Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that an Army B-25 bomber had crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building in the foggy morning hours at 9:45, killing at least fifteen people, nine of whom were building employees, and setting the building on fire between the 75th and 97th floors. The other six killed were crewmen of the plane. One of the dead had been seated at his desk near the point where the plane struck and was blown seven stories below. Two other persons were badly burned. The fire was brought under control within forty minutes.

A naval officer on the 80th floor stated that the impact had caused the building to sway about two feet as if it had been hit by a typhoon. Two elevators crashed from the 80th floor to the basement. At least two people were removed from the elevators; there was no indication of their condition.

La Guardia's control tower had warned the plane only minutes before the crash that the Empire State Building could not be seen in the fog.

Mayor La Guardia visited the affected floors and described it as being like an oven. The 78th floor had been completely demolished by the impact, but fortunately was vacant.

Some 1,500 carrier planes, both American and British, hit targets around Japan's Inland Sea, battling flak and scores of fighter interceptors. The 29,000-ton battleship Hyuga had been sunk in the raid at Kure Naval base. It was the third such attack in a week, leaving the Japanese Navy without any heavy warships fit for action. The planes, in all, had knocked out 26 warships, including three battleships, six carriers, and four cruisers.

Ogaki, one of the eleven cities listed in dropped pamphlets as being marked for total destruction in the previous day's message from General Curtis LeMay, was hit this day by B-29's. Five other of the cities on the list, including Ichinomiya, were also slated to be bombed this day.

Domei, the Japanese news agency, stated that Premier Suzuki intended to deliver a broadcast to Japan this date in which he would outline his plan for final "decisive battle in the streets". There was still no report of an official reaction to Thursday's delivered ultimatum from President Truman, former Prime Minister Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek, setting forth eight points defining unconditional surrender.

President Truman sent a message to the Senate informing that he would seek to place any special commitments for military agreements, pursuant to action of the Security Council of the United Nations, before both houses of Congress for majority approval.

New Prime Minister Clement Atlee and his new Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, who favored "blunt Lancashire" over "polished diplomatic phrases", arrived in Potsdam to continue the conference of the Big Three. Mr. Atlee had been present for the first nine days of the conference, which had adjourned on Wednesday to permit Mr. Atlee and Mr. Churchill to return to London to receive the final tally of the election of July 5. It was still believed that the change in government would not impact British foreign policy or how the conference would proceed.

Herbert Morrison had been named Lord President of the Council. Mr. Atlee had chosen six Labor Party members to form the core of his Cabinet, including Hugh Dalton, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir Stafford Cripps, who had been active in March, 1942 in seeking to effect independence for India, to be president of the Board of Trade.

Hermann Goering was reported to have suffered a heart attack while imprisoned in Luxembourg, the result of his fear regarding a violent thunderstorm. He was all alone and became worried.

On Monday, a series of reports by Eugene Segal of the Scripps-Howard News Service, would begin to be carried by The News, anent the campaign of Robert Rice Reynolds to organize a Nationalist Party, designed to exploit racial hatreds and labor strife in the country and glorify dictatorship.

On the editorial page, "Hot Money" comments on the missed chance by the Government to catch income tax evaders and black marketeers through large denomination bills in circulation. The number of such bills had substantially increased, and the Treasury had contemplated calling them in, making them invalid after a certain date, to identify who was holding them. But, the Treasury instead determined to require that banks and brokers merely report whenever they took in bills of $50 or larger.

"Fabian No. 1" describes Clement Atlee as a dry-humored man, with no flair for rhetoric as had Mr. Churchill. He was a Socialist, without the pejorative connotations the term carried in America. He had been a member of the Fabian Society for 38 years, an organization based on Socialist principles, without Marxian influence. George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, J. Ramsey MacDonald, former Labor Prime Minister, and Sydney and Beatrice Webb were all members.

The new Government, with a large majority behind it, could now enact the Fabian principles.

"Shooting High" comments on a survey by Fortune in which 8,500 American airmen participated, 42 percent of whom expected that they would have their own businesses within a decade following the war, and another 12 percent expecting to become farmers or professionals. Half thought they would earn more than $300 per month. Air Force officers already earned that pay.

"Second Shift" reports that in New York, the Communist Political Association was holding its convention during the week. It had changed its name to Communist Party of America and turned away from Earl Browder as being too moderate with his endorsement of the United Nations, and given instead their support to William Z. Foster.

The editors print a report of a plan by New York City Councilman Benjamin Davis, a Communist Party member, to create a Southern "Black Belt", which would be an autonomous region carved from the South wherein blacks would have their own self-determined government and from which whites would be excluded. A map of the proposed belt is printed on the page. The plan was supposedly sponsored by Josef Stalin. It had been abandoned by the American Communist Party but was being revived by Mr. Davis. The screwball idea, as ridiculous as the Confederacy, never got any traction.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Senator Homer Capehart of Indiana, the Simplex-Wurlitzer king, congratulating himself for having suggested four weeks earlier that the Administration should state with clarity the peace terms to the Japanese on the hope that so doing would prompt them to accept unconditional surrender. He then lays forth the points made in the proclamation. He believed that the Japanese would likely capitulate.

Drew Pearson reveals that there was a brewing scandal in the new Truman Administration, despite the President's reputation for clean government. Warren Pierson, former head of the Export-Import Bank, had agreed while in the position to loan to International Telephone and Telegraph 14 percent of the Bank's assets. Then, Mr. Pierson resigned and took a fat job with a subsidiary of ITT, then tried to obtain another 33 million dollars from the Bank to buy out a Mexican telephone company, which would mean higher telephone rates for Mexico.

Samuel Grafton looks at the treason trial of Marshal Petain in France, finds it remarkable, as treason trials anywhere were an exception to the general rule.

Another letter writer responds on the issue raised nine days earlier regarding condemnation on racist grounds of the laundry workers' strike for better than less than subsistence wages. This writer finds collective bargaining and the unions to be wholly consistent with American democracy and notes its considerable contribution to the war effort. Blacks deserved the same right to strike for better wages as whites. Blacks were fighting side by side in the Pacific with white soldiers and had died side by side with whites in Europe.

He urges, "Wake up white citizens of Charlotte, help these poor Negroes get a decent wage."

A major from Charlotte writes a letter explaining that a letter had appeared in the Strasbourg edition of Yank taking to task the North Carolina soldier who had raised the flag of the Confederacy on Okinawa, as reported May 31. The soldier who had written to Yank stated that he had his own flag, with 48 stars, not just 13, and he preferred it.

The major continues that he had taken a tour of Berchtesgaden, taken pictures of Hitler's huge fireplace, and peered through the large aperture which once held the no longer extant picture window, then toured Goering's house and saw his huge bathtub. Both houses were demolished but no trees had been touched outside, a perfect example of precision bombing.

He states that there was some shooting still going on by unreconstructed SS, and the Allied soldiers in consequence had to watch themselves whenever they ventured out of sight of the base.

Thus ended the 1,330th day since the attack on Pearl Harbor.

This day, the U.S.S. Indianapolis, having departed Guam after delivering critical parts and the Uranium-235 for Little Boy to nearby Tinian Island on Thursday, was sailing toward Leyte. At shortly after midnight on July 30, it would be struck by two Japanese torpedoes. The ship sunk in less than fifteen minutes. About 300 of the 1,196 men on board were killed in the explosions. The remaining 900 were left to flounder in the water awaiting rescue, which would not begin until the morning of August 2. By then, all save 321 of the men had succumbed to injuries, dehydration, starvation, exposure, delirious consumption of salt water, or shark attack.