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• French, Dutch, Belgian, Croatian, Slovakian, and Romanian Jews were ordered to wear yellow stars. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Heinrich Himmler was placed in charge of Luftschutz, or Air Raid Protection, in Germany. ww2dbase [Heinrich Himmler | TH]
• Hitler traveled to Poltava to confer with Feldmarschall von Bock on the next offensive. ww2dbase [Fedor von Bock | TH]
• The Japanese Navy changed its operational code. ww2dbase [CPC]
• USS S-28 suffered a fire in her port main motor, but it was extinguished with minor damage. ww2dbase [S-28 | CPC]
• Mexico declared war on Germany. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German submarine U-404 sank US freighter West Notus with gunfire 400 kilometers east of North Carolina, United States, killing 4 of 40 aboard. Further east in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, U-566 sank British ship Westmoreland; 3 were killed, 65 survived. ww2dbase [Second Happy Time | CPC]
• German submarine U-107 sank Panamanian ship Bushranger west of Cuba at 0354 hours; 17 were killed, 26 survived. At 1140 hours, U-106 sank US freighter Hampton Roads 150 kilometers west of Havana, Cuba; 7 were killed, 23 survived. At the end of the day at 2351 hours, U-156 sank Brazilian ship Alegrete between Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent in the Antilles islands; all 64 aboard survived. ww2dbase [Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico Campaigns | CPC]
• The United States Marine Corps began recruiting African-Americans. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Rear Admiral Sadayoshi Yamada asked Vice Admiral Nishizo Tsukahara for the authorization to build an airfield on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. ww2dbase [Guadalcanal Campaign | CPC]

• USS Nashville departed Kodiak, Alaska on an Alaskan patrol. ww2dbase [Nashville | Kodiak | DS]

• Two Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbor in Australia in the final hours of the previous day. One of them, M-24, was able to fired two torpedoes at cruiser USS Chicago just after 0000 hours; missing the American cruiser, one of the torpedoes hit the breakwater, sinking nearby barracks ship HMAS Kuttabul (21 were killed, 10 were wounded). M-24 would be able to escape the harbor; her crew abandoned the midget submarine 13 miles north of Sydney but was never seen again. The other midget submarine was depth charged and destroyed by Australian auxiliary patrol boats HMAS Steady Hour, HMAS Sea Mist, and HMAS Yarroma at 0500 hours, killing both men aboard. ww2dbase [Sydney | CPC]

• 956 British bombers (545 Wellington, 127 Halifax, 77 Stirling, 74 Lancaster, 71 Hampden, 33 Manchester, 29 Whitley) attacked Essen, Germany, causing little damage; 31 bombers were lost on this attack. This attack was billed as a 1,000-bomber raid. ww2dbase [Bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Other Cities | Essen | TH, CPC]

• Joseph Rochefort's cryptanalytic team in Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii reported signs that their counterparts in Japan were monitoring carrier radio traffic in the Hawaiian Islands; Rochefort warned Nimitz of this fact, but the US carrier groups would not change their behavior. ww2dbase [Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Ford Island Naval Air Station | Battle of Midway and the Aleutian Islands | Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]

• Axis tanks broke through positions held by British 150th Brigade at Sidi Muftah, killing Brigadier Clive Haydon, which caused 3,000 British troops to surrender. This cut off the last remaining supply line into Bir Hakeim. ww2dbase [Battle of Gazala | Sidi Muftah | CPC]
• Hans-Joachim Marseille shot down the P-40 fighter piloted by British Pilot Officer Collet over Gadd el Ahmar, Libya; it was his 69th kill. ww2dbase [Hans-Joachim Marseille | Gadd el Ahmar | CPC]

• The Treblinka Concentration Camp in Poland began operation. ww2dbase [Treblinka Concentration Camp | Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Treblinka, Masovian | CPC]

• 8 ships of the Allied convoy PQ-16 arrived at Arkhangelsk, Russia. On the same day, German Ju 88 bombers attacked the harbor at Archangelsk, sinking the ship Steel Worker and damaging Soviet submarine ShCh-404. ww2dbase [Arctic Convoys | Arkhangelsk | CPC]

• The keel of carrier Colossus was laid down. ww2dbase [Colossus | CPC]
• In Canterbury, England, United Kingdom, the full extent of the damage caused by the German air raid was revealed. A total of forty-three people had been killed with forty-eight seriously injured and fifty more slightly hurt. The German bombs destroyed 400 buildings, seriously damaged a further 1,500 and slightly damaged 2,000 others. St. George's Place and church were in ruins with further destruction around St. Dunstan's. The Warriors Chapel Entrance was demolished as was the Victorian Cathedral Library, but fortunately the historic Canterbury Cathedral had miraculously survived undamaged. Further bombings in the following few days would cause further damage to buildings and lives (5 killed). ww2dbase [Battle of Britain | Canterbury, England | AC]

• USS Saratoga departed San Diego, California for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. ww2dbase [Saratoga | San Diego, California | CPC]
• USS Whale was commissioned into service with Lieutenant Commander John Azer in command. ww2dbase [Whale | CPC]
• The design work for the Pentagon building was completed; meanwhile, construction had already been underway since 11 Sep 1941. ww2dbase [Pentagon | Arlington, Virginia | CPC]

1 Jun 1942 Interactive Map