May 5th, 1944 (FRIDAY)
ITALY: RAF Mustangs and RAAF and SAAF Warhawks attack the Torre Dam.
General Alexander orders Allied units to break through the Gustav Line on 11 May.
YUGOSLAVIA: Marshal Tito's partisan army, now numbering nearly 300,000 well-armed men and women has fought its way into the Croatian capital of Zagreb, it was learned today. A huge cache of German weapons was captured with lorryloads of prisoners, before the partisans "melted away" in typical fashion.
Tito's National Liberation Front now controls almost every town in mountainous Montenegro. It also took four German divisions to drive them from Slovenia; even so few main roads of railways there are safe for troop transport. Twelve divisions of General Rendulic's Second Panzerarmee are being kept fully occupied by Tito's fiercely determined irregulars.
Although the Germans have retaken most of the Adriatic Islands between Fiume and Split - captured by partisans when the Italian army collapsed last year - their garrisons are under constant harassment.
The head of the British military mission, Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean, has selected the outer island of Vis as a base for organizing British commando operations in Nazi-held Yugoslavia.
U.S.S.R.: The Soviet launch an attack on the German defenders of Sevastopol. (Gene Hanson)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: At 0354, U-967 fired a Gnat at Convoy GUS-38 about 120 miles NW of Oran, Algeria and reported a hit on a medium-sized ship after 11 minutes 58 seconds, but this was probably an end-of-run detonation. Destroyer escort USS Laning located the U-boat after the unsuccessful attack and started an attack run, but U-967 fired a Gnat at the escort ships at 0441, hitting the USS Fechteler amidships. The explosion lifted the ship out of the water and broke her in two. Most crewmembers abandoned ship before both parts sank. 29 crewmembers died and 26 were injured. USS Laning then picked up the survivors together with other escort ships.
BURMA: Having taken the strategically vital Point 551, the Fourteenth Army counter-attacks at Imphal.
Air Commando Combat Mission N0. 53 3:00 Flight Time. Went back and did it again. [3:05 Flight Time Hailakandi, Assam to Hopin, Burma. Bombed Japanese supply dumps.] (Chuck Baisden)
U.S.A.:
Minesweeper USS Measure commissioned.
Destroyer minelayer USS Aaron Ward launched.
Destroyer USS Bristol laid down.
Frigate USS Long Beach launched.
USS Comfort is commissioned in San Pedro, CA; first ship to be manned jointly by Army and Navy personnel.
ICELAND: Three Allied forces agents, named Miller, Hoan and Frick are having dinner in their hotel in Seydisfjordur this evening when they get wind of a German plan to send three spies to Iceland to monitor troop movements in a bid foil Allied attempts to liberate France.
A seal hunter had spotted three strangers behaving suspiciously near Borgarfjordur.
The agents try to alert an Allied ship anchored off the coast but are told it could take hours before it got up enough steam to sail, by which time the men could be deep inside the Icelandic wilderness. (More) (Scott Peterson)