85% of Yokohama was destroyed in a B-29 raid.
The second Sandakan Death March begins in which the Japanese guards commence a force march of Allied POWs in Borneo.
The French Army shelled Damascus and Hama.
Last edition:
The USS Drexler was sunk in a kamikaze attack. 100 Japanese aircraft were shot down on the same day, bringing to an end the Japanese air offensive.
William Joyce, "Lord Haw Haw", was arrested by the British in Flensburg.
Queen Wilhelmina returned to the Netherlands.
The Royal Navy stopped the convoy system in the Atlantic, Arctic and Indian Oceans.
Admiral Halsey, commanding US 3rd Fleet, took command of American naval forces operating against targets in Japan.
French forces and Syrians engaged in combat against each other.
John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival was born.
It was Memorial Day.
Last edition:
The French failed to capture, Andres, Pas-de-Calais.
New Zealand troops captured a ridge overlooking ANZAC Cove.
Riots broke out between Sinhalese and Muslims in Kandy, British Ceylon.
Armenian actor Yenovk Shahen, age 34, was murdered in the Armenian Genocide.
Last edition:
The Australians took Tarakan Island.
More heavy fighting occurred on Okinawa.
The Czechoslovak Extraordinary People's Court distributed over twenty thousand sentences - seven percent of them being for life or the death sentence - to "traitors, collaborators and fascist elements."
Philipp Bouhler, age 45, Nazi official and philosopher committed suicide with a cyanide capsule while in a U.S. internment camp.
French troops landed in Syria and Lebanon to reassert control over the region. The landings sparked protests from Arab nationalists.
Last edition:
The 43d Infantry Division captured the Ipoh Dam near Manila. 100,000 gallons of napalm were used in the American effort.
There was hard fighting again on Okinawa.
Aircraft from the USS Ticonderoga attacked targets on Taroa and the Maleolap atoll, encountering limited resistance.
Dutch troops landed on Tarakan Island, reinforcing the Australian forces.
Denmark severed relations with Japan.
French forces landed in Beirut to reassert control of Lebanon.
A British white paper addressed post war independence for Burma.
Archbishop Stepinac of Croatia was arrested for the first time by the incoming Communists in Yugoslavia.
Last edition:
The secret Treaty of London was signed in which Italy agreed to abandon the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austro Hungaria and join the Triple Entente in exchange for Austro Hungarian territory.
Canadians attacked St. Julien again, but were once again forced back.
German colonial forces attacked the South African-held town of Trekkopje in South West Africa but were repulsed by a unit of armored cars equipped with machine guns.
Last edition:
Franklin Roosevelt on April 11, 1945.
The Red Army prevailed in the Upper Silesian Offensive.
The U.S. Navy sank the I-8 off of Okinawa.
The British and Nationalist Chinese armies took Kyaukme.
The French 1st Army crossed t he Rhine near Speyer.
Last edition:
Gen. Émile Lemonnier of the French Army was executed by the Japanese for, as a captive, refusing to sign an instrument of surrender to the Japanese in Indochina. He was 51 years of age.
The last few years of his life must have been one of unrelenting mental torment.
The cowardly weasel ordering his execution, Captain Kayakawa was himself executed after the war..
I know some will excuse the latter's actions based on culture, but he was a weasel.
It was day two of the firebombing of Tokyo.
It's extremely difficult not to be morally troubled by this action. There are military justifications of it, but by and large, it was a monstrous attack upon a civilian population right down to the infant level. It survives as a reminder that even in World War Two, in which the Allies held hte moral high ground, not all Allied actions were morally licit.
In our own day, in which we have a President who stands by as rockets rain down on a civilian population, and in which that same President sat a war out due to shin splints, it rains buckets of blood on our own heads.
The Australians landed at Wide Bay, Papua New Guinea.
Smiling Albert Field Marshal Kesselring arrivee from Italy to take command of the German armies in the west.
The Germans withdrew from from the pocket west of the Rhine between Wesel and Xanten in the face of British and Canadian pressure.
The German offensive around Lake Balatron began to encounter heavy Rad Army resistance..
The U-275 struck a mine and was sunk off of East Sussex. The U-681 was sunk off of the Isles of Scilly by a U.S Navy B-24.
FDR involved Spanish representatives with their hands out no American aid will be forthcoming so long as the Franco dictatorship continued.
Good for FDR.
Today, King Donny would probably be giving warm smooches to Francoist delegates.
Last edition:
He displayed conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty. Forced by the enemy's detonation of prepared demolitions to shift the course of his advance through the city, he led the 1st platoon toward a small bridge, where heavy fire from 3 enemy pillboxes halted the unit. With 2 men he crossed the bridge behind screening grenade smoke to attack the pillboxes. The first he knocked out himself while covered by his men's protecting fire; the other 2 were silenced by 1 of his companions and a bazooka team which he had called up. He suffered a painful wound in the right arm during the action. After his entire platoon had joined him, he pushed ahead through mortar fire and encircling flames. Blocked from the only escape route by an enemy machinegun placed at a street corner, he entered a nearby building with his men to explore possible means of reducing the emplacement. In 1 room he found civilians huddled together, in another, a small window placed high in the wall and reached by a ladder. Because of the relative positions of the window, ladder, and enemy emplacement, he decided that he, being left-handed, could better hurl a grenade than 1 of his men who had made an unsuccessful attempt. Grasping an armed grenade, he started up the ladder. His wounded right arm weakened, and, as he tried to steady himself, the grenade fell to the floor. In the 5 seconds before the grenade would explode, he dropped down, recovered the grenade and looked for a place to dispose of it safely. Finding no way to get rid of the grenade without exposing his own men or the civilians to injury or death, he turned to the wall, held it close to his body and bent over it as it exploded. 2d Lt. Viale died in a few minutes, but his heroic act saved the lives of others.
Second Lt. Rudolph (then TSgt.) was acting as platoon leader at Munoz, Luzon, Philippine Islands. While administering first aid on the battlefield, he observed enemy fire issuing from a nearby culvert. Crawling to the culvert with rifle and grenades, he killed three of the enemy concealed there. He then worked his way across open terrain toward a line of enemy pillboxes which had immobilized his company. Nearing the first pillbox, he hurled a grenade through its embrasure and charged the position. With his bare hands he tore away the wood and tin covering, then dropped a grenade through the opening, killing the enemy gunners and destroying their machine gun. Ordering several riflemen to cover his further advance, 2d Lt. Rudolph seized a pick mattock and made his way to a second pillbox. Piercing its top with the mattock, he dropped a grenade through the hole, firing several rounds from his rifle into it, and smothered any surviving enemy by sealing the hole and the embrasure with earth. In quick succession he attacked and neutralized six more pillboxes. Later, when his platoon was attacked by an enemy tank, he advanced under covering fire, climbed to the top of the tank, and dropped a white phosphorus grenade through the turret, destroying the crew. Through his outstanding heroism, superb courage, and leadership, and complete disregard for his own safety, 2d Lt. Rudolph cleared a path for an advance which culminated in one of the most decisive victories of the Philippine campaign.
