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August 31st, 1939 (THURSDAY)

The Royal Navy is mobilised and put on war readiness. The British Army and Airforce reserves are also called up. (Alex Gordon)

BELGIUM: A railway bridge over the River Meuse near Liège in Belgium which had been prepared for demolition in the event of war, is struck by lightning just as the Köln express and a local train are crossing. The lightning ignites the demolition charges and destroys the bridge, both loco crews and 6 soldiers travelling as passengers are killed; two other bridges nearby are also brought down. (Alex Gordon)

GERMANY:
Göring  reads Hitler's new demands to Dahlerus who telephones Ogilvie-Forbes at the British Embassy. Ambassador Henderson passes the information to Josef Lipski, the Polish Ambassador and breakfasts with Ulrich von Hassell, an ex-diplomat and now a prominent anti-Nazi, before seeing Attolico.

Berlin: 0.30 a.m. the Reich Chancellery issues the code word to carry out "case white", the attack against Poland.

Berlin: 6.30 a.m. Captain Hauser, Cavalry, aide to General Halder, Chief of the Army General Staff, transmits orders from the Reich Chancellery: Y-day will be September 1; H-hour, 0445. Germany has now mobilised 2,600,000 men (including 155,000 militarised labourers working on the West Wall fortifications). Just over 1,000,000 men in 34 divisions (mostly reserve formations) are deployed in the west, more than 50 divisions with 1,500,000 men (including 6 Panzer divisions) are poised against Poland.

Berlin: 12.30 p.m. Hitler orders the SS as agents-provocateurs to attack a German radio transmitter near the Polish border, and issues 'Directive No 1 for the Conduct of War.'

6.15 p.m. Lipski seeks out Ribbentrop under orders from Warsaw which in turn is under pressure from London. Lipski says his government is favourably considering the British proposal for direct negotiations, but that he himself has no authority to negotiate. Ribbentrop dismisses him; back at the embassy, Lipski finds his communications to Warsaw have been cut. 
SS Sturmbannführer Alfred Helmut Naujocks receives the code words 'Grandmama dead', thus ending his 14 day wait at the German radio station at Gleiwitz. He and Gestapo head Heinrich Mueller are to carry out the mock attack. The canned goods are ready; a dozen 'condemned criminals' dressed in Polish military uniform are administered with fatal injections and then shot.

At 9 p.m. all radio stations in Germany interrupt their schedules to broadcast Hitler's 16 point plan for Poland.

Danzig:
Large crowds gather to admire and gawk at the pre-Dreadnought battleship Schleswig-Holstein in port for a visit.


POLAND:
Three Polish destroyers stand out of the narrow straits between the Baltic and the North Sea and shape course towards the British Isles.

MAP

U.S.S.R.:
Khalkin-Gol: Japanese are cleared from the Remizov Heights after tank forces cross the Khailastyn-Gol which has had the riverbed strengthened at night by Soviet engineers. Thus all Japanese have been cleared from the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic.
By the end of the campaign
Soviet losses: 10000 killed and wounded.
Japanese losses: 52000 to 55000 killed and wounded.

The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union ratifies the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact.  

ITALY:
Rome 11.00 a.m. Palazzo Venezia. Ciano and Mussolini agree "Italy can intervene with Hitler only if [Mussolini] brings a fat prize: Danzig." 
Ciano tells this to Halifax.

8.20 p.m. Ciano is informed by the telephone central office that London has cut its communications with Italy.

CANADA: RCN destroyers HMCS Fraser and HMCS St. Laurent leave Vancouver, British Columbia, for Halifax, Nova Scotia, to take up war stations in the North Atlantic Ocean. 

U.S.A.:
New York 1.00 p.m. The 7th Cavalry Brigade, Mechanised - the only armoured unit of the United States Army - parades in through the city streets to a camp site in the "World of Tomorrow" - the New York World's Fair. Its 110 tanks and armoured cars are virtually the entire armoured might of the United States Army.

Wall Street had seen rosier days than the summer of 1939. The markets are still struggling to shrug off the effects of the Depression, and the financial community is still adjusting to the more closely monitored world of post-crash trading. On this day, the rule book threatened to grow thicker, as the Public Examining Board, which had been formed to "study customer protection," released a set of solutions to this problem. The Board's fourteen recommendations ranged from fuller disclosure of brokerage firms' financials to beefing up the minimum capital requirements for commodity accounts. 

That I have seen colour, smelled dawn, heard music, tasted
wine,
Touched bodies-and learned that none, not one, of these things
was mine,
But all of them precious lendings from Thee, and all therefore
divine:
I thank Thee, Lord.

That I have misused and squandered this Thy trust, have taken
Where I should wholly give, have let my mind be shaken
By anger, sorrow, hatred, fear, have believed myself forsaken:
Pardon me, Lord.

For laughter and courage, for beauty and kindness, for joy,
for the boon of friends,
For the power of thought, for silence, for all the wealth which Thy
bounty spends,
For the love in my heart, for the slow sure knowledge that Truth
not ends--
For the knowledge of Thee in all men and me, in all that be,
I thank Thee, Lord


Maurice Brown, 'Prayer Before Battle' (August 31st, 1939)

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August 31st, 1940 (SATURDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM:
RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group (Whitley). Bombing - oil plant at Wesseling.
10 Sqn. Six aircraft. All bombed primary.

Battle of Britain:
RAF Fighter Command: Very heavy bombing of airfields (Detling, Eastchurch, Croydon and sector stations at Biggin Hill, Hornchurch (twice) and Debden). Some close due to unserviceability. Radar stations also attacked. 
At night Merseyside is heavily attacked as well as the Midlands.

Vital airfields in the south-east including Biggin Hill, Lympne, Manston and Hawkinge, are bombed out of action. Fighter Command loses 39 planes, its greatest daily loss so far.
London: Berlin and London came under attack last night. One the RAF bomber pilots reported: "When we arrived we found the target well on fire. We could see it when we were 25 minutes flying time away. We put our stick of bombs down just to the left of this big fire. Then four more fires started. Altogether we were cruising around over Berlin for about half an hour.

Losses: Luftwaffe, 41; RAF 39.

An Anglo-Free French task force under Admiral Cunningham and General DeGaulle departs Liverpool for Dakar, French West Africa.

RN codes are changed and for the first time operational signals are secure from German interception and decoding. It will be three years before the convoy codes are made safe from the German B-Service.

NORTH SEA:
Destroyers sail to lay mines off the Dutch coast. The minelayers were from the 20th Destroyer Flotilla consisting of the destroyers HMS Express, HMS Esk, HMS Icarus, HMS Intrepid and HMS Ivanhoe sailed from Immingham on a minelaying mission off the Dutch coast. The minelayers were escorted by the 5th Destroyer Flotilla consisted of the destroyers HMS Kelvin, HMS Jupiter and HMS Vortigern. Aerial reconnaissance detected a German force and the ships of the 20th and 5th DF were ordered to intercept, believing wrongly that the German ships were part of an invasion force. HMS Express struck a mine and was badly damaged, HMS Esk went to her assistance and hit mine and sank immediately, HMS Ivanhoe also went to her assistance and hit a mine and was badly damaged, so much so she had to be sunk by HMS Kelvin. HMS Express was towed back to hull and took 13 months to repair.
 

The French colonies of French Equatorial Africa, Cameroon, and Tahiti join with Free France.

GERMANY:
Berlin: Brushing aside the misgivings of his generals and admirals, Hitler has given orders for Operation Sealion, the invasion of England, to go ahead. Göring  has promised to destroy the fighter defences in the south of England in four days and the rest of the RAF in two or three weeks. So the Fuhrer says that he will decide on the invasion date in the next fortnight.
The transfer of shipping to the Channel ports is beginning, and plans for a feint attack against the east coast of Britain have been made. But Hitler has still not resolved a bitter dispute between the army and navy over the deployment of the invasion force.
The army has planned a landing on a 200-mile front from Ramsgate to Lyme Regis, throwing into action 1,722 barges, 1,161 motor boats, 470 tugs and 155 transports. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder says that it is quite impossible for his navy to protect such a vast and widely dispersed force. He has told Hitler that the navy would risk having all its ships sunk by the British.
Raeder, who was made a Grand Admiral by Hitler on 1 April 1939, says that the army should concentrate on a narrow front between Folkestone and Eastbourne, "Complete suicide," General Halder, the chief of staff, responded furiously. The British would hit them with overwhelming force. "I might just as well put the troops through a sausage machine."
During a strategy meeting at Hitler's Obersalzburg retreat, Hitler asked Raeder to give his opinion. "All things considered," Raeder said, "the best time for the operation would be May 1941." This certainly was not the answer the Fuhrer wanted. By next year the British would have had even longer to prepare plans to counter an invasion, the British Army would have recovered from its Dunkirk defeat, and the German Kriegsmarine would still not be able to challenge the Royal Navy.

U-95 commissioned.

U.S.S.R.:
Moscow: Russia protests that it was not consulted on the award of Transylvania, territory it has long coveted, to Hungary.

CANADA: Corvette HMCS Prescott laid down.

Corvette HMCS Napanee launched.

U.S.A.: The US calls 60,000 National Guardsmen into active service. The first units will be inducted into Federal service on 16 September.

In the US, Pennsylvania-Central Airlines DC-3-313, msn 2188, registered NC21789, crashes near Lovettsville, Virginia during an electrical storm. All 23 people aboard the DC-3 are killed. U.S. Senator Ernest Lundeen of Minnesota was one of the passengers. The aircraft, Flight 19 from Washington, DC to Detroit, Michigan, was flying through a thunderstorm in turbulence when the it nosed over and plunged to earth. The cause of the accident was listed as disabling of the pilots by a severe lightning discharge in the immediate neighborhood of the airplane, with resulting loss of control.

MERCHANT SHIPPING WAR: Losses 45 ships of 163,000 tons.

ATLANTIC OCEAN:
BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC: Long range Focke Wulf Kondors start patrols off the coast of Ireland from a base near Bordeaux. As well as spotting for U-boats they attack and sink many ships, and continue to be a major threat until the introduction of ship-borne aircraft in late 1941 starts to counteract them.
RN codes are changed and for the first time operational signals are secure from German interception and decoding. It will be three years before the convoy codes are made safe from the German B-Service.
Losses (Atlantic): 39 ships of 190,000 tons, 2 armed merchant cruisers and 1 sloop.
1 U-boat

U-60 damaged SS Volendham in Convoy OB-205.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA:
Merchant shipping war: Losses - 21 ship of 1,000 tons.

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August 31st, 1941 (SUNDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Grave doubts about Bomber Command's claims of damage done to enemy targets are prompted by a new analysis of photographs of the targets. This is made by D.M.D. Butt, a civil servant member of the war cabinet secretariat.

Butt examined 633 flash photographs taken from aircraft at the time of bomb release. On 100 separate raids against 28 targets on 48 nights during June and July. He allowed as a hit any bomb falling within five miles of the target area: a zone of 75 square miles. He found that on average only one bomber in three got hits within the zone. In the industrial Rühr, the ratio lengthened to one in ten. Aided by a full moon, two out of five scored, but so did the enemy, for the better light aided night fighters. Since these figures excluded aircraft which did not find or attack the target area (and many did not), the proportion of hits to total sorties was well under one in three. The prime minister has said that the report demands urgent attention. Air Vice Marshal Robert Saundby, a senior air staff officer, accepted the report, but said that Butt's figures "might be wide of the mark."

FINLAND: After discussing with Marshal Mannerheim and Lt. Gen. Walden (the Minister of War) about the German request that Finland take part in the capture of Leningrad, President Ryti gives his permission that the Finnish troops can cross the pre-1939 border in Karelian Isthmus with few kilometres. The condition is that the Germans deliver 25 000 tons of rye. Mannerheim informs General Erfurth, the OKW representative, the next day.

The Finns learning of the withdrawal of eight Russian divisions from the Karelian Isthmus to bolster the defences of Leningrad, have made a rapid advance to the village of Kivennapa, on the Leningrad to Viipuri road.

They have thus recovered almost all the territory that they lost to the Russians in the "Winter War" last year. The Russians have abandoned, or been forced out of their fortifications based on the former Finnish defences of the Mannerheim Line, and have taken up new positions in the Stalin Line across the isthmus north of Leningrad.

SWITZERLAND: Cheese rationing is introduced. (More holes).(William Jay Stone from http://www.geschichte-schweiz.ch/en/worldwar2.html)

U.S.S.R.: Ukraine: German forces starting to run short of manpower and supplies, face a renewed Red Army offensive along the Dnepr river.

Leningrad: Field Marshal von Leeb is tightening his grip on Leningrad. The Red Army has abandoned Novgorod, 100 miles south of the city after a savage week-long battle, and tonight Moscow Radio admits "the enemy is at the approaches of Leningrad." In the city posters proclaim: "The enemy is at the gates."

But the autumn rains have started early turning the battlefield into a quagmire, halting the Panzers and grounding the Luftwaffe. The Russians are using the respite to turn the city into a fortress. Shop windows are full of sandbags, militia units march through the streets and every gate is guarded.

Everyone is expected to fight. Andrei Zhdanov, the city's Communist Party secretary, says: "We must dig fascism a grave in front of Leningrad."

Large fires started in the city by General Wolfram von Richthofen's Fliegerkorps VIII are being fought by action groups organized by Zhdanov.

Special teams have also been organised to safeguard Leningrad's treasures. Fire units are based on the city's beautiful Tsarist palaces and churches, now kept as museums, ready to deal with incendiary bombs. The priceless painting of the Hermitage are already safe. An armoured train took 500,000 of the finest works to safety as the threat to the city developed.

Today, 70 days after the outbreak of war on the Eastern Front, the first Allied convoy, code named Dervish, arrives in Archangel, USSR. Convoys continued until the end of the war and succeeded in delivering almost a quarter of all war material received by the Soviet Union during the War.

NEWFOUNDLAND: Corvette HMCS Prescott arrives St John's to join NEF

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Admiral Hart has advised British Vice-Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton, Commander of the RN's East Asia Squadron, that Washington was refusing to endorse proposed British plans for Allied cooperation should war come. (Marc Small)

British Air Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, commander of the garrison in Malaya and Singapore, has made two visits this month to Manila to confer with Hart and MacArthur. (Marc Small)

U.S.A.:The radio show "The Great Gildersleeve" debuts on the NBC Red Network on Sundays at 1830 hours Eastern Time. The show is a spin off of the "Fibber McGee and Molly" show and stars Harold Peary as Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, a windbag, a most eligible bachelor, a bumbling-but-enthusiastic ladies' man and the water commissioner of the town of Summerfield.

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August 31st, 1942 (MONDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: From now onwards all furniture manufactured must conform to the "Utility" specification covering 22 articles, most of them in three alternative designs. The prices are also fixed. A double bed with rails at head and foot costs £3/10/9 in oak and £4/11/- in mahogany.

There are three type of easy chair, an adjustable fireside chair (£2/10/6), an open-arm chair with upholstered seat (£3/12/-) and a spring-upholstered "easy" chair (£6/10/-). A convertible bed-chair is available at £3/19/6, but there are no three-piece suites. Leading designers have chosen the models. Permits to buy Utility furniture will be issued to those who can show that they really need them. People who have lost their furniture in air raids or who are setting up home on marriage get priority.

Wyton, Huntingdonshire: A perilous form of airmanship - target designating - has been introduced into Bomber Command this month against the wishes of its boss, Arthur Harris. RAF aircrew known as "pathfinders" will fly ahead of the main force and often nearer to the ground to mark the target with parachute flares. Harris has excluded any special training for these crews while increasing their number of continuous operations from the normal 30 to 50. He told the pathfinder leader, Air Vice-Marshal Donald Bennett: "Their chances of survival are small."

USAAF OPERATIONS IN THE EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (Twelfth Air Force): HQ XII Bomber Command arrives at Daws Hill Lodge, High Wycombe, England, and is assigned to HQ Twelfth AF. This unit will support the Allied invasion of North-western Africa in November.

Minesweeper HMS Arcturus launched.

Destroyer HMS Porcupine commissioned.

BELGIUM: The Communist spy network Red Orchestra is broken up by the Germans in Brussels.

EUROPE: An estimated 400,000 Jews have been murdered in occupied Europe this month.

GERMANY: Despite the Red Cross Convention of 1929, which lays down standards of treatment for PoWs, the Nazis are making up the rules as they go along. While most British prisoners in Germany - particularly officers who are confined to Oflags - enjoy adequate food and clothing, and even find time to organize  entertainments, their Soviet counterparts are brutally exploited as forced labourers and murdered by the thousand. The number of British escapes is high, and this fact also deters their captors from putting them to work outside the camps.

U.S.S.R.: Although Soviet resistance along the Terek River has stiffened considerably, the German Army Group A secures a foothold across it in the Mozdok area.

German units are within 16 miles of Stalingrad.

EGYPT: Rommel's final offensive began last night. He intends to clear the British from Egypt. The British preparations are extensive; formations have been reconstituted; intelligence has been improved; minefields laid effectively. The battle occurs around Alam Nayil, Qaret el Himeimat and Alam Halfa. At 0800 hours this morning Rommel questions calling off the attack. Between fierce ground fighting, artillery bombardments and air strikes the British hold off the Axis forces.

Alam el Halfa: Rommel's tanks are tonight bogged down in the soft sands to the south of Alam el Halfa ridge, ten miles south of El Alamein. The Afrika Korps had attacked yesterday, hoping to outflank the British Eighth Army, but progress was slowed by newly-laid Allied minefields. This allowed the 8th and 22nd Armoured Brigades to pound the German forces who were also attacked from the air.

Without the benefit of surprise, Rommel switched the direction of his attack towards the Alam Halfa ridge, only to encounter not only the sticky sand but also reinforced defences from which the British could pound the German tanks. Rommel's good fortune seems to be running out. He is a sick man, ill with jaundice. One of his generals has been killed; his corps commander Major-General Walther Nehring, is wounded. The Afrika Korps is also desperately short of fuel, despite the assurance of a petrol airlift by the C-in-C, Field Marshal Kesselring.

Ironically, the British plan to defend the El Alamein position was left for Generals Alexander and Montgomery by their predecessors. Woken to be told about his army's success this morning Monty said: "Excellent - couldn't be better." And went back to sleep.

US Middle East Air Force P-40s escort RAF bombers during a raid on Maryut, Egypt. B-25 Mitchells, in conjunction with RAF Bostons, attack troop concentrations and military vehicles as the battle of Alam-el-Halfa begins along the El Alamein line.

LIBYA: US Middle East Air Force B-25 Mitchells attack aircraft on a landing ground, and B-24 Liberators raid the harbour at Tobruk.

INDIA: Sloop HMIS Hind laid down.

BURMA: China Air Task Force B-25 Mitchells bomb Myitkyina for the second consecutive day.

EAST CHINA SEA: USN submarine USS Growler (SS-215) sinks a Japanese merchant cargo ship in position 25.43N, 122.38E.

USS Silversides (SS-236), on its second war patrol, sinks a 300 ton trawler by gunfire at 33-51N, 149.39E. (Skip Guidry)

NEW GUINEA: Japanese Army General HYAKUTAKE Seikichi, Commander of the 17th Army with HQ at Rabaul on New Britain Island, Bismarck Archipelago, decides to evacuate the troops that were landed at Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea.  The evacuation is complete on 7 September. He thinks he must concentrate on the fighting on Guadalcanal. (John Nicholas)

Australian troops counterattack at Milne Bay, relying on machine guns and booby traps to defeat the Japanese. The Australian militiamen and the Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces are both ground down, but the Australians gain ascendancy. 

A units of American engineers helped the Australians and one engineer was killed. (Nathan Doyel)

In the air, USAAF P-40s of the Allied Air Forces bomb landing barges and strafe gun positions in Milne Bay area to assist the Australian ground forces in their offensive.

USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses of the Allied Air Forces attack an ammunition dump at Buna; B-26 Marauders and A-20 Havocs attack Lae Aerodrome, and P-400 Airacobras strafe Japanese at Wairopi. 

SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS: At 7:48 am a torpedo from Japanese Type-B1 fleet submarine I-26, LCdr. M. Yokota, CO, strikes USS Saratoga (CV-3) with one torpedo (out of six launched). The torpedo slams into the blister on her starboard side and flooded one fire room, but the impact caused short circuits which damaged Saratoga's turbo-electric propulsion system and left her dead in the water.

The heavy cruiser USS Minneapolis (CA-36) took the carrier under tow while she flew her aircraft off to shore bases. By early afternoon, Saratoga's engineers had improvised a circuit out of the burned wreckage of her main control board and had given her a speed of 10 knots. After repairs at Tongatabu in the Tonga Islands from 6 to 12 September, USS Saratoga arrived at Pearl Harbor on 21 September for permanent repairs.)

Among the 12 men injured is Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher. He also heads stateside. This marks the end of the fighting commands for Admiral Fletcher. He has commanded the US carriers since early in 1942. His actions since August 7, have sealed his fate. The air groups from Saratoga fly to Espiritu Santo and on to Henderson Field to augment the Cactus Airforce. (Jack McKillop and John Nicholas)

SOLOMON ISLANDS: The 3rd Marine defence Battalion establishes an air-search radar station using the SCR-268 radar system near Henderson Field. During the night, the "Tokyo Express" lands 1,000 IJA troops (the Kawaguchi Detachment) on Guadalcanal. The Japanese Army has now assigned Guadalcanal a higher priority than Papua, New Guinea.
Admiral Tanaka relinquishes command of Guadalcanal resupply efforts for the Japanese to Admiral Hashimoto. Richard Frank says: "But unlike Fletcher, this marked an interruption, not an end, to Tanaka's tenure."
General Kawaguchi lands, from DD Umikaze, with 1200 additional troops loaded on 7 DDs, of the 4th Infantry Regiment, at Taivu Point (east of the Lunga perimeter) on Guadalcanal. The 124th Infantry, under Col. Oka, will follow by barge and land west of the Lunga perimeter. General Kawaguchi now commands all of the Japanese troops on Guadalcanal.
IJA General Hyakutake, 17th Army at Rabaul, decides to evacuate the troops that were landed at Milne Bay, New Guinea. The evacuation is complete on September 7. He thinks he must concentrate on the fighting on Guadalcanal.

TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: A PBY-5A Catalina of USN Patrol Squadron Forty Two (VP-42) based at NAS Kodiak, Territory of Alaska, and a PBY of VP-43 based on Nazan Bay, Atka Island, catch the Japanese submarine HIJMS RO-61 on the surface 5 miles (8 kilometres) north of Cape Shaw, Atka Island. The crew of the VP-42 PBY-5A depth charge the sub and heavily damage it. At 1915 hours local, the sub is located by the destroyer USS Reid (DD-369) which sinks it with gunfire in position 52.36N, 173.57W. Five survivors are rescued from the frigid waters.
     In the air, of 2 USAAF 11th Air Force B-24 Liberators flying weather, reconnaissance and patrol missions over Tanaga Island, 1 returns due to weather.

CANADA: Corvette HMCS Lunenburg arrived Sydney, Nova Scotia to join Gulf Escort Force.

U.S.A.: Claude Wickard, US Agriculture Secretary, warns of possible meat rationing.

Camp Claiborne, Louisiana:  The first ten detachments of the of the Army Engineer Fire Fighting service are activated. (Jean Beach)

Light fleet carrier USS Bataan laid down.

Destroyer USS Parker commissioned.

Destroyer USS Walker laid down.

Destroyer USS Sproston launched.

ATLANTIC OCEAN:

U-609 sank SS Bronxville and SS Capira in Convoy SC-97.

U-516 sank SS Jack Carnes.

U-66 sank SS Winamac.

SS Sande sunk by unknown causes.

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August 31st, 1943 (TUESDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: The US Eighth Air Force's VIII Air Support Command and VIII Bomber Command both fly missions against targets in France.

- The VIII Air Support Command flies Missions 41 and 42: 104 B-26B Marauders bomb the Rouen and Mazingarbe power stations; Poix/Nord and Lille/Nord Airfields; and the Hesdin fuel dump; 1 B-26 is lost.

- The VIII Bomber Command flies Mission 88 against two aviation locations. 
(1) 105 B-17 Flying Fortresses attack Glisy Airfield at Amiens at 1807-1824 hours; they claim 5-1-3 Luftwaffe aircraft; 3 B-17's are lost. 
(2) 149 B-17's are dispatched to the aircraft plant at Meulan; the plant is cloud covered and 1 B-17 hits a railway northeast of Rouen. These missions are escorted by 160 P-47 Thunderbolts which claim 2-1-1 Luftwaffe aircraft; 2 P-47's are lost.

The Battle of Berlin continues: RAF Bomber Command dispatches 613 aircraft: 331 Lancasters, 176 Halifaxes, 106 Stirlings with nine Oboe Mosquitoes as route markers. Abortive sorties: 86, 14.0%. Many of the crews were tired, having had only a few hours sleep since the raid of the previous night. The force was easily tracked on its approach and at least 18 bombers were shot down by fighters.

Twenty-two aircraft, most Stirlings and Halifaxes were shot down in the target area and during the initial 70 miles of the journey back to England. A total of 377 bombing photographs were examined. Only ten of the photos showed aircraft bombing in the centre of Berlin. 

Most bombs fell in a long spread 30 miles south of Berlin. Most bombs were scattered in a wide area of the south. Sixty-eight people were killed in Berlin and 19 in the countryside.

A total of 47 aircraft, 7.7% of total were missing: 10 Lancasters, 3.0%; 20 Halifaxes, 11.4%; 17 Stirlings, 16.0%. (Jay Stone)

Frigate HMS Parret commissioned.

Submarine HMS Terrapin launched.

Frigate HMCS Loch Alvie (ex HMS Loch Alvie) laid down.

Minesweeper HMS Antares commissioned.

Submarine HMS Storm commissioned. Frigate HMS Duff commissioned.

THE NETHERLANDS: Four RAF Bomber Command aircraft bomb Texel during the night of 31 August/1 September. 

FRANCE: The Japanese submarine I-8 reaches Brest from Singapore.

BALTIC SEA: Soviet motor torpedo boat TK 94 sinks Finnish minelayer Riilahti. 24 men, including commander, Knight of the Mannerheim Cross, Lt.-Cdr Osmo Kivilinna are lost.

U.S.S.R.: The Red Army advances south from Sevsk and captures Glukhov and Rylask.
Soviet submarine "Sch-130" of the Pacific Fleet is lost when it collides with "Shc-128" at America Gulf. (Later raised and went into service.) (Sergey Anisimov) (69)

ITALY:

- US Ninth Air Force B-24s visually bomb the marshalling yard at Pescara and claim 9 enemy fighters destroyed.

- About 150 Northwest African Strategic Air Force B-17s blast the Pisa marshalling yard, doing a large amount of damage.

- Northwest African Tactical Air Force medium and light bombers bomb the Cosenza marshalling yard and road-railway junction in Cantanzaro during the morning, and in the afternoon bomb the area around Cosenza when clouds prevent hitting specific targets; and fighter-bombers hit Sapri railroad and seaplane base; and during the night light bombers hit the bivouac areas southeast of Reggio di Calabria.

During the night of 31 August/1 September, 46 RAF Liberators of No. 205 (Heavy Bomber) Group bomb the marshalling yard at Salerno with the loss of one aircraft. 

SICILY: Negotiations for Italy's surrender resume near Syracuse, with General Giuseppe Castellano of the Italian General Staff pleading with the Allies to occupy Rome and protect King Victor Emmanuel and the Badoglio government. U. S. General Walter Bedell Smith insists on unconditional surrender, with the armistice to be announced as a large Allied army lands in Italy. Smith refuses to tell Castellano where the Allies will come ashore or how large the army will be. Disappointed by the unconditional surrender demand and fearful of the large numbers flooding into Italy, Castellano returns to Rome to confer with Italy's new head of state, Marshal Pietro Badoglio.

FRENCH INDOCHINA: 7 US Fourteenth Air Force B-24s bomb Gia Lam Airfield; and 22 P-40s and 2 P-38 Lightnings bomb a dike near Co Bi barracks.

CHINA: Six USAAF Fourteenth Air Force B-25's hit Ichang Airfield while 3 others attack an oil storage area to the east; P-40's also hit the oil stores. Three P-40's sink a small Japanese coastal vessel off Stonecutter's Island near Hong Kong; and 4 P-38's dive-bomb Yoyang railroad yards and Sinti warehouses; a P-38 is shot down by ground fire.

NEW GUINEA: In Northeast New Guinea, nine USAAF Fifth Air Force A-20 Havocs fly a low-level strafing mission against Malahang Aerodrome located 2 miles (3.2 kilometres) east of Lae. 

EAST INDIES: In the air in the Netherlands East Indies, (1) USN PBY Catalinas sink small Japanese cargo vessels off Ceram; (2) RAAF Mitchells sink a small Japanese cargo vessel off north coast of Alor Island; and (3) U.S. aircraft sink a guardboat off Halmahera Island. 

BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: USAAF OPERATIONS IN THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (Fifth Air Force): Bombers fly scattered strikes against shipping and shore targets in the Saint George Channel between New Ireland and New Britain Islands and in the Netherlands East Indies.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: US Thirteenth Air Force P-40s, in a running battle over Vella Lavella Island, claim 5 IJN aircraft shot down at 0910 hours; other P-40s strafe barges in Timbala Bay on Vella Lavella Island. 22 B-25s and 50 USMC airplanes bomb gun positions and the radio station at Vila on Kolombangara Island.

PACIFIC OCEAN: USN submarine USS Seawolf (SS-197) sinks a Japanese army cargo ship and a merchant cargo ship northwest of Okinawa in position 28.30N, 123.05E.

 

NORTH PACIFIC: The USN's Task Force 15, consisting of the aircraft carriers USS Essex (CV-9) with Carrier Air Group Nine (CVG-9), USS Independence (CVL-22) with Light Carrier Air Group Twenty Two (CVLG-22), and USS Yorktown (CV-10) with CVG-5 with a battleship, 2 light cruisers and 11 destroyers, attack Marcus Island located about 725 miles (1,167 km) northwest of Wake Island. A total of 275 sorties are flown against the Japanese and several IJN "Betty" bombers (Mitsubishi G4M, Navy Type 1 Attack Bombers) are destroyed and ground facilities are heavily damaged.

This strike marks the combat debut of the Grumman F6F Hellcat. The fighting squadrons on all three aircraft carriers are equipped with F6F-3s, i.e., Fighting Squadron Five (VF-5) in USS Yorktown, VF-9 in USS Essex and detachments of VF-6 and VF-22 in USS Independence. The Hellcats destroy four aircraft on the ground and later in the day, an F6F pilot shoots down a Japanese aircraft. (Gene Hanson, Jack McKillop and John Nicholas)

CANADA: Tug HMCS Dispatch assigned to Sydney, Nova Scotia.

HMC ML 109 commissioned.

U.S.A.: Destroyer escorts USS Keppler, Lloyd Thomas, Milton Lewis, Strickland, Sutton laid down. Submarines USS Trumpetfish and Tusk laid down.

Destroyer escort USS Kretchmer launched.

Destroyer escorts USS Forster, John J Van Buren, Stockdale, Cockrill, Edward H Allen and Tweedy laid down.

Destroyer escorts USS Swasey, Amesbury and Harmon commissioned.

Destroyer escorts USS Jordan and Thomason launched.

Destroyers USS Haggard, Miller and Ingersoll commissioned.

Destroyer escort USS Snowden commissioned.

Minesweeper USS Sage commissioned.

Destroyers USS Colahan and Cowell commissioned.

Destroyer USS Gregory laid down.

Commissioning of USS Harmon, first Navy ship named for an African American sailor.

Light cruiser USS Biloxi commissioned.

Escort carrier USS Corregidor commissioned.

Light fleet carrier USS Langley commissioned.

Submarine USS Redfin commissioned.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-380 damaged SS Pierre Soulé. An attack by an aircraft killed 2 and wounded 3 on U-406.

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August 31st, 1944 (THURSDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: The US Eighth Air Force in England flies Mission 594: 6 B-17s drop leaflets in France during the night. During the night of 31 August/1 September, 37 B-24s and C-47 Skytrains fly CARPETBAGGER missions during the night.

London: Eisenhower called war correspondents to his London HQ today to praise Montgomery as his "great and personal friend ... and one of the great soldiers of this or any other war". The supreme commander also outlined the next stage of the Allied drive into Germany, which is flatly opposed to the plan Montgomery has been proposing.

Eisenhower told correspondents that the Allies will advance into Germany in three main columns. Montgomery's forces will strike at the Germans on the left, Bradley's Americans will drive forward in the centre, and the Mediterranean forces coming up from the south will move in on the right with Patton's Third Army. This is the "broad front" approach backed by Eisenhower and opposed bhy Montgomery, who favours a single concentrated thrust on the left, across northern France and Belgium.

Eisenhower has not got enough fuel to allow Montgomery in the north and Patton in the south to advance simultaneously. He dare not hold back Patton, who is immensely popular back home in the US; but he cannot be seen to be rebuffing Monty. So he will let Patton make his advance, and move the US First Army north to stand by Monty's 21st Army Group. Montgomery's immediate task, however, is not to attack the Ruhr, but to capture Antwerp. The Allies' nearest ports are in Normandy. Allied bombs have destroyed the railways. The US "Red Ball Route", a system of one-way military roads through France solely for the use of supply trucks shuttling between the Normandy beaches and the front, is badly overstretched. Antwerp must be taken if the Allies are to be kept supplied this winter.

Frigates HMS Start Bay and Tremadoc Bay laid down.

Submarine HMS Anchorite launched.

Frigate HMS Montserrat commissioned.

Minesweeper HMS Courier commissioned.

ÉIRE: A RN Fairey Swordfish crashes at Gormanstown Camp, the Irish Army Air Corps base in County Meath.

FRANCE: In northern France, the Canadian 4th Armoured Division drives quickly to Forges and Buchy. The British 11th Armoured Division captues Amiens and seizes the bridge across the Somme River intact.  The U.S. XIX Corps captures Chantilly, Creil, Pont Ste Maxence, Verberie and Compiegne. Operations against Brest are temporarily suspended by the U.S. VIII Corps while elements of the U.S. XX Corps establishes across the Meuse at Verdun. In the air, 99 USAAF Ninth Air Force B-26 Marauders and A-20 Havocs bomb an ammunition dump at Foret d'Arques and gun positions at Ile de Cezembre; fighters fly armed reconnaissance in the Amiens, Saint-Quentin, Albert, and Arras areas, ground forces cover for 3 armored divisions, battleship cover, and also dive-bomb Ile de Cezembre. 

     In southern France, U.S. troops find Briancon free of Germans and the VI Corps speeds up the Rhone Valley toward Lyon. In the air, USAAF Twelfth Air Force fighter-bombers attack communications targets. 

In northern FRANCE, 99 US Ninth Air Force B-26s and A-20 Havocs bomb an ammunition dump at Foret d'Arques and gun positions at Ile de Cezembre; fighters fly armed reconnaissance in the Amiens, Saint-Quentin, Albert, and Arras areas, ground forces cover for 3 armored divisions, battleship cover, and also dive-bomb Ile de Cezembre.

34 8th US Air Force B-17s visually bomb the supply depot at Bricy Airfield in Orleans.

As Allied and Resistance force take control of all the bridges over the Somme, General Eberbach, the commander of the 5th Panzer Army, is taken prisoner in his pyjamas.

The US Twelfth Air Force flies missions in Italy and southeastern France. 

GERMANY:

U-1109 and U-2506 commissioned.

U-2343 and U-2521 laid down.

U-2335 launched.

POLAND: 67,000 Jews have been deported from the Lodz ghetto to the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau this month.

ITALY: The attack of the British 8th Army against the Gothic Line continues. There are some successes. 

West of the 8th Army the US VI Corps follows up on a German withdrawal along the Arno River in Italy. This enables the 442nd RCT minus the 100th Infantry Battalion to reach the Arno. The 100th Infantry Battalion then spearheads the crossing of the Arno and the capture of Pisa for the IVth Corps.

B-25s and B-26s attack railroad bridges in the Po Valley, cutting the bridge at Mira; and A-20s attack targets of opportunity in the Po Valley during the night of 30/31 August and along with fighter-bombers hit communications north of the Arno River. Other fighter-bombers attack communications targets in France as the US Seventh Army pushes toward Lyon.

Lt. Gerard Ross Norton (b.1915), attached Hampshire Regt., advancing alone under heavy fire, silenced three machine-gun posts and 15 riflemen. (Victoria Cross)

HUNGARY: Ninety seven P-51 Mustangs of the USAAF Fifteenth Air Force in Italy strafe airfields at Oradea and Kecskemet. 

ROMANIA: Bucharest falls to the Russian Second Ukraine Front. The Soviet tanks receive a jubilant welcome. The Soviets immediately begin the round-up of members of the 'Fascist' Antonescu government.

45 US Fifteenth Air Force P-51s strafe the airfield at Reghin. Fighters claim a record number of 150+ aircraft destroyed on the ground; and starting Operation REUNION (the evacuation of US airmen interned in Romania), 36 B-17s evacuate more than 700 of the 1,100 US airmen from Bucharest (which falls to the Soviet Army today) to Bari, Italy. This operation is the brainchild of Rumanian airmen and civilians who concentrate the Americans at a Rumanian Air Force Base while contacting HQ Fifteenth Air Force in Italy by flying a high-ranking USAAF POW to Italy in a Rumanian Air Force Bf-109. Everyone involved realizes that the operation must be kept secret from both the Germans and the Soviets.

GREECE: Dimitry Statharos and about 20-30 men of ELAS ambush a German Truck column in Stavros, Veria (Greece). Dimitry and one other man are positioned in the  church tower and armed with captured MP-40's. The other men come out of alleys and side roads, attacking with rifles and grenades they take the convoy by surprise. Most of the Germans are killed, a few are taken prisoner and the trucks are destroyed.

Another attack is recorded for the same day on a truck convoy in Verria , there is a possibility that this attack is the same as the one mentioned above. The key difference is that this possible second attack was on a truck convoy which carried a group of Greek members of Poulos-Verband, the Greek anti-communist volunteer battalion, which was in the process of relocating its Headquarters to Krya Vrisi just south east of Thessaloniki due to an increasing guerrilla presence in Verria. (Steven Statharos)

ALGERIA: Algiers: The French provisional government moves to Paris.

USAAF OPERATIONS IN THE CHINA-BURMA-INDIA THEATER OF OPERATIONS

BURMA: TENTH AIR FORCE: 6 B-25 Mitchells bomb targets of opportunity at Katha and 3 hit bridges at Bawgyo and Hsenwi.

CHINA: FOURTEENTH AIR FORCE: 12 B-24 Liberators bomb Takao harbor, damaging the dock area and claiming 2 tankers sunk; 14 B-25s attack Tien Ho, White Cloud, Kai Tek, and Hengyang Airfields; 8 B-25s attack numerous trucks south of Sintsiang and near Sinshih, hit roads south of Nanyo and damage a freighter near Sinshih; and 60+ fighter-bombers attack trucks, barracks, supplies, rivercraft, bridges and troops in or near Sinshih, Changsha, Yangtien, Hengyang, Nanyo, Siangtan, Teian, and Shihhweiyao.

EAST CHINA SEA: USN submarine USS Seawolf (SS-197) sinks a Japanese army cargo ship and a merchant cargo ship about 180 nautical miles (333 kilometers) south-southeast of Shanghai, China, in position 28.30N, 123.05E.

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: USN Submarine USS Redfish (SS-272) lands supplies and evacuates people from Palawan Island. 

NEW GUINEA: In Dutch New Guinea, the operations on Noemfoor and Sansapor are declared at an end. 

BONIN AND VOLCANO ISLANDS: The USN's Task Group 38.4, Under Admiral Davison, consisting of the aircraft carriers USS Enterprise (CV-6) with Carrier Air Group Twenty (CVG-20), USS Franklin (CV-13) with CVG-13 and the light aircraft carrier USS San Jacinto (CVL-30) with Light Carrier Air Group Fifty One (CVLG-51) plus supporting ships, launches aircraft against Chichi Jima in the Bonin Islands and Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands. The strikes are intended to neutralize Japanese installations there and provide a diversion in advance of planned operations in the Palau, Morotai, and Philippine areas. Off Iwo Jima, F6Fs from USS Franklin sink a merchant ship and an auxiliary minesweeper. The strikes are repeated on 1 and 2 September.

MARIANA ISLANDS: (Seventh Air Force): Saipan-based P-47s strafe gun positions at the airfield on Pagan Island. Pagan Islands are bombed by single B-24s.

CAROLINE ISLANDS: One USAAF Seventh Air Fore B-24 Liberators bombs Yap Island. 

PACIFIC OCEAN: U.S. submarines attack a Japanese convoy bound for Manila, Philippine Islands.

In Luzon Strait south of Formosa, USS Barb (SS-220) sinks an auxiliary minesweeper in position 21.21N, 121.11E; and an army cargo ship in position 21.14N, 121.22E.

USS Queenfish (SS-393) sinks an army tanker in position 21.21N, 121.06E. USS Sealion (SS-315) sinks a minelayer in position 21.05N, 121.26E.

In the air,
(1) PBY Catalinas sink small Japanese cargo vessels off Ceram, Netherlands East Indies (NEI);
(2) RAAF Mitchells sink small Japanese cargo vessel off north coast of Alor Island, NEI;
(3) U.S. aircraft sink a guardboat off Halmahera Island, NEI; and
(4) U.S. aircraft sink a merchant cargo ship off Iwo Jima in position 24.46N, 141.19E. 

CANADA:

Frigate HMCS Lasalle arrives Bermuda for workups.

Patrol vessel HMCS San Tomas paid off and returned to owner.

U.S.A.: Submarine USS Surfbird launched.

Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-181 was commissioned. Her first commanding officer was LT K.M. Baker, USCGR. He was succeeded by LTJG L. Treatman, USCGR on 17 September 1945, and he by LT Martin S. Hanson, Jr. USCGR, on 1 November 1945. She was assigned to and operated in the Southwest Pacific area, including Biak.

Anti-Aircraft cruiser USS Flint commissioned.

Destroyer minelayer USS Henry A Wiley commissioned.

 

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August 31st, 1945 (FRIDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Minesweepers HMS Graylag and Harlequin commissioned.

GERMANY: Allied troops arrest Field Marshal von Brauchitsch and von Manstein.

Europe is full of the flotsam of war, millions of people without food, homes or countries, migrating in search of safety. Some are trying to get back to villages from which they were transported thousands of miles. Others are fleeing from countries overrun by conquering armies. 

There are Germans driven out of Poland and Silesia. There are five million Russian prisoners of war and forced labourers making their way home to an uncertain reception. There are eastern Europeans fleeing from the Red Army. There are Jews who, somehow, survived the death camps making their way to ports in the hope of reaching Palestine.

Germans who fled the bombing of their cities are going home to stake their claims in the rubble of their homes. One person in five in the western zone of Germany is a refugee. There are even leftovers from a previous conflict: 200,000 refugees from the Spanish civil war living in southern France.

It is estimated that there are as many as 20 million people on the move in Europe. The care of these "displaced persons" has fallen primarily to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), first set up in 1943 to help refugees from the nations fighting the Axis powers. Financed in the main by the United States, it is trying to bring order to the chaos left behind by the war.

Some, mistrustful of all authority, are making their own way across Europe, begging in a ravaged countryside and risking violence as old scores are settled; retribution is rampant and often brutally indiscriminate. Others have settled into camp life, unwilling to forgo their tents and regular rations. Meagre as they are, these comforts are all-important in a world where a woman can be bought for a bar of soap.

U.S.S.R.: Moscow: The USSR restores diplomatic relations with Finland.

ITALY: HQ US Twelfth Air Force is inactivated.

HONG KONG: The RCN armed merchant cruiser HMCS Prince Robert enters the Crown Colony where her commanding officer represents Canada at the surrender ceremonies of Japanese forces.

JAPAN: In the Kurile Islands, Soviet forces occupy Utruppu Island after fierce fighting with Japanese troops.

Marines of Company "L," Third Battalion, Fourth Marines, land at Tateyama Naval Base, Honshu, on the northeast shore of Sagami Wan, and accept its surrender. They will reconnoitre the beach approaches and cover the landing of Army's 112th Cavalry Regiment.

Meanwhile, the Japanese submarine HIJMS I 401 surrenders to submarine USN submarine USS Segundo (SS-398) at the entrance to Tokyo Bay. 

Tokyo: The greatest and most destructive conflict that the Pacific has known is now ended. Fanatical resistance by the Japanese military had not availed. Japan is to be occupied, disarmed and treated as a potentially dangerous enemy. The victors are making sure that there will be no repetition of the mistakes which in Germany after the First World War allowed a revival of militarism under Hitler. A great victory has been won, but suppressed antagonisms are now emerging among the Allies. China will succeed Japan as the dominant east Asian nation, and the struggle for control is escalating with the USSR backing the Communist Chinese of Mao Tse-tung against Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists. In Korea only the USSR and the US have troops available to disarm the Japanese. By agreement, the Russians will occupy the north and the Americans the south.

In the Dutch East Indies a revolutionary Indonesian nationalist movement is preparing for independence, and British troops could be caught up in the inevitable disorders. And in French Indochina the revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh plans to declare independence.

Japan: Harrowing tales of cruelty, filth and malnutrition are being told by Allied PoWs who have just been released from Japanese camps following the surrender. An official report on the main camp in the Tokyo Bay area states: "There has never been such a hell-hole."

Commodore Joe Boone, a doctor who has been involved in the evacuation of PoWs from the camp and the nearby Shinagawa hospital said: "Our prisoners were ill from having to eat rice and grass. Many of the men had dysentery as a result of the filthy conditions in which they were housed."

Major Maurice Ditton told of his slave labour in Thailand where prisoners were forced to work building the Bangkok to Moulmein railway: "Many men died daily ... The survivors, working in the steaming jungle, became weak. Brutal Korean guards kept the sick working for 18 hours a day."

So far only 1,000 Allied PoWs have been evacuated to freedom. At least another 36,000 are believed to be awaiting liberation from camps across Japan.

Yokohama: General MacArthur today established supreme Allied command in Yokohama, Tokyo's main port, as the first foreigner to take charge of Japan in 1,000 years.

Mac Arthur is working on Japan's formal surrender, which will be signed in two days' time aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. He said "The surrender plan has been going splendidly. There is every indication that the occupation will continue without bloodshed or friction." In Tokyo quiet has returned, although the corpses of 30 civilians who committed hara-kiri after the initial surrender still lie outside the palace. Since the first wave of 7,500 US airborne troops landed three days ago, the US occupation has continued at a rate of 300 troop planes a day. Yokosuka, on Tokyo Bay, has become Pacific Fleet HQ after its surrender by two Japanese admirals to Admiral Halsey. The main landings at Yokohama and on the southern island of Kyushu will begin after the formal surrender.

MacArthur will accept Japan's surrender with the foreign minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu, and the army chief of staff, Yoshijiro Umezu, signing for Japan's new caretaker government. Representatives of each of the 12 Allied nations will sign the surrender. Britain will be represented by General Percival, the former commander of Singapore, who spent the war in captivity after its fall.

Tokyo: Horrific details of atrocities carried out by Japanese doctors are emerging as Allied PoWs are released. Prisoners have been subjected to vivisection. Others have been used as human guinea-pigs and injected with acid, inoculated with fatal diseases or frozen at -20°C.

Eight US airmen shot down after B-29 raids in May died in vivisection experiments carried out by Professor Fukujiro at Kyushu university. One PoW's stomach was removed, and an artery cut to see how long before he died.

Many of the atrocities have been at Japan's top-secret bacteriological warfare Unit 731 at Harbin, in Manchuria. Prisoners were inoculated with anthrax, typhoid and cholera to test germ potency. Others have been boiled or dehydrated to death. Experiments included prolonged exposure to X-rays and prisoners subjected to a pressure chamber where the blood was forced out of their skin as they died in agony.

PoWs fear that 731's commander, Shiro Ishii, will escape prosecution in return for turning over germ warfare data to the US. Two released US doctors also revealed today how they were made to prepare lethal acid-based solutions for Japanese doctors to inject into US PoWs at a Tokyo hospital.

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Manila: Japanese troops in the Philippines formally surrender.

PACIFIC OCEAN: The Japanese garrison on Marcus Island surrenders to the US.

CANADA: Minesweepers HMCS Suderoy IV and Suderoy VI (ex Norwegian whalers) paid off.

U.S.A.: In baseball, the Washington Senators again muff a chance to go into first place, dropping a pair to the New York Yankees, 3–2 and 3–1, in Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. In between games, Washington pitcher Bert Shepard receives the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service in WWII. When Bert Shepard, a journeyman minor league pitcher, had his right leg amputated after his fighter plane crashed in Germany, he was the only person that believed he would ever play professional baseball again. But through sheer self-belief and determination, the gutsy left-hander from Dana, Indiana, taught himself to walk and then to pitch with an artificial leg -- all within the confines of a POW camp in Germany. By February 1945, Shepard was back in the U.S. and determined to pitch in organized baseball. Senators' owner Clark Griffith took a look at the amputee's pitching form in spring training and offered Shepard a job as a pitching coach. On 4 August 1945, Shepard became an inspiration to all wartime amputees when he pitched five innings for the Senators against the Boston Red Sox, fulfilling a dream that few could have imagined possible. That was the only major league game he pitched in. Shepard continued playing in the minor leagues until 1954 and later worked for IBM and Hughes Aircraft as a safety engineer. 

USAAF">USAAF 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) is designated combat ready. It will be the first bomber group manned entirely by African-Americans.

Destroyer USS Wiltsie launched.

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