29 May in WW2 History | World War II Database

29 May 1917

Jack Knight was born.
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John Kennedy was born.
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29 May 1918

The British Cabinet seceded that a large scale Allied intervention in Russia was now an inevitable necessity and that all possible pressure should be brought to bear on US President Wilson to persuade him to agree to it.

29 May 1937

The German pocket battleship Deutschland was bombed by Spanish Republican aircraft off the Spanish coast. Thirty-one German sailors were killed and 101 were injured.
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29 May 1939

USS Astoria discontinued the search for the missing adventurer Richard Halliburton.
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29 May 1940

Allies evacuated 33,558 men from the harbor at Dunkirk, France and 13,752 from the nearby beaches. German aircraft interfered, attacking ships in the sea as well as men waiting on the docks. Destroyer HMS Grenade was hit by three bombs, one of which went down her funnel, in Dunkirk harbor and sank, killing 19. Destroyer HMS Jaguar was badly damaged by a bomb, killing 13 and wounding 19. Minesweeper HMS Waverley, with 600 troops already aboard, was sunk by a bomb, killing 350. Elsewhere in France, German troops captured Lille, Ostend, and Ypres. Also on the same day, French auxiliary cruiser Ville d'Oran took on 200 tons of gold from the French reserve for shipment to Casablanca, French Morocco.
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German torpedo boat S-30 sank British destroyer HMS Wakeful 13 miles north of Nieuwpoort, Belgium at 0040 hours, killing 97 crew and 640 solders rescued from Dunkirk, France. 25 crew and 1 soldier were rescued by minesweepers HMS Gossamer and HMS Lydd, destroyer HMS Grafton, and armed trawler HMS Comfort. Later in the day, German submarine U-62 torpedoed HMS Grafton, killing 4; destroyer HMS Ivanhoe scuttled HMS Grafton after rescuing the survivors. Nearby, HMS Comfort was mistaken for another German torpedo boat and was rammed by HMS Lydd, killing 4 crew and 2 soldiers.
German submarine U-37 sank French steamer Marie José and British oil tanker Telena off Cape Finisterre, Spain. 18 were killed and 18 survivors were later rescued by Spanish fishing boats.
Werner Mölders was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, the first fighter pilot to receive this award.
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No. 264 Squadron RAF based at Manston, England, United Kingdom claimed no less than thirty-eight enemy aircraft destroyed in a single day. The Luftwaffe fighter pilots having mistaken No. 264 Squadron's two-seat Defiant fighters for Hurricane fighters and had dived on the supposedly defenceless tails of the British fighters only to be greeted by a withering concentration of fire. By the end of the month No. 264 Squadron's Defiant fighters would have claimed some sixty-five kills, but the German pilots had learned from their mistakes and adopted new tactics to deal with the Defiant fighters.
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Friedrich Christiansen became the commanding officer of the German military in the Netherlands.
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Photos dated 29 May 1940

29 May 1941

US Navy extended its boundaries of Neutrality Patrol to North and South Atlantic. On the same day, a joint US Army-US Navy plan was drafted to occupy the Portuguese Azores islands with 14,000 Marines and 14,000 troops; the proposed commanding officer was US Marine Corps Major General Holland M. Smith.
A British force of cruiser and destroyers embarked 3,486 men at Heraklion, Crete and departed for Egypt at 0245 hours. At 0400 hours, HMS Imperial's steer failed; she transferred her crew and passengers, and then was scuttled by HMS Hotspur. After dawn, HMS Hereward was bombed by Italian aircraft, 76 were killed and 89 survivors were captured. Cruisers HMS Orion and HMS Dido were also attacked, killing 105 crew and 260 passengers on the former and 27 crew and 100 passengers on the latter. The force would finally arrive at Alexandria, Egypt at 2000 hours.
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German submarine U-557 sank British ship Empire Storm in the North Atlantic at 2043 hours; 3 were killed, 40 survived and were rescued by Norwegian ship Marita.
German submarine U-38 sank British ship Tabaristan 250 miles off Sierra Leone, British West Africa at 2350 hours; 21 were killed, 39 survived and were rescued by British armed trawlers HMS Bengali and HMS Turcoman.
The German Navy began to execute its plans for the invasion of the Soviet Union.
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13 British and Polish prisoners of war of Oflag IV-C at Colditz Castle, Germany attempted to escape via a tunnel, but the attempt was a failure.
Prinz Eugen arrived at Brest, France.
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Photos dated 29 May 1941

29 May 1942

The Main Body of the Japanese Midway invasion fleet set sail; it was consisted of Battleship Division 1 (Yamato, Nagato, Mutsu), light carrier Hosho, seaplane/submarine tenders Chiyoda and Nisshin, light cruiser Sendai of Destroyer Squadron 3, nine destroyers, and Supply Group No. 1; the Main Body remained 600 miles behind the Carrier Striking Force. Meanwhile, the transport fleet set sail from Saipan in the Mariana Islands; it was consisted of 15 transports.
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Soviet resistance in the Izium, Ukraine ceased.
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Battle of Gazala: An Axis supply convoy got through the British minefield and reached the Axis forces in the "Cauldron" south of Tobruk, Libya.
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The Commonwealth CA-12 Boomerang fighter made its maiden flight, only fourteen weeks after its design had been approved and an initial order for 105 machines placed.
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Yamato departed Hashirajima at 0600 hours for Operation MI.
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En route to the Aleutian Islands, USS S-28 received new orders due to a potential Japanese attack at Midway, thus starting her first war patrol.
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USS Finback arrived at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii.
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Light carrier Hosho departed Hashirajima, Japan for the Midway invasion.
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Historical document written: Führer Directive 42
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Photos dated 29 May 1942

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29 May 1943

RAF bombers attacked Wuppertal, Germany with 1,900 tons of explosives. The Ruhr region city housed an I. G. Farben chemical plant and a G. & J. Jaeger ball-bearing factory.
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The issue of the American magazine The Saturday Evening Post published on this date featured with Norman Rockwell's "Rosie the Riveter" illustration.
USS Scorpion departed Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii for her second war patrol.
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Irako arrived at Truk, Caroline Islands.
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Photos dated 29 May 1943

29 May 1944

Taking advantage of their range, US bombers began hitting Marienburg and Posen in eastern Germany.
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The escort carrier USS Block Island was torpedoed by a German U-boat while on anti-submarine patrol near the Azores. This was the first and only US Navy Aircraft Carrier to be lost in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Anglo-Indian attack on Ninthoukgong, India was halted after capturing the northern half of the town.
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Destroyer Yuzuki arrived at Sasebo, Japan for refitting.
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Photos dated 29 May 1944

29 May 1945

Jisaburo Ozawa was named the commander-in-chief of the Japanese Navy Combined Fleet.
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100 American B-24 bombers conducted a raid on Taiwan.
American B-25 bombers from Okinawa conducted a raid on Tokyo, Japan, while 454 B-29 bombers (escorted by 101 P-51 fighters) firebombed Yokohama, Japan.
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US 10th Army captured Shuri Castle at Okinawa, Japan. Off the coast, Japanese special attack aircraft damaged 2 destroyers.
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The BI-7 rocket-powered prototype aircraft underwent a unpowered glider test at Khimki near Moscow, Russia.
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Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru arrived at Jakarta, Java.
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USS Cod arrived at Guam, Mariana Islands for refitting, ending her sixth war patrol.
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USS Segundo sank seven two-masted schooners with her deck gun.
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USS Flying Fish departed Guam, Mariana Islands for her twelfth war patrol.
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Photos dated 29 May 1945