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• In his first public speech of the new war, Stalin ordered a scorched earth policy to be put into effect as German troops were pushed back; meanwhile, the Bialystok pocket in Poland was eliminated by German troops, taking 300,000 prisoners. ww2dbase [Operation Barbarossa | TH]
• Werner Mölders was presented Swords to his Knight's Cross by Adolf Hitler. ww2dbase [Werner Mölders | CPC]
• The only daylight bombing on Britain during the week of 2 Jul to 9 Jul occurred on this date at Land's End in southwestern England, United Kingdom; the German aircraft dropped bombs but they failed to explode. ww2dbase [Battle of Britain | CPC]
• Soviet Naval Air unit 402 IAL, based at Idritsa in Russia and commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel P. Stefanovsky, went into action with its new MiG-3 fighters and destroyed six enemy aircraft, followed by a similar number on the next day. The unit's primary task was close support and low level fighter reconnaissance, and its pilots had orders to avoid combat if possible. The unit's adjutant, Major K. A. Gruzdev however was an aerobatic champion and soon devised a tactic to bring the enemy to battle. This involved making a steep spiral climb to between 15,000 and 18,000 feet where the MiG-3 fighters enjoyed a performance advantage over the German fighters. The German pilots almost always followed the climb, believing they were chasing a novice pilot, only to realise their mistake when Gruzdev suddenly stall-turned and shot them down. By the end of the year this talented pilot had no less than nineteen confirmed victories top, his credit. ww2dbase [MiG-3 | AC]

• Italian submarine Leonardo da Vinci sighted a freighter in the Atlantic Ocean at 1201 hours. At 1540 hours, the ship was identified as Portuguse freighter Carvalho Araujo. ww2dbase [Leonardo da Vinci | CPC]
• Alessandro Malaspina sighted a destroyer in the Atlantic Ocean at 1115 hours at the distance of 8,000 meters. She dove and was able to escape detection. ww2dbase [Alessandro Malaspina | CPC]

• William Slim of Iraq Command outflanked Vichy French troops at Deir ez-Zor, Syria. ww2dbase [Campaigns in the Middle East | Deir ez-Zor, Syria | CPC]

• British bombers attacked Essen, Germany. ww2dbase [Bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Other Cities | Essen | CPC]

• In a radio address, Joseph Stalin called the Soviet people "brothers and sisters" for the first time. ww2dbase [Joseph Stalin | Moscow | CPC]

• USS Biscayne was commissioned at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington, United States. ww2dbase [Puget Sound Navy Yard | Biscayne | Bremerton, Washington | CPC]

3 Jul 1941 Interactive Map