Potsdam Conference, July-August 1945. President Harry S. Truman onboard USS Augusta (CA-31) en-route to Antwerp for the “Big Three” Conference. Shown: (left to right) Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, President Truman, and Admiral William D. Leahy, USN, in Mr. Byrnes cabin. Photograph received July 18, 1945. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. (2016/02/23). For more information click this link.
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.
Ruthenia, formerly in Czechoslovakia, becomes part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on June 29. In Washington, D.C., President Truman approves “Operation Downfall” —— the two-part plan devised by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for invading the home islands of Japan. Involved will be five million troops, mostly American. British Commonwealth forces will provide very-long-range bomber support. The southernmost Japanese island of Kyushu will be invaded first, on November 1, 1945 (“Operation Olympic”), with the island of Honshu — the main island, where Tokyo is located — to be invaded on March 1, 1946 (“Operation Coronet”).
President Truman appoints James F. Byrnes to succeed Edward Stettinius as U.S. Secretary of State. Byrnes, from South Carolina, has been a U.S. Representative and a U.S. Senator, as well as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Stettinius had resigned to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Chinese forces capture Liuchow, in southern China. They then take towns on the southern border and move into Japanese-occupied French Indochina. At a press conference announcing a major investigation of the film industry by the House Un-American Activities Committee, U.S. Rep. John Rankin, a Democrat from Mississippi, states that Hollywood “is the greatest hotbed of subversive activities in the United States.” In New York City, a 17-day newspaper-delivery strike begins. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia famously reads the comics over the radio to the city’s children to keep them up on the happenings of their favorite cartoon characters.
Australian and Dutch troops land near Balikpapan, Borneo, on July 1, 1945. The U.S. 2nd Armored Division enters Berlin in accordance with the four-power agreement over the division of Germany — and, separately, Berlin — into zones of control. British troops withdraw from Magdeburg, Germany, which is located in the Soviet Occupation Zone.
The British on July 2 capture secret documents indicating plans for a breakout of Japan’s Thirty-Third Army in Burma. Japanese sources report that only 200,000 people remain in Tokyo, with the others evacuated to safer places. The Japanese claim that over five million people have been killed or wounded by American fire-bombs.
On Borneo, Australian and Dutch troops have driven 6 miles inland from their Balikpapan beachhead by July 3. Moscow Radio reports that the body of former Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels has been discovered in the courtyard of the Chancellery in Berlin. In Detroit, Michigan, the first civilian passenger car made in the U.S. in three years rolls off the assembly line of the Ford Motor Company.
The British 7th Armoured Division — “The Desert Rats” of the North African Campaign — enters Germany on July 4 to establish and patrol the British Sector of Occupation. Patrolling 95 miles off the coast of Brazil, the Brazilian scout cruiser Bahia sinks within three minutes when its own gunners during target practice accidentally shoot mines stored on the stern of the ship. Few of the 375 crew members survive the blast and sinking, and many of those who do die of thirst, injuries and exposure in shark-infested waters. The 37 ultimate survivors are rescued only four to five days later, when the Brazilian cruiser Rio Grande do Sul, scheduled to relieve Bahia on patrol, arrives on the scene to find the ship missing and men in the water.
In Manila, U.S. Gen. of the Army Douglas MacArthur announces on July 5 that the Philippines has been liberated. However, sporadic fighting continues in the islands until after the Japanese surrender. U.S. losses total 11,921 dead and 42,970 injured or captured. Across Germany, the rumor begins to spread that Adolf Hitler is still alive. In the United Kingdom, general elections are held, the first since 1935. Results will not be posted until July 26, so votes of British service personnel overseas can be included. In the American Occupation Zone of Germany, the U.S. military government seizes all assets within the zone of IG Farbenindustrie AG. The chemicals and pharmaceuticals conglomerate had been a major provider of materials to the Nazi war effort.
On July 6, Norway declares war on Japan. In Berlin, the Allied occupation forces hold a victory parade. Nicaragua becomes the first country to ratify the United Nations Charter. The government of Czechoslovakia announces that over three million ethnic German Czechs living in Sudetenland who had accepted German citizenship will be deported to Germany and Austria over the next 18 months. Their property will be confiscated as war reparations.
On Borneo, troops of the Australian 7th Division continue to move inland on July 7, assisted by Dutch and Dutch East Indian troops. France agrees to permit Syrian and Lebanese soldiers serving in the French Army to transfer to their national militaries.
President Truman on July 8 is informed that Japan might be willing to discuss peace if the nation can retain the Emperor on the throne. Shortly after midnight, at Salina, Utah, 23-year-old U.S. Army Pvt. Clarence Bertucci climbs a guard tower at a POW camp holding 250 Germans and opens fire on the sleeping prisoners with a 30-caliber machine gun. For the next 15 seconds, he riddles their tents with 250 rounds of ammunition, stopping only when disarmed by another soldier when Bertucci’s weapon runs out of bullets. Six Germans are killed immediately, three die later and 20 more are wounded. The victims are buried with full military honors at the federal military cemetery at Fort Douglas, Utah, near Salt Lake City. (After the wounded recover, they are repatriated to Germany.) Bertucci shows no remorse, saying only that he hates Germans, and so he killed them. Despite a lack of any evidence of mental impairment, a military panel declares Bertucci insane and commits him to a mental hospital. He dies in 1969. Known as “The Midnight Massacre,” the incident is considered the worst carnage at a POW camp in the history of the U.S.
Dutch troops land north of Balikpapan, Borneo, on July 9. American bombers strike two airfields near Tokyo.
On July 10, 1,022 American B-29s again bomb Tokyo, targeting some 70 airbases located around the city. German submarine U-530 — unaccounted for since April, when orders to surrender were issued by the Kriegsmarine — surfaces at Mar del Plata, Argentina, south of Buenos Aires. Certain irregularities — its two-month delay in surrendering, the absence of the sub’s deck gun, its missing ship’s log, and none of its crew carrying identification documents — spark speculation that the sub has ferried high-ranking Nazi officials to sanctuary in South America. (Not so, says the Argentine Naval Ministry, after an investigation.)
On Luzon, in the Philippines, American planes on July 11 drop thousands of napalm bombs on isolated Japanese pockets of resistance. British carrier-based aircraft conduct a bombing raid on Japanese airfields on the island of Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies. Dutch and Australian troops capture Balikpapan, Borneo, and its oil-processing installations. The Soviet Union agrees to turn over civilian and military control of western Berlin to British, French and U.S. forces. (The city of Berlin is located in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany.)
On July 12, concentration-camp survivors parade through the streets of Paris in remembrance of French victims of the Nazis. In Berlin, the British honor the Soviet military in a ceremony conducted at the Brandenburg Gate.
