July 13th, 1945 (FRIDAY)
ITALY declares war on Japan.
U.S.S.R.: Moscow: Japan may ready to do a U-turn on its refusal to surrender. Diplomatic sources believe that today's hastily-arranged meeting between the Japanese ambassador in Moscow, Nataoke Sato, and the Kremlin's commissar for foreign affairs, Mr. Molotov, included a Japanese request to the Soviet Union to sound out Britain and the US about negotiations for surrender.
The move came three days ago, as 1,022 American planes bombed the Tokyo area, and Allied battleships ten miles off the Japanese coast carried out a night bombardment of factories in the Hitachi area, 55 miles north-east of Tokyo. In Moscow as a special envoy with power to discuss Soviet-Japanese relations, especially the Manchurian issue.
The Kremlin response to the request - the second in two months - is cool. It believes that further talks without an offer of unconditional surrender, an essential Allied precondition to peace talks, are pointless. Marshal Stalin, however, will raise the matter at the talks in Potsdam next week.
JAPAN: The XXI Bomber Command in the Mariana Islands flies Mission 268, i.e., during the night of 13/14 July, 30 B-29 Superfortresses mine Shimonoseki Strait and waters at Fukuoka, Japan and ports at Seishin, Masan, and Reisui in Korea.COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Task Force 95 consisting of the large cruisers USS Alaska (CB-1) and USS Guam (CB-2), four light cruisers and nine destroyers departs Leyte Gulf for an anti-shipping sweep of the East China Sea.
The scheduled attack by carrier-based aircraft of Task Force 38 against the Japanese home islands is postponed due to weather.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: In the Aleutian Islands, the USN's Task Force 93 under Rear Admiral John H. Brown, Jr., composed of the light cruisers USS Concord (CL-10) and USS RIchmond (CL-9) and five destroyers, commences an anti-shipping sweep off the Kurile Islands.
U.S.A.: The motion picture "The Story of G.I. Joe" is released in the U.S. This war drama based on Ernie Pyle's books "Brave Men" and "Here Is Your War," is directed by William Wellman and stars Burgess Meredith (as Ernie Pyle) and Robert Mitchum (in his first big movie role). The story is about Pyle following Company C, 18th Infantry Regiment in North Africa and later in Italy during the battles of San Vittorio and Cassino. The film is nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Supporting Actor (Mitchum).
Destroyer USS George K MacKenzie commissioned.