1942: Light cruiser HMS Edinburgh, which had been damaged on 30 April by torpedoes from U-456 whilst escorting Convoy QP11, and her escorts were attacked by three German destroyers. Herrmann Schoemann (Z7) was damaged and was scuttled the next day, but Edinburgh was torpedoed again and was also scuttled.On the same day, Japanese troops invaded Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands.
1943: Twelve Lockheed Ventura light bombers from 487 (New Zealand) Squadron, Bomber Command, departed on a daylight raid against a target in Amsterdam. One aircraft turned back due to mechanical problems, nine were shot down by German fighters, and the tenth was crippled but managed to make it back to England. Only the formation leader, Squadron Leader L H Trent, made his bombing run, and he was shot down immediately afterwards and taken prisoner. Trent was awarded the Victoria Cross after the war, when the details of the raid were made known.
1945: Liner Cap Arcona and freighter Thielbek, loaded with approximately 7500 concentration-camp prisoners, and hospital ship (former liner) Deutschland were sunk by the RAF in Lübeck Bay.
1946: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East was convened in Tokyo against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of "crimes against peace, conventional war crimes, and crimes against humanity."
1952 - USAF Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O Fletcher and William P Benedict landed a plane at the North Pole.
1973: The Sears Tower, in Chicago, was topped out as the world's tallest building. (The title was lost in 1996 to the Petronas Towers, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.)
2003: The Old Man of the Mountain, a rock formation on Cannon Mountain, in New Hampshire, collapsed.
Mehmed II the Conqueror (1432–1481), Anna Guarini (1563–1598) and Milt Caniff (1907-1988) died on this date.
And happy birthday to Nicolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), Richard D'Oyly Carte (1844–1901), Emmett Dalton (1861–1937), Ernest Alvia Smith VC CM OBC CD (1914-2005), Pete Seeger (1919-TBD), Dave Dudley (1928-2003), Frankie Valli (1934/7-TBD) and Doug Henning (1947-2000).
2 comments:
That picture of Smith is funny (sorry). I like his massive rack of medals. At that age and with that much chest candy, he must have walked with a slight list to the left.
I make it twelve on the bar - plus one (the Order of British Columbia) around his neck. I like the Brit way of putting them all in a single row.
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