Eighty years ago this week the USN defeats the IJN decisively

 

 

The USN won a decisive victory over the IJN in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest sea battle of all time. The Japanese lost four carriers and three battleships including the Musashi, the second of the gigantic Yamato class, the largest ever built. The battle saw the first use of kamikaze suicide attacks by Japanese aircraft. The IJN failed to impede the US landings on the Philippines and the losses it suffered marked the end of its time as a strategic force.

24 Mosquitos of the RAF's 2 Bomber Group attacked the Gestapo headquarters at Aarhus in Denmark in response to a plea from local resistance leaders whose organisations had suffered from German intelligence successes. The attack was one of a number of 2 Group strikes against German security forces and was personally led by the Group commander Air Vice Marshal Basil Embry, whose knowledge of D-Day plans had prevented him leading the attack on Amiens jail, an operation which the BBC persists in falsely presenting as part of the Fortitude deception. Dozens of German intelligence personnel including the local chief were killed, valuable records were destroyed and two resisters under interrogation miraculously survived and escaped.

The long, bruising Parliamentary struggle over the Planning Bill finally came to an end. It was voted through with only 58 MPs (mostly Conservative) rebelling. The government had taken the calculated risk of not imposing a three-line whip  and relying on a distinct left/right split on the Conservative benches to deliver a favourable verdict with minimal compulsion. The Tory Reform Group backed the measure but the right wing believed the level of compensation paid to owners of war damaged property was too low and that it was unjust that it was restricted to owner occupiers and not available to investors. A last-minute amended by the nominally Liberal Leslie Hore-Belisha  (who was accused of outconservativing the Conservatives) and the extremist Conservative Victor Raikes failed.