Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, Lt. Gen. Arthur Percival, and the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, Mr. van Starkenborch Stachouwer. were rescued from being Prisoners of War by a special American parachute detail at Mukden. The goal was to free the POWs before the area was overrun by the Red Army.
The occupation of Mukden, as well as Harbin, in fact occurred on this day.
Anti Semitic riots broke out in Cracow, Poland.
The US War Production Board removed most of its controls over manufacturing activity, setting the stage for a post war economic boom.
The US standard of living had actually increased during the war, which is not entirely surprising given that the US economy had effectively stagnated in 1929, and the US was the only major industrial power other than Canada whose industrial base hadn't been severely damaged during the war. Ever since the war, Americans have been proud of the economics of the post war era, failing to appreciate that if every major city on two continents is bombed or otherwise destroyed, and yours aren't, your going to succeed.
Having said that, the Truman Administration's rapid normalization of the economy was very smart. The British failed to do that to their detriment.
British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin condemned Soviet policy in Eastern Europe as "one kind of totalitarianism replaced by another."
The trial of Vidkun Quisling began in Oslo.
The Việt Minh consolidated their control of Hanoi.
Seventeen year old Tommy Brown became the youngest player in Major League Baseball to hit a home run. Brown had joined the Dodgers at age 16.
Brown provides a good glimpse into mid 20th Century America. Nobody would think it a good thing for a 16 year old to become a professional baseball player now. Moreover, the next year, when Brown was 18, he was conscripted into the Army, something that likely wouldn't happen now even if conscription existed. He returned to professional baseball after his service, and played until 1953 and thereafter worked in a Ford plant until he retired, dying this year at age 97. Clearly baseball, which was America's biggest sport at the time, didn't pay the sort of huge sums it does now.
Emperor Hirohito accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and recorded a radio message to the Japanese people saying that the war should end and that they must "bear the unbearable." Truman announced the Japanese surrender the same day.
Hirohito's full recorded, and then broadcast, speech stated:
To our good and loyal subjects.
After pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual conditions obtaining to our empire today, we have decided to effect a settlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure.
We have ordered our government to communicate to the governments of the United States, Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union that our empire accepts the provisions of their Joint Declaration.
To strive for the common prosperity and happiness of all nations as well as the security and well-being of our subjects is the solemn obligation which has been handed down by our imperial ancestors, and which we lay close to heart. Indeed, we declared war on America and Britain out of our sincere desire to ensure Japan’s self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement.
But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone—the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of our servants of the state, and the devoted service of our 100 million people—the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.
Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives.
Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are we to save the millions of our subjects or to atone ourselves before the hallowed spirits of our imperial ancestors? This is the reason why we have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers.
We cannot but express the deepest sense of regret to our allied nations of East Asia, who have consistently co-operated with the empire towards the emancipation of East Asia. The thought of those officers and men as well as others who have fallen in the fields of battle, those who died at their posts of duty, or those who met with untimely death and all their bereaved families, pains our heart day and night.
The welfare of the wounded and the war sufferers, and of those who have lost their homes and livelihood, are the objects of our profound solicitude. The hardships and sufferings to which our nation is to be subjected hereafter will certainly be great. We are keenly aware of the inmost feelings of all you, our subjects.
However, it is according to the dictate of time and fate that we have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable.
Having been able to safeguard and maintain the structure of the imperial state, we are always with you, our good and loyal subjects, relying upon your sincerity and integrity. Beware most strictly of any outbursts of emotion which may engender needless complications, or any fraternal contention and strife which may create confusion, lead you astray, and cause you to lose the confidence of the world.
Let the entire nation continue as one family from generation to generation, ever firm in its faith of the imperishableness of its divine land, and mindful of its heavy responsibilities, and the long road before it.
Unite your total strength to be devoted to the construction for the future. Cultivate the ways of rectitude; foster nobility of spirit; and work with resolution so that you may enhance the innate glory of the imperial state and keep pace with the progress of the world.
Bearing it would prove to be nowhere as difficult as predicted for anyone, particularly Japanese women, and in general the Japanese middle and lower class. Frankly, everyone's life in Japan would improve immeasurably. So much so, but for some wackadoodles, Japan has never looked back.
The recording had to be smuggled out of the Tokyo Imperial Palace out of fear of a military coup taking place
The attempted coup did in fact take place, as Japanese officers attempted to steal the recording and prevent the surrender. The attempt failed, and at 19:00 Truman announced the Japanese surrender. Coup leader Major Kenji Hatanaka commited suicide after its failure..
As odd as it may seem, there were still air raids conducted until the surrender was broadcast. The last raid was on Akita (秋田空襲), which was the last raid of the war, which was a nighttime raid that occurred more or less at the same time as the attempted coup.
The Marifu railyard after the bombing raid of 14 August 1945 by B-29s
Huge crowds gathered all over the US to celebrate the end of the war.
The famous Times Square photograph of a sailor kissing a woman, which is protected by copyright, as American copyright provisions are absurdly long, was taken.
The Soviets continued their advance on South Sakhalin and some of the Kurils, and advanced deep into Manchuria.
Gen. MacArthur was delegated to take the Japanese surrender. A cessation of hostilities is ordered by both sides.
The War Production Board lifted restrictions on the productions of automobiles.
The Viet Minh launched an uprising against the French in Vietnam.
French and Belgian troops began to depart the Ruhr.
The Tân Việt Revolutionary Party, which advocated independence from France of a "New Vietnam", was founded by Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai. It was not a communist party at the time, but by 1929, would become so.
It's notable in that its founder, Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai.was a woman. She was executed by the French in 1941.
"These five 96th Div. Texans are considered "aces" by their buddies in Co. I, 383rd Inf. Regt., an ace being anyone who has killed five or more Japs. From bottom to top: S/Sgt. Vernon Z. Wilkins, 101 Chicago St., Delhart; Pfc. Albert Welfel, El Campo; Pfc. Richard S. Groce, 318 Lafitte St., San Antonio; PFC Roy D Clepper, Florey; and Pfc. Russell Linnard, of Pharr, Texas. 30 June, 1945. Company I, 383rd Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division." I wonder what their lives were like after the war.
Indeed, some Japanese troops would hold out on the Philippines on an individual basis for decades.
" Jap tankette knocked out in battle for Shuri. Tank is about 10 ft. by four and about five feet in height, and carries two men. Relative size is shown by Lt. M. A. Miller of 94 Parkway Rd., Bronxville, New York. 30 June, 1945. Photographer: Henderson, 3240th Signal Photo Det." Tankettes were a British concept from between the wars, but had fallen out of favor almost everywhere before World War Two. Japan, which existed in military isolation, kept them.
American forces on Okinawa completed a week of mop-up operations in which 8,975 Japanese were reported killed and 2,902 captured, showing how intense operations remained.
While not apparent to anyone yet, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps had effectively concluded the main part of their ground fighting in the war. Ground combat, however, carried on for the British and Dominion armies, and the Chinese Army.
Former U.S. Army Air Force base Liuzhou, China, was recaptured by the Chinese. They also took Chungchin on the Indochinese border.
The French the 5e REI, a Foreign Legion regiment which had been stationed in Indochina, was deactivated, having been decimated in their retreat into China.
Truman appointed James F. Byrnes to be Secretary of State.
The Social Security Administration announced for the very first time that it's retirement and disability program was in debt; and that its $46 billion reserve would be drained by 1983. Notably, President Nixon had extended Medicare, which originally did not apply to everyone, to everyone 62 years of age or older during his Administration.
Television broadcasting began in South Africa.
Royal Lao General Vang Pao, a Hmong highlander, was ordered by the Prime Minister of Laos to cease resistance to the Pathet Lao.
He resigned instead.
It's almost like the Domino Theory was correct.
Before serving in in the Royal Lao Army, he has served with the French starting during World War Two. He immigrated to the United States where he died in 2011.
101 former RVNAF aircraft at U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield were loaded aboard the USS Midway which evacuated 27 A-37s, 3 CH-47s, 25 F-5Es and 45 UH-1Hs.
A further 41 aircraft were flown to the U.S. 54 aircraft were transferred to the Thai Government, these comprised: 1 A-37, 17 C-47s, 1 F-5B, 12 O-1s, 14 U-17s and 9 UH-1Hs.
Gen. Émile Lemonnier of the French Army was executed by the Japanese for, as a captive, refusing to sign an instrument of surrender to the Japanese in Indochina. He was 51 years of age.
The last few years of his life must have been one of unrelenting mental torment.
The cowardly weasel ordering his execution, Captain Kayakawa was himself executed after the war..
I know some will excuse the latter's actions based on culture, but he was a weasel.
It was day two of the firebombing of Tokyo.
It's extremely difficult not to be morally troubled by this action. There are military justifications of it, but by and large, it was a monstrous attack upon a civilian population right down to the infant level. It survives as a reminder that even in World War Two, in which the Allies held hte moral high ground, not all Allied actions were morally licit.
In our own day, in which we have a President who stands by as rockets rain down on a civilian population, and in which that same President sat a war out due to shin splints, it rains buckets of blood on our own heads.
The Australians landed at Wide Bay, Papua New Guinea.
Smiling Albert Field Marshal Kesselring arrivee from Italy to take command of the German armies in the west.
The Germans withdrew from from the pocket west of the Rhine between Wesel and Xanten in the face of British and Canadian pressure.
The German offensive around Lake Balatron began to encounter heavy Rad Army resistance..
The U-275 struck a mine and was sunk off of East Sussex. The U-681 was sunk off of the Isles of Scilly by a U.S Navy B-24.
FDR involved Spanish representatives with their hands out no American aid will be forthcoming so long as the Franco dictatorship continued.
Good for FDR.
Today, King Donny would probably be giving warm smooches to Francoist delegates.
The US Army Air Force conducted a 48 hour fire bombing raid of Tokyo. Sixteen square miles of the city's interior were destroyed and between 80,000 and 130,000 civilians killed. One million were rendered homeless.
Similar raids on Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe also took place.
The U.S. 1st Army took Bonn and Godesburgh
The Japanese launched Operation Bright Moon, 明号作戦, the attack on the French military and government in Indochina.
The Japanese had tolerated ongoing French administration of Indochina up until this point, but by this point, the French government had gone from Vichy to Free French, and Japan was becoming concerned that the Allies would land with French consent in region. The French were expecting the attack but were unablet o successfully repel it, with some French forces having to retreat to Nationalist China where they were not well received.
French Indochinese soldiers retreating to Nationalist China. I have to sonder how man of these Vietnamese troops survived this trek, and of those who did, did they go on and fight in the French Indochinese War on the French side?
Troops of the Italian Social Republic committed the Salussola Massacre as the war in Italy increasingly devolved into a civil war which would carry on, in some ways, until the 1970s.
Benito Mussolini sent a priest to Switzerland to propose to a Vatican envoy that Italy and Germany join with the Allies to attack and defeat the Soviet Union. The proposal met with the predictable response.
Congress passed the McCarran–Ferguson Act, exempting the insurance business from most federal regulation.
The Third French Republic and the Nguyễn dynasty of Vietnam executed the Treaty of Saigon. The treaty granted economic and territorial concessions to France. France waived a previous war indemnity award from Vietnam in the treaty from 1862 and promised military protection against China. Vietnam was reduced to a French protectorate.
France already occupied three provinces south and east of the Mekong and had since 1867. They became the French colony of Cochinchina. The Red River, Hanoi, Haiphong and Qui Nhơn were opened to international trade. France recognized "the sovereignty of the king of Annam and his complete independence from any foreign power" (la souveraineté du roi d'Annam et son entière independence vis-à-vis de toute puissance étrangère). France understood this to mean independence from Chinese influence, although neither Vietnam nor China understood the terms in that fashion.
700 soldiers of the British X Corps refused postings to new units as replacements, fighting at Salerno, resulting in the Salerno Mutiny. Most reconsidered after Lt. Gen. Richard McCreery talked to them, but 192 British soldiers, mostly of the 50th Northumbrian and 51st Highlanders refused and were court-martialed.
Gen. McCreery.
The accused were shipped to Algeria and tried, where they were found guilty. A request for a pardon was made in 2000, but, in my opinion, rightfully rejected.
The Germans began to deport Jews from the parts of Italy they had newly occupied.
The Red Army took Novorossisk.
Congressman James M. Curely of Massachusetts was indicted on charges of mail fraud and racketeering relating to war contracts.
Depth charges detonated at Norfolk Naval Air Station in Virginia killing 23 and wounding 250.
Ho Chi Minh was released from Chinese captivity, where he was imprisoned for trying to induce the Chinese to assist the Viet Minh against the French.
Today in World War II History—July 13, 1942: Nazis massacre 5000 Jews in Rovno, Ukraine. Italian frogmen swim 5 km to Gibraltar and plant limpet mines, sinking three Allied ships.
And Feodor von Bock, as Sundin also reports on her blog, was relieved of command of Army Group B, although that became effective on July 15.
Von Bock was not a Nazi, and indeed personally disliked the Nazis, but he was also passive in regard to their atrocities within his command. That command included several officers who later were participants in the July 20 plot, which he was invited to participate in, but he declined to do so.
He was killed at the extreme end of the war when a vehicle he was in, along with his wife and stepdaughter, was strafed.
The German 21st Panzer division was repulsed by Australian and South African forces in an attack featuring heavy losses at Tel el Eisa and the El Alamein "box".
The USS Seadragon, still off of Cam Ranh Bay, sank the transport Shinyo Maru.
The RAF bombed Duisburg during thunderstorms, but missed the industrial areas.
Franklin Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the United States, with the immediate cause of this being the Japanese occupation of French Indochina.
The Japanese entering Saigon. Bicycles were a common means of conveyance in most armies at the time, with the U.S. being a real exception.
It'd be a mistake, of course, to view that as the sole cause, but it was instrumental in it. Japan was getting more aggressive in its expansion, having now moved its military into Indochina. It technically had French acquiescence to this, but as a practical matter, Vichy had little it could do about it. Japan had already intervened militarily in the northern part of Indochina a year prior, so they were already there. That had in fact resulted in fighting between the Vichy French and the Japanese, but Japanese occupation was a fact. Indeed, Japan had already secured permission to garrison troops in southern Indochina.
Free French poster criticizing the Vichy administration's collaboration with Japan.
It hadn't because it remained concerned about the Soviet Union. It's presence in Indochina had been ancillary to their war with China, but with increasingly difficult relations with the United States, and the United Kingdom, that focus changed once Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The Japanese correctly guessed that the Soviets wouldn't interfere with them in any fashion while they were fighting the Germans. Given that, Imperial Japan set its sights on the Dutch East Indies, and its oil, and war with the United States.
While Japanese occupation of Indochina was already a fact, the formal change is something that really couldn't be ignored by the U.S. It was one step closer to war by both parties.
Oddly, China's assets were also frozen, and this by request of Chiang Kai Shek, the leader of Nationalist China. While not exactly knowing why, this may be because Chiang had concerns about Chinese assets being used by the Japanese and, of course, he also faced a domestic competitor in the form of the Chinese Communist Party, which was contesting the Nationalist for control of China.
Also, on this day King George VI gave permission for Prime Minister Churchill to travel to the United States to meet with Roosevelt. Permission was a formality, of course.
Not a formality was the growing relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt, often described as a friendship but in reality a species of alliance. Churchill's visit was to be a secret and was part of the building of that alliance.
Germany established Reichskommissariat Ostland, the administrative unit for the occupied Baltics and Belarus, on this day. The plan for the region was to Germanize the Baltics and to settle it with Germans. The region was regarded as "European" by the Germans due to the prior influence of Germany, Sweden and Denmark. The Belarusians were regarded as hopelessly backwards peasants who would be exploited. Jews, of course, were to be killed.
Germany began to act on these plans immediately, which is somewhat of a surprise in context. Not only did the Germans begin to slaughter Jewish residents of the area, along with Communists, but it also began to move German settlers into the areas it had taken. Indeed, while he has said little about it, one individual I know had a grandfather who had moved into the Eastern lands, resulting of course in his status as a refugee later on.
For all practical purposes, the Vichy administration in Indochina was practically on its own during the war and saw itself as fairly helpless in regard to Japan. The following day, it would allow Japanese troops to enter French Indochina.
Slovak forces engaged in combat for the first time with the Red Army at Lypovec.
They did not cover themselves in glory, from the prospective of the invading Axis forces, as they reacted poorly to combat and suffered defections. Indeed, the Slovaks withdrew some of their forces all the way back to Slovakia on the pretext that they couldn't repair equipment in the field.
While this was an extreme example, it showed a weakness in the German efforts. By and large, the rank and file of Germany's allies in the USSR were not enthusiastic about the cause, and indeed some of the nations that had sent them into it were lukewarm. The national reasons for joining Germany varied, but at the troop level it was an unwelcome war against a powerful enemy. Of Germany's allies that were full participants in the war, only Finland really had troops that were first-rate.
The Vichy government again restricted Jewish participation in French civil life, now requiring the registration of their businesses, as noted here:
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