May 12th, 1944 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: London: The Allies call on the Axis satellites Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria to withdraw from the war.
RAF Mosquitoes lay mines in their first sortie to the Kiel Canal.
The U.S. Eighth Air Force in England flies two missions.
Mission 353: 886 bombers and 735 fighters are dispatched to hit oil production facilities in Germany and Czechoslovakia; there is strong Luftwaffe fighter reaction and 46 bombers and 7 fighters are lost:
- 326 B-17s are dispatched to Mersenburg (224 bomb) and Lutzkendorf (87 bomb); 1 hits Hedrongen and 1 bombs Bullstadt; 2 B-17s are lost.
- 295 B-17s are dispatched to Brux, Czechoslovakia (140 bomb) and Zwickau (74 bomb); 11 hit Chemnitz, 14 hit Gera marshalling yard, 15 hit Hof and 4 hit targets of opportunity; 41 B-17s are lost.
- 265 B-24s are dispatched to Zeitz (116 bomb) and Bohlen (99 bomb);
14 hit Mersenburg, 1 hits Ostend Airfield, Belgium and 12 hit targets of opportunity; 3 B-24s are lost.
Escort is provided by 153 P-38s, 201 P-47s and 381 P-51s; P-38s claim 2-0-0 Luftwaffe aircraft, P-47s claim 26-0-8 and P-51s claim 33-0-3 in the air and 5-0-2 on the ground; 4 P-47s and 3 P-51s are lost.
Mission 354: 5 of 5 B-17s drop 1.74 million leaflets on Denmark without loss.
Sloop HMS Mermaid commissioned.
GERMANY: U-2501 launched.
On January 26, 1944, ObltzS Oskar Kusch, commander of U-154 was condemned to death by a military tribunal and executed on May 12, 1944, after being denounced by his former IWO for alleged "Wehrkraftzersetzung" (sedition and defeatism). One of eleven politically motivated accusations against Kusch was that he had ordered a Hitler portrait removed from the boat's officers' mess to a less conspicuous location with the commentary, "We are not in the business here of practicing idolatry." In 1996 Kusch's legal record was finally wiped clean, and in 1998 the city of Kiel erected a memorial and renamed a street in his honour not far from the military range along the Kiel Canal where he had been shot 54 years before. Kusch was one of only two U-boat commanders to be sentenced to death by German authorities, the other being Heinz Hirsacker of U-572 who was convicted of cowardice and committed suicide on April 24, 1943, shortly before his scheduled execution.
BALTIC SEA: At 2323, U-24 fired a torpedo at two escorts and observed a hit amidships after 67 seconds and heard how five depth charges detonated when the vessel sank. The vessel sunk was the Soviet patrol craft SKA-0376.
ITALY: Sepoy Kamal Ram (b.1924), 8th Punjab Regt., knocked out two machine gun posts which had halted his company, then with a comrade destroyed a third. (Victoria Cross)
The U.S. Fifteenth Air Force dispatches 730 B-17s and B-24s (largest force to date) to attack targets in Italy, i.e., the German HQ at Massa d'Albe and Monte Soratte; the town of Civitavecchia; airfields at Tarquinia and in the surrounding area; marshalling yards at Chivasso, Piombino, Marina di Carrara, Viareggio and Ferrara; Orbetello Island; Piombino harbor; docks and communications at San Stefano al Mare ; harbor, marshalling yard and railroad bridge at Chiavari; La Spezia marshalling yard and harbour; and several targets of opportunity; 25 P-38s strafe Piacenza Airfield; other fighters fly 250+ sorties in support of bombing missions.
CANADA: Frigate HMCS Springhill arrived Halifax from builder Esquimalt, British Columbia.
Minesweeper HMCS Cranbrook commissioned.
U.S.A.: Destroyer escorts USS Gilligan and William C Cole commissioned.
Minesweepers USS Fancy and Fixity laid down.
Escort carrier USS Puget Sound laid down.