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• UK Task Force 37 (HMS Victorious, HMS Formidable, and HMS Implacable) made rendezvous with US Task Force 38.2 about 500 miles north of Manus for a raid on the Japanese home islands; they were to be joined by HMS Indefatigable four days later. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Churchill arrived in Berlin, Germany for the Potsdam Conference and visited the bunker where Hitler committed suicide. ww2dbase [Winston Churchill | AC]
• German Field Marshal Ernst Busch, formerly commander of Army Group Centre in Russia and later Army Group Northwest during the final months of the European war, passed away whilst in a military hospital in Nottingham, England, United Kingdom where he was being held as a prisoner of war. ww2dbase [AC]
• Canadian physicist Louis Slotin assembled the atomic bomb Gadget for Operation Trinity, and received the nickname "Chief Armorer of the United States". ww2dbase [Louis Slotin | CPC]
• The headquarters of the US Army Eighth Air Force was ordered to move from Britain to Okinawa, Japan. ww2dbase [CPC]
• During the day, 5 American P-47 fighters attacked Yanagawa, Japan while 94 American P-51 fighters based in Iwo Jima attacked Kameyama, Kiyosu, Komaki, Okazaki, Suzuko, and Akenogahara. After sundown, four B-29 incendiary bombing missions were launched against Japanese cities, with 119 aircraft over Namazu (destroying 3.6 square kilometers of the city), 124 over Oita (1.437 square kilometers), 94 over Kuwana (1.63 square kilometers), and 129 over Hiratsuka (2.69 square kilometers); damage caused on all four cities were severe. ww2dbase [Bombing of Tokyo and Other Cities | CPC]
• 2 B-24 bombers of US Eleventh Air Force searched for Japanese shipping off Shimushiru in the Kurile Islands without success. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Destroyer escort USS Lawrence C. Taylor and TBM Avenger aircraft of Composite Squadron 13 from escort aircraft carrier USS Anzio sank Japanese submarine I-13 860 kilometers east of Yokohama, Japan. ww2dbase [CPC]
• General Carl Spaatz became the commanding officer of the US Army Strategic Air Forces based at Guam, Mariana Islands. ww2dbase [Carl Spaatz | CPC]
• Escort carrier USS Bairoko was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [CPC]
• The keel of American destroyer Witek was laid down. ww2dbase [CPC]
• USS Bailey arrived at Balikpapan, Borneo, Dutch East Indies. ww2dbase [Bailey | DS]

• In Canada, corvettes HMCS Amherst and Whitby were decommissioned from service at Sydney, Nova Scotia and at Sorel, Quebec, respectively. ww2dbase [Sydney, Nova Scotia | CPC]

• Submarine HMS Vigorous (Lieutenant N. R. Wood, RN) damaged a Japanese coaster with gunfire off northwest Sumatra, Dutch East Indies. The gun crew reported 25 hits. ww2dbase [Sumatra | HM]

• The US Military Tribunal at Dachau, Germany sentenced Josef Dietrich to life in prison (later commuted to 25 years in prison) for the execution of US prisoners of war at Malmedy, Belgium in 1944. ww2dbase [Josef Dietrich | Dachau Concentration Camp | Dachau, München-Oberbayern | CPC]

• USS Manta arrived at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii, ending her first war patrol. ww2dbase [Manta | Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Ford Island Naval Air Station | Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]

• Submarine USS Blenny (Commander W. H. Hazzard, USN) fired 12 torpedoes at the 2,400-ton Japanese gunboat Nankai (former Dutch minelayer Regulus), scoring 4 hits and sinking her in the Java Sea. Two hours later, she engaged and damaged 300-ton Japanese submarine chaser Ch-1 with her deck gun. The Japanese crew abandoned the damaged ship in a lifeboat, which was approached by USS Blenny; only one survivor allowed himself to be picked up, while all others jumped into the water. Blenny sank CH-1 with machine gun fire. ww2dbase [Blenny | Java Sea | CPC, HM]
• USS Baya (Lieutenant Commander B. C. Jarvis, USN) detected the 945-ton Japanese coastal patrol vessel Kari in the Java Sea via her SJ radar, beraing 273 degrees at the range of 20,100 yards; she shared this report with USS Becuna. USS Becua attacked at 0210 hours, but all torpedoes with a depth setting of four feet missed the target; this information was shared with USS Baya. Beginning at 0221 hours, USS Baya fired a total of 9 torpedoes, all set at zero depth, at the range of 3,000 yards, scoring one hit. At 0426 hours, two more stern torpedoes were launched, scoring an additional hit right below the funnel. The second hit nearly disintegrated Kari at about 220 nautical miles west-southwest of Makassar of Dutch East Indies. ww2dbase [Baya | South China Sea | CPC, HM]

• In Operation Trinity, the Americans successfully detonated an atomic bomb at Alamogordo Bombing Range in New Mexico, United States. The test blast created temperatures 10,000 times the surface temperature of the sun and was felt 200 miles away. The explosion was the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT and throws a column of fire and smoke 35,000 feet into the night sky. The authorities hid the blast by claiming that an ammunition dump had gone up. ww2dbase [William Laurence | Vannevar Bush | Robert Oppenheimer | Leslie Groves | Alamogordo Army Air Field | Operation Trinity and Manhattan Project | Alamogordo, New Mexico | AC]
• The cruiser USS Indianapolis sailed from San Francisco, California, United States with a top secret cargo - components of the atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima unless the Japanese surrendered. The Indianapolis would take 10 days to sail to the island of Tinian, Mariana Islands where US B-29 bombers were waiting. ww2dbase [Indianapolis | San Francisco, California | AC]

16 Jul 1945 Interactive Map