Philippine Sea Between Guam Island and Leyte Gulf • July 30, 1945 On July 15, 1945, Capt. Charles B. McVay III, 46‑year-old skipper of the USS Indianapolis, a fast Portland-class cruiser in California for repairs, received orders to pick up some special cargo at Hunters Point (predecessor name for the now-closed San Francisco Naval Yard). Eleven days later, on…
Warsaw, Occupied Poland • July 29, 1944 By July 1944 Poland had been occupied by the armed forces of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany for close to 5 years and by those of Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union for considerably less. (For nearly 2 years, from September 1939 to June 1941 when the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union…
Seattle, Washington State • July 28, 1935 On this date in 1935 a prototype 4‑engine bomber took off from Seattle, Washington’s Boeing Field on its first flight. The plane, known simply as Model 299 among Boeing employees, bristled with machine-gun mounts in its nose, sides, top, and tail. Dubbed the “Flying Fortress,” allegedly by a…
On Germany’s Eastern Front • July 27, 1941 On this date in 1941, 5 weeks after the launch of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany’s surprise attack on the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler left his East Prussian Fuehrer Headquarters, known as the Wolf’s Lair (Wolfsschanze) and which had been built specifically for the Russian campaign, to pay…
Potsdam, Germany • July 26, 1945 After the conclusion of the ruinous Battle of Berlin (April 16 to May 2, 1945) and the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany (May 7 and 8, 1945), U.S. President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin gathered at a “Big Three” victors’ conference in Potsdam. Their…
London, England • July 25, 1942 On this date in 1942 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt learned that the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS), an amalgam of the high-ranking military officers of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (War and Navy Departments) and their British counterparts, the British Chiefs of Staff Committee, had established the…
Hamburg, Germany • July 24, 1943 On this date in 1943, over the North German city of Hamburg, the Royal Air Force kicked off Operation Gomorrah (July 24 to August 3, 1943). British retaliation for the Luftwaffe’s firebombing of the medieval city of Coventry in the English Midlands, where 503 tons of explosives, 56 tons of incendiaries, and 127 parachute…
Paris, France • July 23, 1945 Following the military defeat of France by Nazi Germany in June 1940, World War I hero Maréchal (Marshal) Philippe Pétain proclaimed a new French government on July 10, 1940. Pétain held the title of “President of the Council” instead of President of France. His government, which accorded him extraordinary powers, was…
London, England • July 22, 1940 On this date in 1940 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, encouraged by future Prime Minister Winston Churchill, signed the founding charter of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization. For security purposes the SOE’s “cloak and dagger” operations was concealed behind the name “Inter-Service Research Bureau.” (At the time the…
Caen, Normandy, France • July 21, 1945 The capture of the historic Norman town of Caen, a city of 62,000, was a key objective of Operation Overlord (June 6, 1944 to August 30, 1944), the start of the Allies’ liberation of German-occupied Western Europe. Overlord’s plans called for the British Second Army and the Canadian…
