May 17th, 1945 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Submarine HMS Ambush laid down.
JAPAN: Okinawa: US marines today launched an assault on Naha, the capital, in an advance that is turning into the modern equivalent of Flanders trench warfare - a slow, bitter, muddy and bloody confrontation costing thousands of lives.
In the past six weeks the US Tenth Army has averaged barely 133 yards a day and its casualties are close to 20,000 - in excess of those on Iwo Jima. The worst losses have come in the last five days with the assault on three positions near Naha. During the action the marines suffered 2,662 casualties, many from crossfire from nearby hillsides. Further east the US 77th Infantry Division made swift progress today with a dawn raid bringing them close to Shuri, the heart of Japan's defensive line.
JAPAN:
The USAAF's Twentieth Air Force flies Mission 176: Between 0300 and 0600 hours local, 457 of 522 B-29 Superfortresses dispatched attack the Nagoya urban area in the last great attack on this city; the southern part of Nagoya, the site of the Mitsubishi Aircraft Works, Aichi Aircraft Company's Atsuta plant and the Atsuta branch of the Nagoya Arsenal, the Nippon Vehicle Company and other targets are attacked from low levels; eleven other B-29s hit targets of opportunity; three B-29s are lost.
In an attempt to prevent kamikaze attacks, USAAF VII Fighter Command fighters from Iwo Jima fly 41 effective strike sorties against Atsugi, Japan; pilots claim ten parked aircraft destroyed. During the night of 17/18 May, two P-47 Thunderbolts of the 318th Fighter Group, presently arriving on Ie Shima (between 13 and 19 May), fly a heckling mission over Kyushu, Japan-the first such VII Fighter Command mission against Japan.
PACIFIC OCEAN: USS Ticonderoga (CV-14), with Carrier Air Group Eighty Seven (CVG-87) aboard, attacks Taroa Island in Maloelap Atoll as part of a training mission for the air group.