July 2nd, 1945 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: London: Mountbatten is ordered to launch Operation Zipper, the liberation of Malaya in August.
GERMANY: A "Special Statement of Fact" memo to SMGO (Senior Military Government Officer) Det. F1H2, in the American Zone, is issued on the subject of an "Asylum at Kaufbeuren, Swabia".
Although this is two months after the end of the war and the insane asylum was within "rifle shot" of a US Army Military Government detachment, inmates were still dying by the nurses' actions of "slow starvation", and "fast starvation." "A more of less alive boy weighed 10 kilos."
(Stan Sandler from [Det F1F3] "Special Statment of Fact, 2 July (sic), ibid., memo to SMGO [Senior Military Government Officer] Det. F1H2, Subject: "Asylum at Kaufbeuren, Swabia, 5 July 1945; memo, Regional Military Governor, Headquarters, Regional Military Government, Bavaria, Subject: "Report on Kaufbeuren (Murder Camp)", 7 July 1945, RG 332, ECAD, 1944-45, box 54, "Detachment F1F3 folder. (Apparently the US Holocaust Museum also has documentation on this episode.))
JAPAN: During the night of 2/3 July, the Twentieth Air Force flies Mission 245; 39 B-29s bomb an oil refinery at Minoshima, Japan and one other hits and alternate target.BORNEO: The US Thirteenth Air Force supports Australian troops in Borneo. B-24s bomb defenses in the Balikpapan area, P-38s and carrier based Navy and Marine aircraft support Australian forces as they complete the capture of Balikpapan and its oil installations and B-25s hit the Bintula personnel area.
CANADA: Cruiser
HMCS Ontario departed the Clyde for 4th
Cruiser Sqn of the British Pacific Fleet.
Minesweepers HMCS Ingonish and Lockeport
paid off and returned to RN at Sheerness.
Corvettes HMCS Orillia and Riviere Du Loup
paid off Sorel, Province of Quebec.
HMC ML 092, 093, 097 and 099 paid off.
1983: U.S.A.: Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle, USAF (Ret.) was presented with the AVG Flying Tiger Award. Since 1952 this award has been presented to many flyers that have made pioneer contributions to flying and included such names as Chennault, Stafford, Armstrong, Yeager and Barry Goldwater.
Some of General Doolittle's accomplishments included in 1922 the first transcontinental flight alone in a D-H4. He executed the first outside loop in 1927 an in 1929 he made the first "blind Flight" on instruments. He received at the age of 28 a Doctor of Science in the new field of aeronautical engineering (one of the first in the world) from MIT In the 1930s he headed the aviation Dept. of Shell Oil Company. For his organizing and leading the raid on Tokyo he received the Medal of Honor and during the course of W.W.II Doolittle was Commanding General of four different Air Forces.
I have had the honor of shaking his hand and have his signature on my 1983 Reunion Program. (Chuck Baisden)