military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) (07/05/90)
From: military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) Thursday, 4 July, 1940 Luftwaffe Stukas, together with German torpedo boats, attack a convoy south of Portland; 5 convoy vessels are sunk. Italian troops occupy Kassala and Galabat in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Air raids are staged on Malta and Alexandria. Only light border defenses oppose the Italian advance from Abyssinia. A new Rumanian cabinet is formed under Prime Minister Gigurtu. Included are two leaders of the once-outlawed Iron Guard. The French battlecruiser Strasbourg, together with the aircraft carrier Commandant Teste and several destroyers, having fled Mers-el-Kebir, arrive at Toulon harbor. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Bill Thacker military@att.att.com Send submissions for "50 Years Ago" to military-request@att.att.com "I leave the judgement of our actions with confidence to Parliament. I leave it to the nation and I leave it to the United States. I leave it to the world and to history." - Winston Churchill, on the Mers-el-Kebir affair