San Francisco, California · July 15, 1945 On this date in 1945 the USS Indianapolis, a Portland-class cruiser in California for repairs, received orders to pick up a piece of special cargo at Hunters Point (predecessor name for the now-closed San Francisco Naval Yard). Eleven days later, on July 26, the Indianapolis delivered her mysterious cargo…
Aboard the U.S. Carrier Shangri-La · July 14, 1945 On this date and the next in 1945, less than four months after the start of Operation Starvation—the joint U.S. air and naval effort to strangle Japanese maritime traffic by the aerial mining of Japan’s harbors and straits—Navy air groups destroyed over half the train ferries…
Kursk, Soviet Union · July 13, 1943 On this date in 1943 Operation Citadel (Zitadelle), Adolf Hitler’s gambit to retake Kursk, an important Soviet rail hub south of Moscow, and straighten the German line on the Eastern Front failed with devastating losses on both sides, but especially to German strategic armored reserves. A day earlier…
Beirut, Lebanon · July 12, 1941 During their advance on the Iraqi capital of Baghdad in June 1941, the British shot down a Luftwaffe aircraft flown in support of the pro-German Iraqi government of Rashid Ali el‑Ghalani. (El-Ghalani had led a nationalist coup that unseated a pro-British regime weeks before and was understood to be…
The Berghof, Bavaria, Germany · July 11, 1944 Adolf Hitler had been the target of four assassination attempts before he became head of state in January 1933 and perhaps two dozen afterwards. On this date in 1944 Lt. Col. Claus von Stauffenberg arrived at the Berghof on the Obersalzberg, Hitler’s Bavarian retreat near Berchtesgaden, carrying…
London, England · July 10, 1940 On this date in 1940, less than one month after France’s capitulation to Nazi Germany and just 10 days after the Germans had seized the Channel islands of Jersey and Guernsey off the Brittany coast, Luftwaffe aircraft based in France began a relentless aerial campaign targeting the lone European…
Fort William Henry Harrison, Helena, Montana · July 9, 1942 On this date in 1942 the First Special Service Force was activated as a joint U.S.-Canadian force. Regarded as parents of the U.S. Green Berets, the United States Special Operations Command, and the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, these volunteers were the shock troops of…
London, England · July 8, 1941 On this date in 1941, five months before the United States was drawn into World War II, the Boeing B‑17 Flying Fortress was flown in combat for the first time, this by the Royal Air Force in an attack on the North German port of Wilhelmshaven. The first production model,…
Washington, D.C. · July 7, 1941 Long before the U.S. entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt began unraveling Congressional legislation that had hindered his aiding Great Britain and other Western democracies in their armed conflict with Nazi tyranny. Four successive Neutrality Acts from the 1930s were undone with “help” from two German U‑boat attacks…
Saipan, Marianas, Central Pacific · July 6, 1944 The Battle of the Philippine Sea (June 19–20, 1944) was a pivotal U.S. naval victory, effectively eliminating Japan’s ability to both conduct large-scale carrier actions and reinforce its garrisons to the east in the Marianas. The most important islands in the Mariana chain were Guam (an American…
