The battlecruiser Kongō and destroyer Urwakaze were sunk in the South China Sea by the USS Sealion.
Albanian partisans occupied Tirana and Durazzo.
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Troops of the Red Army killed 74 German civilians as well as 50 French and Belgian POWs at Nemmersdorf (Mayakovskoye, Kaliningrad Oblast). As was typical for the Red Army, females victims were first raped. The POWs had been detailed to care for German horses, and its likely that the Soviets were unaware that they were Allied POWs.
Mass rape, as well as the murder of German civilians and the murder of raped women, would soon become a feature of the Red Army advance into Germany. Rape and murder would also be a feature of its advance into Hungary. The Red Army in many ways was a very primitive fighting force with mob aspects and declined into barbarous behavior.
Aachen was taken by the US.
Organized Japanese resistance on Angaur ends.
The US took Dulag airfield on Leyte.
Franklin Roosevelt rode 51 miles in an open car in the rain in New York, which was foolish, but which was to demonstrate he was fit enough for another term of office, which of course, her really was not.
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The 101st Airborne Division liberated Eindoven.
Lieutenant Colonel Robert George Cole, who would receive the Medal of Honor for his actions during Operation Overlord, was killed by a German sniper during Market Garden. He was 29 years old.
Another American combatant would be killed in an action that resulted in his posthumously receiving the Medal of Honor.
The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pride in presenting the Medal of Honor (Posthumously) to Private First Class Charles Howard Roan (MCSN: 504236), United States Marine Corps Reserve, for the conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the Second Battalion, Seventh Marines, First Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Peleliu, Palau Islands, 18 September 1944. Shortly after his leader ordered a withdrawal upon discovering that the squad was partly cut off from their company as a result of the rapid advance along an exposed ridge during an aggressive attack on the strongly entrenched enemy, Private First Class Roan and his companions were suddenly engaged in a furious exchange of hand grenades by Japanese forces emplaced in a cave on higher ground and to the rear of the squad. Seeking protection with four other Marines in a depression in the rocky, broken terrain, Private First Class Roan was wounded by an enemy grenade which fell close to their position and, immediately realizing the eminent peril to his comrades when another grenade landed in the midst of the group, unhesitatingly flung himself upon it, covering it with his body and absorbing the full impact of the explosion. By his prompt action and selfless conduct in the face of almost certain death, he saved the lives of four men. His great personal valor reflects the highest credit upon himself and the U. S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his comrades.
The Battle of Arracourt commenced in France.
The US dropped supplies from B-17s to resistance fighters in Warsaw, the only such mission permitted by the Soviets. The aircraft flew on to Soviet held territory.
It's often been speculated, not without reason, that Stalin allowed the uprising to bleed itself out as it was resulting in the deaths of a present combatant, the Germans, and a feared future one, the Poles.
The Jun'yō Maru was sunk off Sumatra by the British submarine Tradewind resulting in the deaths of 5,620 people, most of whom were Allied POWs or Japanese slave labor. The event is one of the worst naval disasters of all time, taking into account the lives lost were largely innocent.
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Hungary declared war on Romania and invaded southern Transylvania.
Vichy's government relocated to Sigmaringen Castle in Germany.
The Japanese cargo ship SS Shin'yō Maru was torpedoed and sunk in the USS Paddle. The ship was carrying US POWs. 688 out of 750 died.
The Battle of Mount Song (松山戰役) saw the Nationalist Chinese Army prevail, resulting in the reopening of the Burma Road.
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The Red Army entered a Bucharest already cleared of German troops by the Romanian Army. Crowds cheered the arrival of the Red Army.
Romania would be one of the tragic examples of the Red Army not leaving where it appeared following the war. It would take a revolution in the USSR, more or less, and definitely in Romania, to restore Romanian sovereignty and establish Romanian democracy.
Bernard Law Montgomery was promoted to Field Marshal.
The 5th Army crossed the Arno.
Slovene partisans rescued 105 Allied POWs in the Raid at Ožbalt.
The US prevailed in the Battle of Sansapor.
Task Force 38.4 attacked Japanese positions on Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima.
The first of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon incidents in Mattoon, Illinois.
Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World has a good episode on this really weird event.
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Philippe Pétain was arrested by the Germans for his refusal to a German demand that he leave France.
The Battle of Toulon began.
While the Falaise Gap was closed, Germana units continued to escape through gaps in the line.
The 3d Army captured Seine River crossings at Mantes Grassicourt and entered Fontainbleau.
The Allies bombed Buna Werke POW camp in Poland in error, killing 39 British POWs.
The Soviets began the Jassy-Kishinev Offensive in Romania.
The U-188 was scuttled in Bordeaux, the U-9 was sunk at Constanța in a Soviet air raid, U-413 was lost to a mine in the Cornish corridor, U-984 was sunk by Canadian warships in the Bay of Biscay and the U-1229 was sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by Allied aircraft.
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German SS, the Azerbaijani Legion and the Russian collaborationist Kaminski Brigade, commenced killing Poles in the Wola district of Warsaw. The massacre was ordered by Himmler.
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Between 40,000 and 50,000 Poles would be murdered.
The weirdness of this is inescapable. The Russians in RONA were there partially in order to survive German captivity, and partial in an effort to free their homeland from Communist control. The Soviet Union had helped take away Poland's freedom by invading it along with Germany, and the Polish Home Army was attempting to free their homeland and was anti communist. The Azerbaijanis were fighting for the liberation of their homeland as well.
The 3d Army took Vannes.
The Cowra breakout occured in New South Wales in which 1,100 Japanese POWs broke out. They'd all be captured within ten days, although four Australians and 231 Japanese POWs would be killed.
The RAF destroyed the German U-boat pens at Brest.
The Soviet submarine Shch-215 sanke the Turkish motor schooner Mefküre resulting in the death of 300 Jewish refugees.
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The 1st Army took Marigny and St. Gilles, and crossed the Lessay-Perieres Road.
After six months of combat, the Red Army took Narva, ending the Battle for Narva Bridgehead.
The Battle of Ilomantsi began between the Finns and the Red Army.
The 1st Ukrainian Front took Deblin.
President Roosevelt began a two day conference at Pearl Harbor on strategy in the Pacific. At the conference MacArthur urged an advance on the Philippines while Nimitz argued for making Taiwan the first priority and bypassing the Philippines. Roosevelt listened, but did not decide.
Fighting raged on around Aitape.
Japanese forces on Guam launched a banzai charge against Marines fighting for control of the island
The USS Robalo hit a mine sinking the sub off of Palawan Island. There were four survivors who disappeared forever into Japanese captivity.
The I-29 was sunk by the USS Sawfish in a submarine on submarine action.
The U-214 was sunk by the HMS Cooke in the English Channel. The U-2323 hit a mine off Kiel and sank.
A pilot with family in Merriam, Kansas, decided to buzz the family home with disastrous results.
The Merriam Bomber Crash of 1944
Oklahoma State Highway 89 was officially designated.
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The Port Chicago (California) Disaster occured.
From the Corps of Engineer's item above:
The British prevailed in the Second Battle of Odon.
An RAF Spitfire of the RCAF piloted by Charley Fox strafed a random German command car that turned out to be carrying Erwin Rommel. Rommel was wounded and taken out of commission for a while. His driver was killed. Kluge takes temporary command.
Fox was a humble man and upon being identified as the pilot in later years expressed regret for the killing, as he accepted the stories that Rommel was planning to participate in the July 20 plot. He worked in a shoe factory after the war and died in an automobile accident, ironically, in 2008.
The U.S. Army penetrates the perimeter of Saint-Lô
Napalm was used for the first time in an Army Air Force raid conducted by P-38s on on a fuel depot at Coutances, near Saint-Lô.
The Royal Navy attempted a raid on the Tipitz in Norway but it was unsuccessful.
The Finns prevailed in the Battles of Vuosalmi and Nietjärvi.
57,600 German prisoners of war captured by the Red Army were marched through Moscow.
Japanese Admiral Nomura replaced Shmada as Minister of the Navy.
The U-347 and U-361 were sunk by the RAF. The I-166 was sunk in the Strati of Malacca by the Royal Navy.
The British government announced a plan for the mass construction of housing following the war.
Franklin Roosevelt announced he would leave the choice of his running mate to the Democratic Convention.
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