26 May 1939

Yesterday Tomorrow

May 26th, 1939 (FRIDAY)

U.S.S.R.: Moscow: France and Britain try to interest Stalin in a mutual aid agreement.

U.S.A.: Destroyer USS Benson laid down.

26 May 1940

May 26th, 1940 (SUNDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: London: Old bandstands from the parks as well as the railings around them are being scrapped to help the war effort. Mrs Hugh Dalton, the wife of the Minister for Economic Warfare, is leading a drive to uproot railings as chairman of the London County Council parks committee. One bandstand to be demolished is in Temple Gardens beside the Embankment. Streets, squares and crescents of Victorian and Regency houses are having the railings chopped from their garden walls. Some people claim that London looks better without them. Victorian churchyards are also yielding up their railings, but so far Buckingham Palace railings are sacrosanct. There is a proposal to take up disused tramlines for scrap.

Large congregations gathered at churches of all denominations this Sunday for the National Day of Prayer "on behalf of the nation and Empire, of their allies and of the cause in which they are united", as German armies pour into France and the British reach Dunkirk.

The King and Queen were at Westminster Abbey, accompanied by the refugee Queen of the Netherlands, Queen Wilhelmina, and Mr. Churchill. In his sermon the William Temple, Dr Lang, called the war "a mighty conflict against the powers of evil". At Westminster Cathedral Cardinal Hinsley spoke of a "just crusade for deliverance from the evil which rests on force alone."

Woodford, Cheshire: Second prototype Avro Manchester (L 7247) makes its maiden flight.

General Ironsides is named Commander in Chief Home Forces. General Dill is named CIGS.

WESTERN FRONTt: Dunkirk Evacuation: Operation 'Dynamo' begins.

Initial plans are to lift off 45,00 men of the BEF over a two-day period under the direction of Vice-Admiral B. H. Ramsey.

Aircraft of RAF Bomber Command attacked Wehrmacht troops believed to be crossing the Lys between Menin and Courtrai.

GERMANY: Hitler belatedly orders his armies to attack Dunkirk.

NORWEGIAN CAMPAIGN: RN: During the attack on Narvik, C class anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Curlew is bombed by German Ju-88s and sunk in Lavang Fjord, Skudenes in the Lofoten Isles at 67 32N, 16 37E. (Alex Gordon)(108)

RAF 46 Sqn., three flights of 6 Hurricanes, each led by a single Swordfish of 823 Squadron take off from HMS Glorious and land at Skaanland near Narvik. The first flight leaves at 2130, and is the only flight that actually lands at Skaanland.The landings at Skaanland prove to be a series of minor disasters. The airfield was not built to handle the heavy, high-speed fighters. Sqn. commander Kenneth Cross brought his Hurricane down perfectly - until his wheels bogged and his plane stood on its nose, bending the propeller. Another fighter did a half-somersault when it caught its wheel in chicken wire used to hold the field’s sod runways in place. Clambering out of his plane, Cross stormed over to a greying airfield construction officer and demanded, "What the hell sort of place is this to bring Hurricanes into?" The officer, who had worked himself to exhaustion to get the field ready, burst into tears. The upside-down Hurricane was righted, someone straightened Cross’s propeller with a hammer, and the squadron managed to take off for Bardufoss and join 263 Squadron. The Skaanland field was abandoned. For the first time, the Allies have modern fighter aircraft based in Norway. Unfortunately, and unknown to the Allied troops on the ground or to the Norwegians, the disaster in France has resulted in the decision to pull the Allied troops out and abandon Norway to her fate. Glorious herself remains off Narvik to offer some element of air cover for the Fleet.

At 1600, Vice-Admiral Well's force arrives in the Clyde, docking at Greenock. HMS Ark Royal needs to replenish her sorely depleted ammunition and stores. HMS Furious is in need of further repairs; her role in the NORWEGIAN CAMPAIGNis now over.

U.S.S.R.: Soviet submarine K-2 commissioned.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Destroyer HMCS Fraser departed Bermuda for UK.

26 May 1941

May 26th, 1941 (MONDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM:

Corvette FS Commandant d'Estienne d'Orves (ex-HMS Lotus) laid down.

Minesweeper HMS Eastbourne commissioned.

Corvette KNM Andenes (ex-HMS Acanthus) launched.

Gate vessels HMC GV 5 and CV 6 ordered.

GREECE: CRETE: Carrier HMS Formidable, accompanied by HMS Barham and HMS Queen Elizabeth, flies off aircraft from a position well to the south for an attack on the Scarpanto Island airfields. In the counter-attack HMS Formidable and destroyer HMS Nubian are damaged, by Stukas flying from Scarpanto.
General Freyberg raises the question of evacuation from Crete. Withdrawal from their positions in Galetas will begin tonight.
British commandos under Brigadier Robert Laycock land at Suda Bay to cover the evacuation.

GOLD COAST: Night of 26/27 May 1941 U-69 (Jost Metzler) entered Takoradi travelling on the surface between the heavily fortified moles and laid seven mines. She escaped undetected.

JAPAN: The Kayaba Ka-1, Army Model 1 Observation Autogyro makes its maiden flight.

In 1939, the Japanese Army purchased a Kellet KD-1A single-engine two-seat autogyro from the U.S. (The USAAC purchased nine KD-1s and designated them YG-1s.) Unfortunately for the Japanese, the machine was damaged beyond repair in a crash during flight tests at low altitude. The wreck was delivered to the Kayaba Industrial Co. Ltd.

(K.K. Kayaba Seisakusho) and they were told to develop a similar machine. A two-seat observation machine was built based on the KD-1A but modified to Japanese production standards. This machine makes its first flight today. About 240 Ka-1s were built.

CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS Bayfield launched North Vancouver, British Columbia.

U.S.A.: America's first experimental blackout takes place at Newark, New Jersey.

Heavy cruiser USS Baltimore laid down.

Destroyer USS Doyle laid down.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: After a 30 hour interval a Catalina flying boat of RAF Coastal Command 209 Squadron discovers the BISMARK about 700 nm from Brest, its port of destination. The Catalina was fitted with a recently improved ASV radar device.
The copilot on this Catalina was Ensign Leonard B. Smith, USNR. Another Catalina of RAF No 240 Squadron with Lieutenant James E. Johnson, USN, aboard begins shadowing the German ship.

Later in the afternoon a Swordfish strike from Force H's Ark Royal attacks the Sheffield in error. She is not hit. A second strike takes place in the evening by 810, 818 and 820 squadrons with 15 Swordfish led by Lt-Cdr Coode. They torpedo BISMARK twice and one hit damages her propellers and jams the rudders. As BISMARK circles, destroyers of the 4th Flotilla (Capt Vian) come up around midnight, and make a series of torpedo and gun attacks but with uncertain results.

HMSs Cossack, Maori, Sikh, Zulu and Polish Piorun have been detached from troop convoy WS8B, an indication of the seriousness of the BISMARK's threat.

By this time Adm Tovey's force of heavy ships has lost the Repulse to refuel, but been joined by HMS Rodney. They now come up from the west but do not attack just yet.

26 May 1942

May 26th, 1942 (TUESDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: London: Britain and the USSR sign a 20-year mutual assistance treaty.

Lieutenant General Henry H "Hap" Arnold, Commanding General USAAF; Rear Admiral John H Towers, USN, Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics; and RAF Air Chief Marshall Sir Charles F Portal attend an Anglo-American air conference in London. Topics of discussion include allocation of aircraft and the establishment of US air forces in the UK. The meeting begins at 10 DowningStreet with Prime Minister Winston S Churchill.

Minesweeping trawler HMS Porcher launched.

SWEDEN: Stockholm: Two German churchmen, Hans Schoenfeld and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, today met Britain's bishop of Chichester, George Bell, in neutral Sweden, to discuss possible conditions for peace between their two countries if the Nazis were overthrown. The German pastors believe there is growing opposition to Hitler's regime within Germany, particularly among army officers.

NORTH AFRICA: Rommel begins a new offensive on the Gazela Line.

PACIFIC OCEAN: The Japanese 1st Carrier Fleet, under Admiral Nagumo, leaves the Inland Sea to begin their part in the Midway operation, known as MO.

MIDWAY ISLAND: The aircraft ferry USS Kitty Hawk (AKV-1) arrives with Marine reinforcements including a detachment of a 3-inch (76.2 mm) antiaircraft group of the 3d defence Battalion, a light tank platoon and additional personnel for Marine Air Group Twenty Two (MAG-22).

CANADA:

Corvette HMCS Port Arthur commissioned.

Corvette HMCS Sackville departed St John's to escort Convoy HX-191 as part of EG C-3.

TERRITORY OF HAWAII: US Naval TF 16, carriers Enterprise and Hornet, return to Pearl Harbor from the South Pacific.

General George C. Marshall issues an order establishing the Hawaii Provisional Infantry Battalion, made up of Japanese Americans from the Hawaii National Guard. Training in Hawaii for Selective Service. (Gene Hanson)

U.S.A.: The feasibility of jet-assisted takeoff was demonstrated in a successful flight test of a Brewster F2A-3 Buffalo, piloted by Lieutenant (jg) C. Fink Fischer, at Naval Air Station Anacostia, District of Columbia, using five British antiaircraft solid propellant rocket motors. The reduction in takeoff distance was 49 percent.

German submarine U-106 attacks two U.S. merchant ships in the Gulf of Mexico. The first is an unarmed tanker which is sunk by a torpedo. Later in the day, the sub surfaces and begins shelling an armed freighter but the freighter's Armed Guard drives the sub off with gunfire before much damage is done.

Minesweepers USS Clamour, Climax and Compel laid down.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0416, the unescorted and unarmed Alcoa Carrier was hit by a torpedo from U-103 while the steamer had discontinued her zigzagging course due to cloudy weather. The torpedo struck the #2 hatch on the starboard side at a depth of about twenty feet below the waterline. The compartment was flooded, the engines were stopped and the radio was destroyed. After 25 minutes the U-boat surfaced and fired about 23 rounds at the vessel from a distance of 400 yards. 17 shells hit the area of the bridge and started a fire. The crew of eight officers and 27 men abandoned ship in two lifeboats. The master was asked the name and the speed of the vessel and if all the crew were accounted for. He then gave a package of cigarettes to the crew. At 0515, U-103 fired a second torpedo which hit amidships and left after one hour when the Alcoa Carrier sank bow first about 125 miles WNW of Montego Bay, Jamaica. On 30 May, a Cuban gunboat picked up 33 men and took them to Havana, Cuba. A USN plane rescued the remaining two men and took them to Key West.

About 1100, the unescorted and unarmed Carrabulle was stopped by U-106 in the Gulf of Mexico by a signal from a siren and a shot across her bow. The U-boat began firing shells at the bridge and the superstructure on the starboard side, while the radio operator was still sending distress signals. The crew of eight officers and 32 men, with the exception of the radio operator left the ship in two lifeboats. One boat held 24 men, including the master and the first mate. At the moment this boat reached the water a torpedo struck just below the waterline on port side and blew the boat to pieces. Only two men survived who were later picked up by the other lifeboat together with the radio operator. Some survivors later claimed that Rasch asked if all the men had gotten clear of the ship, receiving a negative answer, he reportedly laughed and fired the torpedo at 11.34 hours. The tanker sank stern first at 1230. Three officers and 15 men were picked up by the American SS Thompson Lykes 15 hours after the attack and were taken to New Orleans.

SS Syros sunk by U-703 at 73.57N, 17.30E.

26 May 1943

May 26th, 1943 (WEDNESDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Frigate HMS Shiel launched.

GERMANY:

U-1103 laid down.

U-1221 launched.

U-472 commissioned.

POLAND: Auschwitz: 1,042 Gypsies are executed in gas chamber after typhoid breaks out. (Gene Hanson)

U.S.S.R.: Volga Flotilla: GB "Krasnogvardeetz" - mined close to Besimyannii Is., in Stalingrad area (Sergey Anisimov)(69)

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: During an air attack by an RAF 500 Sqn Hudson in the Mediterranean one man was killed and two men wounded on U-755. The boat was forced to return to port due to heavy damage but was sunk 2 days later.

EGYPT: Alexandria: The first through convoy to complete the Mediterranean passage since 1941 arrives without loss; it left Gibraltar on 17 May.

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: The submarine USS Trout (SS-202) lands a party of men and equipment on Basilan Island off the coast of Zamboanga, Mindanao Island, to set up an intelligence gathering facility. A second group of coastwatchers is landed near Zamboanga.

CANADA: Meat rationing begins.

TERRITORY OF ALASKA: On Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands, the American troops of the 4th and 32d Infantry Regiments are able to crawl above a snow covered trench on Fishhook Ridge and attack the Japanese in the trench from the high ground. This results in the capture of most of the ridge.

The USAAF's Eleventh Air Force dispatches eight B-24 Liberators and eleven B-25 Mitchells to fly air-ground support and bomb enemy positions on Attu; two B-24s and 12 P-38 Lightnings fly air cover sorties and also patrol and strafe Japanese positions on the Island. On Kiska Island, three F-5A Lightnings fly a photographic reconnaissance mission while three attack missions are flown by nine B-25s and 16 P-40s; targets include gun emplacements on North Head and the eastern end of the runway.

The gunboat USS Charleston (PG-51) bombards the Japanese positions in the Chichagof Harbor area.

The Japanese begin Operation KE, the evacuation of personnel from Kiska Island. The submarine HIJMS I-7 lands two tons of weapons and ammunition and six tons of food and takes off 49 sailors, seven soldiers and four civilians.

U.S.A.: The 14th Antiaircraft Artillery Group is redesignated AAA Group. (Jean Beach)

Destroyer escorts USS Joyce and Mills launched.

Escort carrier USS Mission Bay launched.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-436 was sunk in the North Atlantic west of Cape Ortegal, Spain, in position 43.49N, 15.56W, by depth charges from frigate HMS Test and corvette HMS Hyderabad.

26 May 1944

May 26th, 1944 (FRIDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: In post-war Britain there will be no more slumps, and general unemployment will be cured. So a government white paper said today. It explained that expansionist policies will mean plenty of jobs. There will be plans to spend more on public works in lean years and an economic "Brains Trust" to tell the government about world trade conditions. Subsidies will be used to maintain steady prices and prevent a rise in the cost of living.

Destroyer HMS Volage commissioned.

FRANCE: Allied aircraft bomb Lyons, Nice, St. Etienne and Marseilles, killing 5,407 civilians.

D-Day Countdown

The German Perspective

Friday, 26 May, 1944

Rommel holds a special luncheon for General Wolfgang Pickert, commanding the III Flak Corps. Pickert, had once commanded the 9th Flak division in the East, and had been there with his unit when it had been nearly annihilated at Stalingrad at the end of 1942. Pickert, a member of the Luftwaffe, had been one of the lucky ones that had been flown out of the surrounded Sixth Army that winter.

Pickert, his headquarters now just south of the city of Amiens, now commands some 24 batteries of antiaicraft regiments, a sizeable weapon against the hoards of enemy aircraft that would dominate the skies over an invasion site. At the beginning of the month, Rommel had requested from the Luftwaffe that the corps be relocated to Normandy. Göring had turned him down, and Pickert had agreed with the decision, although a few units eventually did make it to the Normandy area. Most of the regiments though, remained scattered north of the Seine, thus with little effective power against the Allied air force anywhere.

Rommel receives him warmly, and they have a nice discussion over lunch. A little later, they are joined by -General der Fallshirmjaeger- Kurt Student, commanding all the airborne troops. Having dissolved the -XI Fliergerkorps,- he had in its place formed the - Fallshirmjaegerkorps- and had established his new headquarters near Nancy in March. His parachute school at Dreux* was busy with new recruits, eager to learn how to jump out of an airplane.

Also joining them is General von Funck, who is commanding (now Rommel's) XLVII Panzer Corps.

Rommel excuses himself for a phone call from State Secretary Theodor Ganzenmueller, in the Ministry of Transportation. He complains to Rommel about the meddling into the affairs of transportation by Gauleiter Kaufmann on Rommel's behalf. Ganzenmueller tells Rommel to kindly keep Kaufmann (and anyone else Rommel is contemplating) out of the affairs of of transportation. Yes, the Ministry is aware of the acute transportation problem in France right now due to the bombings, but trying to get things done using Kaufmann is NOT the proper way to do things.

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Admiral Ruge drives to Paris to the headquarters of Security Area West, and then of the Naval Group West. He finds out that the radar installations had been hit pretty hard by the enemy, but that of the eleven major radar installations that had been damaged by the bombs, only one was not back in service again.

--------------------

Hitler has a conference with a number of his generals.

Mostly, he tells them about how the problems Germany had been plagued with because of the Jews, and how they were in a life or death struggle with the Bolsheviks.

=======

* A small town some 40 miles west of Paris.

Pete Margaritis

GERMANY: A group of senior officers and generals who had been participants in an ideological training course were addressed by Himmler in the Platterhof, a big hotel next to the Berghof. The Reichsfuhrer wanted to strengthen their commitment to National Socialism and to stiffen their spines before they returned to the front. At this late date in the war, people at this level knew what had happened, and was still happening, to the Jews of Europe. Himmler reminded them that they, as well as leaders of the regime, would be held responsible if Germany lost the war.They were all in the same boat with respect to the elimination of Jews from Europe. Hitler addressed the officers that afternoon. He, too, wanted to cement their solidarity with National Socialism. He spoke of the Jews as a foreign body which he had eliminated. His key point: "In removing the Jews I eliminated in Germany the possibility of creating some sort of revolutionary core or nucleus." (Jay Stone)(97)

U-1106 launched.

ITALY: The USAAF's Fifteenth Air Force in Italy dispatches just over 700 bombers to attack targets in Italy; B-17 Flying Fortresses hit marshalling yards at Ferrara and Mantua and an air depot at Piacenza; B-24s hit Vicenza marshalling yard and air depots at Piacenza and Reggio Emilia; fighters fly 170+ sorties in escort; 48 P-38s strafe Aviano and Villaorba airfields.

PACIFIC OCEAN: The destroyers of Task Group 57.8 bombard Japanese installations on Mili Atoll in the southeastern Marshall Islands.

The destroyer escort USS England (DE-635) sinks Japanese submarine HIJMS RO-108 110 miles (177 km) northeast of Manus Island, Admiralty Islands . This is the fifth submarine involved in Operation "NA" sunk by USS England in seven days.

U.S.A.: Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-177 was commissioned. She was assigned to and operated in the Southwest Pacific area. She was decommissioned 19 August 1945.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Two RAF 333 Sqn Mosquitoes attacked U-958 killing 1 and wounding 2 men. [Maschinenobergefreiter Herbert Frank].

26 May 1945

May 26th, 1945 (SATURDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Corvettes HMCS Lachute and West York departed Londonderry as escort for Convoy ON-305.

GERMANY: Lüneberg: Sergeants Ray Weston and Bill Ottery bury Himmler in an unmarked grave.

BURMA: Allied forces occupy Bassein, 90 miles west of Rangoon.

JAPAN: The USAAF's Twentieth Air Force in the Mariana Islands flies Mission 184: During the night of 26/27 May, 29 B-29 Superfortresses mine waters in Shimonoseki Strait and at Fushiki, Fukuoka, and Karatsu, Japan.

Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese imperial family escaped with their lives today as flames started by B-29 fire-bomb attacks surrounded their main palace in Tokyo and destroyed the nearby business district of Marunouchi. Twenty-six Marianas-based B-29s were lost.

Later Tokyo Radio confirmed US Army Air Force claims that parts of the imperial palace and Omiya palace had been damaged, but said that both the emperor and empress were safe and uninjured. The raid was the second in 48 hours, with 464 B-29 Superfortresses dropping 4,000 tons of incendiaries on the Marunouchi district just south of the imperial palace. With scores of new buildings - many supposedly fire and earthquake proof - the area was, until today, the pride of modern Japan.

The Tokyo raid came as Japanese flyers, absent from combat in recent weeks, launched desperate mass Kamikaze attacks on US ships off Okinawa plus bizarre suicide raids on the island's Yontan and Katena airfields. Planes deliberately crash-landed on the two airstrips before heavily-armed commandos jumped out with orders to cause maximum damage. All were killed immediately. Offshore, Japanese flyers damaged 11 US ships, sacrificing 111 aircraft in the attack.

Kamikazes are again active off Okinawa damaging two ships:

- High-speed minesweeper USS Forrest (DMS-24, ex-DD-461) is attacked by three aircraft. AA fire downs two but the third crashes her starboard side at the waterline, killing five and wounding 13 of her crew. The ship remains afloat and heads for Kerama Retto for repairs.

- The submarine chaser PC-1603 is damaged.

CANADA: Frigate HMCS Royalmount begins tropicalization refit Sydney , Nova Scotia.

U.S.A.: The US government cancels the 98 out of 100 Hughes D-5s. Also known as the F-11 it had two Pratt and Whitney R-4360 engines driving eight bladed contra-rotating propellers. (John Nicholas)

Destroyer USS Brinkley Bass launched.

Destroyer USS Steinaker commissioned.

1946: USS Conway (DD-70), was commissioned as HMS Lewes (G-68) on 23 October, 1940, part of the destroyers-for-bases deal. Lewes outlives all of her sisters in British service; stripped of valuable scrap and scuttled off Sydney, Australia. (Ron Babuka)

1971: Major Audie L. Murphy dies. Born June 20, 1924; he entered the US Army as a Private. Serving with the 3rd Infantry Division in North Africa, Italy and Europe, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross; the Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster; the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster; the Purple Heart with Second Oak Leaf Cluster and the Medal of Honor.

After leaving the Army, he will become a star in many Western Movies. (Bill Howard)

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