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http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/26.htm

August 26th, 1944 (SATURDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Submarine HMS Acheron laid down.

Corvette HMCS Tillsonburg departed Londonderry to join EG C-6 of NEF.

The US Eighth Air Force in England flies 8 missions (numbers in parenthesis indicate number of bombers attacking).

- Mission 575: 359 B-17s attack gun batteries in the Brest, France area; targets are Brest/Pte de St Mathieu (35) and coastal batteries at Kerandieu (27), Cornovailles (21), Brest/Ile Longue (20), Brest/Kerviniov (9) and Brest/Ponscorf (7); targets of opportunity are Brest/Pte des Espagnoles II (21) and Brest/Pte des Espagnoles III (18); escort is provided by 48 P-51 Mustangs; 1 P-51 is lost.

- Mission 576: 588 bombers and 402 fighters, in 3 forces, attack oil refineries, fuel stores and chemical works in Germany; 10 bombers and 3 fighters are lost.
(1) B-24s bomb the chemical works at Ludwigshafen (41); secondary targets hit are marshalling yards at Ehrang (33) and Kons/Karthaus (8); 11 others hit Alzey and 2 hit other targets of opportunity; 7 B-24s are lost; escort is provided by 77 P-51s; they claim 1-0-0 aircraft on the ground; 1 P-51 is lost.
(2) B-17s bomb oil refineries at Gelsenkirchen/Buer (89) and Gelsenkirchen/Nordstern (85); 19 hit Deelen Airfield, a secondary target, and 11 hit targets of opportunity; 3 B-17s are lost; escort is provided by 159 P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51s without loss.
(3) B-24s hit the Dulmen fuel dump (73) and oil refineries at Salzbergen (71) and Emmerich (36); 36 others hit Eindhoven Airfield; escort is provided by 129 P-38s, P-47s and P-51s; 1 P-38 and 1 P-51 are lost.

- Mission 577: 9 B-24s fly an AZON bomb mission to Moerdijk rail bridge, the Netherlands but clouds prevent an attack. Escort is provided by 32 P-51s.

- Mission 578: 37 B-17s are dispatched to hit liquid oxygen plants at La Louviere, Torte and Willebroeck, Belgium but the mission is aborted due to clouds. Escort is provided by 18 P-51s.

- Mission 579: 3 B-17s fly a special bomb test using Micro H radar against aviation industry targets at Meaulte, France. Escort is provided by 7 P-47s.

- Mission 580: 3 B-17s fly a Micro H test mission; 2 of the aircraft also drop leaflets.

- Mission 581: 7 B-24s are dispatched on a radio countermeasures mission to aid the RAF Bomber Command.

- Mission 582: 6 B-17s drop leaflets in France and Belgium during the night.

- 183 P-47s and 206 P-51s attack transport targets in Belgium, eastern France and western Germany in an attempt to prevent the escape of German forces; they claim 1-0-0 aircraft; 2 P-47s and 7 P-51s are lost.

The US IX Troop Carrier Command is relieved of its assignment to the Ninth Air Force upon transfer of the command and its service organizations from the IX Air Force Services Command to HQ First Allied Airborne Army commanded by Lieutenant General Lewis H Brereton.
FRANCE: Paris: A violent burst of gunfire greeted General de Gaulle and the other leaders of the Free French as they walked up to the cathedral of Notre Dame today to celebrate the liberation with a Te Deum, following a triumphant victory march from the Arc de Triomphe.

In the taut atmosphere of the newly liberated city, in which the official German capitulation had left numerous German and Milice snipers at liberty, a single shot set off a murderous fusillade in which several people were killed and 300 wounded near the cathedral. As the procession approached the cathedral Free French soldiers were firing at unseen targets among the pinnacles. General Leclerc tried to stop them, knocking down one man’s rifle with his stick.

In the panic after a shot was heard in the cathedral, many Free French personalities took cover or threw themselves to the floor. General Koenig shouted: “Have you no pride? Stand up!” General de Gaulle was quite unruffled by the whole incident, and strode calmly up to the cathedral.

Paris: The roar of heavy artillery still resounds in the suburbs, but Parisians are busy celebrating. The streets are not entirely safe yet, but despite the dangers many Parisians are on the prowl, looking to vent their long bottled-up rage against those who collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces.

The people have not forgotten the 35 youths, aged between 17 and 25, who were massacred on 16 August at the Bois de Boulogne waterfall by French Gestapists working for the German secret police. They also remember the political prisoners at Romainville jail, shot dead by the German guards as they retreated before the approaching Allies a few days ago.

Their thirst for revenge is unlikely to be slaked. Most of the leading collaborators were able to flee Paris before the Allies entered the city, leaving behind only low-ranking militiamen and those women rather crudely termed “horizontal collaborators”. The day before yesterday, a woman accused of having fraternized with Nazis was beaten and had her hair shaved off. She was then put on show at the police headquarters with a placard around her neck which proclaimed for all to see “She had her husband shot.”
- The US Ninth Air Force’s IX Bomber Command, with fighter escort, strikes fuel dumps at Saint-Gobain, Fournival/Bois-de-Mont, and Compiegne/Clairoix, and troop and equipment concentrations at Rouen; fighters fly ground forces and assault area cover, and armed reconnaissance in the Rouen, Dijon, Chatillon-sur-Seine and S Loire areas.

- During the night of 25/26 August, the US Twelfth Air Force sends fighter-bombers on armed reconnaissance over the Nice, France area to bomb vehicles and other targets of opportunity, and during the day to bomb ammunition dumps in southeastern France; B-25s and B-26s hit guns in the Marseille area but several missions into the Rhone Valley are aborted due to bad weather; fighter-bombers and fighters fly armed reconnaissance over southeastern France, attacking rail lines, roads, guns, vehicles, and other targets of opportunity.

GERMANY: Rüsselheim: Villagers, urged on by the local SS, beat to death seven of the crew of a crashed USAAF aircraft. One of the two survivors is 19-year-old Sidney Brown of Gainesville, Florida.

The airmen had been taken prisoner and were being marched the town on the outskirts of Frankfurt en-route to a prison camp.

The RAF had attacked the night before killing 198 (including 177 foreign slave labourers) and a mob attacked, throwing stones, bottles and railroad ties. The U.S. airmen were chased to the town cemetery, where they were beaten to the ground. Later, they were dragged outside of town and six were shot dead.

[ In a post-war trial by a US military court, seven individuals were convicted of the deaths. Five were hanged.] (Michael Douglas)

U-3012 laid down.

U.S.S.R.: Baltic Fleet, Ladoga Lake and Chudskoe Lake Flotillas: MS “T-45” (ex-”Antikainen”) - by U-410, close to Nerva Is., in Finland Gulf . (Sergey Anisimov)(69)

Soviet destroyer Druznyj commissioned.

The USS Yarnell (DD-143), was commissioned as HMS Lincoln (G-42) on 23 Oct. 1940, part of the destroyers-for-bases deal. Today, this ship is transferred to Russia as Druzhny. She joins several sister ships transferred earlier this year. They will return to the RN between 1949-1952. (Ron Babuka)

HUNGARY: During the night of 26/27 August, two RAF Liberators of No. 205 (Heavy Bomber) Group fly a night leaflet mission over the country.

YUGOSLAVIA: USAAF Fifteenth Air Force B-24 Liberators visually bomb two targets without loss: 54 bomb the railroad bridge at Borovnica and one hits the marshalling yard at Nis. (Jack McKillopo)

ROMANIA: The Russian advance reaches the Danube River east of Galati.

BULGARIA withdraws from the war and disarms German troops. The German position in the Balkans is crumbling. The Romanians, who fought alongside the Germans at Stalingrad and in the Crimea, declared war on Germany yesterday and seized their own capital after a sharp fight with the Wehrmacht. And the Bulgarians today announced their intention of withdrawing from the war, and began disarming German garrisons. Armistice talks are in the final stages.

There were only maybe some ten thousands of troops in Bulgaria at the time (if even that), most being logistics personnel and a few FLAK troops to help protect the Romanian airfields. These were quickly disarmed.

The Bulgarian occupation troops in Macedonia and Serbia didn’t try to disarm the Germans, but rather to withdraw back to Bulgaria. In the process, they were confronted and to a large degree disarmed themselves by the Germans. (Henrik Krog)

Romania’s pro-German government collapsed four days ago when King Michael arrested Marshal Antonescu for refusing to make peace with the Allies and installed a new government which overcame German attempts to seize Bucharest.

ITALY: Solid bridgeheads are established by the British 8th Army over the River Metauro in Italy. The German 71st Division falls back in the face of attacks by V Corps.
The US Fifteenth Air Force in Italy dispatches 470+ bombers escorted, by P-38s and P-51s, to attack targets in Italy and Romania; B-17s hit viaducts and bridges at Venzone, Avisio, and Latisana, Italy; in Romania, 115 B-24s hit a train ferry and terminal at Giurgiu, Otopeni Airfield, barracks and troops in the Baneasa area; and B-24s bomb a viaduct at Borovnica, Yugoslavia.

KURILE ISLANDS: 3 B-24s hit the Kashiwabara staging area on Paramushiru Island during the early morning, starting several fires; later 6 B-25s strafe and bomb the east coast of the northern Kurile Islands, sinking a patrol boat; 1 out of 4 interceptors and one of the B-25s are hit; 7 more B-24s bomb targets on Kashiwabara and on Otomari Cape, including docks, piers, boats, and a fuel dump. 6 P-38s unsuccessfully attempt to intercept 4 unidentified aircraft west of Attu Island.

US Seventh Air Force B-24s based on Saipan bomb the airfield on Iwo Jima Island. A B-24 on armed reconnaissance bombs Woleai Atoll and Yap Island.

In the Palau Islands, US Far East Air Force B-24s bomb Koror and Peleliu Airfields.

U.S.A.: Minesweeper USS Garland commissioned
Destroyer escort USS Goss commissioned. Destroyer escort USS Thaddeus Parker launched.

Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-195 was commissioned at New Orleans. Her first commanding officer was Lt. J. P. McNabb, USCGR. She was assigned to and operated in the Southwest Pacific area.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-745 sank Soviet minesweeper T-45/No 48.
U-957 sank SS Nord.
U-989 sank SS Ashmun J CLough in Convoy TBC-28.