Saturday, August 1, 2020

Thorough & Taciturn Attack

AUGUST

WED 1 AUG 1945
Pacific
TG 12.3 attacks Wake Island. Planes from small carrier Cabot (CVL-28) bomb installations. Battleship Pennsylvania (BB-38) bombards the atoll but is damaged by shore battery, 19°20'N, 166°30'E.

TG 95.2 (Rear Admiral Francis S. Low), a fast striking group consisting of large cruisers Alaska (CB-1) and Guam (CB-2), four light cruisers and nine destroyers, departs Okinawa and proceeds into the East China Sea to conduct anti-shipping sweeps off Shanghai, China.

TG 95.3 (Vice Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf), consisting of three battleships, a heavy cruiser, a light cruiser, three escort carriers, six destroyers and three destroyers escorts, accompanies TG 95.2 to furnish covering support.

Heaviest USAAF B-29 raid to date: 774 planes drop 6,632 tons of bombs on five different targets in Japan. Additionally, in what will be the largest operation of its kind, 42 USAAF B-29s mine Shimonoseki Straits and the waters off Najin and Chongjin, Korea, and Hamada, Japan. Japanese escort vessel Ikura is damaged by mine in Oguchi Channel.

USAAF B-24s (Far East Air Force) bomb Nagasaki dockyard area, damaging motor torpedo boat Gyoraitei No.102; USAAF B-25s and fighter-bomber aircraft (Far East Air Force) bomb Japanese shipping in Nagasaki harbor, damaging merchant cargo ship Kinko Maru and tanker Tada Maru. Other USAAF (Fifth Air Force) planes sink merchant cargo ship Hayabusa Maru near Eboshi light, 33°41'N, 129°59'E.

Japanese merchant tanker Chokai Maru is damaged by marine casualty, 34°38'N, 134°56'E.

British submarines HMS Thorough and HMS Taciturn attack Japanese shipping in Bulelong Roads; while Taciturn engages shore batteries, Thorough sinks cargo vessels Hino Maru and Shoei Maru and shells warehouses.

Submarine chaser PC-784 collides with Army tug LT 666 in a dense fog off entrance to Amchitka, Alaska, harbor; both vessels suffer damage but there are no injuries to either crew.

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