July 27th, 1945 (FRIDAY)
GERMANY: The Potsdam Declaration calling for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese is delivered to the Japanese government. They ignore the ultimatum and US President Harry S Truman subsequently approves the plans to drop atomic bombs on Japan.
UNITED KINGDOM: Clement Richard Attlee, now 62, got briskly down to business on his first full day as prime minister. He was probably as surprised as much of the nation was to find himself in the job, but he did not show it. Attlee is a calm, undemonstrative and taciturn man. He is probably the most self-effacing tenant 10 Downing Street has ever had. In contrast to Mr. Churchill he will not be haranguing his cabinet, and he intends to run it like an active company chairman and not a dictator.
This quiet, pipe-smoking cricket-loving premier knows his Whitehall onions. Apart from Mr. Churchill himself he is the only politician to have served in the war cabinet from start to finish.
As deputy premier he presided over key cabinet committees and had a pivotal role throughout. At crucial moments he also had an important restraining influence on Churchill. He managed that without raising his voice or ever saying anything more violent than "That's a bit think, Winston." The two men have far greater mutual affection that their election campaign insult-swopping suggests, and Churchill does not pretend that he meant it when he quipped: "Attlee is a modest man and he has plenty to be modest about."
Labour's leader - one of the public-school, middle-class socialists - drifted into politics through doing good works in London's impoverished East End.
London: The Chiefs of Staff have their last conference with Churchill.
CANADA: Minesweepers HMCS Comox and Fundy paid off.
Minesweeper HMCS Willow Lake launched Nanaimo, British Columbia.
Cruiser HMCS Uganda relieved by HMS Argonaut and departs for Esquimalt. Preparation for a Canadian all-volunteer "Pacific Tiger Force" for the invasion of Japan provoked a manning review that led to a vote by the majority of Uganda's crew to return home.
JAPAN: US aircraft drop leaflets on 11 cities prior to targeting them for bombardment. The leaflets say: "Heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately."
During the night of 27/28 July, US Twentieth Air Force B-29 Superfortresses fly Mission 296 a mining mission; 24 B-29s drop mines in Shimonoseki Strait, at Fukuoka, Niigata, Maizuru, Senzaki, and in Fukawa Bay; 1 other mines an alternate target; 3 B-29s are lost to heavy flak and 1 crash lands on Iwo Jima and is subsequently scrapped. During the day, 60+ Fifth and Seventh AF B-24s pound a marshalling yard at Kagoshima, Kyushu and 50 escorting P-51s attack numerous nearby targets of opportunity; 150+ P-47s over Kyushu hit communications and industrial targets, including a tunnel south of Kurino, bridges at Okasa, Hitosuse-gawa, and Matsubase, and factories and a power plant at Yatsushiro.