Air Operations, CBI

• 8 341st Medium Bomb Group B-25s and more than 100 14th Air Force fighter-bombers attack road, rail, and river facilties and traffic associated with the Japanese withdrawal from French Indochina and southern and eastern China.
• FEAF B-25s attack Itu Aba Island.
• FEAF B-25s attack the airfield at Tinghai.

Air Operations, East Indies

XIII Bomber Command B-24s attack the following airfields on Borneo: Oelin, Sengkawang, Tabanio, and Trombol.

Air Operations, Japan

• FEAF B-25s attack the Nakatsu airfield on Kyushu and a convoy in Tsutu Bay.
• 7 28th Composite Bomb Group B-24s attack the Kataoka naval base with incendiary bombs.
• During the night 127 73rd Very Heavy Bomb Wing B-29s attack Matsuyama. 97 313th Very Heavy Bomb Wing B-29s attack Tokuyama. 124 314th Very Heavy Bomb Wing B-29s attack Omuta. 2 B-29s attack targets of opportunity.
• 1 B-29 is lost.

Air Operations, Korea

FEAF B-25s attack the port area at Pusan.

Air Operations, Philippines

• XIII Bomber Command B-24s attack defenses and troops on Negros.
• XIII Bomber Command B-25s and XIII Fighter Command fighter-bombers support US 8th Army ground forces on Luzon.
• The 13th Air Force assumes responsibility for all air operations throughout the Philippines and East Indies.

Britain, Politics

The election results begin to be announced. The Labor party garners 393 seats to 213 for the Conservatives with 31 going to minor parties while the popular vote was 47.8 percent Labor to 39.8 Conservative. It is a massive victory for the Labor Party and a terrible defeat for Churchill's Conservatives. Attlee becomes prime minister. The reason for the Conservative defeat, despite Churchill's war record is that they have failed to convince the electorate that they would be active and original enough to prevent any return to the conditions of the 1930s when the Conservative governments did too little, it is felt, to mitigate the economic effects of the world depression and failed to stand up to Hitler. In the war years, too, it has mostly been the Labor politicians who have been responsible for the government departments charged with running the rationing system and organizing industry and it is felt that they have done this in a way that has benefitted the people in ways apart from helping the war Attlee becomes the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense; Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Dalton; President of the Board of Trade, Sir Stafford Cripps; Lord President, Herbert Morrison; Lord Chancellor, W. Jowitt.

Diplomatic Relations

(when?)The Allies meeting at Potsdam issue a proclamation demanding that Japan should surrender unconditionally on pain of 'complete destruction'. This also refers to the successful atom bomb experiment at Alamogordo, about which Stalin's intelligence service has kept him informed.

Indian Ocean(?)

The first kamikaze attack on the British East Indies Fleet is made off Malaya. The escort carrier Ameer is damaged and the minesweeper Vestal is sunk.

Marianas

The US heavy cruiser Indianapolis (CA-35) delivers a lethal consignment enough uranium-235 to make the first atomic bomb to Tinian air base. A USAAF bomber unit, the 509th Composite Group, has been specially created and trained for the deployment of the atomic bomb against Japan.

Pacific

The US destroyer Lowry (DD-770) is damaged by an explosion in the Philippine Sea.

Images from July 26, 1945

Churchill Loses General Election 26 July 1945- News of Germany's surrender came on 7 May 1945. The British wartime parliament met for the last time on 15 June 1945, and polling day was scheduled for 5 July with a delay in the announcement of results for three weeks, so that a service vote (of Britain's armed forces) could be collected

Churchill Loses General Election

Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender Issued, at Potsdam, July 26, 1945

Japanese Surrender Terms Defined

British prime minister Clement Attlee and his wife Violet after Labour's victory in the general election, London, 26 July 1945. (Photograph: J. A. Hampton)

Clement Attlee and Wife Violet

VC Admiral inspects sailors reparing London houses. 26 July 1945, Great Smith Street, Westminster. Rear-Adm Sir Martin E Dunbar-Nasmith, VC, KCB, Flag Office in charge, London, inspected work of naval bomb damage repair parties.

Inspecting Sailors Repairing Houses