Historical
U-37 sank the Swedish MV Erik Frisell off Scotland.
While Rommel waited at Cambrai to regroup his troops and repair his tanks, Guderian resumed his charge through St. Quentin to Péronne, only 50 miles from the French coast. The Panzers were behind the French defensive line and advanced rapidly, capturing supply dumps and disrupting Allied rear areas. They cut the supply lines of the British Expeditionary Force and French Armies in Belgium, further disorganizing their resistance.
The BEF commander General Lord Gort ignored orders to attack south into the German flanks and instead considered a withdrawal to the Channel ports.
Colonel De Gaulle’s French 4th Armoured Division attempts another failed attack on Guderian’s flank at Montcornet.
The RAF had lost over half the aircraft deployed to France and Belgium and the German advance now threatened its airfields, forcing a recall of squadrons to Britain.
Maxime Weygand replaced Maurice Gamelin as Allied commander-in-chief.
Winston Churchill made his first broadcast to the British people as Prime Minister. Churchill acknowledged that the Germans were making swift progress and that it would be “foolish … to disguise the gravity of the hour,” but said that only a “very small part” of the French Army had yet been heavily engaged. Churchill explained that he had formed an “Administration of men and women of every Party and of almost every point of view. We have differed and quarrelled in the past; but now one bond unites us all – to wage war until victory is won, and never to surrender ourselves to servitude and shame, whatever the cost and the agony may be.”
Charles Lindbergh made a nationwide radio address in favour of American isolationism. “We need not fear a foreign invasion unless American peoples bring it on through their own quarrelling and meddling with affairs abroad,” Lindbergh said. “If we desire peace, we need only stop asking for war. No one wishes to attack us, and no one is in a position to do so.”
Game day 262. Belgium
The Belgians moved their infantry northwards to confront German troops in the south Netherlands, confident that the British and French would hold their southern border.
Credits: Historical information: http://www.worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com, Wikipedia, Chronicle of the Second World War (JL International Publications, 1994). Background image to game maps: Hasbro Ltd.
General Whiskers' semi-historical wanderings 