July 7th, 1945 (SATURDAY)
JAPAN: HQ XX Bomber Command, Twentieth Air Force, arrives at Sakugawa, Okinawa from India. 100+ P-51s dispatched from Iwo Jima to hit airfields in the Tokyo area abort due to bad weather.
Taking off from bases in the Marianas during the late evening hours of 6 July, 517 XXI Bomber Command B-29 Superfortresses make four incendiary and one high explosive attacks on Japanese cities between 0700 and 0800 hours local on 7 July; one B-29 is lost:
Mission 251: 124 B-29s attack the Chiba urban area destroying 0.86 sq miles (2.23 sq km), 43.4% of the city; one other B-29 hits an alternate target.
Mission 252: 123 B-29s hit the Akashi urban area destroying 0.81 sq miles (2.10 sq km), 57.0% of the city; one other B-29 hits an alternate target.
Mission 253: 133 B-29s attack the Shimizu urban area destroying 0.71 sq miles (1.84 sq km), 50% of the city; one B-29 is lost.
Mission 254: 131 B-29s hit the Kofu urban area destroying 1.3 sq miles (3.37 sq km), 65% of the city; one other B-29 hits an alternate target.
Mission 255: 59 B-29s drop 500-pound (227 kg) bombs on the Maruzen Oil Refinery at Wakayama; one other hits an alternate target.
110 Iwo Jima-based P-51s attack airfields in the Tokyo area (Kumagaya, Yamagata, and Chiba); they claim 1-0-0 aircraft in the air and 6-25 on the ground; one P-51 is lost.
Iwo Jima: VII Fighter Command, United States' Seventh Air Force bases the 414th Fighter Group flying P-47Ns at North Field.
The first B-29 runway has now been paved to 8,500 feet and is in operation.
BORNEO:Thirteenth Air Force B-24s, B-25s and P-38s and RAAF aircraft support Australian troops in the Balikpapan, Borneo area.
U.S.A.: The first Beechcraft A-38 'Grizzly' is delivered to the USAAF at Wight Field, Dayton Ohio.President Harry S. Truman, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy board the heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) enroute to Antwerp, Belgium. Their ultimate destination is Potsdam, Germany for a conference with British and Soviet leaders.
Destroyer USS BASILONE is laid down. Destroyers USS Brownson and Richard B Anderson launched.