Seventy seven B-17s were shot down, along with four P-47s. 121 aircraft were ottherwise damaged. 590 Allied airmen were killed.
The target of the raid was ball bearing plants. The RAF refused to cooperate on the basis that ball bearings were a worthless object of a raid, something that post-war analysis proved correct.
An uprising commenced at Sobibor resulting in eleven SS and Ukrainian guards being killed. SS-Untersturmführer Johann Niemann, thirty years of age and the commandant of Sobibor was the first one killed when he went to see a tailor, one of the prisoners, for a fitting. The prisoner killed him with an axe, and his pistol was taken.
Three Hundred inmates escaped, although many were killed in nearby minefields or recaptured and immediately killed. Fifty did survive and escape. Those prisoners who had opted not to escape were also killed and the camp closed.
José P. Laurel, formerly a Philippines Supreme Court Justice, took the oath of office as President of the puppet Second Philippine Republic. The Republic's then signed an alliance with Japan.
He also appealed to the Vatican at this time for recognition, which was refused on the stated basis that the Vatican did not wish to recognize any new states during the war. Nonplussed, he sought the Filipinization of the Church in the Philippines.
We've already dealt with him in a previous post, and as noted there, he had a post-war political career in the country, demonstrating that the common view that East Asian collaborators were universally despised by their own people is not true.
