1941 President Roosevelt orders that all German consulates in the United States are to be closed, and their personnel removed, by mid-July. Germany is charged with using its official agencies as centers for subversive activities. Operation Battleaxe ceases, as the British attack fails against the German defense. Rommel commits the 15th Panzer Division to counterattack at Capuzzo and sends the 5th Light Division on a wide flanking maneuver, which manages to encircle most of the British XIII Corps and decimating the 7th Armored Brigade. At Capuzzo, however, dug-in Matildas of the 7th Royal Tank Regiment maul the 9th Panzer Regiment, knocking out 50 of the regiment's 80 tanks. British aircraft intercept the French destroyer Chevalier Paul, on an ammunition run to Syria; the destroyer is torpedoed and sunk. Vichy forces in Syria stage a local counterattack, retaking part of Marjayoun and El Quneitra. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Bill Thacker military@att.att.com Send submissions for "50 Years Ago" to military-request@att.att.com "Now that this country has been forced into a national emergency, it is time we stopped talking about the World War and the second World War and called them by their true names. These are, of course the first German War and the second German War." - Charles A Williams, in a letter to the New York Times.