The Messerschmitt Me 262A-1a was the first jet fighter of World War II. Wikipedia.
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.
In Lyme Bay, near Slapton, England, Exercise Tiger continues on April 28, 1944; the second day of the exercise is again marked by tragedy (somewhere around 450 U.S. soldiers and sailors were killed in a live-fire accident the previous day). A convoy of eight LSTs carrying vehicles and combat engineers is attacked by nine heavily armed German E-Boats (fast-attack boats, larger and more-powerful than American PT boats) that have slipped undetected through Allied security patrols. Four of the landing craft are damaged or sunk, costing the lives of another 423 U.S. Army and Navy servicemen, with 200 more wounded. Because of official embarrassment and concerns over security for the actual invasion, all survivors of Exercise Tiger are sworn to secrecy, and details of the dual tragedies are kept quiet. Elsewhere, the U.S. Army completes its capture of Hollandia’s airfields and isolates 200,000 Japanese troops on Papua-New Guinea for the duration of war. U.S. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox dies at the age of 70 after a series of heart attacks.
The U.S. Navy pounds the Japanese military base at Truk on April 29, destroying 120 planes. During a nighttime sortie in the English Channel, the Canadian destroyer HMCS Athabaskan is sunk by the German destroyer T-24. 129 sailors are lost, 83 are taken prisoner and 44 are rescued.
U.S. Navy air raids continue in the Caroline Islands on April 30, including more attacks on Truk. In India, the battles at Kohima and Imphal continue. The Japanese, however, are running short of food and ammunition.
On May 1, an American force of seven battleships and 11 destroyers bombards Ponape, Caroline Islands, in the Pacific. The Messerschmitt Me-262 — the first jet fighter of the war — makes its maiden flight. Faster and more-heavily armed than any Allied fighter, the Me-262 would shoot down over 540 Allied aircraft over the course of the war. In Moscow, Joseph Stalin declares: “The wounded German beast must be pursued and finished off in its lair.” In a suburb of Athens, Greece, 200 communists are executed by Nazi occupation authorities in reprisal for the killing of a German general by Greek Resistance fighters.
Spain on May 2 reaches an agreement with Great Britain and the U.S. to restrict the supply of wolfram (tungsten) ore to Germany. (The element’s hardness and high density make it ideal for manufacturing armor-penetrating artillery shells, among other military uses.) In the U.S., WABD-TV gets its FCC license, becoming the third commercial television station in New York City. The station initially airs on channel 4.
In Tokyo on May 3, Adm. Soemu Toyoda is named Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, succeeding Admiral Mineichi Koga, who had been killed in a plane crash on March 31. Meat rationing ends in the U.S., except for certain selected items, such as steaks and cuts for roasting. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, two young Harvard scientists, Robert Woodward and William Doering, announce the first production of synthetic quinine, an antimalarial.
British counterattacks at besieged Kohima, India, on May 4 are repulsed by the Japanese. In Europe, the RAF conducts a nighttime air raid on Budapest, Hungary.
In Ukraine on May 5, the Red Army launches an offensive against the Germans holding the fortress city of Sevastopol in the Crimea. In India, the British Fourteenth Army launches a counterattack against the Japanese near Imphal, some 84 miles south of Kohima.
The Allies launch heavy bombing missions over continental Europe on May 6 in preparation for the impending invasion of France. The British release independence activist Mohandas Gandhi from prison in Pune, India, due to his failing health.
On May 7, 300,000 Japanese troops begin gathering and preparing for an offensive from the Canton and Hankow areas in eastern China, with the aim of capturing Allied airfields. In Europe, the U.S. 15th Air Force and British Bomber Command conduct daylight and night-time raids on railroad yards in Bucharest, Romania, leaving the city in flames. The U.S. 8th Air Force conducts similar raids over Berlin, while the U.S. 9th Air Force attacks railway yards at Charleville-Mézières, France.
Adolf Hitler on May 8 gives permission for a full-scale evacuation of German and Romanian troops from the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine. In London, Gen. Eisenhower sets June 5 as D-Day for “Operation Overlord,” the invasion of Normandy. Also, in London, the Czechoslovak government-in-exile signs an agreement to permit the Soviet Red Army to liberate Czechoslovakia from the Germans.
The German Army abandons Sevastopol, the largest city and an important port in the Crimea, in Ukraine, on May 9. The Soviet 4th Ukrainian Army moves in. Japanese forces skirmish with American troops near Hollandia, Papua-New Guinea.
On May 10, Chinese troops cross the Salween River in China near the Burmese border, moving towards Japanese positions. In the U.S., James V. Forrestal is named Secretary of the Navy, succeeding Frank Knox, who died on April 28. In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Smith v. Allwright, rules that primary elections must be open to voters of all races.
In Italy, a fourth Battle of Monte Cassino begins on May 11. At 11:00 p.m., 2,300 Allied artillery pieces open fire along the 35-mile-long line from Cassino to the Tyrrhenean Sea. At 11:45 Allied ground troops move against the German Cassino front. The Allies also initiate an offensive towards Rome. In China, the Japanese capture and take control of the Hankow-Peiping railroad line. In the Sulu Sea near Tawi-Tawi, the Philippines, the Japanese begin to gather most of their remaining heavy warships in anticipation of an American offensive on the Mariana Islands, some 1,875 miles to the northeast. Allied planes bomb airfields and coastal installations in France, hitting Calais, in the north, especially hard as part of a deception to make the Germans believe that an attack would be made there.
