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• Battleship Bismarck entered floating drydock No. V-VI to install propellers and the MES magnetic system. ww2dbase [Bismarck | CPC]
• Using information from Italian submarine Galileo Galilei (captured on 19 Jun), British sloop HMS Shoreham located Italian submarine Evangelista Torricelli and forced her to surface with depth charges. Evangelista Torricelli engaged three British destroyers, HMS Kandahar, HMS Kingston, and HMS Khartoum, with her deck gun, but was sunk near Perim Island at the mouth of the Red Sea. Later in the day, HMS Khartoum was badly damaged when one of her own torpedoes explodes on deck, killing one. Khartoum was beached on Perim Island to prevent sinking, but she would eventually be declared lost. ww2dbase [CPC]
• French Army Commander-in-Chief General Maxime Weygand expelled Charles de Gaulle from the French Army. ww2dbase [Charles de Gaulle | CPC]
• German submarine U-99, damaged on 21 Jun by German battlecruiser Scharnhorst in a friendly fire incident, was en route to Wilhelmshaven, Germany for repairs when she was bombed by friendly aircraft twice on this date; she suffered only minor additional damage. ww2dbase [CPC]
• The German ambassador in Spain noted that the Duke of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, was traveling through Portugal. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov sent German Ambassador Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg a message noting that the Soviet Union would like to gain Bessarabia and Bukovina from Romania. This greatly alarmed the German OKW as the German military was dependent on Romania as a source of oil and fodder. ww2dbase [Soviet Demands on Romania and the Second Vienna Arbitration | CPC]
• The British Long Range Desert Patrol (later to become the Long Range Desert Group) was formed under the command of Major Ralph Bagnold to undertake long-range reconnaissance patrols behind Italian lines in North Africa. ww2dbase [AC]

• The lifeboat containing the four survivors of Dutch motor tanker Moordrecht, sunk by German submarine U-48 three days prior, were picked up by the Greek steam merchant Orion. ww2dbase [HM]
• The survivors of Norwegian steam merchant ship Randsfjord, torpedoed by German submarine U-30 on the previous day, was picked up by the British steam merchant Port Hobart in the Celtic Sea. ww2dbase [Celtic Sea | HM]

• Adolf Hitler arrived in Paris, France and did some sightseeing early in the morning; this would be his only visit to Paris. Although Germany and France had already signed an armistice, fighting between Italy and France continued while French delegates negotiated in Rome; General Huntzinger, who signed the German-French armistice at Compiègne on 22 Jun, was once again the a member of the French delegation. ww2dbase [Invasion of France and the Low Countries | Paris | TH]

• Destroyer USS Herbert departed Casablanca, French Morocco for to Lisbon, Portugal with American refugees. ww2dbase [Casablanca | CPC]

• Jaguar completed escorting battleship Scharnhorst from Norway to Kiel, Germany. ww2dbase [Jaguar | Scharnhorst | Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein | CPC]

• Portuguese police arrested American 30 sailors of light cruiser USS Trenton in a street brawl in Santo Amaro Oerias outside of Lisbon. Three Americans were injured during the arrest. ww2dbase [Santo Amaro Oerias | CPC]

• 11 survivors of Finnish freighter Hilda, sunk by German submarine U-52 in the Bay of Biscay two days prior, reached Castro Urdiales, Spain aboard a lifeboat. ww2dbase [Castro Urdiales, Cantabria | HM]

• Comandante Cappellini departed Ceuta, Spain at 2330 hours without being detected by the British. ww2dbase [Comandante Cappellini | Ceuta | CPC]

• The 294-ton steam tug HMS Coringa was lost while on British Admiralty service but it was never explained what happened. Accounts from researchers and anecdotal accounts stated she was bombed in the Bristol Channel. ww2dbase [Start of the Battle of the Atlantic | Bristol Channel | HM]

23 Jun 1940 Interactive Map