Eighty years ago this week France completes its reversal of the the 1871 defeat by retaking Strasbourg

French units liberated Strasbourg, which had been in German hands since France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. It was thus of great symbolic value. An extemporized tricolor marked with the name of the unit which made it was flown from the cathedral. Fighting was minimal fighting; morale collapsed amongst the German defenders and the local authorities were intent on saving their skin.

 The long running and agonized conflict over military service in Canada reached a crisis. There was immense opposition (especially amongst Francophones) to sending any of the large number of men conscripted to fight abroad; approximately half of men called up refused to sign up for foreign service and were derisively known as "zombies". The Canadian corps serving in Europe were desperately short of men after the heavy casualties of the Scheldt and Gothic Lines campaigns. The government finally announced a once-off despatch overeseas of 16,000 conscripts subject to parliamentary approval. This triggered a short-lived mutiny at Terrace in British Columbia and savage debates in parliament.

London suffered its deadliest V2 strike of the German unguided weapons attack on Britain.  A hit on Woolworths at New Cross killed 168 people and severely injured a further 123. 

The novelist  P. G. Wodehouse and his wife were  arrested in Paris. He had been interned by the Germans at his house in Le Touquet by the invading Germans in 1940 and had made a number of radio broadcast for them. These were purely humorous and had no political content, but German propaganda made much of this collaboration of so famous a figure. Wodehouse was attacked by the venomous columnist William Connor ("Cassandra") with the backing of then Minister of Information, Duff Cooper, in one of the shabbiest episodes in his career. In 1944 Cooper was ambassador to the new French government and was outraged to discover that Wodehouse was living on the same corridor of the Bristol Hotel as he was and asked MI5 to have him removed. The French authorities obliged the British with the arrest but singularly failed to complete the British dirty work by charging Wodehouse with anything.