Timeline of World War II (1941) - June 1941

June 1941

• 1: Commonwealth forces complete the withdrawal from Crete.
  : Rationing of clothes begins in the United Kingdom.
• 2: Tuskegee Airmen begin with the formation of the 99th Fighter Squadron.
• 4: Kaiser William II, former German Emperor, dies in Holland.
• 6: More British fighter planes are delivered to Malta; Luftwaffe attacks go on.
• 8: Vichy French-controlled Syria and Lebanon are invaded by Australian, British, Free French, and Indian forces.
• 9: Finland initiates mobilisation, preparations against possible attack of Soviet aggressor.
  : The British and Australians cross the Litani River, beating back Vichy French forces.
• 10: Assab, the last Italian-held port in East Africa, falls.
• 13: The Australians continue to fight through the Vichy French defenses and advance towards Beirut, winning the Battle of Jezzine.
• 14: All German and Italian assets in the United States are frozen.
  : 10,100 people from Estonia, 15,000 from Latvia and 34,000 from Lithuania are deported to Siberia.
• 15: British Operation Battleaxe attempts and fails to relieve the Siege of Tobruk. The British are heavily defeated at Halfaya Pass nicknamed "Hell-fire pass".
• 16: All German and Italian consulates in the United States are ordered closed and their staffs to leave the country by July 10.
• 22: Germany invades the Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa, a three-pronged operation aimed at Leningrad, Moscow, and the southern oil fields of the Caucasus. Romania invades southern Russia on the side of Germany.
  : With full Finnish consent, German troops begin deploying in formally neutral Finnish territory, to attack the Soviet Union from there.
  : British general in Libya/Egypt Wavell is replaced by General Auchinleck.
  : June Uprising against the Soviet Union in Lithuania.
• 23: In the late evening, Hitler first arrives at his headquarters at Rastenburg, East Prussia, codenamed "Wolf's Lair" (Wolfsschanze). Between this date and November 20, 1944, Hitler will have spent 800 days at Wolf's Lair.
  : German troops massacre 42 at Ablinga
• 26: Hungary and Slovakia declare war on the Soviet Union.
  : The Soviet Union bombs Helsinki. Finland pronounces a state of war between Finland and Soviet Union. Continuation war is started.
• 28: Italian-occupied Albania declares war on the Soviet Union.
  : Huge German encirclement of 300,000 Red Army troops near Minsk and Białystok.
• 29: Finish and German troops begin Operation Arctic Fox against the Soviet Union