With Germany in control of the country, the SS began deporting Hungary's Jews, mostly to Auschwitz.
German lines in Italy began to collapse.
Pilots hold a briefing on their assignments before taking to the air on their respective missions. Sessa area, Italy. 15 May, 1944.
French Vice-Admiral Edmond Derrien was sentenced to life in prison for turning over elements of the French Fleet to the Germans after the Allied landing in North Africa.
Pvt. Frank G. Schubert moves through an area with full field equipment during training in Helston, Cornwall.
Disembarking MP's, Slapton Sands, England. 15 May 1944.
A terrible training accident happened off of Hawaii.
On May 15, 1944, a line of LST's (amphibious ships) were headed from Mā`alaea Bay back to Pearl Harbor, filled with men and material destined for the invasion of Saipan. These particular ships had been modified to carry other landing craft, 120-foot long LCT's, on their decks. In the middle of the night the rough seas in the channel caused the large ships to roll to the point that the fastenings attaching the LCTs to the decks carried away.
LCT-984 slid from the deck and struck the water with engine room doors open and bow ramp down. The vessel quickly became waterlogged and semi-submerged. On board LST-71 men of the 8th Marine Division were sleeping on the deck and inside their LCT. When LCT-988 fell into the ocean, the next ship in the convoy, LST-29, accidentally rammed the landing craft, causing her to immediately capsize. Eldon Ballinger (Marine Corps League newsletter, n.d.) relates part of the story:
The division was assigned 22 LST's and in the well decks were Amphtracs. We pulled practice landings at Maalaea Bay on Maui and also a mock invasion of Kahoolawe Island...Around 2330 the sea began to get rough and within a two hour period the sea became very turbulent with high waves. The flat bottomed LST rocked back and forth so violently that the straps broke on the stacks of ammunition, falling on the sleeping men. Then the steel cables snapped, releasing the LCT, ripping the large skid beams loose, and the waves washed everything off the deck of the LST's starboard side. The LCT hit the water right-side up, except the ramp was down. I remember a crewman and I were trying to start the engine so that the ramp could be raised. It was then that the trailing LST hit us broadside, flipping the LCT completely upside down. The LCT sank within minutes with those that were still alive going down with the ship.
LCT-999 was also swept into the ocean, but fortunately was later recovered and towed to Pearl Harbor. In all the series of LCT accidents resulted in some 19 men dead or missing (the exact number is not clear).
The U-731 was sunk in the Atlantic by the Allies.
Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Sergius of Moscow died at age 77.
Lincoln Borglum, who finished his father's work at Mount Rushmore, stepped down as Mount Rushmore National Memorial's first superintendent.
Orson Welles went on the government payroll, at $1.00 per year, as a consultant to the government.
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1940s, 1944, Albania, boats and ships, Catholic, Collaborators, German Kriegsmarine, German Luftwaffe, German SS, Italy, Operation Diadem, The Holocaust, Vichy France, World War Two
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