As part of Operation Bagration, the Soviets commenced the Bobruysk Offensive, Mogilev Offensive and Vitebsk–Orsha Offensive in Belarus.
It's worth remembering that the Soviet attack was done Soviet style, with a massive artillery barrage coming before anything else, and then the massive movement of men, which in this case involved over 1,250,000 soldiers. Not all of the offensive actions part of the overall offensive started on day one, or two.
The Polish Home Army 5th Wilno Brigade murdered over 20 Lithuanian civilians in Dubingiai in retaliation for the Glinciszki (Glitiškės) massacre of Polish civilians on June 20th by the Nazi-subordinated 258th Lithuanian Police Battalion.
The Germans abandoned their first line of defense in Cherbourg. The British took St. Honorina. Montgomery arrived in France.
The HMS Scylia was irreparably damaged by a mine in the English Channel.
A Ju 52 aircraft carrying German generals Eduard Dietl, Thomas-Emil von Wickede, Karl Eglseer, and Franz Rossi crashed in the vicinity of Rettenegg, Styria, killing them, and three others.
A monument remains on the location.
Dietl is associated with war crimes, and likely would have been tried had he lived through the war.
Hard fighting continued on Saipan.
On Bougainville, Sefanaia Sukanaivalu, a Fijian solder, gave his life attempting to rescue his comrades.
The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the posthumous award of the VICTORIA CROSS to:—
No. 4469 Corporal Sefanaia Sukanaivalu, Fiji Military Forces.
On 23rd June 1944, at Mawaraka, Bougainville, in the Solomon Islands, Corporal Sefanaia Sukanaivalu crawled forward to rescue some men who had been wounded when their platoon was ambushed and some of the leading elements had become casualties.
After two wounded men had been successfully recovered this N.C.O., who was in command of the rear section, volunteered to go on farther alone to try and rescue another one, in spite of machine gun and mortar fire, but on the way back he himself was seriously wounded in the groin and thighs and fell to the ground, unable to move any farther.
Several attempts were then made to rescue Corporal Sukanaivalu but without success owing to heavy fire being encountered on each occasion and further casualties caused.
This gallant N.C.O. then called to his men not to try to get to him as he was in a very exposed position, but they replied that they would never leave him to fall alive into the hands of the enemy.
Realising that his men would not withdraw as long as they could see that he was still alive and knowing that they were themselves all in danger of being killed or captured as long as they remained where they were, Corporal Sukanaivalu, well aware of the consequences, raised himself up in front of the Japanese machine gun and was riddled with bullets.
This brave Fiji soldier, after rescuing two wounded men with the greatest heroism and being gravely wounded himself, deliberately sacrificed his own life because he knew that it was the only way in which the remainder of his platoon could be induced to retire from a situation in which they must have been annihilated had they not withdrawn.
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