World War II As It Happened
A MaritimeQuest Daily Event Special Presentation
Saturday June 15, 1940
Day 289

June 15, 1940: Front page of the Manchester Evening News, Manchester, England.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in column 7: "Soviet Troops To Occupy Lithuania"
(Within days the other two Baltic States, Latvia and Estonia, would be taken by the Soviet regime. Only after hundreds of thousands of their people had been murdered by the Soviet communists and the Nazis, after tens of thousands of their people had been imprisoned in Soviet gulags and others deported and used as slave labor around the Soviet states, and after forty-nine years had passed, the people of the Baltic States would be free again.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of The Daily Mail, Hull, England.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of the Nottingham Evening Post, Nottingham, England.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in column 5: "Hitler Speaks"


June 15, 1940: Front page of the Press and Journal, Aberdeen, Scotland.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in column 5: "Scharnhorst Damaged Again"
(According to the report the battleship Scharnhorst was damaged by a bomb during an air attack. The report is somewhat accurate, Scharnhorst was attacked on June 13th at Trondheim by British aircraft. According to the war diary of Scharnhorst, the first bomb fell 50 meters aft of the ship on the starboard side, the second bomb hit near a 150mm turret on the port side, but failed to explode, the third bomb fell in the water aft of the ship 50 meters to port. The Germans did not report any casualties from the attack.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of The Examiner, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of The Sydney Sun, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of The Lethbridge Herald, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of the Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of Haarlem's Dagblad, Haarlem, Netherlands.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of the Biddeford Daily Journal, Biddeford, Maine.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in column 3: "Over 2,000 Participate In Flag Day Exercises"
(A vastly different exercise than what the people of France were experiencing. See The Evening Gazette below.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of The Evening Star, Washington, D.C.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of The Evening Gazette, Xenia, Ohio.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in column 2: "Nazi Flag Waves At Versailles"
(The French having a very different experience with flags compared to those who were living in Maine. See the Biddeford Daily Journal above. The German press below is also making note of this.)
Also note the report in column 5: Hammer Slayer Given Sentence"
(After reading hundreds of newspapers from the 1940's one can only conclude that there was a great deal of "hammer violence" at that time. I am really surprised that we don't have to get a permit to own a hammer today.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of The Port Arthur News, Port Arthur, Texas.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of the Nevada State Journal, Reno, Nevada.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in column 4: "American Boy Killed"
(A photo of Alfred Paul Ritter, thought to be the first American citizen killed in World War II.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of The Bakersfield Californian, Bakersfield, California.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of the Hamburger Neueste Zeitung, Altona, Hamburg, Germany.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
1. Reichskriegsflagge über Versailles.
(Reich's war flag over Versailles.)
2. Italienischer Flottenerfolg an der Ligurischen Küste.
(Italian fleet success on the Ligurian coast.)


June 15, 1940: Front page of the Völkischer Beobachter, the official newspaper of the NSDAP.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
1. Deutschlands Kriegsflagge über Paris.
(Germany's war flag over Paris.)
2. Völliger Zusammenbruch der französischen Nordfront.
(Complete collapse of the French northern front.)



   
Page published June 15, 2021