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• The first of almost 1,000 Allied personnel were interned in Sweden when their USAAF B-17 bomber crash landed. ww2dbase [TH]
• Cabot was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [Cabot | CPC]
• Cotten was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [Cotten | CPC]
• Winston Churchill said "There is no doubt that in the welter of inefficiency and lassitude which has characterised our own operations on the Indian front, this man," referring to Orde Wingate, "his force and his achievements stand out; and no question of seniority must obstruct the advance of real personalities in their proper station in war." ww2dbase [Orde Wingate | CPC]
• Destroyer Yukikaze departed Rabaul, New Britain, Bismarck Islands for Truk, Caroline Islands. ww2dbase [Yukikaze | CPC]
• German submarine U-703 was ordered to go to Hopen island, Norway to pick up stranded Russian sailors (from Russian freighter Dekabrist which was sunk many months prior). ww2dbase [Arctic Convoys | CPC]

• Naka arrived at Truk, Caroline Islands. ww2dbase [Naka | Truk | CPC]

• The first operational use of "Window" radar jamming took place during Operation Gomorrah when 746 RAF planes drop 2,300 tons of explosive on Hamburg, Germany, losing 12 aircraft. Hamburg burned in a major firestorm that killed a significant number of civilians. ww2dbase [Bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Other Cities | Hamburg | TH]

• Barbers Point Naval Air Station: Part of Fighting Squadron 5 (VF-5; Model F6F-3) on board. Part of Torpedo Squadron 5 (VT-5; Model TBF-1) on board. Part of Bombing Squadron 5 (VB-5; Model SBD-5) on board. ww2dbase [Barbers Point Naval Air Station | Ewa, Oahu | DS]
• USS Yorktown (Essex-class) arrived in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on and began a month of exercises in the Hawaiian Islands. ww2dbase [J. J. Clark | Yorktown (Essex-class) | Pearl Harbor, Oahu | DS]

• The Fascist Grand Council in Rome, Italy voted 19 to 7 for King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy to retake command of Italian military from Mussolini; Count Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law, also voted against him. Upon relieving his duties, King Vittorio Emanuele III ordered Mussolini arrested. ww2dbase [Benito Mussolini | Rome | CPC]

• Light carrier Ryuho arrived at Kure, Japan and was assigned to the Maintenance Force of the Mobile Force of Carrier Division 2 of the Third Fleet. ww2dbase [Ryuho | Kure, Hiroshima | CPC]

• Submarine USS Tinosa, responding to Ultra decrypts, attacked the 19,200-ton Tonan Maru No. 3, the largest oil tanker the Japanese had during the war. Tinosa fired a total of 15 Mark XIV torpedoes at the tanker, most of them one at a time after the ship was dead in the water. Two torpedoes exploded, two may have missed, but the rest struck the ship but failed to explode. Tinosa had to break off the attack due to a lack of any more torpedoes while Tonan Maru sailed on. ww2dbase [Tinosa | CPC]

• Polish political prisoner Heinz Radomski was executed in the washroom of Block 11 at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Auschwitz Concentration Camp | Oswiecim | CPC]

• Submarine Parche was launched at Kittery, Maine, United States, sponsored by Miss Betty Russell, daughter of US District Judge and former US Navy Judge Advocate General Robert Lee Russell. ww2dbase [Parche | Kittery, Maine | CPC]

24 Jul 1943 Interactive Map