Air Operations, Europe

The Luftwaffe's Dive-Bomber Wing 210 has completed 1,574 sorties since the beginning of BARBAROSSA. Its aircraft have thus far destroyed 915 enemy aircraft (823 on the ground), 165 tanks, 2,136 vehicles and 60 trains.

Battle of the Atlantic

• U-141 sinks the British steamer Botwey (5106t) 365 miles west of Bloody Foreland. All 53 crew members are picked up by the British rescue ship Copeland.
• The Italian submarine Barbarigo sinks the British tanker Horn Shell (8272t) northwest of the Canary Islands with the loss of 17 of her crew. The survivors are picked up by the Portuguese trawler Maria Leonor.

Diplomatic Relations

• Japanese assets in the United States and Britain are frozen following their invasion of Indochina. The US action was taken 'to prevent the use of financial facilities of the United States in trade. . . in ways harmful to national defense and American interests, to prevent the liquidation in the United States of assets obtained by duress or conquest, and to curb subversive activities in the United States.' Japan loses 80 percent of its oil imports as well as vital supplies of foodstuffs, minerals and military materials. Since Japan controls the Chinese financial centers, the Chinese government asks Britain and the US to freeze its assests as well.
• Canada renounces its trade treaty with Japan.

Reindeer graze on an airfield in Finland on 26 July, 1941 as a German war plane takes off in the background.

German Airfield in Finland

Eastern Front

The Army of Karelia reaches Lake Onega at Petrozavodsk, but the Red Army is putting up heavy resistance at Suoyarve and around Lake Yanisyarve.

The Germans seal the Smolensk Pocket, trapping 700,000 Red Army troops. The Soviets mount a series of desperate attacks to break out from the encirclement, with particularly heavy fighting at Yelnya and in the Yartsevo corridor. In addition, the Soviet 13th, 21st and 28th Armies launch assaults at Gomel, Rudnya and Roslavl against the German southern wing of the pocket.[MORE]

German Air Raid on Moscow

German air raid on Moscow July 26, 1941. Thin line – Air Defense work, thick white line – German flares on parachutes to highlight areas for applying and adjusting air strikes (due to long exposure when photographing tracks merged into a single line). The picture shows the Moscow River, Kremlin Naberezhnaya and the Kremlin with Vodovzvodnaya, Borovitskaya towers, Bolshoy Kamennyy bridge.

Lithuania

With German encouragement, the local militia murders 1,500 Jews in Kovno. A report by Einsatzgruppe A states: 'To our surprise it was not easy at first to set any large-scale anti-Jewish pogrom in motion there [in Lithuania]. Klimatis, the leader of the partisan group referred to above... succeeded in starting a pogrom with the aid of instructions given him by a small advance detachment operating in Kovno, in such a way that no German orders or instructions could be observed by outsiders.

In the course of the first pogrom during the night of June 25-26, the Lithuanian partisans eliminated more than 1,500 Jews, set fire to several synagogues or destroyed them by other means, and burned down an area consisting of about 60 houses inhabited by Jews. During the night that followed, 2,300 Jews were eliminated in the same way. In other parts of Lithuania similar Actionen followed the example set in Kovno, but on a smaller scale, and including some Communists who had been left behind.'

Philippines

Roosevelt orders that the Philippine army be entirely incorporated in to the US Army for the duration of the tension with Japan. Gen MacArthur, who has been leading the Filipino forces, is appointed to command the US forces in the area as well.

United States, Policy

The US government puts the headquarters of the Hawaii sector on alert. Returning to active duty, Gen Douglas MacArthur takes over command of American forces in the Far East and of the Philippines forces.