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• Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru departed Singapore. ww2dbase [Hikawa Maru | CPC]
• Muriel Byck passed away. ww2dbase [Muriel Byck | CPC]
• General Hans Cramer, last commander of the German Afrika Korps, was repatriated due to ill health; before he departed Britain, he was shown evidence of the massive Allied build-up, but was misinformed as to the location of these forces; when he was later debriefed in Berlin, Germany, this misinformation helped deceive the Germans as to the actual target of the invasion. On the same day Cramer was repatriated, a single USAAF B-24 bomber ("Lorelei" 41-29300), escorted by eight P-51 fighters, loaded with the new top-secret Azon bombs successfully destroyed four bridges leading into Normandie, France; Lieutenant Colonel F. M. O'Neil (commanding officer of 753rd Squadron) and Captain Fred DeNeffe were the mission pilots; the entire crew was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. ww2dbase [Normandy Campaign, Phase 1 | TH, AC]
• USS Ray fired ten torpedoes at two radar contacts south of the Philippine Islands, sinking one ship and damaging another with six torpedo hits. ww2dbase [Ray | CPC]
• USS Cero attacked a Japanese convoy off the Palau Islands, sinking a freighter and damaging a tanker, hitting them with 4 of 6 torpedoes fired. ww2dbase [Cero | CPC]

• German torpedo boat Greif was torpedoed by a British Albacore torpedo bomber early in the morning. Sister boat Möwe tried to tow her to port, but heavy flooding caused Greif to lose all power at 0600 hours. She sank at 0632 hours. ww2dbase [HM]

• Torpedo boats Jaguar, Möwe, Greif, Kondor, T27, and T29 departed Cherbourg for Le Havre, France. ww2dbase [Möwe | Greif | Kondor | Jaguar | T27 | T29 | Cherbourg, Basse-Normandie | CPC]

• Troops of Polish II Corps and Canadian 1st Infantry Division attacked Piedimonte, Italy. ww2dbase [Battle of Monte Cassino | Piedimonte | CPC]
• Three US and two British divisions launched a new assault out of the Anzio, Italy beachhead at dawn, inflicting heavy casualties on German formations but also suffering similarly. ww2dbase [Battle of Anzio | Anzio, Lazio | CPC]

• USS Permit damaged a Japanese ship in the Pacific Ocean with her deck gun. ww2dbase [Permit | CPC]
• The 6,586-ton American submarine USS Lapon (SS-260) sank the Japanese merchant cargo ship Wales Maru in the South China Sea, hitting her with all four torpedoes fired. At the time the ship was carrying Unit 234 of the Independent Flight Corps of 1,000 men; the unit lost 50 men as the Wales Maru went down with 13 members of her crew. ww2dbase [Lapon | South China Sea | HM]

• Four trains arrived at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland with 12,674 Hungarian Jews (3,023 from Viseu de Sus (Felsovisó), 3,272 from Nyiregyháza, 3,269 from Mukacevo (Munkács), and 3,110 from Oradea (Nagyvárad)). 5 women were registered into the camp; 12,669 were sent to the gas chambers. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Auschwitz Concentration Camp | Oswiecim | CPC]

• USS Parche arrived at Midway Atoll, ending her first war patrol. ww2dbase [Midway Bases | Parche | Midway | CPC]

23 May 1944 Interactive Map