Posted on 06/20/2015 4:35:21 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/5/20.htm
June 20th, 1945 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Frigates HMCS Annan, Loch Achanalt and Loch Morlich paid off and returned to RN at Sheerness.
FRANCE: The pilots of the “3rd Groupe de Chasse” (3rd Fighter Group) “Normandie” (given the honourific ‘Niemen’ after supporting Soviet forces in battles to cross the river in 1944) fly their 40 new Yak-3s home to Le Bourget airfield, Paris. After fighting alongside the Red Air Force since March 1943 and notching up 273 confirmed victories and 38 probables they are afforded a hero’s welcome by the French populace. More... (Russell Folsom)
JAPAN: Okinawa: US General Simon Bolivar Buckner is KIA (Killed in Action) by an artillery round. Senior Corps Commander, Marine Lt-Gen Gieger (sic), assumes command of the Tenth Army, the only occasion in which a US Field Army was commanded by a Marine.
Mines previously laid by B-29 Superfortresses in Japanese waters sink a cargo ship, a freighter and a tanker and damage two freighters. Other mines sink a freighter. PB4Y-2 Privateers of the USN’s Patrol Bombing Squadron One Hundred Eighteen (VPB-118) based at Yonton, Okinawa, again sow mines in the Korean Archipelago.
BORNEO: Australian troops capture the Seria oilfields, and reinforcements land at Lutong, in Sarawak.
PACIFIC OCEAN: The USN’s Task Group 12.4 launches five strikes against Japanese positions on Wake Island while enroute from Pearl Harbor to Leyte in the Philippine Islands; this is the fifth Wake Raid. TG 12.4 consists of the light aircraft carrier USS Cowpens (CVL-25) with Light Carrier Air Group Fifty (CVLG-50), and the aircraft carriers USS Hancock (CV19) with Carrier Air Group Six (CVG-6) and USS Lexington (CV-16) with CVG-94 plus escorting vessels. This practice will assist them when they join the 3rd Fleet.
USN submarines in the Pacific sink an auxiliary sailing vessel, an army cargo ship and a freighter.
CANADA: HMCS Runnymede departed Halifax for Esquimalt.
Corvettes HMCS Dauphin and Chambly paid off Sorel, Province of Quebec.
U.S.A.: New York: Four million people cheer Eisenhower as he drives in a motorcade for 35 miles through the city.
The Liberty ship American Victory is launched by the California Shipbuilding Corp. She is preserved to this day as a museum at Tampa, Florida. More... (William L. Howard)
Destroyers USS Epperson and Robert H McCard laid down.
I rarely if ever post on the history threads but I so appreciate them. Thank you for posting.
Eisenhower is so popular I bet he could become President.
IKE was the right man at the right time. There are no IKE’s out there today. Consider yourself fortunate if you were lucky enough to be here when he was President. There were two great men back then, MacArthur and IKE. We got IKE, Japan got MacArthur. We got the better of the two deals. BTW, both had parades in NYC. MacArthur’s parade was after he left Korea.(I watched that one on TV, when Ike was there we didn’t have a TV. No one did).)
Interesting article on Presidential sucession. Ironically Truman will live to see future Presidents given authority to nominate their successors.
One of the greatest radio voices ever.
His D-Day announcement caused goosebumps.
The estimate of 4,000,000 coming out to salute Ike, if at all realistic, is astounding. Is that the biggest parade attendance in world history? If not, what was?
There is an advertisement to visit the 103 foot model of the Fighting Lady. It is 1/9 th the size of the original. That is a big model, I wonder what happened to it.
The only reference I could find is:
http://bldg92.tumblr.com/image/118945415538
Looks like the model was commissioned in May 14, 1945.
May 14, 1945: You won’t find the USS Fighting Lady on any official rolls of Navy fighting vessels. But 70 years ago today, the aircraft carrier had her very own commissioning ceremony. As reported in the Shipworker (on May 22nd), the Fighting Lady was a 103-foot scale model of an Essex class carrier built by workers at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Located in the Lower Plaza of Rockefeller Center (where the ice rick usually is), the public could visit her by buying a War Bond and she was used as the setting for several bond drive events. The Fighting Lady was the fictional name of the ship in the self-titled 1944 war film about carrier operations filmed aboard the USS Yorktown (CV-10).
is it possibly at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Center?
http://bldg92.org/exhibitions/past-present-and-future/
Lemay alludes to a 1,000 plane bomber attack. Don’t know if it happened with the B29 but did find this.
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