The equal rights amendment was originally proposed in 1923. Harry S. Truman supported it during his term. This picture is from 1978.
By Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
Endorsed by President Harry Truman, an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (re-introduced each year since 1923) on July 19, 1946, fails to pass by three votes in the Senate. A two-thirds margin is needed for passage.
In Washington, D.C., the “Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack” is released on July 20. It states that, despite charges and allegations to the contrary, the Committee has found no evidence that President Roosevelt and key Cabinet members “tricked, provoked, incited, cajoled or coerced Japan into attacking this Nation in order that a declaration of war might be more easily obtained from the Congress.” The report places the blame for being unprepared for the attack on the two senior military officers in Hawaii at the time: U.S. Navy Adm. Husband Kimmel and U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Walter Short.
Off Cape Henry, Virginia, on July 21, U.S. Navy Lt. Cdr. James Davidson becomes the first American to land a jet airplane — an FH-1 Phantom — on an aircraft carrier (USS Franklin D. Roosevelt). Lt. Cdr. Davidson had earlier taken off from Roosevelt. For the first time in the history of the United Kingdom, bread is rationed, due to a wheat shortage.
On July 22, the militant Zionist organization Irgun, led by Menachem Begin (who would later become the sixth prime minister of Israel), bombs the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, located in the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The blast kills 91 Britons, Arabs and Jews and injures 46. A constitution for the World Health Organization (WHO) is signed in New York; it will become effective on 7 April 1948.
The last 1,385 of some 375,000 German prisoners of war being held in the U.S. at the end of the war are released to return home on July 23.
Andrei Gromyko, Permanent Representative of the Soviet Union to the United Nations, on July 24 tells a closed session of the UN Security Council that the U.S.S.R. will not accept a plan to ban further production of nuclear weapons. After days of negotiations, the seven U.S. Marines captured by the Communists in Hebei Province, in northern China, on July 13 are released.
Off Bikini Atoll, on July 25, the United States detonates an atomic bomb underwater for the first time. “Test Baker” — the second of three planned tests of “Operation Crossroads” — is the first underwater test of a nuclear device. Ten target ships are sunk. The difficulty (in some cases, impossibility) of safely and successfully decontaminating 18 target ships and 61 support ships — contaminated by highly radioactive water spray from the test — causes the scheduled third test (“Charlie”) to be canceled. “Operation Crossroads” itself is terminated on 10 August. At the Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, singer Dean Martin and comedian Jerry Lewis perform their first show as a comedy team.
President Truman on July 26 issues Executive Order 9981 that forbids discrimination in the U.S. Armed Forces “on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin.” In Austria, the First Nationalization Act creates government control over all heavy industries in an effort to control the nation’s inflation.
Meeting in Bombay, India, the Executive Council of the Muslim League on July 27 votes unanimously to reject the plan proposed by the British government to grant independence to British India while keeping the country unified.
On July 28, U.S. Assistant Secretary of War Howard Peterson announces that, in addition to the 123,000 American and Filipino military who died in combat, over 131,000 American and Filipino citizens — mostly Filipino civilians — died as a result of 72 instances of war crimes in the Philippines between December 7, 1941, and the end of World War II.
India’s Muslim League on July 29 calls for the partition of India into a Hindu state and a Muslim state. In coastal Hebei Province, in northeastern China, 300 soldiers of the communist People’s Liberation Army ambush 41 U.S. Marines escorting a supply convoy. In the firefight that follows, four marines and at least 15 Chinese are killed.
The first rocket to attain an altitude of 100 miles above the earth’s surface is launched from White Sands, New Mexico, on July 30.
Deputy Foreign Minister Herbert Morrison of the United Kingdom and U.S. diplomat Henry Grady propose a plan — endorsed by both President Truman and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee — to partition Palestine. The proposal would set aside 17% of the land for 100,000 Jewish immigrants; 43% of the land would go to Palestinian Arabs and the remainder of the land would remain under British control as a “neutral zone.” Jewish and Arab groups both reject the proposal.
In Austria, the Salzburg Music Festival on August 1 opens for the first time since the Anschluß (the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938). In the U.S., President Truman signs the McMahon Act creating the Atomic Energy Commission. The Act transfers nuclear weapons and technology from military to civilian control to foster the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. Andrey Vlasov — the Red Army general captured at Leningrad who then defected and led the Russian Liberation Army that fought alongside the Wehrmacht — is executed in Moscow for treason. In Hungary, the forint becomes legal tender, replacing the pengő. The exchange rate for gold is set at 13.21 forint per gram of gold. (For comparison, gold costs approximately $1.10 per gram in the U.S. at the time. Thus, US$1.00 equals approximately 12 forint.)
