and songwriter for The Kinks, in Fortis Green, London, England June 22, 1944 (Thursday) The Soviets began Operation Bagration, a broad new summer offensive. President Roosevelt signed the G.I. Bill into law. The Battle of Tienhaara was fought on the Karelian Isthmus. The result was a Finnish defensive victory. The Battle of Kohima ended in decisive British victory. The siege of Imphal was raised when advance units of the 2nd British Division linked with the 5th Indian Division at Milestone 107 on the Imphal to Kohima road. The Defense of Hengyang began in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japanese submarine I-185 was sunk near Saipan by American destroyers. The Appalachians tornado outbreak began in the Midwest and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. Over 100 people were killed over the next two days, with Shinnston, West Virginia hit particularly hard as 66 fatalities were recorded in the town and surrounding area. Died: Josef Wurmheller, 27, German fighter ace (killed in an air collision during an aerial battle near Alençon, France) June 23, 1944 (Friday) The Soviets began the Bobruysk Offensive, Mogilev Offensive and Vitebsk–Orsha Offensive in the Byelorussian SSR. A Polish resistance group carried out the Dubingiai massacre of 20 to 27 Lithuanian civilians in retaliation for the Glinciszki massacre of June 20. The British cruiser Scylla struck a mine in the English Channel and was rendered a constructive total loss. Died: Eduard Dietl, 53, German general (plane crash); Sefanaia Sukanaivalu, 26, Fijian soldier and posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross (killed in action on Bougainville Island attempting to rescue comrades) June 24, 1944 (Saturday) Hitler ordered all but one division of the German LIII Korps, encircled near Vitebsk, to break out. The British cargo ship Derrycunihy was sunk off Normandy with great loss of life by a Luftwaffe acoustic mine. On the Normandy front the Germans deployed a new weapon—the unmanned Mistel aircraft. Japanese submarine I-52 was depth charged and sunk southwest of the Azores by a Grumman TBF Avenger. German submarine U-1225 was depth charged and sunk west of Bergen by a PBY Canso of No. 162 Squadron RCAF. The Adelaide Mail in Australia published an article revealing that Ern Malley, supposedly a poet who had died as a complete unknown in 1943 but whose poems had recently been published in the avant-garde magazine Angry Penguins to great acclaim, never existed at all. Ern Malley's entire biography and