Eighty years on. 9th June 1940

Historical

With the King and Government exiled in England, General Ruge agreed to the surrender of the Norwegian Army.   German forces formally re-occupied Narvik.  The armistice came into effect at midnight 9^th/10^th June.  Allied losses (dead, missing or severely wounded) were 2119 British, 1335 Norwegian, 530 French and Poles combined.  The Germans lost 5296 dead or missing, but critically, the Luftwaffe lost 160 combat and 80 transport planes and the Kriegsmarine lost 3 cruisers, 10 destroyers and 6 submarines, with 4 more cruisers and 6 destroyers requiring repairs.

In France Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division chased the French 10th Army and the British 51st Highland Division back to the sea at St-Valery-en-Caux.  Kleist’s 14th Panzer Corp made further progress past Amiens but 16th Panzer Corp remained stuck at Péronne.  Further East, von Rundstedt’s Army Group A  attacked along a 100-mile front in the Aisne sector towards Reims led by Guderian’s Panzers. The Germans established a number of bridgeheads along the Aisne.  The French C-in-C General Weygand declared the battle for the Somme River to be lost and suggested seeking an armistice with Germany. The French government decided to leave Paris.

The American cruiser USS Vincennes and destroyers USS Truxton and USS Simpson arrived at Casablanca to ship two hundred tons of French gold to the USA for safekeeping.

The hospital ship Atlantis met the battleship HMS Valiant and reported the sinking of the Orama yesterday.  This is the first the Admiralty knew about Admiral Marschall’s flotilla which had so far sunk six ships including the aircraft carrier HMS Gloious.  The Damaged German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau returned to Trondheim for repairs.

U-46 sank the Finnish SS Margareta, carrying 1434 tons of peanuts, west of Cape Finisterre.

The Soviet Union and Japan signed an agreement ending their dispute over the borders of Manchukuo.

Game day 283.  China

The main issue for the Chinese army was the Japanese invasion of the home territory.  They were not well equipped with forces along the border with Kwangtung, but reinforcements were slowly progressing eastwards.  The forces at the border were readjusted to prevent any direct progress eastwards by the Japanese, except at map reference DI47, where the Japanese force of four armoured and one infantry battalions were attacked by six infantry battalions from the north and five from the east (to their rear).  In this engagement the Chinese lost one battalion and the Japanese lost one armoured battalion.  The Japanese retreated to the south.

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.