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• Weather data for 17 Jun 1944

• 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 [Main Article | Tabular Record of Movement | CPC]
• Alaska was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• USS Parche began her second war patrol. ww2dbase [Main Article | 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 [Main Article | CPC]
• Eighteen Lancaster bombers from British No. 617 Squadron attacked German V-1 launch sites on the coast of the English Channel. ww2dbase [Main Article | AC]

• Gloire completed refitting at Algiers, Algeria. ww2dbase [Main Article | 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 [Main Article | 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 [Main Article | TH]
• Wladyslaw Anders was made the Allied commander of the Adriatic sector of the Italian theater of war. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• British XIII Corps engaged in heavy fighting with German forces at Città della Pieve, Italy. ww2dbase [Main Article | 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