The Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II. Robert J. Cressman
Army-Navy planning) approves a plan for an occupation of the Portuguese Azores Islands; the joint Marine Corps–Army effort is to be headed by Major General Holland M. Smith, USMC (Commanding General First Marine Division).
TG 3, comprising carrier Ranger (CV 4) (VB 5, VF 5, and VS 5), heavy cruiser Tuscaloosa (CA 37), and destroyers McDougal (DD 358) and Eberle (DD 430), departs Bermuda for a 4,355-mile neutrality patrol that will conclude there on 8 June.
30 Friday
ATLANTIC. Last Lake-class Coast Guard cutter, authorized for transfer on 10 April under Lend-Lease, is transferred to the Royal Navy. Itasca becomes HMS Gorleston.
31 Saturday
ATLANTIC. TG 1 (Rear Admiral Arthur B. Cook), comprising Yorktown (CV 5) (VF 41, VS 41, VS 42, and VT 5), heavy cruiser Vincennes (CA 44), and destroyers Sampson (DD 394) and Gwin (DD 433), departs Bermuda for 4,550-mile neutrality patrol that will conclude at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 12 June.
JUNE
1 Sunday
ATLANTIC. South Greenland Patrol (Commander Harold G. Belford, USCG) is established to operate from Cape Brewster to Cape Farewell to Upernivik; Coast Guard cutters Modoc, Comanche, and Raritan, together with unclassified auxiliary vessel Bowdoin (IX 50), make up the force.
MEDITERRANEAN. Crete capitulates to the Germans.
2 Monday
ATLANTIC. Rear Admiral Edward J. Marquart becomes Commandant New York Navy Yard.
Aircraft escort vessel Long Island (AVG 1) is commissioned at Newport News, Virginia. Converted from Maritime Commission C-3 type freighter Mormacmail in just 67 working days, Long Island is the first of a type of what come to be classified as “escort carriers” that will prove invaluable in the prosecution of the war in both Atlantic and Pacific theaters.
3 Tuesday
ATLANTIC. Cape Town, South Africa–bound British ship rescues 35 survivors of U.S. freighter Robin Moor, sunk by German submarine U 69 on 21 May (see 8 June).
6 Friday
UNITED STATES. Bill is signed authorizing the government to requisition foreign merchant ships lying idle in U.S. ports.
PACIFIC. Naval Air Station, Balboa, Canal Zone, Panama, is established.
8 Sunday
ATLANTIC. Brazilian freighter Osorio rescues 11 survivors of U.S. freighter Robin Moor, sunk by German submarine U 69 on 21 May.
9 Monday
ATLANTIC. Intelligence sources having indicated that Germany has no plans for invading Spain and Portugal, President Roosevelt suspends planning for the joint occupation of the Azores.
12 Thursday
UNITED STATES. All members of the U.S. Naval Reserve, not in a deferred status, are called to active duty.
14 Saturday
ATLANTIC. Central North Atlantic patrols commence with battleship/destroyer task groups; Texas (BB 35) and accompanying destroyers inaugurate these patrols (see 20 June).
15 Sunday
PACIFIC. Japanese land attack planes, bombing Chungking, China, drop their ordnance near river gunboat Tutuila (PR 4), U.S. military attaché’s office, and U.S. Navy canteen. Japanese Admiral Shimada Shigetaro expresses regret over the incident and assures U.S. representatives that the bombing is “wholly unintentional.” U.S. military and naval attachés privately concur, however, that the bombing “was either criminal carelessness or [with] deliberate intent to bomb Embassy and gunboat.”
Naval Air Station, Kodiak, Alaska, is established.
ATLANTIC. TF 3 (Rear Admiral Jonas H. Ingram) begins patrol operations from Brazilian ports of Recife and Bahia; the force consists of four Omaha (CL 4)–class light cruisers and five destroyers.
16 Monday
UNITED STATES. State Department requests that the German government “remove from United States territory all German nationals in anywise connected with the German Library of Information in New York, the German Railway and Tourist Agencies, and the Trans-Ocean News Service,” and that those agencies and their affiliates “shall be promptly closed.” In addition, all German consular officers, agents, clerks, and employees thereof of German nationality shall be removed from American territory and that the consular establishments be promptly closed. The German government is given until 10 July to comply. This move is made because of suspicion that the agencies aforementioned “have been engaged in activities . . . of an improper and unwarranted character” and “wholly outside the scope of their legitimate duties.”
ATLANTIC. Rear Admiral Joseph K. Taussig is detached as Commandant Fifth Naval District and Commander Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, Virginia.
18 Wednesday
PACIFIC. Pacific Fleet Exercise No. 1, which commenced off coast of California on 14 May, concludes.
19 Thursday
EUROPE/MEDITERRANEAN. Germany and Italy request closure of U.S. consulates.
20 Friday
ATLANTIC. President Roosevelt addresses message to Congress concerning the German sinking of U.S. freighter Robin Moor on 21 May. The President notes that Robin Moor’s destruction is a “warning that the United States may use the high seas of the world only with Nazi consent. Were we to yield on this we would inevitably submit to world-domination at the hands of the present leaders of the German Reich. We are not yielding,” the President declares, “and we do not propose to yield.” Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles sends this message to the German Embassy for the information of the German government (see 24 June, 19 and 26 September, and 3 November).
Battleship Texas (BB 35) and destroyers Mayrant (DD 402), Rhind (DD 404), and Trippe (DD 403) are sighted by German submarine U 203 within what the German navy regards as the war, or “blockade,” zone in the Atlantic. The American force, however, unaware of the U-boat, outdistances the submarine and frustrates its attempted attack. In the wake of this incident, the commander in chief of the German navy (Grössadmiral Erich Raeder) orders that American warships can only be attacked if they cross the western boundary of the blockade area by 20 or more miles, or within the 20-mile strip along the western edge of the blockade zone.
TG 2.6, comprising carrier Wasp (CV 7) (VF 71, VS 72, and VMB 1), heavy cruiser Tuscaloosa (CA 37), and destroyers Anderson (DD 411) and Rowan (DD 405), departs Hampton Roads, Virginia, for a 4,320-mile neutrality patrol that will conclude at Bermuda on 4 July.
Submarines O 6 (SS 67), O 9 (SS 70), and O 10 (SS 71) conduct deep submergence trials out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire; while O 6 and O 10 conduct their test dives without incident, O 9, the last boat to make hers, accidentally sinks (cause unknown) off the Isles of Shoals, southeast of Portsmouth, 42°59′48″N, 70°20′27″W. She is lost with all hands (33 men) (see 22 June).
21 Saturday
UNITED STATES. State Department requests closing of all Italian consulates in U.S. territory; the “continued functioning of Italian consular establishments in territory of the United States,” Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles informs Italian Ambassador Don Ascanio dei principi Colonna, “would serve no desirable purpose.” The Italian government is informed that such withdrawals and closures be effected before 15 July.
22 Sunday
EUROPE. Germany, Italy, and Romania declare war on the Soviet Union and invade along a front from the Arctic to the Black Sea.
ATLANTIC. After all hope of finding any survivors from the sunken submarine O 9 (SS 70) is lost and with continued diving operations in the vicinity deemed hazardous, Secretary of the Navy William Franklin (Frank) Knox