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• Yamato refueled from oilers of the 1st Supply Force, then joined the Mobile Fleet. Later, the Mobile Fleet was sighted by USS Cavalla in the Philippine Sea. ww2dbase [Yamato | CPC]
• Alaska was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [Alaska | CPC]
• Adolf Hitler met with Erwin Rommel and Hans Speidel in France; Hitler agreed to visit the front lines in France, but ultimately this would not take place. ww2dbase [Normandy Campaign, Phase 1 | CPC]
• USS Parche began her second war patrol. ww2dbase [Parche | CPC]
• Eighteen Lancaster bombers from British No. 617 Squadron attacked German V-1 launch sites on the coast of the English Channel. ww2dbase [V-Weapons Campaign | AC]

• Gloire completed refitting at Algiers, Algeria. ww2dbase [Gloire | Algiers | CPC]

• The 10,495-ton passenger steamer SS President Grant, grounded on a reef southeast of Australian Territory of Papua on 26 Feb 1944, was declared a total loss. ww2dbase [CPC]

• Omar Bradley's American troops succeeded in reaching the sea on the western shore of the Cotentin Peninsula at Barneville, slicing the peninsula completely across and cutting off France's major naval base and arsenal at Cherbourg from the German army to the south. ww2dbase [Normandy Campaign, Phase 1 | Barneville, Basse-Normandie | AC]

• Iceland declared independence from Denmark, becoming a republic with Sveinn Björnsson as its first president. ww2dbase [CPC]

• General de Lattre's Free French force landed on the island of Elba, Italy, starting a two-day campaign to secure the island from German forces. ww2dbase [Jean de Lattre de Tassigny | Elba, Toscana | TH]
• Wladyslaw Anders was made the Allied commander of the Adriatic sector of the Italian theater of war. ww2dbase [Władysław Anders | CPC]
• British XIII Corps engaged in heavy fighting with German forces at Città della Pieve, Italy. ww2dbase [Advance to the Gothic Line | Città della Pieve, Umbria | CPC]

• USAAF First Lieutenant William "Swede" Anderson of the 356th Fighter Squadron, 354th Fighter Group, returning to base after a ground-strafing sortie over France in his P-51B "Swede's Steed II" spotted, at about 2000 hours, a V1 Flying bomb and promptly shot it down. In doing so he became the first USAAF pilot to record a V1 kill. After landing the 23-year-old Anderson excitedly asked "How many 'Doodlebugs' make an ace?" ww2dbase [AC]

17 Jun 1944 Interactive Map