Real time Discusion thread

Fighters, light, medium and heavy bombers of the Northwest African Strategic Air Force, the Northwest African Tactical Air Force and the USAAF Ninth Air Force hit Lampedusa Island in the Strait of Sicily. Twenty four B-25s (12 of the 445th) took off at 13:39 to bomb the town and adjacent area of Lampedusa. The escort were 12 P-38s from the 82nd fighter group. A string of bombs fell through the town, harbor installations, radio building and small boats on shore. A couple gun emplacements were hit. The island surrendered to the Allies after RAF Sergeant Cohen of the Coldstream Guards "captured" the island after making a false landing.

During the Second World War, the island was Axis territory, held by a small Italian garrison. Despite its proximity to Allied-held Malta and North Africa, the island did not see any military engagements until June 1943 when, as a precursor to the Allied invasion of Sicily, the island was secured without resistance in Operation Corkscrew by the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Lookout and ninety-five men of the 2nd Battalion the Coldstream Guards. White flags had been sighted in the port, and when Lieutenant Corbett of Lookout approached the port in a motor launch, he was told that the island's garrison wished to surrender.[13] Mussolini had given the garrison his permission to surrender because it lacked any water. The Governor's formal surrender was accepted in the island's underground command-post by a combined Army/Navy delegation sometime before 9:00 pm on 12 June 1943. During this process, the governor handed his sword to the Coldstream company commander, Major Bill Harris.[14] A second unofficial claim has also been made regarding the capitulation of the island, when earlier that same day elements of the garrison had also attempted to surrender in unusual circumstances when Sergeant Sydney Cohen, the pilot of a Royal Air Force Fairey Swordfish aircraft landed having run low on fuel and suffering problems with his compass.[15] Cohen's exploits were commemorated in a Yiddish play The King of Lampedusa that ran for six months.[16]

United Kingdom: Last Easter Rising Prisoners Released

While the executions had stopped shortly after the Easter Rising, many of its ringleaders remained in prison. There was much agitation on their behalf, both from within Dublin itself (where there was a large demonstration on June 10) and from the United States, now a British Ally and with its own large Irish community. Political support for Sinn Féin had grown since the Rising, and May saw Sinn Féin and candidates closely linked to them win two parliamentary by-elections in May; one of them was won (albeit by a margin of 37 votes) by Joseph McGuinness, who was still in prison for his role in the Uprising. These by-election wins for outspoken republican candidates shocked the British government and convinced them that something had to be done about the political situation there, a question which they had hoped to postpone until after the war.

On June 11, the calling of an Irish Convention was announced, to once again negotiate Home Rule for some parts of Ireland. On June 16, “in order that the Convention may meet in an atmosphere of harmony and goodwill,” Bonar Law released the last 120 prisoners from the Easter Rising, including Joseph McGuiness and Éamon de Valera; the latter had been saved from execution last May due to his American citizenship. De Valera soon announced that he would be running for Parliament himself, in a constituency made vacant by the death of Willie Redmond (brother of John, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster) in the Battle of Messines. De Valera would win the seat in a landslide on July 10.