May 13th, 1945 (SUNDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: London: In his broadcast tonight to mark the victory in Europe, Churchill looked back over the five momentous years of his premiership, which had seen the British people recover from the brink of defeat and carry the war into Germany alongside the Americans and the Soviet Union. "I wish I could tell you tonight that all our toil and troubles were over," he said. "But we have to make sure that the simple and honourable purposes for which we entered the war are brushed aside ... There would be little use in punishing the Hitlerites ... if totalitarian or police governments were to take their place."Submarine HMS Sanguine commissioned.
Frigate HMCS Monnow departed Greenock to join Convoy JW-67.
NETHERLANDS: This morning, five days after the formal capitulation, a German military court delivered death sentences on two German naval deserters, Bruno Dorfer and Rainer Beck. The trial occurred in an abandoned Ford assembly plant on the outskirts of Amsterdam, a site used by the Canadian army for the concentration of German naval personnel. Later that same day, a German firing squad, supplied with captured German rifles and a three-ton truck from the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and escorted by Canadian Captain Robert K. Swinton, executed the two German prisoners of war a short distance outside the enclosure. Dorfer and Beck were among the last victims of a military legal system distorted by the Nazi state. At the time no one, Canadian or German, questioned the justice of the event. (Russel Folsom, 253)
NORWAY: Oslo: The Royal Navy brings
Crown Prince Olaf (Head of the Armed Forces) and some of the military back to
Norway. (Alex Gordon)
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Heavy fighting on Mindanao. Del Monte Airfield falls to the US 40th
Division.
US troops open up the Balete Pass on Luzon.
JAPAN: Aircraft of Task Groups 58.1 and 58.2 attack airfields on Kyushu and Shikoku, in an attempt to stop the kamikaze attacks.
Twentieth Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortresses begin Phase III of Operation STARVATION, the mining of Japanese waters. During the night of 13/14 May, 12 B-29s drop mines in Shimonoseki Strait, Japan.
Of Okinawa, the destroyer USS Bache (DD-470) and destroyer escort USS Bright (DE-747) are damaged by kamikazes. On USS Bache, the wing of the kamikaze struck near number two stack, catapulting the plane down on the main deck amidships, with its bomb exploding about seven feet (2.13 m) above the main deck; 41 of the crew were killed and 32 injured. All steam and electrical power were lost. Fires were brought under control within 20 minutes and she was towed to Kerama Retto, Okinawa, for temporary repairs.
On USS Bright, a low-flying Japanese fighter was sighted at 1919 hours and gunners opened fire scoring hits on his engine and port wing. The port wing fell off but the plane continued approaching at full speed and crashed immediately astern of the fantail. A 500-pound (227 kg) bomb exploded at the moment of crashing, causing immediate loss of steering with the rudder jammed hard left. The after-steering room was completely demolished, both port and starboard depth charge racks were damaged and inoperative, smoke screen generators blown off, the main deck aft buckled and pierced, and three compartments opened to the sea. Two men were wounded and for the following hour it was impossible to keep the ship from circling. Bright was towed to Kerama Retto, Ryukyu Islands, for emergency repairs.
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Giffard departed St John's to escort Convoy HX-335.
U.S.A.:
Submarines USS Sirago and Trumpetfish launched.
1996: The death of John Ausland, Captain, US Army, 4th Division, writer and member of the WWII-L, in Oslo, Norway on Monday, May 13th of cancer. Some of his WWII letters home are on line at:
http://home.nc.rr.com/ww2memories/ww2_ausland.html
Born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin on July 14, 1920. John enlisted in the US Army shortly after Pearl Harbor and trained at Ft. Sill and then attended OCS. He attended Princeton after his discharge in 1945. Joining the US State Department heserved on the U.S. State Department's Berlin Task Force in 1961 when the Berlin Wall war built and then as an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
He retired from government service in 1974 and wrote six books on military and foreign affairs. His last book, KENNEDY, KHRUSHCHEV AND THE BERLIN-CUBA CRISIS 1961-1964 was published in early May, 1996.
Thanks Chuck!