May 18th, 1945 (FRIDAY)
ÉIRE: Dublin: De Valera announced a $12 million food and clothing aid programme for Europe.
UNITED KINGDOM:
Repair ship HMS Portland Bill launched.
GERMANY: Flensburg: Dönitz issues an order of the day to the Wehrmacht in which he attempts to exonerate himself by expressing horror at the concentration camps and distancing the military from Nazi atrocities.
Bremen: Lt. George Gosse (1912-65), RANVR, for the third time in ten days worked underwater to defuse a mine with a new, highly unpredictable type of mechanism. (George Cross)
ITALY: 44 Fascists are reported to have been murdered in Milan. (180 pp 238,239)
JAPAN: The USAAF's Twentieth Air Force flies Mission 177: During the night of 18/19 May, 30 B-29 Superfortresses mine Shimonoseki Strait and Tsuruga Harbor in Japan.The 6th Marine Division is involved in heavy fighting at Sugar Loaf Hill in Okinawa.
Off Okinawa:
- The destroyer USS Longshaw (DD-559), en route to her patrol area, runs aground on a coral reef just south of Naha airfield. While a tug was taking Longshaw in tow, Japanese shore batteries opened up and her bow was completely blown off by a hit in the forward magazine. The "Abandon Ship" order was given but 86 of her crew, including the captain, died. The wreck was destroyed by gunfire and torpedoes from U.S. ships.
- Two kamikazes make a coordinated attack on the high-speed transport USS Sims (APD-50, ex DE-154). Both aircraft are hit by AA fire and crash into the water on her port side with a violent explosions that lifts and shakes the entire ship resulting in serious oil leaks and considerable damage to machinery and equipment. The crew repairs the damage and continues patrolling.
- Tank landing ship USS LST-808 is damaged by an aerial torpedo.
- The U.S. freighter SS Cornelius Vanderbilt is bombed and set afire.
The ship is carrying gasoline and explosives but the crew and 108 stevedores on board put out the fire.
MARIANAS ISLANDS: The advance air echelon of the 509th Composite Group arrives at North Field, Tinian Island, Mariana Islands. The 509th is scheduled to deliver atomic bomb attacks on Japan; its Commanding Officer is Colonel Paul W Tibbets Jr, a pilot with a distinguished record in the 97th Bombardment Group (Heavy) in Europe and North Africa.
U.S.A.:
Minesweeper USS Towhee commissioned.