Wednesday, July 18, 2012

July 18, 1944; Port Chicago Blast:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JULY 18, 1944:


California Town
Razed By Blasts
Of Navy Vessels
Cause Of Explosion Of Ammunition Craft Is
Unknown; Impact Felt 50 Miles Away;
Victims Mostly Naval Personnel
PORT CHICAGO, Calif., July 18 (ff).—Two Navy ammunition ships, exploding late last night with earth-shaking roars, killed from 209 to 650 men, injured hundreds of others, leveled the Port Chicago depot dock area and inflicted immense damage in war-booming Port Chicago 35 miles from San Francisco.
One medium-sized cargo vessel being loaded went up with thundering roar at 10:19 p. m., Pacific War time (12:19 a. m. today, Port Arthur time). Seconds later a larger ship, moored nearby, was blown to bits when its explosives were set off. The ground shook for miles around, and one observer a mile as a “mile-high skyrocket" of flame leap into the night air. . ,.
The 12th Naval district in San Francisco revised an earlier
statement to say that both ship* exploded instead of one, and
explosion-roiled waters of Suisun bay, which branches east from San Francisco bay.
DEATH TOLL ESTIMATES RANGE UPWARD
The death toll estimate* ranged upward from the Navy’s official statement that "at least 200 to 250 Navy personnel and nine officers" were missing and presumed lost. This figure did not account for civilian seamen aboard the two destroyed ships. Two other small ships were destroyed.

KEY POINT
IN FRANCE
OCCUPIED
German Forces Are In
Retreat; Battle
~ Rages At Caen
AMERICAN FIRST ARMY
HDQ. IN FRANCE, July 18
(AP).
St. Lo is firmly in American hands and the last German has been driven out, a staff officer declared tonight.
The enemy has been forced to withdraw two to three kilometers (up to about two miles along the eastern two-thirds of the 48-mile American front in Normandy, he declared.

By Wes Gallagher
SUPREME  HDQ. ALLIED
EXPEDITONARY FORCE,
July 1 8 (AP)'.
American troops drove today into St. Lo through crumpled German opposition
north and east of the strategic highway hub. A front dispatch declared "the Germans" are in -retreat."
.. .
No Nazi Stand
The enemy withdrawal appeared to extend at least into the eastern edge of the rubbled town, middle Nazi anchor in Normandy, am indications were the Germans did not plan a house-to-house stand for St. Lo, front reports said..


RUSSIANS
10 MILES
FROM CITY
Baltic Dunkirk Faces
Germans As Soviets
Smash Forward
By Joseph W. Grigg
LONDON, July 18 (UP).—
Berlin said today that the Russian army had opened a new offensive aimed up from the Kowel area of old Poland to ward Brest-Litovsk, gateway to the Polish plains, against which othe Soviet forces were driving from positions less than 10 miles to the north.
The giant pincers move against Brest-Litovsk, keystone citadel of the German defenses on the road to Berlin, was reported closing  as violent fighting raged- all along a 475-mile front between Tarnopo in Polish Galacio and Daugavpils Latvia.

AMERICANS
ARE NEAR
MAIN PORT
Florence And Ancona
Menaced; Polish
Troops Gain
By Noland Norgaard
ROME. July 18 (AP).—
Dogged advances in three sectors of the trans-peninsular Italian front increased the Allied menace today to Germans in the great inland art center of 'Florence and the ports of Anconl and Leghorn.

ejt

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