Friday The Thirteenth: "Italy declares war on Japan."

FRI 13 JUL 1945
Pacific
TF 95 (Rear Admiral Francis S. Low), comprising large cruisers Alaska (CB-1) and Guam (CB-2), four light cruisers and nine destroyers, sorties from Leyte Gulf to conduct anti-shipping sweeps in the East China Sea.*

TF 93 (Rear Admiral John H. Brown, Jr.), comprising light cruisers Richmond (CL-9) and Concord (CL-10) and five destroyers, commences an anti-shipping sweep; these ships will pass down the Kurile Island chain and into the Sea of Okhotsk. Although shadowed by Japanese planes, TF 93 will not be attacked.

Italy declares war on Japan.

Thirty-one USAAF B-29s mine Shimonoseki Straits and the waters off Masan, Reisui, and Chongjin, Korea, and Fukuoka, Japan. Mines (laid this day and on previous occasions) sink merchant cargo ships No.7 Agata Maru and No.13 Yamabishi Maru, Wakamatsu harbor, and damage merchant cargo ship Hayahi Maru ten kilometers north of Mutsure light; cargo ship Korasan Maru in Shimonoseki Strait, 33°56'N, 130°56'E.

Japanese guardboats No.7 Myojin Maru and No.6 Sakae Maru are sunk by U.S. aircraft off Chichi Jima, 27°04'N, 142°11'E.

British submarine HMS Trenchant sinks unnamed Japanese schooner, western Celebes, 03°10'S, 118°50'S.

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*Those operations, carried out between 21 and 23 July, yield a paucity of targets, since no Japanese shipping larger than sampans (several of which are sunk) is encountered.