Photo of the Day

American forces in northern France celebrated the nation’s 166th birthday at noon yesterday by firing in unison all of their artillery pieces at German positions.

American infantrymen are fighting through heavy rain and mud along a thirty-five-mile front in their advance towards St. Lo.

Americans enter St. Lo.

British and Canadian forces have linked up west of Caen in their press to capture the city.

French refugees from Caen take shelter in a rock quarry.

French resistance fighters have severed the main rail line connecting Normandy to southern Germany.

Allied sources report that, once Allied troops had secured their D-Day landing zones, French resistance fighters met them there and worked as guides as the troops fought their way inland.

A company of French resistance fighters, 1944.

American nurses have come ashore on the Normandy beaches.

American nurses on Normandy.

Soviet forces have made rapid advances west and are now at the borders of the Baltic States, and some units have entered Poland.

Soviet soldiers enter Lithuania, July 1944.

US Army forces in Italy continue their advance north toward the Pisa-to-Florence road.

Americans in Pisa, July 1944.

While Moscow radio reported that ‘the German army is now facing complete destruction,’ Hitler gave a speech encouraging everyone in Germany to fight.

‘Enormous courage and strength of nerves were necessary to stand up in these difficult times,’ he said, predicting that, in the end, the German people would win the war.

Hitler at the Wolfsschanze, his eastern military headquarters, on July 15, 1944, a few days before the July 20 bomb attack by Claus von Stauffenberg, who is pictured on the left.

In the Pacific, carrier aircraft attacks combined with US troop advances have isolated the remaining Japanese defensive force in Saipan to the northern tip of the island.

Marines advance through Garapan, the largest village on Saipan, July 3, 1944.

Back at home, a fire yesterday destroyed Oriole Park in Baltimore, the wooden baseball stadium where Babe Ruth began his baseball career.

Baltimore Sun photos.

And finally….

Thirty-eight American seaman from the merchant ship Richard Hovey have been recovered from the northern Indian Ocean after being adrift for sixteen days following the Japanese torpedo sinking of their vessel.

It will later be learned that Arthur Drechsler, the ship’s junior assistant engineer, made their salvation possible.

He devised a tiller to steer their lifeboat and built a still to convert sea water to drinking water.

Drechsler’s ingenuity would earn him the Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal.

I’ll see you on Monday.

— Brenda

Stories from the New York Times.