Sunday, June 7, 1942. The Yorktown goes down, the Chicago Tribune blabs, Attu occupied.

In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success. 

Isoroku Yamamoto to Japanese cabinet minister Shigeharu Matsumoto and Prime Minister Fumimaro before World War Two.

This day is regarded as the official end of the Battle of Midway.

Yorktown after she had rolled over on her port side

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Lots of interesting items are mentioned by Sarah Sundin, on her blog, including the following.

Today in World War II History—June 7, 1942: In the Battle of Midway, carrier USS Yorktown sinks due to damage from the previous day, but the US is victorious in the major turning point of the Pacific War.

The Yorktown had sustained battle damage during the battle, and had been hit by a torpedo fired by a Japanese submarine the prior day.

The Yorktown started to list rapidly to port on the morning of June 7. She had already been abandoned due to battle damage by that time.  She rolled over to her port side, revealing the torpedo hole from a Japanese submarine.  The ship sank at 07:01 at which time the ships in the vicinity were all flying half-mast for her, and the crewmen mustered and at attention, heads uncovered.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the US had knowledge of the Japanese plans to strike Midway before it occurred, revealing sufficient information that had the Japanese studied the article, they would have realized that their codes had been broken.  Secretary of War Frank Knox demanded that the authors be prosecuted, but when it was soon noticed that the Japanese failed to change their codes, the matter was quietly dropped so as to avoid pointing the story out.

As Sundin also reports, Maj. Gen. Clarence Tinker, who was the commander of the U.S. Seventh Air Force, died when an LB-30 he was flying went down off of Midway. Tinker was leading a squadron of bombers in action in pursuit of the retreating Japanese forces.

The number of aircraft deployed from Midway during the battle is impressive, but U.S. Army Air Corps bombers, which included B-17s, LB-30s (B-24s) and B-26s were singularly unsuccessful in the action, largely disproving the prewar theory that multi engine bombers would be successful as a ground based threat to surface fleets.

Tinker had been born in Indian Territory and was of Osage extraction.  He was the first U.S. general officer to be killed in World War Two.  His Army service dated back to 1912.  Like several other generals in the Second World War, during World War One he'd served stateside.  He transferred to the flying service in 1922 and had reached the rank of Brigadier General in 1940.

The Japanese sweep in the Aleutians continued, with the Japanese landing on and taking Attu.  There were no military personnel on the island.  Three Aleuts were killed when the Japanse landed. It's 42 surviving Aleut residents were interned by the Japanese on Hokkaido, where 16 of them would die during the war.  Charles Jones, a resident of the island and a radio operator was murdered by the Japanese for his refusal to fix his radio for their use.  His wife Etta, a teacher on the island, survived the war and was interned with Australian nurses who had been taken on Rabaul.

The former residents of the island were resettled on other Aleutians islands after the war. 

The Japanese had intended the invasion of the island as a type of raid, intending to leave it by winter, but they ended up garrisoning it instead.

Attu village, 1937.  Note the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Germans ordered Jews in occupied France to wear yellow Stars of David.

British Commandos raided German airfields on Crete.

June 3, 1942. The High Water Mark for Japan.

On this day in 1942, at approximately 09:00, a PBY from Navy patrol squadron VP-44 spotted the Japanese Occupation Force heading towards Midway, some 580 miles distant.  Thinking, erroneously, that this was the main Japanese naval task force, he reported it as such.

At 12:30 Nine B-17s took off from Midway Island, found the occupation force, and attacked it unsuccessfully.

The Battle of Midway was on.

Part of the Japanese plans involved a diversionary attack in the Aleutians, which also served as a Japanese effort to block a possible invasion route into Japan via the northernmost portion of the Pacific..  Not surprisingly, that began on this day with carrier launched air raids on Dutch Harbor.

This day can be regarded as the high water mark of the war for the Japanese.  I.e, this is the last day of the war in which they would not be, effectively, losing the war in a strategic sense.

The British government announced it was taking over the coal and dairy industries for the balance of the war.