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http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/14.htm

July 14th, 1944 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: With the conversion of the 55th Fighter Group from P-38 Lightning’s to P-51 Mustangs, the USAAF’s Eighth Air Force acquires a majority of P-51 groups to provide longer-range high-altitude escort for the heavy bombers. Conversion to P-51s will continue until by the end of the year every group except one will be equipped with them.

In England, the Eighth Air Force flies two missions to France.

Mission 472: In a morning mission 319 B-17s drop 3,700 containers of supplies to French interior forces in southern France; they claim 5-2-2 Luftwaffe aircraft. Escort is provided by 465 P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51s; they claim 4-0-1 Luftwaffe aircraft.

Mission 473: During the evening 131 B-24s are dispatched to hit airfields; 54 hit Montdidier Airfield and 39 hit Peronne Airfield; 40 other B-24s fail to bomb because of failure of blind-bombing equipment. Escort is provided by 79 P-38s and P-51s.

Ninety four P-38s fly fighter-bomber missions against rail targets east and southeast of Paris; they claim 2-0-0 Luftwaffe aircraft; a P-38 is lost.

Rescue tug HMS Turmoil launched.

Submarine HMS Selene commissioned.

Destroyer HMS Wrangler commissioned.

FRANCE: The mine sweeping of the western section of Cherbourg harbour is completed. (Steve Badsey)(169)

Lt. Gen. Ben Lear assumes command of the US Army Ground Forces following McNair’s death. He will hold the post until 20th January, 1945. (Marc James Small)

Weather again curtails operations by the USAAF’s Ninth Air Force; 62 B-26s and A-20 Havocs, using Oboe, bomb a railway embankment at Bourth and rail bridge at Merey; fighters provide escort and fly armed reconnaissance over widespread areas of northwestern France, attacking bridges, trains, rail lines, and military transport targets; 85 enemy fighters give battle near Brezolles and Alencon; six fighters are claimed by US fighters, against five U.S. aircraft; the IX Tactical Air Command strafes and bombs defended positions ahead of the US First Army; and fighters cut rail lines in the L’Aigle-Alencon area, bomb troop concentrations near Periers, and marshalling yards at Chateaudun and Aube-sur-Rile.

Paris: A revolt of prisoners in the Santé prison occurs amongst the long term offenders. Political detainees do not react. The men set fire to their cells.

NORTH SEA: 2 British escort carriers and 3 fleet carriers, HMS Duke of York and supporting escorts of the Home Fleet under Admiral Moore sail toward Norway. Their mission, the German battleship Tirpitz in Kaafiord. The air attacks are heavily attacked on approach and the raid today is unsuccessful with heavy British losses.

NETHERLANDS: Dutch born Heinrich Boere and another man of the SS “Special Command Feldmeijer”, take part in an operation codenamed “Silbertanne” or “Silver Pine” which will target 54 civilians in retaliation for the killing of prominent Dutch nazis by Dutch resistance fighters. “They were civilians who had a certain standing in civilian life, who were opposed to the German occupation and who were suspected of being part of the resistance.” (Ulrich Maass, senior state prosecutor in the Dortmund public prosecutors office. Der Spiegel 15/4/2008)

“We didn’t know the men,” Boere told SPEGEL ONLINE in August 2007. “The security service of the SS gave us the name and off we went.”

According to Dutch and German court documents, he and a companion shot dead a pharmacist, a bicycle dealer and another civilian.

In the case of the pharmacist Fritz Bicknese, Boere and a companion — both dressed in civilian clothes — walked into his drugstore in the town of Breda on today, asked him his name and then opened fire. Bicknese bled to death on the floor.

GERMANY: U-2334, U-3506 laid down.

SWEDEN: The Soviet ambassador to Sweden, Alexandra Kollontai (who already played an important role in the negotiations that ended the Winter War in 1940) lets it to be known that Soviet Union is still prepared to discuss peace with Finland. Thus Soviets no longer demand unconditional surrender.

U.S.S.R.: Jassy falls to Malinovsky’s troops. Pinsk falls to the Red Army.

ITALY: The Fifteenth Air Force dispatches 430+ B-17s and B-24s to attack 4 oil refineries at Budapest and Petfurdo, Hungary and the marshalling yard at Mantua, Italy; P-51s and P-38s provide escort.

P-51s fly an uneventful sweep of the Budapest area; and in Italy, P-38s strafe trains north of La Spezia and dive-bomb Ghedi Airfield.

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: The submarine USS Nautilus (SS-168) lands two men and 30 tons of supplies for the Filipino guerillas off Lagoma, Leyte Island.

JAPAN: The government announces decrees conscripting women between 12 and 40 for war work.

US Navy PB4Y Liberators of Bombing Squadron One Hundred Nine (VB-109), based at Isley Field, Saipan, attack airfields on Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima and Haha Jima Islands. This is the first attack by land based aircraft against these islands.

NEW GUINEA: Commodore Collins Task Force TF 74, two cruisers and six destroyers start a long-term bombardment of Japanese positions near Aitape. The Task Force is mostly Australian.

MARIANAS ISLANDS: Seventh Air Force P-47 Thunderbolts based on Saipan again hit Tinian Island.

Battleships join the cruisers and destroyers during the preinvasion bombardment of Guam.

Underwater Demolition Team Three (UDT-3) in high-speed transport USS Dickerson (APD-21) begins a reconnaissance of the landing beaches on Guam.

The Japanese submarine I-6 is sunk by destroyer USS WILLIAM C. MILLER (DE-259) off Saipan. (Marc James Small)(220, 221 and 222)

CANADA: Corvette HMCS Petrolia commissioned.

U.S.A.: General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, Commanding General U.S. Army Air Forces, sends a memorandum to the Joint Planning Staff calling attention to the Nakajima Ki-84 Army Type 4 Fighter (Allied Code Name “Frank”), a new and heavily armed fighter with which the Japanese might be able to inflict prohibitive losses on B-29s over the home islands; therefore he recommends that Iwo Jima be seized so that the airfields on the island can be used as an emergency landing field for B-29 Superfortresses bombing Japan and provide bases for P-51s to escort the Superfortresses to Tokyo.

Destroyer USS Gurke laid down.

Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-390 was commissioned at Los Angeles with LT G. E. Oliver, USCGR, as first commanding officer. He was succeeded on 28 September 1945 by LTJG John L. Murchison, USCGR. She was assigned to and operated in the Southwest Pacific and Western Pacific areas including Manila, Batangas, etc. She was decommissioned 15 October 1945.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-415 sunk at 0915 near Brest, west of the torpedo-net barrier, in position 48.24N, 04.30W, by a mine. 2 dead, unknown number of survivors.