Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 30, 1940: Germans occupy British Channel Islands (Jersey, Guernsey, and Sark).
65 Years Ago—June 30, 1945: Organized Japanese resistance ends on Mindanao in the Philippines.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 29, 1940: Roosevelt signs the Alien Registration Act; 5 million foreigners will register and be fingerprinted. New song enters the Top Ten: “Fools Rush In.”
65 Years Ago—June 29, 1945: President Truman approves the invasion of Japan, with Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu to start November 1, 1945, and Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu to start March 1, 1946.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 28, 1940: At the Republican Convention, Wendell Willkie upsets Thomas Dewey on the sixth ballot to become the party’s nominee for president.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 27, 1940: Britain announces a total naval blockade of the European continent.
65 Years Ago—June 27, 1945: Kamikaze hits carrier USS Bunker Hill, killing 400.

Kids Count

"If Jesus lives in your heart, does that make Him a parasite?"

For the past week, I've fielded questions like that from my class of fourth-graders at Vacation Bible School. While VBS wears me out physically, it energizes me spiritually. When I started volunteering at VBS twelve years ago, I was a little concerned. What if they asked questions I couldn't answer? What if I made a fool of myself? What if they were too cynical, too cool, too "all that" for Jesus?

Well, they ask me tough questions, but nothing I can't answer with the Lord's help. And the bigger a fool I make of myself, the more effective I am as a teacher. But the biggest surprise and the greatest joy is the kids themselves - far from being "too cool" for Jesus, they seek Him with all their hearts! Three kids this week told me, "I want to learn more about Jesus. Tell me how I can learn more about Him." Wow. When the gospel message is placed in front of children, most of them gobble it up like a box full of sour gummy worms. They gobbled up the gummy worms too.

Of the thirty-five children in my class, eight of them made confirmed, first-time decisions to follow Christ. Children hear the gospel message with different ears than adults. They don't think about what Christians are like (and how we fail), what churches are like (and how we fail) - but only what Jesus is like. And they want Him.

"Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these'" (Matt. 19:14, italics mine). Note that He didn't say "drag" the children to Me, but "let them come." As in, that's where they want to go naturally. So let them come. Don't stand in their way.

You can be a doorway to let children come to Jesus. Tell your children and grandchildren. Help in a Sunday school class or at VBS. Watch children's faces light up when they hear the joyful news that God loves them, there's forgiveness for their sins, and they can have eternal life in Him! You'll be as blessed as the children.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 26, 1940: French General Charles DeGaulle forms French Volunteer Legion in London.
65 Years Ago—June 26, 1945: The United Nations Charter is signed by 50 nations in San Francisco. US forces secure Luzon in the Philippines, although pockets of resistance remain in the north until the Japanese surrender.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 25, 1940: British detain Italian and German enemy aliens, some to be kept on the Isle of Man.
65 Years Ago—June 25, 1945: Australians take Miri oilfields near Brunei; now control 125 miles of northwest Borneo coast.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 24, 1940: British government sends gold bullion and securities to Canada for safekeeping.
65 Years Ago—June 24, 1945: In a bombing raid, British destroy the infamous bridge over the River Kwai in Thailand, built at great cost by slaves and prisoners of the Japanese.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 23, 1940: Hitler tours occupied Paris.
65 Years Ago—June 23, 1945: Australians secure the island of Tarakan in Indonesia.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 22, 1940: France signs armistice with Germany at Compiegne, splitting into a Nazi-occupied zone in the north and a Vichy-French zone in the south .
65 Years Ago—June 22, 1945: Battle for Okinawa officially ends at a high cost—13,000 Americans killed, 108,000 Japanese killed, including thousands of civilians who committed suicide. The US Navy took its heaviest losses of war with 36 vessels sunk. In addition, the US lost 763 planes and the Japanese lost 8000.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 21, 1940: Polish government-in-exile arrives in London after evacuating Paris.
65 Years Ago—June 21, 1945: US task force takes Aparri in northern Luzon in the Philippines.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 20, 1940: President Roosevelt names Henry Stimson as Secretary of War & Frank Knox as Secretary of Navy—both Republicans.
65 Years Ago—June 20, 1945: Australians take oil fields at Seria on Borneo.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 19, 1940: Germans continue their conquest of France, taking Nantes, Saumur, Tours, and Strasbourg.
65 Years Ago—June 19, 1945: US Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower receives a ticker-tape parade in New York City.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 18, 1940: Canada introduces military conscription, but overseas service is voluntary.
65 Years Ago—June 18, 1945: On Okinawa, Lt. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, Commander of the US Tenth Army, is killed by shrapnel.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 17, 1940: As German troops cross the Loire near Orleans, French Marshal Henri Pétain offers the surrender of France.
65 Years Ago—June 17, 1945: US Twenty-First Bomber Command begins B-29 incendiary raids on medium-sized Japanese cities; missions carried out using radar-bombing.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 16, 1940: French Premier Paul Reynaud resigns, replaced by Marshal Henri Pétain.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 15, 1940: USSR occupies Lithuania.
65 Years Ago—June 15, 1945: US B-29 incendiary raid on Osaka ends the major urban area campaign on the six biggest Japanese cities.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 14, 1940: German troops enter Paris and fly the swastika from the Eiffel Tower. Auschwitz opens as Nazi concentration camp for Polish political prisoners.
65 Years Ago—June 14, 1945: British arrest Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in Germany; he will be executed after the Nuremburg Trials.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 13, 1940: As German troops advance in France, Paris is declared an open city.
65 Years Ago—June 13, 1945: Japanese resistance ends in the Oroku sector of Okinawa.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 12, 1940: British Navy bombards Italian base of Tobruk, Libya.
65 Years Ago—June 12, 1945: US Marines make push for final pocket of Japanese forces on the Oroku Peninsula on Okinawa; hundreds of Japanese Marines commit suicide by jumping off cliffs.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 11, 1940: Italian troops invade France along Riviera and in Alps, but do not advance. Italian planes bomb Malta in the first of thousands of raids over the next three years.
65 Years Ago—June 11, 1945: US secures central Luzon in the Philippines.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 10, 1940: In France, German troops cross the Seine, the French government evacuates from Paris to Tours, and British troops begin to evacuate from Le Havre and St. Valéry.
65 Years Ago—June 10, 1945: Australian troops land at Brunei Bay on Japanese-occupied Borneo, an important port, and capture the town and airfield.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 9, 1940: Norway officially surrenders to Germany.
65 Years Ago—June 9, 1945: Yugoslav partisans agree to withdraw from Austria and Trieste.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 8, 1940: British carrier HMS Glorious sunk by German battle-cruisers Gneisenau & Scharnhorst off Norway, 1515 killed.
65 Years Ago—June 8, 1945: US naval forces bombard Brunei Bay on Borneo.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 7, 1940: Allied forces, along with King Haakon of Norway, evacuate Narvik, Norway as Germans advance.
65 Years Ago—June 7, 1945: King Haakon of Norway returns to Oslo.

Lessons from the 1940s - Never Forget

Today, we commemorate the 66th anniversary of the D-Day landings. On June 6, 1944, the Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy to liberate Europe from Nazi power.

In August 2007, I was privileged to stand on Omaha Beach on a misty, overcast morning not unlike the men faced that historic day. As I stood on that long stretch of sand and gazed at those high bluffs which once bristled with machine guns, I was moved deeply. We've all seen the movies and watched the footage - men dashing with rifles in hand, stumbling in the waves, beckoning their buddies onward, sheltering against debris - falling to the sand. But being there and feeling that sand beneath my feet gave me another level of understanding.

Today the Normandy beaches bristle with people on holiday - those who come to remember, and those who come to play. Children laugh and chase the waves and build sand castles. Tourists stand in silence, wipe tears, take pictures. This is as it should be.

Sixty-six years ago, 155,000 American, British Commonwealth, and Free French troops landed in the biggest amphibious operation in history, along with free people from many other occupied nations. Take a moment today and remember those who risked their lives, who gave their lives so we can live in freedom.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 6, 1940: British ban production of many household goods and ban radio ownership by Germans.
65 Years Ago—June 6, 1945: Japanese forces in southern China retreat to Kweilin.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 5, 1940: Battle of France begins: Germans sweep south into France.
65 Years Ago—June 5, 1945: Allied Control Council meets agrees on the partition of Germany and Berlin, which is signed by representatives of Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States.

Chasing the Light

Meet Daisy. Daisy is a retriever. She thinks she's a hunter. Her favorite prey...light.

Daisy chases after laser pointers and flashlights and random blinking lights. And this time of year, the morning sun shines through the sliding glass window in my kitchen and glances off the face of my watch. The Magic Light. This is her favorite thing in the world.

While I'm assembling school lunches and my three kids are making their breakfasts, I have an 80-pound yellow lab dogging my steps. Pun intended. She frantically searches the floor around me for a glimpse of the Magic Light. And when she sees it, she pounces, nips at it, and follows wherever it leads.

In the morning, Daisy won't leave my side because she knows I'm the source of the Magic Light.

She drives me bonkers. But she makes me think.

I have a Source of light in my life too. Do I crave the Light of the World above all else? Do I stick close to Jesus' side, dogging His steps, searching for glimpses of His light, pouncing on it, and following wherever His Light leads me? I want to stay as close to my Master as Daisy does to me.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 4, 1940: Germans take Dunkirk and 40,000 French POWs, after British successfully evacuated 300,000. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gives famous speech: “We shall fight on the beaches…We shall never surrender.”
65 Years Ago—June 4, 1945: US Marines land behind Japanese lines on Oroku Peninsula on Okinawa.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 3, 1940: British establish night curfew for foreigners.
65 Years Ago—June 3, 1945: French troops leave Damascus, escorted by the British.

Today in World War II History

65 Years Ago—June 2, 1945: US Naval Task Force 38 attacks kamikaze bases in southern Japan, forcing operations further north in Japan.

Today in World War II History

70 Years Ago—June 1, 1940: British remove signposts to cause confusion if German paratroops land.
65 Years Ago—June 1, 1945: British Twelfth and Fourteenth Armies link in Burma, performing mop-up of disorganized Japanese troops.