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• The US Army Air Forces established the 509th Composite Group for atomic weapon delivery. ww2dbase [Operation Trinity and Manhattan Project | CPC]
• USS Wisconsin was attached to the US Navy Third Fleet. ww2dbase [Wisconsin | CPC]

• Fort Jeanne d'Arc, the last German garrison (some 500 men of the Fuesilier Battalion, 462nd Volksgrenadier Division) which had been holding out before Metz, France surrendered, through lack of food and water, to Brigadier General Harlan N. Harness of the US 26th Division. However, through bad weather, flooding, and American underestimation of the strength of the forts, had by this time, enabled the German 82nd Corps and 13 SS Corps to make a successful withdrawal to a new defensive line on the River Sarre. ww2dbase [Rozérieulles, Lorraine | AC]

• USS Charr arrived at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii. ww2dbase [Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Ford Island Naval Air Station | Charr | Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]
• USS Shamrock Bay arrived at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii. ww2dbase [Shamrock Bay | Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]
• Barbers Point Naval Air Station: Experiments with jet propulsion on planes were conducted on this station. Air Group 9 on board. ww2dbase [Barbers Point Naval Air Station | Ewa, Oahu | DS]

• Soviet troops reached the Danube River north of Budapest, Hungary. ww2dbase [Budapest Strategic Offensive Operation | TH]

• Whilst defending a position at Faenza, Italy, Lieutenant (temporary Captain) John Henry Cound Brunt, age 22, of the British Army Sherwood Foresters (attached Lincolnshire Regiment) used anti-tank PIATs, Bren guns, and a 2-inch mortar to drive back a German 90th Panzergrenadier Division counterattack. Later he turned another attack, blazing away with a Bren from the top of a Sherman tank. His conduct earned him the Victoria Cross but he did not live to know it. Supposedly safe by this time, he was killed on the following day by shellfire. ww2dbase [PIAT | Faenza, Emilia-Romagna | AC, CPC]

• Emden ran aground in the Oslofjord, Norway. ww2dbase [Emden | Oslofjord | CPC]

• USS Segundo recorded stormy weather with winds measuring 8 on the 12-point Beaufort scale. When a large wave hit her, Fireman 1st Class G. H. Saunders was washed overboard and was lost; he was USS Segundo's first casualty. ww2dbase [Segundo | CPC]

• Destroyer USS Shaw departed Leyte Gulf bound for Hollandia (now Jayapura) with 78 survivors of the destroyer USS Ward that had been sunk by special attack aircraft two days earlier. ww2dbase [Philippines Campaign, Phase 1, the Leyte Campaign | Tokko "Kamikaze" Special Attack Doctrine | Ward | Shaw | San Pedro Bay, Leyte | DS]

9 Dec 1944 Interactive Map