Air Operations, Carolines

• 12 307th Heavy Bomb Group B-24s attack the Woleai Atoll.
• During the night, VII Bomber Command B-24s attack Wake Island.

Air Operations, CBI

• 8 7th Heavy Bomb Group B-24s sow mines around Moulmein.
• 5 B-24s sow mines off Mergui.
• 2 B-24s attack Martaban.
• 10th Air Force B-25s, P-51s, and A-31s mount more than 100 sorties against Japanese Army positions at Kanglatongbi (India), Moraing (India), the Palel area, and a bridge spannning the Uyu River.
• B-25s and fighter bombers mount more than 60 sorties in the Mogaung Valley.
• More than 20 A-31s attack dumps and Japanese Army troop concentrations in the Buthidaung area.
• 3 P-51s attack the airfield at Anisakan.

• 3 7th Heavy Bomb Group B-24s attack Nagorn Sawarn.

Air Operations, Europe

The US 8th Air Force begins a large-scale attack on French airfields, particularly those at Laon, Florennes, Thionville, St Dizier, Juvincourt, Orléans, Bourges and Avord.

• 414 aircraft are sent to hit 7 coastal gun batteries in the Pas de Calais area. Included in this total are 206 Halifaxes, 120 Lancasters and 27 Mosquitos. 4 of the gun positions are claimed to have been hit.
• 1 Lancaster is lost bombing the Mardyck position.
• 56 Lancasters and 8 Mosquitos of No. 5 Group are sent to attack the Gnome and Rhone factory at Grennevilliers and another factory nearby.
• 5 Lancasters are lost.
• 39 Lancasters and 4 Mosquitos of No. 5 Group are sent to a small ball-bearing factory at Annecy on the French-Swiss border. Weather on the way in is very bad and only 2 Mosquito marker aircraft reach the target, but the factory is accurately bombed.
• There are no losses.

• 30 Mosquitos are sent to Berlin, 6 to Châteaudun, 20 Halifaxes and 5 Stirlings lay mines off the Dutch and French coasts, 43 aircraft are involved on Resistance operations, there are 11 Serrate and 24 Intruder patrols and 10 RCM and 12 OTU sorties.
• 2 Stirlings and 1 Halifax on Resistance flights and 1 OTU Wellington are lost.

The improvement in bomb aiming techniques meant that precision targets were becoming easier to hit. This factory at Annecy in France was no exception.

Bomb Aiming Techniques Have Improved

Air Operations, New Guinea

• More than 50 V and XIII Bomber command B-24s and V Bomber Command B-25s attack the airfields at Faan and Langgoer and the Mokmer airfield on Biak, and supplies at Bosnik.
• A-20s and V Fighter Command fighter-bombers mount more than 200 sorties throughout the day against targets of opportunity between Hansa Bay and Wewak.
• 380th Heavy Bomb Group B-24s based in Australia reconnoiter the Vogelkop Peninsula and Kai Islands.

Burma

The Japanese partly succeed in breaking out of their encirclement at Ritpong. The Chinese troops stay in the area to mop up. The 114th Regt of the Chinese 38th Div occupies Hlagyi and Wala and prepares to join up with the 112th Regt of the same division north of Manpin.

China

Japanese troops capture Lushan completely cutting the Peking-Hankow rail line.

Eastern Front

After a 24-day seige, Sevastopol finally falls to the Red Army. Moscow fires 24 salvoes from 324 guns as Tolbukhin's troops capture the fortress of Sevastopol. The remainder of the German garrison retreats toward Cape Kersonessky where evacuations are still being carried out. German rearguards hold out for 3 days in defense of the points at which the remains of the army are embarking. The whole of the Crimea is now once more in Russian hands.

There is now another lull on the Russian front. German Army Group North under Georg Lindemann still holds Narva and the west bank of Lake Peipus, covering the Baltic countries. Army Group Center still occupies Vitebsk, with salients on both sides of the Dvina, and is still east of the Dniepr in the Orsha and Mogilev areas. The Germans are still 60 miles from Smolensk, as if they intended to attack Moscow. But in the south their front has collapsed.

The Russians have liberated the Ukraine and penetrated into Rumania and Poland, and are now only 30 miles from Brest Litovsk. And they have reached the frontier of Czechoslovakia. They are at the foothills of the Carpathians, they have crossed the Dniestr and the Prut, they have invaded Bukovina and Bessarabia. And behind the German lines the partisans - at least 250,000 of them - are operating, supplied at night by some 200 aircraft. Hitler calls for increased war production. Boys of 18 are being drafted into the armed forces.

Some 50,000 German troops pack the Khersonnes Peninsula, pounded by guns and aircraft of the 4th Ukrainian Front. The last rearguards inside Sevastopol are destroyed.

Mediterranean

The US submarine chaser PC-558 is sunk by a submarine torpedo from U-230 near Palermo, Italy. [ | ]

New Guinea

Over the next few days there is constant skirmishing with occasional fierce engagements around the US beachheads at Hollandia, but the Japanese forces are ill-supplied and weak and achieve little.

The date for the invasion of Wadke is fixed for the 17th, the Sarmi landing for May 27.

Images from May 9, 1944

Infantrymen of Le Régiment de la Chaudière in a Landing Craft Assault (LCA) alongside H.M.C.S. Prince David off the coast of England, 9 May 1944.

Infantrymen in a Landing Craft Assault (LCA)

The 47th General Hospital, Milne Bay, New Guinea, 9 May 1944