Timeline of World War II (1944) - June 1944

June 1944

1st

15th

2: The provisional French government is established.

3: There are daily bombings of the Cherbourg peninsula and the Normandy area.

4: Operation Overlord is postponed 24 hours due to high seas.
: American, British, and French troops enter Rome.

5: Rome falls to the Allies, becoming the first capital of an Axis nation to do so.
: Operation Overlord commences when more than 1,000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day. And the first Allied troops land in Normandy; paratroopers are scattered from Caen southward.
: In the Pacific, the U.S. fleet transporting the expeditionary forces for the invasion of Saipan in the Mariana Islands leaves Pearl Harbor.

6: D-Day begins with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.

7: Bayeux is liberated by British troops.

9: No agreement having been reached on their mutual borders, Joseph Stalin launches an offensive against Finland with the intent of defeating Finland before pushing for Berlin.

10: At Oradour-sur-Glane (a town near Limoges), France, 642 men, women, and children are killed in a German response to local Resistance activities.
: In the Distomo massacre in Greece, 218 civilians are killed.

12: American aircraft carriers commence air strikes on the Marianas, including Saipan, preparing for invasion.

13: Germany launches a V1 Flying Bomb attack on England, in Hitler's view a kind of revenge for the invasion. He believes in Germany's victory with this "secret weapon." The V-1 attacks will continue through June.
: The U.S. Naval bombardment of Saipan begins. In response, Admiral Toyoda Soemu, commander-in-chief of the Japanese Navy, orders his fleet to attack U.S. Navy forces around Saipan.

15: U.S. Marine and Army forces invade the island of Saipan. U.S. submarines sight the Japanese fleet en-route.

16: The main portions of the Japanese fleet rendezvous in the western part of the Philippine Sea, completing their refueling the next day.

17: Free French troops land on Elba.

18: Elba is declared liberated.
: Allies capture Assisi, Italy.

19: With the U.S. Navy in position, the Battle of the Philippine Sea begins. It will be the largest aircraft carrier battle in history. Known by navy pilots as "the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot," large numbers of Japanese planes are destroyed and pilots shot down.
: A severe Channel storm destroys one of the Allies' Mulberry harbours in Normandy.
: The Red Army prepares for "Operation Bagration," a huge offensive in Byelorussia (White Russia).

20: The Battle of the Philippine Sea ends with three Japanese carriers sunk and three more damaged, forcing the fleet to withdraw.
: The British take Perugia, Italy.
: The Siege of Imphal is lifted after three months.

21: Allied offensive in Burma.

22: V-1's continue to hit England, especially London, sometimes with horrifying losses.
: Operation Bagration: General attack by Soviet forces to clear the German forces from Belarus This results in the destruction of the German Army Group Centre, possibly the greatest defeat of the Wehrmacht during World War II.
: In the Burma Campaign, the Battle of Kohima ends with a British victory.

23: The National Committee of the Republic of Estonia makes a declaration “to the Estonian People.” The declaration was made public to the world press in Stockholm in July 1944 and in Tallinn on 1 August 1944.

25: The Battle of Tali-Ihantala between Finnish and Soviet troops begins. Largest battle ever to be fought in the Nordic countries.

26: Cherbourg is liberated by American troops.

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