http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/18.htm
May 18th, 1944 (THURSDAY)
GERMANY: U-907 commissioned.
ITALY: Monte Cassino: The Polish flag flutters today over the ruins of the ancient monastery which has become a symbol of German resistance and has repelled successive Allied attacks since the beginning of the year. In the valley below, troops of the British Eighth Army have at last occupied what is left of the town of Cassino itself. The Germans’ Gustav Line of defence has been breached and American and Canadian troops are advancing in numbers along the Liri valley.
No one doubted that casualties would be high. In the two weeks before the attack, the Polish II Corps under General Wladyslaw Anders was under constant observation by the German defenders and losing as many as 30 men in a day as it prepared to attack.
When the moment came to storm the heights on 12 May, the Poles lost a fifth of their strength within the first 90 minutes of battle and were forced to withdraw when communications failed.
The British XIII Corps took heavy casualties when it crossed the Rapido river to find its way blocked by a mass of pillboxes, barbed wire and minefields. After three days the Eighth Army had still failed to break out into the Liri valley, its principal objective.
Near the coast, the US II Corps was failing to make progress when the Germans suddenly began to withdraw. The defenders had been taken by surprise in a brilliant action by the French 2nd Moroccan Division, which has crossed supposedly impassable mountainous ground at speed, outflanking the Germans. The German 71st Division was scattered in this battle, with 2,000 men taken prisoner and a huge toll in casualties.
With the French and British advancing in the Liri valley below and on the hills opposite, it was for the undaunted Poles to take Monte Cassino. They attacked in waves yesterday, with 200 air sorties to support them, and continued to attack until late last night. The defending German paratroopers stood their ground and fought off the exhausted Poles until finally ordered to retreat under the cover of darkness.
The USAAF’s Fifteenth Air Force in Italy dispatches almost 450 bombers, mostly with fighter escort, to hit targets in Romania and Yugoslavia. Both B-17s and B-24s bomb the industrial area at Ploesti, Romania and the marshalling yard at Belgrade, Yugoslavia and the B-17s also hit the marshalling yard at Nis, Yugoslavia but 300+ other bombers abandon the missions because of bad weather. Fighters strafe airfields at Nis and Scutari, Yugoslavia.
NORWAY: An RAF Catalina sinks U-241.
TURKEY: Ankara: The Turkish government declares martial law after a series of Pro-Axis demonstrations.
BURMA: Myitkyina: Allied troops today captured the railway station at Myitkyina, an important Japanese supply base on the Rangoon to Mandalay railway. Yesterday the 150th Regiment of the Chinese 50th Division took Myitkyina airstrip, which has the only hard-surface airstrip in northern Burma. But the 700 Japanese troops in Myitkyina through back “Merrill’s Marauders” - the US counterpart to the British Chindits. Brigadier-General Frank Merrill’s 1,500 sick and exhausted men are now down to half strength after nearly three months of jungle war.
Since March they have made advances in parallel with the 38th Chinese Division south from Ledo, in north-east India. Despite taking Pamati yesterday, the Marauders must now wait for the 38th to arrive to attack Myitkyina again.
NEW GUINEA: Four rifle companies of the 163d Regimental Combat Team assault Wakde Island. It takes two days to overcome the 763 Japanese troops on the island.
PACIFIC OCEAN: General MacArthur’s intention of sealing off Japan’s last supply routes to its South-west Pacific bases at Rabaul and Kavieng was finally realised today as the US Army troops wiped out the last isolated pockets of Japanese resistance on the Admiralty Islands, off north-east New Guinea. US losses in the three-month campaign to take the islands and their airstrips are 326 dead, and 1,189 wounded and four missing, compared with Japanese losses of 3,280 dead and 75 PoWs.
CANADA:
Minesweeper HMCS Border Cities commissioned.
Frigate HMCS Longqueil commissioned.
Corvette HMCS St Thomas commissioned.
U.S.A.: Destroyer escorts USS Frybarger and Robert Brazier commissioned.
Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-173 was commissioned. Her first commanding officer was LTJG Lester F. Bain, USCGR. He was succeeded by LTJG Joseph L. Kelly, USCGR. She was assigned to the Southwest Pacific Area and operated at Leyte, Milne Bay, etc. She was decommissioned 25 October 1945.
Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-174 was commissioned. She had as commanding officer LT E. R. Sneeringer. She was turned over to Captain J. J. Feenan, U.S. Army, representing the Army’s Transportation Corps on 29 November 1945, after having been assigned to the Southwest Pacific area and operated at Manila, Tacloban, Biak, etc.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-241 sunk NE of the Faeroes, in position 63.36N, 01.42E, by depth charges from an RAF 210 Sqn Catalina. 51 dead (all hands lost).
On May 18 1944, the Oberbefehlshaber West (Supreme Commander of the Western Front) General Gerd von Rundtstedt spent the whole day in trepidation. On over 6000 kilometers of Atlantic coast occupied from Germany, beginning from Norway up to the region of Bordeaux in France, the troops of the Wehrmacht were on the look out. The German Intelligence Service had communicated in the preceding days that May 18 would have been the date of the allied attack. The day was ideal for an invasion: high tide, calm sea, clear sky as in full summer. If the Anglo-Americans had attacked, the “God of the weather” would have certainly been with them. Von Rundtstedt as all other generals of the OKH (Ober Kommand Heeres, Supreme Command of the Army), knew with inexplicable certainty that whatever date the Allies selected, that day Germany would have fought for its own survival.
The hours slowly passed waiting for a signal from the sea or from the air that announced the beginning of what would have been known as operation Overlord. Nothing happened. It arrived the sunset and Von Rundtstedt rather than being happy for having avoided the danger was deeply angered for the ineffectiveness of the German information groups in England. The proverbial calm of this professional soldier disappeared for some minutes changing into a stream in flood that poured curses and insults towards all components of his staff. Indeed, his restlessness was justified. Since the beginning of 1944, the Intelligence service of the Third Reich had released innumerable statements with which, time by time, they designated as probable places of landing: Norway, Zeland in the Low Countries, the mouths of the Schelda in Belgium, the region around Brest in Brittany and even neutral Spain that with its own harbors could guarantee a fast supply of the allied troops. All alarms had revealed groundless. The only sure thing was that in Great Britain something big was in preparation. After all, it was impossible not to notice the monumental moves of troops between United States and the island of Albion. In 3 years, American Armed Forces had grown from a contingent of 170.000 men up to more than 7.200.000, of whom 60% employed in Europe.