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http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/6/31.htm

July 31st, 1945 (TUESDAY)

AUSTRIA: Linz: Pierre Laval, the puppet leader of German-occupied Vichy France, surrenders to US forces. The French will commit him to trial and execute him. This morning he landed at Linz and is now in the hands of the Free French army at Baden-Baden, in Germany. After the Germans took him from France to Germany, he fled to Italy before taking refuge in General Franco’s Spain. But after a “frank” talk between Franco and Sir Victor Mallet, the British ambassador in Madrid, Laval left Barcelona in the same Junkers Ju88 aircraft (a present from the Nazis) in which he had escaped from France. He was accompanied by his wife and a large quantity of luggage. He is expected to arrive soon in Paris, where he is second on the list, after Petain, of those charged with treason.

Laval had served as minister of state under Henri Petain after the French surrender in June 1940 but was dismissed by Petain in December 1940 for negotiating privately with Germany. By 1942, Laval had won Hitler’s confidence and became premier of Vichy France and Petain was relegated to a figurehead. Laval collaborated with Hitler’s programs of oppression and genocide and was forced to flee east after the Allied liberation of France.

EUROPE: When the fighting finally stopped in Europe some 11,078,000 non-German men, women and children were homeless refugees. Some had fled before advancing armies, others had been forcibly deported by the Nazis, others still were ex-PoWs. About a quarter of the population of Germany was also destitute.

The Allied authorities were faced with a vast multi-lingual mass of destitute people - hungry, sick and often mentally disturbed. Many set off immediately on foot for their homelands, turning war-torn Europe into a huge web of chaotic migratory paths. Officials feared that the precarious post-war order would break down. It is thanks to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, in co-operation with organizations such as the Red Cross, that some 8,221,000 people have now been repatriated.

The displaced person, as they officially known, are first segregated according to nationality. Even this first step is complicated. Some survivors are so severely traumatized that they have no memory of their former lives. Others, many of them those whose homelands are now under Soviet domination, do not wish to return to their former homes. From camps divided by nationality the people are then transported by air, sea and land to reception centres in their native lands. Here they are given medical examinations, food, clothing, information about lost relatives, money, and transport to whatever may be left of their former homes. The current rate of repatriation across Europe is some 78,500 people per day. In northern Italy alone there are 40 reception camps; one at Treviso can take 20,000 people a day.

In China the problem is on a different scale. Here 43 million people fled from the Japanese, abandoning everything that they owned to save their lives.

SINGAPORE:The four-man midget submarine XE.3, commanded by Lieutenant Ian Edward Fraser (b. 1920), RNR, crept into the Johore Straits at Singapore to attack the Japanese heavy cruiser Takao, whilst XE.1 headed for Myoko. After 11 hours bumping along the bottom in often dangerously shallow water, Fraser managed to position XE.3 directly below Takao, and his diver, L/S James Joseph Magennis (1919-86) RN, squeezed out a hatch which could only be partly opened, blocked by the cruiser’s hull, to attached limpet mines to the her. The task was made even more difficult by problems with his breathing apparatus. Once Magennis had returned to XE.3, Fraser released the submarine’s main weapons - large explosive charges carried on each side of the vessel. However, one of the racks for the limpet mines would not release, upsetting the trim of the submarine; Magennis once more had to swim outside to help free it, which he managed after several minutes of difficult work. XE.3 was then able to make her escape. Meanwhile, XE.1 could not find Myoko, so her crew decided also to attack Takao, even though there was a risk that XE.3’s charges might go off whilst they were underneath the cruiser. Charges dropped, XE.1 followed her sister out to sea. Takao was badly damaged by the explosions and never went to sea again. Fraser and Magennis both received the Victoria Cross.

JAPAN: Over Japan, the US Far East Air Force dispatches 80+ B-24s to pound the Kagoshima railroad yards and several other targets in the general area including the Sasebo naval base, Yaki-shima, and Nagasaki; A-26 Invaders and B-25s bomb Kanoya and Miyazaki Airfields and nearby targets, the Sasebo naval base, Marushima, warehouses at Nagasaki, and a factory and power plant on Koyagi Island; P-51s attack flak positions at Moji, blast shipping at Iki Island and off the northwest and west coast of Kyushu, hit an island west-southwest of Sasebo, bomb railroad targets and warehouses in the Izumi area, and in general attack the railroad and road net and other communications targets throughout Kyushu and P-61 Black Widows continue harassing missions during the night.

USN’s Task Force 38 and RN’s Task Group 37.2 cease flying operations and retire from an oncoming typhoon.

CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS Star and HMC ML 101 paid off.
Minesweepers HMCS Truro and Trois-Rivieres transferred to RCMP at Sydney, Nova Scotia for rum running patrol duties. Renamed Herches and MacBrien respectively. Plans to transfer HMCS Lachine as Starnes and Digby as Perry cancelled.

U.S.A.: Washington: Today the US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, sent President Truman a memorandum on how to persuade Japan to surrender. As part of a package of measures which also includes conventional bombing, invasion and diplomacy, he took it for granted that the US would use the atomic bomb now under development. Policymakers are aware of the appalling effects of atomic bombs; but they are also concerned at possible Allied casualties in an invasion of Japan, estimated at 500,000. The formal decision was recommended by a US government committee on 31 May: “We could not give the Japanese any warning ... the most desirable target would be a vital war plant ... closely surrounded by workers’ houses,” it reported. Both Mr. Stimson and Mr. Churchill have made it plain that they consider the bomb a weapon of war like any other. There is little dissent among top officials or scientists, though some scientists long involved in the project have doubts about using it.

The United States Navy redesignates its Boeing B-17F and G aircraft as the PB-1 Fortress. (23)

Destroyer USS Richard E Kraus laid down.
Destroyers USS Kenneth D Bailey, Floyd B Parks, Sarsfield commissioned.