Air Operations, Europe
RAF BOMBER COMMANDDaylight Ops:
- 26 Lancasters and 6 Mosquitos of No. 8 Group make 2 separate raids on a flying bomb site at Gapennes. The Lancasters make the first 'heavy Oboe' attack of the war. A Lancaster of No. 582 Squadron had been fitted with Oboe equipment and Wing Commander G. F. Grant, from No. 109 Squadron, one of the Oboe Mosquito squadrons, flies in the Lancaster and directs the bombing. When Grant releases his bombs, other Lancasters flying in formation do the same. This method allows a greater tonnage of bombs to be dropped directly on the Oboe signals and it becomes one of Bomber Command's most accurate bombing methods and enables small targets like the flying bomb sites to be bombed accurately in cloudy conditions.
- No aircraft are lost on this raid.
- 2 Mosquitos fly Ranger patrols and 1 attacks a tanker with cannon fire.
- There are no losses.
- 8 Mosquitos are sent to the Homberg oil plant, 21 aircraft are on Resistance operations and there are 3 Serrate patrols.
- There are no losses.
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]China
In central east China the Japanese 11th Army renews the attack against Hengyang but is repulsed by the Chinese with effective air support.
[ | ]Diplomatic Relations
Roosevelt announces that the US will recognize de Gaulle's French Provisional Government as the de facto authority for the civil administration of the liberated territory in France.
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Eastern Front
2nd Baltic Front (Gen Andrei Yeremenko) starts a new program of attacks on a 90-mile front east of Idritsa. Red Army units cross into Latvia and penetrate 40 miles into Lithuania. Elsewhere the German pocket, the German 4th Army?, east of Minsk is wiped out. 70,000 Germans have been killed since late June and 35,000 more taken prisoner.
SOUTHERN SECTORThe 1st Ukrainian Front is poised to open its offensive against Army Group North Ukraine. For the offensive, Koniev's 1st Ukrainian Front has 840,000 men with 14,000 arty pieces and 1,600 tanks among the 3rd Guards Army north of Lutsk, 13th Army between Lutsk and Brody, 60th, 38th, 1st Guards Armies massed between Brody and Tarnopol, 5th Guards Army behind the left wing of the 1st Guards Army and 18th Army on the southern wing at Kolomya. The 1st Ukrainian Front's armored forces, held in the second echelon, consists of the 1st Guards Tank Army near Lutsk, 3rd Guards Tank Army near Brody and 4th Tank Army near Tarnopol. 2 cavalry mechainzed groups, held north and south of Dubno, also provide support. The 2nd and 8th Air Armies are also attached and have 2,800 aircraft.
Also facing the northern wing of Army Group North Ukraine is the left wing of the 1st Belorussian Front. This force comprises the 70th, 47th, 8th Guards and 69th Armies concentrated north of Kovel with the 1st Polish Army and 2nd Tank Army in reserve.
Army Group North Ukraine, commanded by Gen Harpe in the absence of Field Marshal Model, has the 4th Panzer, 1st Panzer and 1st Hungarian Armies. The German forces deploy 34 infantry divisions, 5 panzer divisions and 1 panzer grenadier division, a total of nearly 500,000 men with 900 panzers, 6,000 arty pieces and 700 aircraft.
[ | ]Italy
Orders are issued for Operation MALLORY MAJOR, the destruction of bridges over the Po River. The American IV Corps makes limited progress northwards. In the British XIII Corps sector the New Zealand 2nd Div gets ready to support the final attack on Arezzo.
[ | ]New Guinea
On Numfoor the US 158th Inf and 503rd Parachute Regts begin the systematic mopping up of the island, the infantry in the north and the paratroopers in the south. In the Aitape sector the US forces pull back from the Driniumor River. Gen Walter Krueger orders that the line should be recaptured as quickly as possible. Meanwhile the 6,000 Japanese advancing west of the Driniumor come under constant attacks from Australian and US aircraft.
[ | ]United States, Politics
President Roosevelt tells a Press Conference that he will run if nominated. He says, 'If the people command me to continue in office...I have as little right as a soldier to leave his position in the line.'
[ | ]Western Front
The US 1st Army's offensive is now being carried out by all 4 corps at once, the VIII, VII, XIX, and V, deployed on a front from the west coast of the Cotentin peninsula to Caumont, about 13 miles east of St Lô.
While the units of the VIII Corps make considerable progress south of La Haye-du-Puits, a counterattack by the German Panzer Lehr Div succeeds in breaking through the lines of the 9th Div in the Le-Désert sector southwest of St Jean de Daye. A combined infantry and artillery action, with air support, drives the Germans back with the loss of a number of tanks.
The XIX Corps opens its offensive against St Lô with its 30th Div west of the Vire River and the 35th and 29th Divs on the east. The units in the V Corps renew their attacks in the direction of Height 192, northeast of St Lô.
In the British sector, the 50th Div of XXX Corps improves its positions near Hottot-les-Bagues, some 13 miles west of Caen. Meanwhile the British 43rd Div of VIII Corps takes the important Hill 112, southwest of Caen. The British around Caen are again supported by heavy naval gunfire.
[ | ]Images from July 11, 1944
A Sherman tank of 29th Armoured Brigade, 11th Armoured Division, 11 July 1944 |
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300th Combat Engineers Clearing Debris |
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Sherman Vc Firefly Tank in Caen |
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American Howitzers Shell German Forces Retreating near Carentan, France, 11 July 1944 |
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Canadians Capture Caen |
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A Soldier of 3rd Division Guards two German Soldiers Captured at Caen, 11 July 1944 |
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Pilots Inspecting German Tank |
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US Soldiers Advancing near Hedgerows, Normandy, France, c. June/July 1944 |
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