18 May 1939

May 18th, 1939 (THURSDAY)

ÉIRE: The new airport at Rineanna (Shannon) opens. This new field is ideally situated to exploit any forthcoming trans-Atlantic routes. More...

UNITED KINGDOM: Light cruiser HMS Hermione launched.

GERMANY: 867 women from Lichtenburg concentration camp are moved to Ravensbrück, to work on the extension of the camp.

TERRITORY OF HAWAII: Honolulu's first blackout drill lasts 20 minutes (Denis Peck)

18 May 1940

May 18th, 1940 (SATURDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group (Whitley). Bombing - oil refinery at Hanover. 51 Sqn. Four aircraft. Three bombed, one FTR. 58 Sqn. Four aircraft. Three bombed. 77 Sqn. Seven aircraft. Six bombed, one shot down by Bf110, crew rescued. Bf110 claimed destroyed. 102 Sqn. Eight aircraft. Seven bombed.

2 Group: 15 Sqn ( Blenheim) 6 aircraft to attack columns approaching Le Cateaux and destroy a bridge there. 3 aircraft FTR. 40 Sqn. Flew from Abbeville to bomb troops near Landacres meeting little opposition.

Tyler Kent, an American clerk at the US Embassy in London, and Anna Wolkaff, a Russian national, are arrested by the British for spying. Kent has had access to the Churchill/Roosevelt correspondence. The US Ambassador waives Kent's diplomatic immunity for the British.

Churchill to Roosevelt: "I do not need to tell you about the gravity of what has happened. We are determined to persevere to the very end, whatever the result of the great battle raging in France may be. We must expect in any case to be attacked here on the Dutch model before very long and we hope to give a good account of ourselves. But if American assistance is to play any part it must be available soon."

The Battle of France is now in its ninth day and, of course, Roosevelt has been briefed on it. Briefed on it perhaps by information supplied by his defeatist ambassador to The Court of Saint James, Joseph Kennedy. But by now Roosevelt is becoming aware of his problem Joseph Kennedy and perhaps has other sources - perhaps the British Ambassador to the United States, Lord Lothian or perhaps his ambassador to France William C. Bullitt. In any case, with the confused situation in northeastern France, one has to wonder how any accurate information was available. Again Churchill warns the president about the prompt offer and delivery of American aid. However, in this dispatch there are no softening phrases such as Mr. President, I must warn you. . . Churchill is more direct.

Jay Stone

Destroyer HMS Niblack launched.

NORTH SEA: In the North Sea, U-9 encountered an enemy submarine, but neither boat attacked.

GERMANY:

U-137, U-138 launched.

U-451, U-757, U-758 laid down.

NORWEGIAN CAMPAIGN: (Mark Horan) HMS Ark Royal continued to maintain the fighter patrols over the convoy, dispatching sections at 0030 and 0300. The former, three Skuas of 800 Squadron, chased off a single He-111 with damage, the only interception of the entire affair.

At 1700, Ark reaches position 70.06N, 13.16E. At 1710 and 1830 Ark dispatched Skua sections to patrol Narvik, but neither sighted enemy aircraft. Meanwhile, at 1810, the three Royal Navy carriers joined forces, the first time in the war that three carriers had operated together.

HMS Glorious then flew off the remaining five Walrus amphibians of 701 Squadron to Flag Officer Narvik at Harstad, while Ark sent off a single Swordfish to photograph the conditions at Bardufoss landing ground.

Cruiser HMS Effingham goes aground on a rock pinnacle in the Norwegian Sea off Narvik at 67 17N 13 58E. A subsequent investigation showed that the marked position of the rock had been obscured by a thick pencil marking. After salvaging usable equipment, Effingham is destroyed by gunfire on 21 May. (Alex Gordon)(108)

Battleship HMS Resolution was badly damaged by one 1000-kg bomb during an attack by German Ju88 aircraft of II/KG 30 off Narvik. The bomb penetrated three decks before detonating.

WESTERN FRONT: The Wehrmacht High Command announced:

Enemy air assaults have been aimed at various cities along the North German coast, especially Hamburg and Bremen, and at cities in West Germany. As in all previous instances, the attacks were made indiscriminately on non-military targets, except for one military barracks. The German Wehrmacht High Command makes this point expressly, in the light of the consequences that are to follow.

BELGIUM: Antwerp capitulates.

Bruges: King Leopold has set up an improvised HQ in a remote chateau at Bruges, a few miles from the coast at Ostend. The atmosphere is sombre. The Germans have in Brussels; Antwerp is about to fall; the French in panic over the Sedan breakthrough, have begun withdrawing their forces from the Belgian front without informing the British or the Belgians; and the roads of Belgium and northern France are choked with refugees.

Lord Gort, the BEF commander, learned of the French decision by chance when a British officer visiting General Billotte’s First Army Group HQ noticed a message awaiting dispatch. The Belgians were told the following day. "It came like a shout out of the blue," says General Olivier Derousseaux, Leopold’s deputy chief of staff. "We had to shake ourselves back into action."

The British and Belgian armies began withdrawing along a 50 mile front without interference from the enemy, most of the Panzers having been taken south to the Sedan sector. But the French 7th Army, pulling back from the mouth of the Scheldt, cut through the British and Belgian lines, causing chaos.

FRANCE: At dawn, the Panzer Divisions, now set free by their High Command, cross the Sambre Canal, towards Le Cateau, and the Oise, towards Saint-Quentin. In the north, after an encounter with Char-B tanks held him up all morning in the Le Cateau area, Rommel seizes Cambrai in the afternoon.

In the south, the 2nd Panzers capture Saint-Quentin at 9 am. The 1st Panzers on their left push on towards Peronne and its bridges, which it seizes from local troops at 1 pm. and then sends out patrols on the left bank of the Somme as far as Chaulnes.

Now that the German Panzers have broken out of their bridgeheads over the River Meuse and are advancing west, the Allied command and control system is becoming increasingly numbed. The Blitzkrieg which overcame the Poles is in danger of doing the same to the British and French. The French High Command is sending out orders which are out of date. At 9.45 am, when the enemy was already at Saint-Quentin, Giraud addressed an order to his Army according to which "his instructions had not changed: the Sambre Canal (and the Oise) must be held, at the same time the area west of the canal must be cleared of the enemy which had infiltrated between Saint-Quentin, Bohain and Solesmes". Similarly, at GHQ in the morning, "the impression was that things were better," wrote the Chief of Staff. Road and rail communications were working smoothly, and they still believed in containing the enemy in a pocket and being able to patch up the front.

At 10 pm Reinhardt’s Panzer’s fell upon Le Catelet, where 9 Army’s CP was set up, and dispersed it. Later the commander of 9 Army, General Giraud, is captured.

At the end of the day Georges realises how impossible it is to contain the enemy on the Cambrai-Saint-Quentin line. He therefore orders the "2nd Region" to block the crossings on the Somme, west of Peronne, and to give the defence posts artillery support.

Then at 11pm in his Order No. 122, he made this decision. "In the eventuality of the westward thrust of the German armour, towards the Maubeuge-Peronne front, not being stopped head-on we must prepare for the extension of our barrier over the whole length of the Somme, from Peronne to the sea. The 7 Army must try to erect this barrier on the Crozat Canal and the Somme from Ham to Amiens. The barrier would be prolonged from Amiens to the sea."

In the evening, Billotte orders the withdrawal of Belgian, British and French armies to the line of the lower Escaut and Dender: on the canal from Terneuzen, middle Escaut at Ghent, Valenciennes, Bouchain.

Arras: British forces in Belgium and northern France, threatened by the sweep of Panzers towards the Channel and by the disintegration of the French 1st Army, are planning a counter-attack against the 7th Panzer and the motorised SS Totenkopf divisions near Arras.

Paris: Prime Minister Reynaud has recalled Marshal Philippe Petain, the defender of Verdun in the Great War, to his cabinet as vice-premier. M Reynaud himself has taken over the Ministry of War from Daladier who now becomes Minister of Foreign Affairs. Another veteran of the Great War, Georges Mandel, becomes Minister of the Interior with responsibility for defeating the "Fifth Column".

18 May 1941

May 18th, 1941 (SUNDAY)

POLAND: Gdynia: The German battleship BISMARK and heavy cruisers Prinz Eugen, under fleet commander Admiral Lutjens, put to sea to raid the Atlantic. A simultaneous sortie by the two battlecruisers from Brest is fortunately prevented by the damage inflicted by the RAF.

U-126 collided in Danzig Bay with the German Seeburg and suffered severe damages.

ITALY: Rome: The Duke of Spoleto accepts the crown of Croatia from a Croatian delegation; he will be King Tomislav I.
Count Ciano writes: "The Croatians arrive with Pavelich at their head. They are in good humour and well-disposed toward us. I should say that they are better disposed than the Albanians when they offered the crown. The ceremony is more or less the same as that with the Albanians. In the streets, few and undemonstrative people. Not many realize the importance of the event. When His Majesty designated the Duke of Spoleto and the delegates saw him, there was a murmur of approval among them. Let us hope that it will be the same when they hear him speak. Everything went in due form; also the signing of the Acts, the content of which seemed to those who had knowledge of them to bear a better political meaning than was expected. It now remains to be seen if what we have built will be lasting. Maybe I am mistaken in my personal impression, but there is a feeling in the air that Italian domination in Croatia is to be temporary. And this is why the public is indifferent..." (Mike Yaklich)

Rome: The Italian High Command announced:

Our counteroperations against the Allies in North Africa have been completely successful. The enemy has been forced to retreat. Large numbers of prisoners and supplies have falled into our hands. Our aerial formations have attacked Tobruk. We bombed defence installations, troop assemblies and motor vehicles in the sector west of Sollum and shot down a British bomber and two enemy fighters in aerial combat. British aircraft in the Aegean raided Rhodes, causing insignificant damage. At Amba Alagi in East Africa, our troops have put up a heroic resistance under the personal command of the Duke of Aosta. Combat conditions are worsening hourly due to the lack of material, the losses we have suffered and the impossibility of tending and evacuating the wounded. An enemy assault was repelled in the area around Galla and Sidamo (Ethiopia).

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: PO Alfred Edward Sephton (b. 1911), remained at his post during an air attack on HMS Coventry, despite a terrible wound; he later died. (VC)

SYRIA: Damascus: The German News Bureau announced:

IRAQ: British forces reach Habbaniyah Air Field in Iraq.

On Friday the Iraqi air force successfully bombed several [British] ships outside the port of Basra.

ETHIOPIA: Amba Alagi: 18,000 Italian troops under the Duke of Aosta, finding themselves in a hopeless plight in the East African desert war surrender to the Allies.

CANADA: Corvette HMCS Baddeck commissioned.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 2227, the unescorted Piako was hit underneath the bridge by one torpedo from U-107 about 130 miles southwest of Freetown, stopped, sent distress signals and was abandoned by the crew. A coup de grâce was fired at 2243, which hit in the after part, broke off the stern and caused the ship to sink. Ten crewmembers were lost. The master, 62 crewmembers and two gunners were picked up by HMS Bridgewater and landed at Freetown.

18 May 1942

May 18th, 1942 (MONDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Belfast: Led by Private Marvin O'Neal from South Dakota, the largest contingent of American fighting men yet to arrive in the United Kingdom today disembarked after a convoy voyage hidden by fog. They include artillery and armoured units; soon after landing, 14-ton tanks rumbled from the docks.

Many of the men have Irish forefathers, as did some of the nurses from Harvard university, who arrived wearing trousers to the dismay of Irishmen waiting to whistle them ashore. A new US army helmet resembling the German "coal scuttle" also attracted attention. Some British authorities question the wisdom of the US Army publicizing links between emigrants and the old country, particularly as controversy still rages over the IRA's murder of Constable Patrick Murphy in Belfast a month ago. Six teenage gunmen face hanging as a result, but 207,000 people have signed a reprieve petition.

Cordell Hull, the American secretary of state, is pressuring the British foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, not to hang the killers because "hanging six for one would shock public opinion."

Rescue tug HMS King Salvor launched.

Sloop HMS Redpole laid down.

Minesweeper HMS Alarm commissioned.

GERMANY: Berlin: 27 Jews are shot for organizing a display of anti-Nazi posters.
Members of a resistance group which consists largely of Jewish youths tonight attacked an anti-Soviet exhibition being staged in the Berlin pleasure gardens. Eleven people were injured in the attack during which the protesters sought to set alight some of the exhibits assembled under the ironic title "The Soviet Paradise" by the Nazi authorities in the city.

Members of the resistance group, believed to be led by an electrician called Herbert Baum, left leaflets attacking "Gestapo lies" during their raid on the exhibition. The Gestapo is now leading the hunt for Baum and his colleagues.

U-718 laid down.

U.S.S.R.: At the end of the Battle of Kerch, two entire Soviet armies have been annihilated by six German and Romanian Panzer and infantry divisions.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: HMS Argus and HMS Eagle ferry 17 Spitfire fighters to Malta.
Admiral Harwood assumes command of the British Mediterranean Fleet.

BURMA: Chiang Kai-shek sends the Chinese Fifth Army to take up defensive positions at Myitkyina.

AUSTRALIA: Melbourne, Australia: The third victim of the "Brownout Strangler", 40 year old Gladys Hosking was found dead this morning. Gladys and her friend Dorothy Pettigrew left the Melbourne University that dark, wet night. They said goodbye to each other. She was apparently later seen sharing an umbrella with an American serviceman. A short time later, Private Noel Seymour, an Australian soldier, saw an American soldier covered in mud. Private Seymour was guarding some Army vehicles positioned just outside of Camp Pell. The American asked Seymour how to catch a tram to Camp Pell. Seymour asked him where he had been and the American soldier replied that he had fallen in some mud coming through the park and indicated that he lived in Area One in Camp Pell in the street near the zoo. A few hours later Gladys Hosking's body was found in a slit trench near Camp Pell. (Denis Peck)

TERRITORY OF HAWAII: The USAAF's 7th Air Force is placed on alert in anticipation of a possible attack on Midway Island. For the next ten days the old Martin B-18 Bolos on hand are used on sea searches to supplement the B-17 Flying Fortresses. The VII Bomber Command receives an influx of B-17s during this period, and one squadron is converted from B-18s to B-17s.

U.S.A.: United States signed agreement at Panama concerning the use of Panama defense areas by United States forces.

Escort carrier USS Prince William laid down.

Destroyer USS Spence laid down.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Three more unarmed U.S. merchant vessels are sunk by German submarines. U-156 sinks a freighter east of Barbados while U-125 sinks a tanker and a freighter in the Gulf of Mexico.

At 0606, the unescorted and unarmed Mercury Sun was hit by two torpedoes from U-125 about 125 miles south of Cape Corrientes, Cuba, while steaming a zigzag course at 8.5 knots. The torpedoes struck on the port side at the #4 and #5 tanks and broke the back of the ship. The carbon dioxide smothering system on the tanker successfully kept the cargo from igniting after the first torpedo hit, but when the second hit the ship burst into flames. 29 of the nine officers and 26 crewmen managed to abandon ship in two lifeboats. At 0635, a coup de grâce struck the vessel on the starboard side at #8 tank, but the ship remained afloat and sank about three hours after the first attack, sagging in the middle. The master, chief mate, second mate and three crewmembers were lost. The lifeboats stayed near the burning ship until daybreak and then sailed towards the coast. 28 survivors were picked up nearly 40 hours after the attack by the American steam merchant Howard and landed on 19 May at Mobile, Alabama. One seriously injured crewman was transferred to a US Coast Guard boat at the Tampa Sea Buoy.

At 1018, the unescorted and unarmed Quaker City was hit by one torpedo from U-156 about 300 miles east of Barbados. The torpedo struck in the stern near the waterline and caused the ship to sink in ten minutes. The explosion shattered the propeller, the rudder and the after part of the ship and killed ten crewmen. The surviving ten officers and 20 crewmen immediately abandoned ship in four lifeboats and were questioned by the Germans. They were given the course to Barbados before the U-boat left the area. On 22 May, seven survivors in one boat were picked up by USS Blakeley at 15°01N/57°38W and landed at Trinidad on 24 May. On 24 May, the 15 survivors in the boat of the master landed at Barbados and eight survivors in another boat made landfall on the north coast of Dominica on 26 May. An oiler later died ashore from injuries.

At 1852, the unescorted San Eliseo was hit on the starboard side under the bridge and amidships by two torpedoes from U-156. The tanker had been spotted five hours before and continued after counter-flooding, firing into the direction of the U-boat, which surfaced and tried to get into a new firing position. At 0439 on 19 May, a third torpedo was fired that hit on the starboard side aft of the bridge but apparently only caused minor damage because the tanker still continued. Even a fourth torpedo hit at 0739 on the starboard side near the engine room could not stop her. At 0917, a stern torpedo was fired at the ship from the port side but missed because the tanker zigzagged wild from 120° to 330°. The U-boat had finally to give up the chase because it was ordered by the BdU to set course on Martinique immediately and the chance to score another hit on the alarmed tanker was very small. The San Eliseo arrived at Barbados on 20 May for temporary repairs, later continued to the USA where she returned to service after permanent repairs were made.

At 0210, the Beth was hit by two torpedoes from U-162 and sank. 21 men, including the master reached Barbados in two lifeboats after 36 hours, nine others landed at Tobago in a third lifeboat on 20 May.

At 0615, the unescorted Fauna was hit by one stern torpedo from U-558 and sank after 17 minutes. The U-boat misidentified her victim as the Towa. The survivors landed on Providence Island the same day.

SS William J Salman sunk by U-125 20.08N, 83.46W.

18 May 1943

May 18th, 1943 (TUESDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: London: Montgomery gets more applause than the cast when he attends a performance of Arsenic and Old Lace.

The Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO) plan for the round-the-clock bombing of the enemy from the UK by the RAF and USAAF is approved by the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS). The U.S. Eighth Air Force now has authorization to proceed with daylight strategic bombing within the type of combined offensive it has long wished to initiate. The CBO plan lists the destruction of German fighters as the immediate priority objective. Primary objectives in order are German submarine yards and bases, the German aircraft industry, ball bearings, and oil (the last being contingent upon attacks from the Mediterranean against Ploesti, Romania). Secondary objectives in order of priority are synthetic rubber and tires, and military motor transport vehicles.

Submarine HMS Storm launched.

Rescue tug HMS Athlete launched.

MAC ship SS Empire Macabe launched.

Escort carrier HMS Rajah launched.

Minesweeper HMS Strenuous commissioned.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: U-414 attacked Convoy KMS-14 (combined with UGS-8) northeast of Mostaganem, Algeria, damaging SS Fort Anne and sinking CAM ship SS Empire Eve. The master, 55 crewmembers, 12 gunners and 13 RAF personnel from the Empire Eve were picked up by boom defense ship HMS Barfoil and an LCT and landed at Algiers. Five crewmembers were lost.

TERRITORY OF ALASKA: On Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands, the Japanese withdrawal yesterday permits the linkup of the Northern and Southern Landing Forces on the western slope of the Holtz Bay-Massacre Bay Pass in the morning. Six B-24 Liberators of the USAAF's Eleventh Air Force bomb the Gertrude Cove area on Kiska Island after being weathered out of Attu; the attack results in large fires on the island. Meanwhile over Kiska, four P-40s reconnoitre and strafe barges while a B-25 Mitchell flies photo reconnaissance.

CANADA: Frigate HMCS Ste Therese laid down Lauzon, Province of Quebec.

U.S.A.: A United Nations Food Conference meets in Hot Springs, Virginia and lasts through t the 3rd of June. The outcome is a resolution in regard to fairer food distribution for the postwar world.

The U.S. Marine Corps program to air assault Pacific islands with gliders is cancelled.

Destroyer escort USS Martin launched.

Escort carrier USS Fanshaw Bay laid down.

Destroyer USS Charrette commissioned.

CHILE: Chile severed diplomatic relations with Bulgaria, France, Hungary, and Rumania.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-103 rescued two shipwrecked survivors of the Fort Concord, which had been sunk by U-456 a week earlier.

18 May 1944

May 18th, 1944 (THURSDAY)

GERMANY: U-907 commissioned.

ITALY: Monte Cassino: The Polish flag flutters today over the ruins of the ancient monastery which has become a symbol of German resistance and has repelled successive Allied attacks since the beginning of the year. In the valley below, troops of the British Eighth Army have at last occupied what is left of the town of Cassino itself. The Germans' Gustav Line of defence has been breached and American and Canadian troops are advancing in numbers along the Liri valley.

No one doubted that casualties would be high. In the two weeks before the attack, the Polish II Corps under General Wladyslaw Anders was under constant observation by the German defenders and losing as many as 30 men in a day as it prepared to attack.

When the moment came to storm the heights on 12 May, the Poles lost a fifth of their strength within the first 90 minutes of battle and were forced to withdraw when communications failed.

The British XIII Corps took heavy casualties when it crossed the Rapido river to find its way blocked by a mass of pillboxes, barbed wire and minefields. After three days the Eighth Army had still failed to break out into the Liri valley, its principal objective.

Near the coast, the US II Corps was failing to make progress when the Germans suddenly began to withdraw. The defenders had been taken by surprise in a brilliant action by the French 2nd Moroccan Division, which has crossed supposedly impassable mountainous ground at speed, outflanking the Germans. The German 71st Division was scattered in this battle, with 2,000 men taken prisoner and a huge toll in casualties.

With the French and British advancing in the Liri valley below and on the hills opposite, it was for the undaunted Poles to take Monte Cassino. They attacked in waves yesterday, with 200 air sorties to support them, and continued to attack until late last night. The defending German paratroopers stood their ground and fought off the exhausted Poles until finally ordered to retreat under the cover of darkness.

The USAAF's Fifteenth Air Force in Italy dispatches almost 450 bombers, mostly with fighter escort, to hit targets in Romania and Yugoslavia. Both B-17s and B-24s bomb the industrial area at Ploesti, Romania and the marshalling yard at Belgrade, Yugoslavia and the B-17s also hit the marshalling yard at Nis, Yugoslavia but 300+ other bombers abandon the missions because of bad weather. Fighters strafe airfields at Nis and Scutari, Yugoslavia.

NORWAY: An RAF Catalina sinks U-241.

TURKEY: Ankara: The Turkish government declares martial law after a series of Pro-Axis demonstrations.

BURMA: Myitkyina: Allied troops today captured the railway station at Myitkyina, an important Japanese supply base on the Rangoon to Mandalay railway. Yesterday the 150th Regiment of the Chinese 50th Division took Myitkyina airstrip, which has the only hard-surface airstrip in northern Burma. But the 700 Japanese troops in Myitkyina through back "Merrill's Marauders" - the US counterpart to the British Chindits. Brigadier-General Frank Merrill's 1,500 sick and exhausted men are now down to half strength after nearly three months of jungle war.

Since March they have made advances in parallel with the 38th Chinese Division south from Ledo, in north-east India. Despite taking Pamati yesterday, the Marauders must now wait for the 38th to arrive to attack Myitkyina again.

NEW GUINEA: Four rifle companies of the 163d Regimental Combat Team assault Wakde Island. It takes two days to overcome the 763 Japanese troops on the island.

PACIFIC OCEAN: General MacArthur's intention of sealing off Japan's last supply routes to its South-west Pacific bases at Rabaul and Kavieng was finally realised today as the US Army troops wiped out the last isolated pockets of Japanese resistance on the Admiralty Islands, off north-east New Guinea. US losses in the three-month campaign to take the islands and their airstrips are 326 dead, and 1,189 wounded and four missing, compared with Japanese losses of 3,280 dead and 75 PoWs.

CANADA:

Minesweeper HMCS Border Cities commissioned.

Frigate HMCS Longqueil commissioned.

Corvette HMCS St Thomas commissioned.

U.S.A.: Destroyer escorts USS Frybarger and Robert Brazier commissioned.

Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-173 was commissioned. Her first commanding officer was LTJG Lester F. Bain, USCGR. He was succeeded by LTJG Joseph L. Kelly, USCGR. She was assigned to the Southwest Pacific Area and operated at Leyte, Milne Bay, etc. She was decommissioned 25 October 1945.

Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-174 was commissioned. She had as commanding officer LT E. R. Sneeringer. She was turned over to Captain J. J. Feenan, U.S. Army, representing the Army's Transportation Corps on 29 November 1945, after having been assigned to the Southwest Pacific area and operated at Manila, Tacloban, Biak, etc.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-241 sunk NE of the Faeroes, in position 63.36N, 01.42E, by depth charges from an RAF 210 Sqn Catalina. 51 dead (all hands lost).

18 May 1945

May 18th, 1945 (FRIDAY)

ÉIRE: Dublin: De Valera announced a $12 million food and clothing aid programme for Europe.

UNITED KINGDOM:

HMC MTB 736 and MTB 746 paid off.

Repair ship HMS Portland Bill launched.

GERMANY: Flensburg: Dönitz issues an order of the day to the Wehrmacht in which he attempts to exonerate himself by expressing horror at the concentration camps and distancing the military from Nazi atrocities.

Bremen: Lt. George Gosse (1912-65), RANVR, for the third time in ten days worked underwater to defuse a mine with a new, highly unpredictable type of mechanism. (George Cross)

ITALY: 44 Fascists are reported to have been murdered in Milan. (180 pp 238,239)

JAPAN: The USAAF's Twentieth Air Force flies Mission 177: During the night of 18/19 May, 30 B-29 Superfortresses mine Shimonoseki Strait and Tsuruga Harbor in Japan.

The 6th Marine Division is involved in heavy fighting at Sugar Loaf Hill in Okinawa.

Off Okinawa:

- The destroyer USS Longshaw (DD-559), en route to her patrol area, runs aground on a coral reef just south of Naha airfield. While a tug was taking Longshaw in tow, Japanese shore batteries opened up and her bow was completely blown off by a hit in the forward magazine. The "Abandon Ship" order was given but 86 of her crew, including the captain, died. The wreck was destroyed by gunfire and torpedoes from U.S. ships.

- Two kamikazes make a coordinated attack on the high-speed transport USS Sims (APD-50, ex DE-154). Both aircraft are hit by AA fire and crash into the water on her port side with a violent explosions that lifts and shakes the entire ship resulting in serious oil leaks and considerable damage to machinery and equipment. The crew repairs the damage and continues patrolling.

- Tank landing ship USS LST-808 is damaged by an aerial torpedo.

- The U.S. freighter SS Cornelius Vanderbilt is bombed and set afire.

The ship is carrying gasoline and explosives but the crew and 108 stevedores on board put out the fire.

MARIANAS ISLANDS: The advance air echelon of the 509th Composite Group arrives at North Field, Tinian Island, Mariana Islands. The 509th is scheduled to deliver atomic bomb attacks on Japan; its Commanding Officer is Colonel Paul W Tibbets Jr, a pilot with a distinguished record in the 97th Bombardment Group (Heavy) in Europe and North Africa.

U.S.A.:

Escort carrier USS Point Cruz launched.

Minesweeper USS Towhee commissioned.

Top of Page

Yesterday Tomorrow

Home