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http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/26.htm

July 26th, 1944 (WEDNESDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: The Eighth Air Force in England flies 2 missions:

- Mission 496: Of 93 P-47 Thunderbolts attack the St. Just marshalling yards and 40 attack the Givet fuel dump in France; 1 P-47 is lost.

- Mission 497: 7 B-17s drop leaflets in France during the night.

- 9 B-24s fly CARPETBAGGER missions.

ENGLISH CHANNEL:- U-214 (Type VIID) is sunk in the English Channel south-east of Eddystone, in position 49.58N, 03.30W by depth charges from the frigate HMS Cooke [K 471, ex USS Dempsey (DE-267)]. All 48 crewman of the U-boat perish.

NORTH SEA:- U-2323 (Type XXIII) sank at 1635 hours local west of Möltenort while on a training mission, in position 54.23N, 10.11E, after striking a mine. There are 2 dead and 12 survivors. The boat had been commissioned 8 days earlier.

Corvette HMCS Alberni shot down a German Junkers 88 that had attacked her at almost sea level. Alberni opened fire with her starboard Oerlikons and the after pom-pom as the plane tore toward her. The Junkers climbed and banked to clear Alberni and her port Oerlikons scored direct hits at close range. The aircraft burst into flames and exploded in the sea 100 yards off Alberni’s port bow with no survivors.

FRANCE: US VII Corps take Marigny and St. Gilles in France. To the west the US VIII Corps crosses the Lessay-Periers road.
Weather forces the recall of several groups of Ninth Air Force B-26s and A-20 Havocs, assigned to support the US First Army, but about 160 aircraft manage to bomb a fuel dump at Senonches with good results; fighters escort the bombers, fly cover over the assault area, carry out close support for ground troops in the Saint-Lo area, and fly armed reconnaissance in the Poix, Amiens, Chartres, Laval, and Angers areas.

GERMANY: Lt.Alfred Schreiber of Ekdo262 shoots up a high altitude recon Mosquito intruder above Munich. Thought to be the first aerial combat jet kill in history, it has since been compromised by evidence that the badly shot up Mossie actually made it to a base in Northern Italy. (Russ Folsom)

Berlin: Himmler has launched a nationwide manhunt for anti-Hitler conspirators, and some 7,000 men and women are now in the Gestapo’s torture chambers. The lucky ones are those who died on the night of 20 July. Beck tried unsuccessfully to shoot himself and was finished off by an army sergeant. Von Stauffenberg was taken into the courtyard of the War Ministry and shot. The Gestapo soon put a stop to that. Himmler wanted living plotters who could be tortured into betraying others. Some 5,000 of those now held face execution; the rest, mostly relatives of suspects, will be sent to concentration camps.

Rastenburg: Hitler orders the construction of an extra defensive line in Italy, at the foothills of the Alps.

U-3004 launched.

EASTERN FRONT: Units of the First Ukraine Front reach the Vistula west of Lublin. In the north Narva is captured by units of the Leningrad Front.
Fifteenth Air Force fighters on the second shuttle mission leave USSR Operations FRANTIC bases, strafe enemy aircraft in the Bucharest-Ploesti, Romania area, and return to bases in Italy. In Austria, 330+ B-17s and B-24s attack the Wiener Neudorf aircraft factory, the airfield at Markersdorf, Thalerhof, Zwolfaxing, and Bad Voslau, and targets of opportunity in the Vienna area. Also hit are Szombathely Airfield, Hungary and oil storage at Berat, Albania. Fighters fly escort and carry out patrols and sweeps in the Brod-Zagreb, Yugoslavia and Ploesti-Bucharest, Romania areas; bombers and fighters claim 70+ enemy aircraft shot down.

NEW GUINEA: Japanese resistance continues in the areas of Aitape, Biak and Numfoor.

PACIFIC: In the Caroline Islands, carrier-based aircraft of the USN’s Task Groups 58.2 and 58.3 again bomb Japanese installations in the Palau Islands while aircraft from TG 58.1 attack and photograph Fais and Ngulu Islands and Sorol, Ulithi and Yap Atolls. Far East Air Force (FEAF) B-24s again hit supply areas, communication, and other targets on Woleai Atoll.

Japanese I-29 is sunk by the USS Sawfish (SS-276) north of the Philippines. (Mike Yared)(144 and 145)

Submarine USS Robalo mined and sunk off Palawan Island. Four survivors captured by Japanese Army but never seen again.

TERRITORY OF HAWAII: US President Roosevelt arrives in Pearl Harbor in the heavy cruiser USS Baltimore (CA-68) and meets with Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur in Honolulu. They discuss plans by MacArthur to capture the Philippines vs plans by Nimitz to bypass the Philippines and strike Formosa.

U.S.A.: Minesweeper USS Dipper launched.

Destroyer escort USS Jaccard commissioned.

Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-260 was commissioned at New York with LT A. Smalley, USCGR, as first commanding officer. He was succeeded by LTJG L. F. Jones, USCGR, who in turn was succeeded by LTJG William L, Barlow, USCG on 14 October 1945. On 26 August 1944 she departed from the 3rd Naval District and on 5 September 1944, was reported towing the QS-16 to the Southwest Pacific where she operated during the war.

Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-345 was commissioned at Kewaunee WI with LTJG G. W. Oberst, USCGR, as commanding officer. She was assigned to and operated in the Southwest Pacific area and at Guam. Her first monthly diary was submitted for July and August 1945, the vessel, on 1 July 1945, being anchored in Manila Harbor where she had proceeded two weeks previously to effect an overhaul of her main engines and generators. She was still anchored there 31 August 1945.

BERMUDA: HM S/M Unruffled arrives for ASW training.