Light cruiser HMS Nigeria launched.

Anti-Aircraft cruiser HMS Dido launched. (DS)

Mr Churchill told the Commons that Britain would not agree to a permanent closure as this would be to default on obligations to China. Observers say that the closure will have little real effect on the Chinese war effort as traffic is slight because of the monsoon.

RAF Bomber Command: The Dortmund-Ems canal is bombed successfully.

Destroyer HMS Cotswold launched.

Minesweeper HMS Polruan launched.

GERMANY: "Radio Caledonia" starts broadcasting to Britain, urging Scottish separatism.

U-95 is launched.

CANADA: HMC MTB 1-12 ordered from Canadian Power Boat Co Ltd Montreal, Province of Quebec. Later became HM MTB 332-343
Corvette HMCS Wetaskiwin (ex Banff) launched North Vancouver, British Columbia.

U.S.A.: The Democratic Party's national convention in Chicago, Illinois, nominates President Franklin D. Roosevelt for their candidate for president. If he wins, it will be an unprecedented third term in office.

ATLANTIC OCEAN:

At 1641, the unescorted Gyda was torpedoed and sunk by U-58 NW of Ireland. The ship had stopped by Loch Swilly due to an engine defect and continued her voyage on 18 July with a Sunderland flying boat as escort. The torpedo struck close to the bridge on the starboard side, opening the side, destroying the radio room and blowing away a half of the bridge. The vessel sank within one minute with the engines still running. The master and ten crewmembers were lost. Three men were thrown overboard and were later picked up by six men, which had left the ship on a raft aft of the ship. The survivors were picked up the next morning by the Ville d'Arlon and taken to New York on 26 July.

SS Woodbury sunk by U-99 at 50.46N, 13.56W.

U.S.S.R.: Moscow: the USSR signs a friendship treaty with the Czech government in exile.

JAPAN: Prime Minister Prince Konoye Fumimaro reshuffles his government, excluding the pro-Axis foreign minister, Yosuke Matsuoka and replacing him with Vice Admiral Chyoda Teifiro.

CHINA: Over 35,000 pro-Japanese soldiers attack the New Fourth Army's stronghold in Kiangsu.

CANADA: Corvettes HMCS Algoma and Shediac arrive Halifax from builders in Montreal and Quebec City respectively.

U.S.A.: Washington: The House committee investigating problems of migratory labour was informed by Corrington Gill, assistant commissioner of the Works Progress Administration, that, despite the nation's defence production program, 5,000,000 persons will remain unemployed this year.

Dr. Robert C. Weaver, chief of the branch of Negro employment and training of the Office of Production Management, complained that preferential treatment was being given to white labour. He charged that employers holding national defence contracts had refused to employ available Negro labour. In his evidence he complained of "some instances of discrimination against Jews and workers of Russian and German parentage."

At 1633, the unescorted and unarmed Carmona was hit by one torpedo from U-160 at the starboard side in the engine room, wrecking the engines and killing four men. Ten minutes later a second torpedo hit the starboard side at #2 hatch. Two other torpedoes hit also the starboard side about five minutes later. The ship turned on her side and sank 30 minutes after the first hit southeast of Trinidad. The survivors abandoned ship in two lifeboats after the first hit and were picked up by USS YPC-68, which was about two miles inshore of the Carmona when she was hit and were taken to Port of Spain.

U-575 sank the sailing vessels Glacier and Comrade with gunfire

Hits are claimed on two destroyers, and a light craft is sunk. Twenty five A6M "Zekes" are shot down, 15 by F4F pilots and ten by F4U pilots; nine fighters and a TBF are lost. A B-25 off New Georgia Island strafes a motor launch.
 

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: Two Eleventh Air Force B-24 Liberators and six B-25 Mitchells bomb Gertrude Cove and the Main Camp on Kiska Island. 

U.S.A.: The only US Navy airship (blimp) shot down during World War II, K-74, is downed by the German submarine U-134 while on night patrol in the Florida Straits. For additional information on this encounter. 

Destroyer escort USS Hilbert launched.

Destroyer escort USS Chase commissioned.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0756, the unescorted Incomati was torpedoed and damaged by U-508 about 200 miles south of Lagos. At 0818, the U-boat began shelling the ship, setting her on fire and left the wreck in sinking condition. One crewmember was lost. The master, 101 crewmembers, eight gunners and 112 passengers were picked up by HMS Boadicea and Bridgewater and landed at Takoradi.

The USN airship K-74 assigned to Airship Patrol Squadron Twenty One at Naval Air Station Richmond, Florida, lifts off on an antisubmarine patrol at 1909 hours local. At 2340, radar detects a surface contact at 8 miles; the contact is the German submarine U-134. At 2350, the airship begins an attack on the unsuspecting U-boat; the airship was at 250 feet with a ground speed of 53 knots when the sub crew sighted the blimp and opened fire with light AA. The blimp crew returned fire with a 50-calibre machine gun, which silenced the AA gun, but the sub fired three rounds with a heavier calibre gun, one as the blimp approached and two as it passed over the sub. Orders were given to drop depth charges but a crewman's error prevented this. The blimp's bag had been punctured and the airship descended and hit the water at 2355 hours, the only airship shot down during the war. The airship remained afloat until 0815 on 19 July and the crew was rescued shortly thereafter; one man had been killed in a shark attack. U-134 had suffered damage to her main ballast tank and a diving tank and after being sighted by a land-based aircraft, she was ordered home for repair. While enroute, she was sunk on 24 August in the North Atlantic near Vigo, Spain by six depth charges from an RAF Wellington.

UNITED KINGDOM: London is fast emptying under the flying-bomb attack. More than 500,000 mothers and children have been evacuated, and more are leaving daily. Another half a million people, including the elderly and the homeless, are leaving as "aided" evacuees, with rail warrants and billeting allowances. The evacuation is outstripping that of 1939-40. The eight deep shelters specially built after the Blitz, 100 feet underground, are being used for the first time. Each of them has bunks for 8,000 people. "Bomb Alley", the path that the flying bombs take across Kent and Sussex and the south-east suburbs of London such as Croydon, Lewisham, Bromley, Bexley and Orpington, is suffering particularly heavily. Some 200,000 houses have been destroyed or damaged.

Defences against the V1s have improved. Fast-flying fighters are patrolling the Channel 20 miles out to sea, shooting down V1s or tipping them over with their wingtips. Over 1,500 guns are massed along the coast, and on the Downs 1,750 balloons form a barrage. More than half of the incoming V1s are being destroyed.

Minesweeper HMS Styx laid down.

Destroyer HMS Zambesi commissioned.

The USAAF's Eighth Air Force in England flies Mission 481: 1,394 bombers and 476 fighters are dispatched to hit targets in Germany and tactical targets in France; three bombers and three fighters are lost:

     1. 644 B-24s are dispatched, in conjunction with Ninth Air Force and RAF Bomber Command, to bomb enemy equipment and troop concentrations in support of the assault by the British Second Army in the Caen area; 249 hit Solier, 146 hit Frenouville, 139 hit Troarns, 23 hit Hubert la Folie and 12 hit the Mezidon marshalling yard; a B-24 is lost; 90 RAF Spitfires fly uneventful support for the B-24s.

     2. Of 291 B-17s dispatched, 107 hit the Kiel port area, 55 hit the Hemminstedt oil refinery and 54 hit Cuxhaven. Escort is provided by 48 P-38 Lightnings and 84 P-51 Mustangs without loss.

     3. Of 459 B-17s dispatched, 377 hit the Peenemunde experimental establishment, scientific HQ at Zinnowitz, and marshalling yards at Stralsund; three B-17s are lost. Escort is provided by 297 P-38s and P-51s; they claim 21-0-12 Luftwaffe aircraft; three P-51s are lost .

     25 B-24s fly CARPETBAGGER missions in France during the night; a B-24 collides with an RAF aircraft over France and is lost.

NORTH SEA: U-286 Type VIIC Sank the first time 17th March, 1944 in the Baltic Sea east of R¸gen after collision with U-1013. 26 survivors. Raised and repaired and returned to duty.

Today a Norwegian Mosquito aircraft (Sqdn 333/K) attacked the boat, causing damages and killing 1 man and wounding 7 more. The boat reached Kristiansand, Norway on the same day.

Finally sunk  29th April, 1945 in the Barents Sea north of Murmansk, Russia, position 69.29N, 33.37E, by depth charges from the British frigates HMS Loch Insh, Anguilla and Cotton. 51 dead (all hands lost). (Alex Gordon)

U-742 sunk west of Narvik in position 68.24N, 09.51E, by depth charges from an RAF 210 Sqn Catalina. 52 dead (all hands lost)

HMS Formidable 8 BTR Wing/Leader Barracuda a/c #LS556, LCdr(A) Roy S. Baker-Faulkner DSO, DSC, RNR, (Canadian) lost after ditching off Norway.

U-2504, U-3003 launched

U-327, U-2323 commissioned.

ITALY: Elements of the US IV Corps begin an attack on Leghorn on the west coast of Italy. The Polish 2 Corps capture Ancona.

WESTERN EUROPE: Targets in France and Germany are attacked by the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces in England and the Fifteenth Air Force in Italy.

-The Eighth Air Force dispatches 1,394 bombers and 476 fighters on Mission 481 to hit targets in Germany and tactical targets in France; 3 bombers and 3 fighters are lost:

- 644 B-24s, in conjunction with Ninth Air Force and RAF Bomber Command, bomb enemy equipment and troop concentrations in support of  the assault by the British Second Army in the Caen area; 1 B-24 is lost; 90 RAF Spitfires fly uneventful support for the B-24s.

- 291 B-17s are dispatched to bomb the Kiel port area, the Hemminstedt oil refinery and Cuxhaven; escort is provided by 48 P-38s and 84 P-51Mustangs without loss.

- 377 B-17s hit the Peenemunde experimental establishment, scientific HQ at Zinnowitz, and marshalling yards at Stralsund; 3 B-17s; escort is provided by 297 P-38s and P-51s.

- 25 B-24s fly CARPETBAGGER missions in France during the night; 1 B-24 collides with an RAF aircraft over France and is lost.

-The Ninth Air Force dispatches 400+ B-26 Marauders and A-20 Havocs to hit various military targets in support of the ground forces in the Caen area, and later in the day bomb rail and highway bridges beyond the frontlines; large number of fighters fly escort, dive-bomb gun positions at Rouen and Mantes-la-Jolie, hit military targets in the Chartres area (using rockets), attack gun positions, bridges, and other targets in the Benney-Alencon-Saint-Lo area, and fly armed reconnaissance and fighter sweeps over wide areas of northern and western France.

- In Germany, 200 Fifteenth Air Force B-24s and B-17s attack Memmingen Airfield and the Dornier aircraft works at Manzell, and Casarsa della Delizia railroad bridge in Italy; 250-300 Luftwaffe fighters oppose the formations attacking targets in Germany, beginning the interception at the North Adriatic coast, continuing to the targets and back as far as the Brenner Pass; 20 USAAF aircraft are lost.

Lt. C.D. "Lucky" Lester was flying a P-51 Mustang with the 332nd Fighter Group, an all-African American unit. The group was flying a bomber escort mission at 25,000 feet over northern Italy when they engaged a formation of German Messerschmitt Bf 109s. Lucky saw a 109 straight ahead and closed to about 200 feet while firing. The 109 exploded and, as Lucky was dodging pieces of aircraft, he saw another to his right.
He turned onto its tail and again closed to 200 feet and fired. This aircraft started to smoke and dived toward the ground. Lucky followed it to about 8,000 feet until he saw the enemy pilot bail out. Lucky, down to 1,000 feet, then spotted a third 109 coming down after him. When the enemy plane overran his P-51, Lucky pulled behind it and opened fire. The Messerschmitt rolled upside down and dived straight into the ground. Lucky earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in the engagement, which took only six minutes. (Ron Babuka)(http://www.swagga.com/aviation.htm)

Picture of the action. Picture of the man.

GREECE: Aegean Sea: German troops round up the 2,000 Jews of Rhodes and Kos for deportation, via Athens and Hungary, to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

U.S.S.R.: The First Belorussian Front near Kovel begins an offensive; the Thrid Baltic Front advances toward Ostrov ans Pskov, while the First Ukraine Front is beginning to make progress towards Lvov after two days on the offensive.

At 0321, U-479 fired a spread of two torpedoes at Soviet ASW patrol craft MO-304 in Viborg Bay and thought that she missed, but the submarine chaser lost her fore section. The after part was towed into port and repaired.

MARIANAS ISLANDS: Continuing the preinvasion missions in the Mariana Islands, Seventh Air Force P-47s based on Saipan pound Tinian and Pagan Islands; Far East Air Forces (FEAF) B-24s strike Yap Island, bombing the town and Blelatsch peninsula; several of the B-24s bomb Sorol Atoll; and 25 Seventh Air Force B-24s, staging through Eniwetok Atoll, attack Truk Atoll.

JAPAN: General Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister and Army Chief of Staff in the Japanese Cabinet. He takes his cabinet with him after a behind-the-scenes coup by a cabal of ex-premiers convinced that Japan faces defeat unless drastic changes are made. The former leaders, who backed Tojo's appointment 33 months ago, have advised the emperor to summon General Kuniaki Koiso and Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai to form a new cabinet, with separate posts for the heads of the army and navy. Tojo tried to save his premiership by agreeing to step down as army chief, but this did not placate the ex-premiers. Events in the Marianas have brought down his cabinet. General Umezu will become the New Army Chief of Staff. This is the first change in cabinet by the Japanese since 1941.

U.S.A.: Destroyer escort USS Ulvert M Moore commissioned.