EASTERN FRONT: Soviet General Eremenko's Independent Maritime Army has taken Yalta in the Crimea. This is the last port apart from Sevastopol through which the Germans can escape the Crimea. Sevastopol's airfield at Kacha has also been captured and, as fighting rages across the old battlefields of Balaklava and Inkerman, the position of Germany's 17th Army looks hopeless. A terrible toll is being taken of the Germans as they try to escape. A German correspondent describes how "
bombers, dive-bombers and fighters in endless procession are raining their bombs on our ships and riddling them with cannon fire." Sevastopol harbour is choked with sunken ships and the bodies of drowned men.
....In the Ukraine, Marshal Rodion Malinovsky's troops cross the Dniester at Tiraspol. The 3rd Ukrainian Front establishes several bridgeheads over the Dniester River. German forces launch immediate counterattacks that fail to dislodge the Soviet troops.
....432 US Fifteenth Air Force B-17s and B-24s hit targets in Romania and Yugoslavia; B-17s bomb the industrial area at Belgrade, Yugoslavia and an aircraft plant at Brasov, Romania; B-24s hit marshalling yards at Brasov and Turnu Severin, Romania; 90+ fighters fly escort while 50+ others, failing to rendezvous with the bombers, strafe trains on the Craiova line east of Turnu Severin. The Belgrade Zemun airdrome was bombed by Allied forces for the 3rd day in a row. The bombing was carried out by the 414th Bomb Squadron stationed at Amendola, Italy.
MEDITERRANEAN: US Twelfth Air Force B-25s bomb approaches to Ficulle and Todi railway bridges; A-20 Havocs hit fuel supplies; P-40s, P-47 Thunderbolts and A-36 Apaches hit the Capranica viaduct, town of Zagarolo, railway at Spigno Monferrato, marshalling yard at Orte-Terni, tunnel at Capranica and tracks, vehicles, railway cars, ammunition dump, bridge, and targets of opportunity at various points in central Italy.
....German submarine
'U-407' attacks convoy UGS 37 about 17 miles off Derna, Libya, torpedoing US freighters
'Meyer London' and
'Thomas G. Masaryk'; the latter, out of control at one point, nearly rams
'Meyer London'. There are no casualties on board either ship (including the 27-man Armed Guard in each freighter).
French-manned British corvette HMS 'La Malouine'
rescues
'Meyer London's' crew; another escort vessel rescues the other ship's complement. British rescue tug HMS
'Captive' later tows
'Thomas G. Masaryk' and beaches her in Maneloa Bay, Libya, where the damaged ship is subsequently written off as a total loss.
'Meyer London' sinks.
WESTERN FRONT: The armed U.S. tanker SS
'Pan Pennsylvania', in United Kingdom-bound convoy CU 1, is torpedoed by German submarine
'U-550' 150 miles (241 km) east of Ambrose Light, New York. Later, destroyer escort USS
'Gandy' (DE-764) is damaged when she intentionally rams
'U-550' off Nantucket Shoals, and teams with destroyer escorts USS
'Peterson' (DE-152) and USS
'Joyce' (DE-317) to sink the U-boat. Twelve of the 56-man U-boat crew survive. During the action, shells from the destroyer escorts set afire
'Pan Pennsylvania's' abandoned wreck.
USA: The U.S. Navy's last battleship, USS '
Wisconsin' (BB-64), is commissioned at the US Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
GERMANY: The Operations Staff of the Luftwaffe completed a top secret report, titled 'The Operational Possiblities of Mistletoe'. The paper discussed the effects of a new weapon to use against the Allies. Plain and simple, the project took a fighter plane and piggy-backed it on the back of a bomb-laddened bomber - most often a Bf 109 on top of a Ju 88. The Ju 88 was filled with explosives or had the crew cabin removed and an impact bomb installed. Flown together to a target, the fighter pilot aimed the whole contraption at the target then released the bomber and zoomed away. Using an auto-pilot, the bomber flew into the target, exploding and hopefully destroying the object. Tested since 1943 with promising results, the combination awas finally judges ready for operations. The report suggested that out of the 3 targets chosen for the first Mistletoe operation - Gibraltar, Leningrad or Scapa Flow - only one was feasable; the Royal Navy at Scapa Flow. The report read, "
In the target area, the very strongest of defenses may be expected. Exactly how strong is not known, for our radio monitoring service is not effective north of the Wash. Department Ic (Intelligence) estimates that on the airfields between the Firth of Forth and the north of Scotland, there are 160 to 200 aircraft of the types Spitfire, Hurricane, Mosquito and Beaufighter. In addition there is a belt of radar stations giving gap-free cover out to the sea..." The nearest airfield which the bombers were to use was Grove in Central Denmark, about 480 miles from Scape Flow. Suggestions on the operation were made along with an order of 15 Mistletoe combinations to be ready by mid June. The first unit to recieve the planes was 2./KG 101, led by Hptm. Horst Rudat.