military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) (06/02/90)
Saturday, 1 June, 1940 64,000 troops are evacuated from Dunkirk, with the loss of 3 British and 1 French destroyers sunk, another 6 damaged, and numerous transports lost. Daylight evacuations are ordered discontinued, as the last of the British troops near the beaches. Evacuees claim that the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge was deliberately destroyed by German bombers, arousing anger among Canadian officials. The 20,000-ton British liner Orford is bombed and sunk during a German raid on Marseilles. This marks the first air raid on southern France since the war's beginning. As Mussolini declines Roosevelt's urging to remain Neutral, Hitler requests that he delay for a few days Italy's declaration of war. Rumania's Foreign Minister, Grigore Gafencu, resigns and is replaced by pro-German Ion Gigurtu. King Carol explains the move as a re-alignment of foreign policy toward friendlier relations with Germany and the USSR. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Bill Thacker military@cbnews.att.com Send submissions for "50 Years Ago" to military-request@att.att.com "We will meet them again, and this time victory will be with us." - General Lord Gort