Saturday, June 24, 1944. The sinking of the Derrycunihy.

Soldiers awarded the Silver Star or Bronze Star on this day, for actions on June 6, 1944.  Notable in this photo is that quite a few of them are carrying M1 Carbines, not generally associated with combat troops in the U.S. Army, and all of them save for two are wearing M1941 field jackets.  One warm-blooded soldier is wearing just his wool shirt, with white t-shirt, and one is wearing a Winter Combat Jacket, commonly called (erroneously) a "tanker's jacket".  Nobody is wearing the new M1943 field jacket.

German acoustic mines sank the Derrycunihy off of Normandy, which had been laid by the Luftwaffe the night prior.  183 men of the 43d Wessex Reconnaissance Regiment went down with her. Twenty-five men of the crew also died.   

Hard fighting continued at Cherbourg.

The 1st Belorussian Front entered Operation Bagration with an assault aimed at Bobruisk. The Red Army's 1st Baltic Front and 3d Belorussian Front nearly encircled Viebsk as part of Operation Bagration leading Hitler to order all but one division of the German LIII Corps to break out, showing perhaps that he had wised up about leaving pockets of troops surrounded.  Red Army advances have been up to 25 miles.

The RCAF sank the U-1225 off of Bergen.

Progress is ongoing for the Army and Marines on Saipan.

The U.S. Navy again raided Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima, resulting in the Japanese losing 66 aircraft.

The Adelaide Mail revealed that one Ern Malley, a supposedly unknown dead (in 1943) poet who had been posthumously published, supposedly in the avant-garde Angry Penguins was a complete hoax meant to expose the vapidness of modernist style.

Last prior edition:

Friday, June 23, 1944. Bagration increases.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Bougainville, Cherbourg France, Lithuania, Operation Bagration, Operation Overlord, Polish Home Army, Red Army, Saipan, War Crimes, World War Two