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• » 24 Jun 1941

• German Armeegruppe Nord moved into Lithuania and Byelorussia, seizing Vilnius and Kaunas. ww2dbase [Operation Barbarossa | TH]
• Japan asserted pressure on France for Indochina. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Large demonstrations began in Madrid, Spain in support of the German invasion of the Soviet Union; demonstrations soon spread to other parts of Spain. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Hungary broke relations with the Soviet Union. ww2dbase [TH]
• British House of Commons voted for the second £1,000,000,000 war credit of the year as war expenditure now exceeded £10,250,000 per day. ww2dbase [CPC]
• British bombers attacked Düsseldorf, Germany. ww2dbase [Bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Other Cities | CPC]
• In Russia a Council of Evacuation was set up with emergency powers to oversee the evacuation of machinery, skilled workers and food stuffs on a large scale, away from the German advance. ww2dbase [AC]
• The German E-Boat S35 discovered the Soviet submarine S3 (N. A. Kostromityev) off Steinort, Germany and fired several torpedoes which all missed. S3 was then sunk by depth charges and hand grenades. ww2dbase [AC]
• Adolf Hitler arrived at the Wolfsschanze headquarters in East Prussia, Germany. ww2dbase [Adolf Hitler | CPC]

• Japanese bombers attacked Chongqing, China, damaging the British Consulate among other buildings. ww2dbase [Bombing of Shanghai, Chongqing, and other Cities | Chongqing | CPC]

• Scirè launched manned torpedoes into Grand Harbour, Malta; they failed to damage any enemy vessels. ww2dbase [Scirè | Grand Harbour | CPC]

• At about 0200 hours, the 3,805-ton Turkish steam merchant Refah, which was hit by a torpedo from an unidentified submarine about 3 hours prior, snapped in two and sank about 19 kilometers east of Cyprus. 28 of the survivors landed near the Karatas lighthouse on the Turkish coast at the end of the day. The fate of the remaining 172 remained unknown at this time. ww2dbase [HM]

• Soviet Air Force Directorate chief Pavel Rychagov, as well as his wife Maria Nesterenko, a famed aviatrix, were arrested during the purge of the Soviet Air Force. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Soviet Deputy Defense Commissar General Kirill Meretskov was arrested by agents of the 3rd NKO Directorate. He would later be cleared of suspicion in Sep 1941 and was given front line command once again. ww2dbase [CPC]

• Ivan Bagramyan attempted to launch a counterattack against German advances in Ukraine, but it would fail to achieve much due to the unprepared state of his troops. ww2dbase [Ivan Bagramyan | CPC]

24 Jun 1941 Interactive Map