Replies

Battle Fantastic (Rae) – 2-3
6 Suicide Planes and 2 Bombs Hit Destroyer Laffey, She Gets Home – 3
Destroyer Little Lost Off Okinawa – 3-4
Marines Find Many Naha Houses Standing And a Lot of Japanese in Ruins of City (Lawrence) – 4
War News Summarized – 4
Palace in Area Hit (Moscow) – 5-7
Marines Engage in Bitter Fighting as They Drive Into Okinawa Capital (photos) – 5-6
Luzon Guerrillas Win Towns in East – 7-8
Tydings Stresses Ties With Philippines, Field for Investment and Need fro Bases – 8
Chinese Win More of Foe’s Corridor – 8-9
Surly Germans Still View Allies’ Victory as ‘Fluke’ (Middleton) – 9
Military Training is Urged by Bard – 10
A War Bond is the Admission for Visit to This U-Boat (photo) – 10
Browder Shift Seen Aiding Flynn And Strengthening Liberal Party (Hagerty) – 11
The Texts of the Day’s War Communiques – 12

http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/4/26.htm

May 26th, 1945 (SATURDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Corvettes HMCS Lachute and West York departed Londonderry as escort for Convoy ON-305.

GERMANY: Lüneberg: Sergeants Ray Weston and Bill Ottery bury Himmler in an unmarked grave.

BURMA: Allied forces occupy Bassein, 90 miles west of Rangoon.

JAPAN: The USAAF’s Twentieth Air Force in the Mariana Islands flies Mission 184: During the night of 26/27 May, 29 B-29 Superfortresses mine waters in Shimonoseki Strait and at Fushiki, Fukuoka, and Karatsu, Japan.

Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese imperial family escaped with their lives today as flames started by B-29 fire-bomb attacks surrounded their main palace in Tokyo and destroyed the nearby business district of Marunouchi. Twenty-six Marianas-based B-29s were lost.

Later Tokyo Radio confirmed US Army Air Force claims that parts of the imperial palace and Omiya palace had been damaged, but said that both the emperor and empress were safe and uninjured. The raid was the second in 48 hours, with 464 B-29 Superfortresses dropping 4,000 tons of incendiaries on the Marunouchi district just south of the imperial palace. With scores of new buildings - many supposedly fire and earthquake proof - the area was, until today, the pride of modern Japan.

The Tokyo raid came as Japanese flyers, absent from combat in recent weeks, launched desperate mass Kamikaze attacks on US ships off Okinawa plus bizarre suicide raids on the island’s Yontan and Katena airfields. Planes deliberately crash-landed on the two airstrips before heavily-armed commandos jumped out with orders to cause maximum damage. All were killed immediately. Offshore, Japanese flyers damaged 11 US ships, sacrificing 111 aircraft in the attack.

Kamikazes are again active off Okinawa damaging two ships:

- High-speed minesweeper USS Forrest (DMS-24, ex-DD-461) is attacked by three aircraft. AA fire downs two but the third crashes her starboard side at the waterline, killing five and wounding 13 of her crew. The ship remains afloat and heads for Kerama Retto for repairs.

- The submarine chaser PC-1603 is damaged.

CANADA: Frigate HMCS Royalmount begins tropicalization refit Sydney , Nova Scotia.

U.S.A.: The US government cancels the 98 out of 100 Hughes D-5s. Also known as the F-11 it had two Pratt and Whitney R-4360 engines driving eight bladed contra-rotating propellers. (John Nicholas)
Destroyer USS Brinkley Bass launched.

Destroyer USS Steinaker commissioned.