1945

1945
Unternehmen Bodenplatte (Operation Baseplate) was launched by the Luftwaffe against Western Allied air bases in Belgium and Holland by elements of ten different Jagdgeschwadern fighter wings, as its last major air offensive of the war in the West. The Battle of the Oder–Neisse began on the Eastern Front. American soldiers retaliated for the Malmedy massacre by killing German prisoners of war near the village of Chenogne, Belgium. German radio broadcast a New Year's Day address by Adolf Hitler. The twenty six-minute speech offered no information on the battlefield situation or any hint that the war was nearing its end, only a declaration that the war would continue until victory was won.
RAF bombers conducted heavy raids on Nuremberg and Ludwigshafen.
British forces made landings on the Burmese island of Akyab with little resistance from the Japanese. Stephen Arthur Stills born in Dallas.
The American escort carrier USS Ommaney Bay was severely damaged in the Sulu Sea by a Japanese kamikaze attack. Geoffrey Fisher was appointed the new Archbishop of Canterbury to succeed the late William Temple.
The first mission of Operation Cornflakes was carried out; a mail train to Linz was bombed and then bags containing false, but properly addressed, propaganda letters were dropped at the site of the wreck so they would be picked up and delivered to Germans by the postal service.
Japanese kamikaze attacks against American ships in the Lingayen Gulf region damaged the battleships USS New Mexico and California, two cruisers and four destroyers. Field Marshal Harold Alexander arrived in Athens as the Dekemvriana clashes continued.
Vernon Sewell's The World Owes Me A Living - starring David Farrar, Judy Campbell, Sonia Dresdel, Jack Livesey, Eric Barker and John Laurie - premiered.
Maurice Elvey's Strawberry Roan - starring William Hartnell, Carol Raye, Walter Fitzgerald, Sophie Stewart, Wylie Watson and Petula Clark - premiered.
Roderick David Stewart born in Highgate, North London. Jennifer Victoria Moss born in Wigan.
The Red Army began the Vistula–Oder Offensive.
In Operation Woodlark, members of Norwegian Independent Company blew up a railway bridge in Snåsa. A military troop train derailed and crashed into the river below, killing around seventy people.
The British Second Army began Operation Blackcock with the objective of clearing German troops from the Roer triangle formed by the Dutch towns of Roermond and Sittard and the German town of Heinsberg. A Heinkel He-111 carried out the last air launching of a V-1 flying bomb, which landed in Yorkshire.
Adolf Hitler held a last meeting with Gerd Von Rundstedt and Walter Model at the Adlerhorst, instructing them to hold the Western Allies at bay for as long as possible. He then boarded a train, never to visit the Western Front again.
The Battle of Tsimba Ridge began between Australian and Japanese forces in the Northern sector of Bougainville Island. Warsaw was entered by Red Army troops. A government favourable to the Communists was installed.
The Germans ordered the evacuation of the remaining fifty eight thousand inmates of Auschwitz concentration camp ahead of the advancing Soviets. Some were deported by rail while others were forced to march in freezing temperatures. Charles Vidor's A Song To Remember - starring Paul Muni - premiered.
The fourth inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt was held in Washington.
Hungary declared war on Germany. The Germans began demolishing key structures of the Tannenberg Memorial ahead of the Soviet advance. Hitler ordered that every commanding officer from division level upward was required to notify him of all planned movements so he could override them if he saw fit. Martin Shaw born in Birmingham.
Four squadrons of RAF Spitfires destroyed a factory in Alblasserdam that manufactured liquid oxygen for German rockets.
The First US Army captured St Vith, the last German stronghold in the Ardennes bulge.
Richard Thorpe's The Thin Man Goes Home - starring William Powell and Myrna Loy - premiered. The Battle of the Bulge ended in Allied victory.
The Przyszowice massacre began in Upper Silesia. Soldiers of the Red Army killed between fifty and seventy civilian inhabitants of the Polish village of Przyszowice. The reason for the massacre remains unknown. Lieutenant Audie Murphy earned the Medal of Honour near Holtzwihr, France when he saved his company from potential encirclement by climbing onto a burning US tank destroyer and single-handedly killing or wounding fifty Germans with its machine gun until its ammunition was exhausted. Despite taking a leg wound Murphy made his way back to his company and organised a counterattack that forced the Germans to withdraw. Objective, Burma! - starring Errol Flynn - premiered. Jacqueline Mary du Pré born in Oxford.
Auschwitz was entered by Soviet troops.
Paul L Stein's Kiss The Bride Goodbye - starring Patricia Medina, Jimmy Hanley and Marie Lohr - premiered.
While evacuating German civilians, Nazi officials and military personnel from Gdynia, the German military transport ship Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed and sunk by the Soviet submarine S-13. oner nine thousand people died, making it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history. On the twelfth anniversary of the Nazis coming to power, a speech by Adolf Hitler was broadcast wearily appealing again for the German people to keep up a spirit of resistance. It was the last speech Hitler ever made. Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester became Governor-General of Australia. President Roosevelt and Churchill met at Malta for discussions preparatory to the forthcoming Yalta Conference.
The Battle of Manila began. Berlin suffered its worst air raid of the war when fifteen hundred USAAF bombers led by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rosenthal dropped more than two thousand tons of bombs on the city.
The Yalta Conference of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin began. George Anthony Haygarth born in Liverpool.
Sidney Gilliat's Waterloo Road - starring John Mills, Stewart Grainger and Joy Shelton and John Harlow's Meet Sexton Blaek - starring David Farrar, Manning Whiley, Dennis Arundell and John Varley - premiered. Denise Bloch, Lilian Rolfe and Violette Szabo, French secret agents were executed by the Nazis in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Yugoslav Partisans began the Mostar operation. Robert Nesta Marley born in Nine Mile, Jamaica.
The Western Allies began Operation Veritable, a pincer movement aimed at clearing German forces from the area between the Rhine and Meuse rivers. Louise Boisot born in Wraysbury, Berks.
The Allies reached Millingen on the Rhine. The German submarine U-864 was sunk West of Bergen by the British submarine Venturer. To date this remains the only time in history that one submarine has intentionally sunk another submarine while both were fully submerged.
The German passenger liner General von Steuben was torpedoed and sunk in the Baltic Sea by Soviet submarine S-13, resulting in the loss of over four thousand lives.
The Yalta Conference concluded. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin signed a joint declaration affirming guidelines for the end of the war and maintaining peace thereafter. Stalin introduced NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria to Roosevelt as 'our Himmler.' Operation Veritable ended in Allied victory. The First Canadian Army captured the key town of Kleve in the heart of the Siegfried Line. All one hundred tons of the German gold reserve was transported from Berlin to a salt mine near Eisenach.
The Treaty of Varkiza was signed in which the Greek resistance agreed to disarm and relinquish control of all the territory it occupied in exchange for legal recognition, free elections and the removal of Nazi collaborators from the armed forces and police. Gareth Daniel Thomas born in Brentford.
RAF Bomber Command began the strategic bombing of Dresden, resulting in a lethal firestorm which killed an estimated twenty five thousands civilians. The Siege of Budapest ended in Soviet-Romanian victory. Red Army forces liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp.
US Army Air Forces carried out the Bombing of Prague.
The US Navy launched its first carrier raid against Tokyo. Jeremy Andrew Bulloch born in Market Harborough.
The SAS executed Operation Cold Comfort, a raid that began with a parachute drop North of Verona, with the objective of blocking the main rail lines through the Brenner Pass by landslide. The operation would ultimately fail. German scientists evacuated the Peenemünde Army Research Centre. Brenda Fricker born in Dublin.
The Battle of Iwo Jima began when American troops under Admiral Raymond Spruance landed on the island.
James Alan Hull born in Benwell, Newcastle Upon Tyne.
The famous photograph Raising the Flag was taken by Joe Rosenthal of five US Marines and a hospital corpsman raising a stars and stripes atop Mount Suribachi Iwo Jima. Turkey declared war on Germany.
German submarine U-1208 was depth charged and sunk in the English Channel by Royal Navy frigates Duckworth and Rowley.
The first bombing of Osaka was carried out.
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn - starring Dorothy McGuire, Peggy Ann Garner, Joan Blondell and James Dunn and marking the directorial debut of Elia Kazan - premiered in New York.
The Ninth United States Army captured Mönchengladbach. The Picture of Dorian Gray - starring Albert Lewin, George Sanders and Hurd Hatfield - premiered.
The Battle of Manila ended in Allied victory. Finland declared war on Germany. Julia Rosamund Harrison born in Hillborough, Norfolk.
The Battle of Meiktila in Burma came to an end with General Slim's troops overwhelming the Japanese; the road to Rangoon was now cleared. The Allies attempted to destroy V-2s and launching equipment near The Hague by a large-scale bombardment, but due to navigational errors the Bezuidenhout quarter was destroyed instead, killing over five hundred Dutch civilians.
Allied aircraft accidentally bombed Basel and Zurich.

The Wehrmacht began calling up fifteen and sixteen-year old boys. Advance elements of the US First Army entered Köln. The Nineteenth Army of the Soviet Second Belorussian Front captured Köslin.
German forces on the Eastern Front launched Operation Spring Awakening, the last major German offensive of the war. At Soviet insistence, King Michael of Romania installed Petru Groza as Prime Minister. Soviet authorities began to arrest or kill anyone associated with the Polish Home Army or the Polish government-in-exile in London.
The Battle of Remagen: After German troops failed to dynamite the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine, the US First Army captured the bridge and began crossing the river. The battle of the Ruhr Pocket began. Arthur Taylor Lee born in Memphis. Caroline Dowdeswell born in Oldham.
Waffen-SS General Karl Wolff secretly met American OSS head Allen Dulles in Lucerne to open the first concrete discussions of a surrender of German forces in Northern Italy. George Michael Dolenz born in Los Angeles.
Robert Newton Calvert born in Pretoria, South Africa. The US air force firebombed Tokyo.
Japanese Fu-Go balloon bombs damaged The Manhattan Project's Hanford Site in Washington State slightly, but cause no lasting effects. The Battle of Wide Bay was fought, resulting in Allied victory when Australian troops landed in Papua New Guinea with the objective of isolating Japanese forces to the Gazelle Peninsula. The last German forces West of the Rhine withdrew.
The Royal Air Force sent over one thousand aircraft to bomb Essen and effectively destroyed the city. The Battle of Kiauneliškis began between Lithuanian partisans and Soviet forces. The British Thirty Sixth Division in Burma captured Mongmit. Albert Kesselring replaced Gerd von Rundstedt as Oberbefehlshaber West. Adolf Hitler paid his final visit to the front when he travelled to Bad Freienwalde on the Oder. In a meeting at the Schloß Freienwalde with Ninth Army commander Theodor Busse, Hitler implored his officers to hold back the Soviets long enough until his new weapons were ready, but he did not disclose what the new weapon was.
Benito Mussolini escaped injury when an Allied fighter plane strafed his convoy of cars near Lake Garda.
George Templeton's Naughty Nanette - starring Bob Graham, Dorothy Porter and Odette Myrtil - premiered.
President Roosevelt said at a news conference that as 'a matter of decency,' Americans would have to tighten their belts so food could be shipped to war-ravaged countries to keep people from starving. Roy William Neil's The House Of Fear - starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Aubrey Mather and Florette Hillier - premiered.
The Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen collapsed and killed twenty five American engineers, although the First US Army had already constructed other crossings. The Kriegsmarine completed the evacuation of seventy five thousand civilians and soldiers from the Kolberg pocket overnight.
An air battle was fought over Berlin when thirteen hundred Allied bombers and seven hundred long-range fighters were met by the Luftwaffe using the new Me-262s and air-to-air rockets. The US Eighth Air Force lost six Mustangs and thirteen bombers. The Allies dropped three thousand tons of bombs in the heaviest daylight raid on Berlin of the war. Robert Swann born in The New Forest, Hampshire.
Hitler issued The Nero Decree, ordering a 'scorched earth' destruction of German infrastructure to prevent their use by Allied forces. Albert Speer and the army chiefs strongly resisted this and conspired to delay the order's implementation. In Burma, the Nineteenth Indian Division captured Mandalay while the British Thirty Sixth Division took Mogok.
The US Seventh Army captured Saarbrücken. A visibly ill Hitler made his final public appearance, awarding medals to Hitler Youth soldiers. Australian forces carried out Operation Platypus, in which troops from Z Special Unit were inserted into the Balikpapan area of Borneo to gather information and organise locals for resistance against the Japanese. France signed an economic pact with Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
British aircraft executed Operation Carthage, an air raid on Copenhagen. The Danish headquarters of the Gestapo was destroyed but a nearby boarding school was also hit. The Allies began Operation Bowler, an air attack on Venice harbour. The Japanese deployed the first Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka suicide aircraft, slung under sixteen Betty bombers which were part of a group sent to attack the American fleet off Okinawa. The flight was a disaster for the Japanese when the group was intercepted by American fighters a full sixty miles from the American force and all the bombers were shot down.
Albert Kesselring replaced Gerd von Rundstedt as German commander in the West. The Arab League was established. Without Love - starring Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn and Lucille Ball - and Salty O'Rourke - starring Alan Ladd - premiered.
Linal Haft born in leeds.
British and American forces crossed the Rhine in Operation Plunder. British and Canadian troops carried out Operation Varsity, an airborne drop around Wesel. Billboard magazine revised its system for tabulating a chart of the leading songs in the United States with the creation of a new composite chart called The Honour Roll of Hits, combining best-selling retail records, records most played on radio and the most played jukebox records. 'Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive' by Johnny Mercer was the first number one of this new chart, which would exist until being supplanted by the creation of the Hot One Hundred in 1958. Patrick Gerald Duggan born in Reading.
Winston Churchill, accompanied by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, briefly crossed the Rhine near Wesel in an Allied landing craft. The excursion, which ventured as far as a bridge still under enemy fire, was quite dangerous and General Eisenhower later noted that if he had been there he never would have allowed Churchill to cross the river. Franz Oppenhoff, the Mayor of Aachen, was killed on the order of Heinrich Himmler, planned by SS Obergruppenführer Hans-Adolf Prützmann and carried out by an assassination unit composed of four SS men and two members of the Hitler Youth.
The Battle of Iwo Jima ended in American victory. David Lloyd George died aged eighty two.
The Germans fired their last V-2 rockets from their only remaining launch site in the Netherlands. Almost two hundred civilians in England and Belgium were killed in this final attack. Argentina declared war on Germany and Japan. Susan Brodrick born in London.
Hitler sacked Heinz Guderian as Chief of the OKH General Staff, the last battlefield commander from the early days of the war still active. Guderian was replaced with Hans Krebs.
Eric Patrick Clapton born in Ripley, Surrey. The Battle of Lijevče Field began near Banja Luka between Croatian and Chetnik forces.
'My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time' by Les Brown topped the Billboard singles charts. Kitty - starring Paulette Goddard and Ray Milland - premiered.
The Battle of Okinawa began. The Battle of Kassel began between German and American troops. British Commandos began Operation Roast in an effort to push the Germans back to and across the River Po and out of Italy. Hitler moved his headquarters from the Reich Chancellery to the Führerbunker.
The Soviet Third Ukrainian Front launched The Vienna Offensive.
The Ninth United States Army captured Münster and attacked the Ruhr Pocket. Thousands of prisoners of Buchenwald concentration camp were forced to evacuate and march away from the Allied advance.
The Allies began Operation Grapeshot, the Spring offensive in Italy. The Battle of Slater's Knoll ended in decisive Australian victory. Dillinger - starring Lawrence Tierney - premiered.
Operation Ten-Go: The Japanese battleship Yamato and nine other warships launched a suicide attack on Allied forces engaged in the Battle of Okinawa. Yamato was bombed, torpedoed and sunk by US Navy aircraft South of Kyushu. The Allies began Operation Amherst, a Free French and SAS attack with the goal of capturing Dutch canals, bridges and airfields intact. Germany sent out one hundred and twenty student pilots to face a thousand American bomber planes in a suicide operation with the objective of ramming their planes into the US aircraft and then parachuting to safety. Only a few of the pilots managed to hit the bombers and three-quarters of the Luftwaffe pilots were shot down. It was the Sonderkommando Elbe group's first - and last - mission.
The Battle of Königsberg ended in a Soviet victory. A heavy bombing at Kiel by the RAF destroyed the last two major German warships. Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed at Flossenburg prison. Wilhelm Canaris, Hans Oster and others involved in The July Plot were also hanged in Flossebburg on the same day. The camp was liberated two weeks later by American forces.
Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated by the American. The Battle of Authion began in the French Alps. Allied aircraft shot down thirty of fifty Me-262 jet fighters. The loss was fatal to the Luftwaffe and the defence of Berlin was abandoned. Anthony Bate born in Tyne & Wear.
Japanese kamikaze attacks on American naval ships continued at Okinawa; the carrier Enterprise and the battleship Missouri were both hit. Otto Premiger's A Royal Scandal - starring Tallulah Bankhead and Anne Baxter - premiered.
President Roosevelt suffered a stroke and died whilst sitting for a portrait painting by Elizabeth Shoumatoff. Harry Truman became president of the United States. The Berlin Philharmonic gave its final performance of the Nazi era, with various members of the military and political elite in attendance. As the concert concluded with the finale of Richard Wagner's Götterdämmerung, members of the Hitler Youth distributed baskets of cyanide capsules among the audience. Elisabeth Anne Gebhardt born in Liverpool.
SS and Luftwaffe troops carried out the Gardelegen massacre. Over one thousand slave labourers were forced into a large barn which was then set on fire.
Admiral Karl Dönitz grouped six U-boats into Wolfpack Seewolf and ordered them to the Atlantic to tie down Allied forces in the region. The Allies suspected that the U-boats were equipped to attack America's Eastern seaboard with V-1 or V-2 rockets and launched Operation Teardrop with the objective of tracking them down and terminating their mission with extreme prejudice.
British troops of the Eleventh Armoured Division liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Richard Dimbleby reported on the horrors that were found there for BBC News. The First Canadian Army captured Arnhem.
Death marches from Flossenbürg concentration camp began. Harry Truman addressed Congress for the first time as president. A Medal For Benny - starring Dorothy Lamour - premiered.
The Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical Carousel opened at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. Cleo Sylvestre born in Hitchin.
Soviet artillery began shelling Berlin on Hitler's fifty sixth birthday. Preparations were made to evacuate Hitler and his staff to Obersalzberg to make a final stand in the Bavarian mountains, but Hitler refused to leave his bunker. Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler departed the bunker for the last time. The Seventh United States Army captured Nuremberg. Mussolini gave the last interview of his life to one of his few remaining loyal followers, the fascist newspaper director Gian Gaetano Cabella. Mussolini declared that 'Italy will rise again ... For me, however, it is over.' The Horn Blows At Midnight starring Jack Benny premiered. James Edward Winston Langwith born in Stratford.
Soviet forces under Georgiy Zhukov's First Belorussian Front, Konstantin Rokossovskiy's Second Belorussian Front and Ivan Konev's First Ukrainian Front launched assaults on the German forces in and around Berlin in the opening stages of the Battle of Berlin. The Battle of Bologna ended with the Polish II Corps and supporting Allied units capturing the city. Diana Magdalene Roloff born in Cheadle.

Hitler held an afternoon staff conference in the Führerbunker to discuss the military situation. Upon being informed that a counterattack under the command of Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner which Hitler had ordered had never happened and that the Soviets were now entering the Northern suburbs of Berlin, Hitler flew into a rage, denouncing the army as traitors. He then conceded, for the first time, that the war was lost. Over the protests of all those present, Hitler insisted he would stay in Berlin to the end rather than try to escape. The British Fourteenth Army captured Taungoo and Oktwin, Burma. The US Seventh Army crossed the Danube.
Hermann Göring sent a radiogram to Hitler's bunker, asking to be declared Hitler's successor. Hitler is reported to have been somewhat unamused.
Himmler, ignoring the orders of Hitler, made a secret surrender offer to the Allies via Count Folke Bernadotte, head of the Red Cross, provided that the Red Army was not involved. The offer was not taken seriously; when Hitler heard of the betrayal, he ordered Himmler to be extremely shot. The Royal Air Force conducted its last significant mission of the war with a raid against Hitler's retreat at Berchtesgaden. The final evacuation of the Dachau death camp system began, with Jewish prisoners from satellite camps arriving at Dachau, to head Southwards on a death march away from liberating American troops.
The first contact between Soviet and American troops at the River Elbe, near Torgau. General Robert Ritter von Greim was taken on a risky flight from Munich to Berlin by Hanna Reitsch for a meeting with Hitler. During the flight Greim was injured by enemy fire that struck the cockpit. Hitler promoted Greim to field marshal (making him the last German officer to ever achieve the rank) and gave him command of the Luftwaffe. Greim was then flown back out of Berlin with the only airworthy plane left in the city. Björn Kristian Ulvaeus born in Gothenberg.
Counter-Attack - starring Paul Muni and Marguerite Chapman - and Blood On The Sun - starring James Cagney - premiered. Philippe Pétain was arrested on the border between Switzerland and France.
Soviet forces liberated the three thousand remaining inmates of Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The Red Army captured the Berlin airports of Tempelhof and Gatow, preventing the capital from receiving any further supplies by air. US troops liberated Kaufering concentration camp and found thousands of corpses.
Benito Mussolini, heavily disguised, was captured in Northern Italy while trying to escape to Switzerland. Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were shot and hanged from a lamppost in Milan. Other members of his puppet government were also executed by Italian partisans. And, that was the end of their shit. Hitler and Eva Braun were married in the Führerbunker.
US forces liberated Dachau. Hitler dictated his last will and testament to his secretary, Traudi Junge, designating Karl Dönitz as his successor. Martin Bormann was nominated as the will's executor. The will was witnessed by Bormann and Colonel Nicolaus von Below. Hitler's dog, Blondi, died as a result of a test verifying the potency of the cyanide capsules which Hitler had in his possession. At the royal palace in Caserta, two German officers signed the terms of surrender of German forces in Italy. Richard Carey Winter born in Meopham, Kent.
Adolf Hitler (who only had one) committed suicide by shooting himself in the head inside the Führerbunker. So, that was end of his shit. And, it was on his honeymoon as well so, that was doubly funny. Mrs Hitler also died.
Joseph Goebbels and his wife murdered their children and then commited suicide. Yugoslavian Partisan leader Tito and his troops captured Trieste. New Zealand troops played a supporting role. Reichssender Hamburg's Flensburg radio station announced that Adolf Hitler had 'fallen' in Berlin while 'fighting for Germany.' President Karl Dönitz gave a broadcast declaring that it was his task to save the German people 'from destruction by Bolshevists.' The US Seventh Army reached Hitler's birthplace of Braunau am Inn. In the Pacific, the Borneo campaign opened with the beginning of the Battle of Tarakan.

The Battle of Berlin ended when General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov. Wernher Von Braun and several of his colleagues surrendered to the US Forty Fourth Infantry Division. Wanted by the British for potential war crimes, the rocket men were immediately spirited out of Germany by the Americans under Operation Paperclip. They - and other captured German scientists - were, subsequently, housed at Fort Bliss where they worked on providing the Americans with intercontinental ballistic missiles (the later development of an American space programme was an unexpected, serendipitous, by-product). All of this, despite Von Braun having been a Sturmbannführer in the SS and the widespread use of slave labour at the V-2 rocket factory at Peenemünde. Yevgeny Khaldei took the iconic Raising A Flag Over The Reichstag photograph, showing Soviet troops doing just that. Admiral Dönitz's Flensburg Government was formed. Martin Bormann left the Führerbunker with SS doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger, Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann and Hitler's pilot Hans Baur in an attempt to break out of the Soviet encirclement. Bormann carried with him a copy of Hitler's will. The group travelled on foot via a U-Bahn subway tunnel to the Friedrichstraße station. Several members of the party attempted to cross the Spree River at the Weidendammer Bridge while crouching behind a tank which was hit by Soviet artillery and destroyed. Bormann, Stumpfegger and several others eventually crossed the river and walked along the railway tracks to Lehrter station, where Axmann decided to go in the opposite direction. When he encountered a Red Army patrol, Axmann doubled back. He later stated that he saw two bodies, which he identified as Bormann and Stumpfegger, on a bridge near the railway switching yard. Since the Soviets never admitted to finding Bormann's body, his fate remained in doubt for decades.
The German ocean liner Cap Arcona was sunk by British warplanes in the Bay of Lübeck with five thousand concentration camp prisoners aboard. Over four hundred SS personnel made it to lifeboats and were rescued but only three hundred and fifty of the prisoners survived. Karl Dönitz arranged to send a surrender delegation to Bernard Montgomery's headquarters. The British Second Army occupied Hamburg unopposed. Irish Prime Minister Éamon de Valera offered his condolences to the German Minister in Dublin upon learning of the death of Hitler. The British Fourteenth Army captured Rangoon. At the United Nations Conference on International Organisation, in San Francisco four committees began work on a United Nations charter. The Valley Of Decision - starring Greer Garson and Gregory Peck - premiered.
Karl Dönitz ordered all U-boats to cease operations. German troops in Denmark, Northern Germany and The Netherlands surrendered to Montgomery. Neuengamme concentration camp was liberated. The Seventh United States Army captured Innsbruck, Salzburg and Berchtesgaden.
Formal negotiations for Germany's surrender began at Reims. The Prague uprising began when the Czech resistance launched an attempt to liberate the cityfrom German occupation. German troops in the Netherlands officially surrendered to Prince Bernhard. Mauthausen concentration camp was liberated. Japanese fire balloons claimed their first - and only - lives, a Sunday school group in Bly, Oregon. The cartoon character Yosemite Sam first appeared in the Bugs Bunny animation Hare Trigger.
The Sixteenth Armoured Division of George Patton's Third Army captured Plzeň. Much to Patton's disgust, his men were prevented from advancing any further due to the occupation agreement between the Americans and the Soviets. Hilary Dwyer born in Liverpool.
Germany surrendered ending the war in Europe. German general Alfred Jodl and admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg signed unconditional surrender documents at General Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims. BBC correspondent Thomas Cadett ended a dispatch minutes after the signing of the surrender with: 'Some of us admitted to a certain temptation to pity for the conquered, but each time memories from Warsaw and Buchenwald came crowding in - to bring the realisation that this was justice; that pity was a selfish and sentimental notion.' Francoist Spain severed diplomatic relations with Germany. Celebrations in Halifax, Nova Scotia got out of control when several thousand servicemen, merchant seamen and civilians went on a rampage and looted the city. Tensions had been high in Halifax for years due to the presence of thousands of servicemen straining the city's resources to the limit.
Eight days after the suicide of Hitler and the collapse of the Nazi rule in Berlin, V-E Day was celebrated. Street parties took place throughout Britain. Hermann Göring surrendered his fat ass to the Americans on a road near Radstadt in Austria. His Mercedes-Benz headed a column of staff cars and lorries carrying expensive luggage and, after being taken into custody he posed happily for photographers, drank champagne and chatted amiably with American officers. When General Eisenhower learned of the friendly reception he became furious and Göring soon found himself unceremoniously banged-up in a house in Augsburg for interrogation. The Prague uprising ended with a ceasefire. The Independent State of Croatia was disestablished. The Massacre in Trhová Kamenice occurred when German troops in the Czech village of Trhová Kamenice shot supposed partisans.
German forces in the Channel Islands, the only occupied part of the British Isles, surrendered. The final Wehrmachtbericht was broadcast, reporting that 'the German Wehrmacht succumbed with honour to enormous superiority. Loyal to his oath, the German soldier's performance in a supreme effort for his people can never be forgotten.' Joseph Stalin issued a V-E Order of the Day, congratulating the Red Army upon 'the victorious termination of the Great Patriotic War.' British began Operation Doomsday when the First Airborne Division began landing in Norway to act as a police and military force. Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov left the United Nations conference for Moscow with the Polish question still unresolved. Sue Bond born in Aylesbury.
Resistance fighters in Norway captured Vidkun Quisling and other members of his party.
General Eisenhower ordered that no combat soldiers who had fought in North Africa and Europe were to be sent to the Pacific.
Ian Patrick McLagan born in Hounslow. Nicholas Victor Leslie Henson born in London. The Security Committee at the United Nations Conference on International Organisation agreed on an eleven-member security council, with non-permanent members chosen by the General Assembly.
The Battle of Pokoku and Irrawaddy River operations in Burma ended in decisive British victory. Winston Churchill gave a radio address telling the British people that 'there is still a lot to do.'
The provisional government of Austria nullified the 1938 Anschluß Österreichs. David Lean's adaptation of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit - starring Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings and Kay Hammond - premiered. Francesca Annis born in Kensington.
The Battle of the Malacca Strait began between five British destroyers and one Japanese heavy cruiser and one destroyer.
French troops landed in Beirut to reassert colonial control.
During the Battle of Okinawa, the Tenth United States Army captured Sugar Loaf Hill. Jean Renoir's The Southerner - starring Zachary Scott - premiered.
Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend born in Chiswick. An Australian Services XI, which included Keith Miller, Lindsay Hassett and Cec Pepper, played the first of five 'victory tests' against England. The Czechoslovak Extraordinary People's Court distributes over twenty thousand sentences - seven percent of them being for life or the death sentence - to 'traitors, collaborators and fascist elements.'
The Attack on the NKVD Camp in Rembertów took place on the outskirts of Warsaw. A unit of the pro-independence Home Army freed all Polish political prisoners. The Labour Party decided at a meeting in Blackpool to withdraw its support for Churchill's coalition government and force a General Erection. Herbert Mason's Flight From Folly - starring Pat Kirkwood and Hugh Sinclair - premiered.
SS Reichfűhrer Heinrich Himmler committed suicide by cyanide and died, in agony. Though, he was a truly wicked Nazi stinker so, frankly, it jolly wellserved him right. Churchill resigned as Prime Minister at the request of King George VI and formed a caretaker ministry which would govern until Britain could hold erections on 5 July. Andrew Thomas Hutchison Burt born in Wakefield.
Robert Wise's The Body Snatcher - starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi - premiered.
The Berlin Philharmonic gave its first performance since the end of the European war in the Titania Palace Theatre.
William Joyce, known as Lord Haw-Haw was captured at Flensburg, near the German border with Denmark. Spotting a dishevelled figure, intelligence soldiers - including a Jewish German, Geoffrey Perry - engaged him in conversation in French and English. After they asked whether the man was William Joyce, he reached into his pocket for a false passport; believing he was armed, Perry shot him in the arse. Arrested, Joyce as taken back to London to face trial for his naughty Nazi ways. John Cameron Fogerty born in Berkeley. Flame of The Barbary Coast - starring John Wayne - and Geoffrey Faithfull's For You Alone - starring Lesley Brook, Dinah Sheridan and Jimmy Hanley - premiered.
B-29s of the US Twentieth Air Force dropped two thousand five hundred and seventy tons of bombs on Yokohama and obliterated the city. French forces shelled Damascus. Gary Brooker born in Hackney.
Norman Eshley born in Bristol.
Winston Churchill informed Charles de Gaulle that British forces had been instructed to 'intervene' in Levant states to end bloodshed and avoid threat to Allied supply lines in the Pacific.
Charles de Gaulle accused the British of meddling in French affairs. In response, the British accused the French of using Lend-Lease equipment to fight the Syrians and Lebanese in violation of the agreement with the United States. Albert Lewin's adaptation of The Picture Of Dorian Gray - starring George Sanders - premiered.
Pope Pius XII gave an address to the Sacred College of Cardinals warning that danger still existed in Europe, including 'those mobs of dispossessed, disillusioned, disappointed, hopeless men who are going to swell the ranks of revolution and disorder in the pay of a tyranny no less despotic than those for whose overthrow men planned.' In San Francisco, the Soviet delegation demanded a right of veto in the proposed United Nations Security Council. 'Sentimental Journey' by Les Brown topped the Billboard singles charts.
French troops left Damascus for billets outside the city. They were replaced by British peacekeeping forces.
Winston Churchill committed an 'uge political gaffe during the erection campaign when he claimed during a party political broadcast that a Labour government would require 'some form of Gestapo' to enforce its agenda. Gordon Trueman Riviere Waller born in Braemar, Aberdeenshire.
The Berlin Declaration was signed by the United States, USSR, Britain and France, confirming the complete legal dissolution of Nazi Germany.
A Soviet spokesman from Georgy Zhukov's staff announced that Adolf Hitler's burned corpse had been found and identified in the Chancellery gardens. Wonder Man - starring Danny Kaye - premiered.
Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes was first performed at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. King George VI visited the Channel Islands to pay tribute to their resolve under German occupation.
Derek Leslie Underwood born in Bromley. Wonder Man - starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo - premiered.
An agreement was signed in Belgrade in which Yugoslavia agreed to evacuate Trieste and allow it to be occupied by an allied military government until the competing claims to the region were resolved.
American troops on Okinawa took over the Yaeju Dake escarpment, breaching the last defence line of the Japanese garrison. Patrick Anthony Jennings, born in Newry.
Joachim von Ribbentrop was captured in Hamburg. An Allied victory parade was held in Rangoon.
In the Philippines, the Battle of Bessang Pass ended in Allied victory. The longest British Parliament since the Cavalier Parliament of 1661 to 1679 was formally dissolved ahead of the forthcoming erections. The F-82 Twin Mustang had its first flight. The film noir Conflict - starring Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith and Sydney Greenstreet - premiered. Nicola Mary Pagett Scott born in Cairo.
The American destroyer USS Twiggs was sunk off Okinawa by a Japanese kamikaze attack. American troops captured the former Hungarian Prime Minister Béla Imrédy.
Édouard Louis Joseph Baron Merckx born in Meensel-Kiezegem, Belgium.
Japanese Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki informed the Japanese Supreme Council of Emperor Hirohito's intention to seek peace with the Allies as soon as possible. William Wellman's The Story Of GI Joe - starring Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum - premiered.
Spain was denied admission into the United Nations for as long as Francisco Franco held power. French politician Marcel Déat was sentenced to death in absentia for collaborating with the enemy. He would die in 1955 while still in hiding in Italy.
The Battle of Okinawa ended in Allied victory. General Douglas MacArthur announced that Joseph Stillwell had been made the new commander of the US Tenth Army, replacing Simon Bolivar Buckner, who had been killed in action four days earlier. A request was made by Emperor Hirohito for peace talks.
Representatives of China, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to admit Poland to the United Nations.
A victory parade was held in Moscow led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov riding a white horse, the traditional Russian mount of a conquering hero. Two hundred captured Nazi banners were ceremonially dragged through Red Square and thrown on the ground before Lenin's Tomb. Allied forces landed on Halmahera in the Maluku Islands.
The Simla Conference to discuss the future Indian government of India.
The United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco. Irving Rapper's Rhapsody in Blue - starring Robert Alda as George Gershwin - premiered in New York.
President Truman approved Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Japan.
Liuzhou, the former US air base in China, was recaptured from the Japanese by Chinese forces.
The Battle of Balikpapan began when Australian and Dutch troops made an amphibious landing a few miles North of Balikpapan, Borneo. The Inner German Border was established as the boundary between the Western and Soviet occupation zones of Germany. British troops withdrew from Magdeburg, now part of the Soviet occupation zone. Deborah Ann Harry born in Miami.
Five hundred Canadian troops rioted in Aldershot in protest about the delay in sending them home.
General Douglas MacArthur announced that the Philippines had been liberated. The General Erection was held. The results would not be announced until the Potsdam Conference concluded.
Bert John Gervis born in Los Angeles.
Japanese soldiers in Burma carried out the Kalagong massacre.
The Louvre reopened in Paris. Janet Key born in Bath.
The Soviet Union agreed to hand over civilian and military control of West Berlin to British and US forces.
The ban on Allied troops fraternising with German women was lifted. Irving Rapper's The Corn Is Green - starring Bette Davis and Nigel Bruce - premiered.
Blackout restrictions for the West End of London were lifted.
As part of The Manhattan Project, the United States army conducted the first detonation of a nuclear weapon - Trinity - in the Jornada del Muerto desert in New Mexico. According to a 1949 magazine profile, while witnessing the explosion Robert Oppenheimer thought of verses from the Bhagavad Gita: 'If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one ... Now I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.'
The Potsdam Conference began with the first meeting of Churchill, Stalin and Truman. The Allied leaders agreed to insist on the unconditional surrender of Japan.
Anchors Aweigh - starring Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson and Gene Kelly - premiered.
A US Navy captain in the Office of War Information broadcast in Japanese an unauthorised talk in which he stated that American patience was 'rapidly running out' and told Japan to surrender unconditionally or face 'virtual destruction.' Allan Leigh Lawson born in Atherstone, Warwickshire.
The Potsdam Conference adjourned temporarily so that the British delegation could return to England to hear the erection results. Harry Truman told Stalin that a new and powerful weapon was ready to be deployed against Japan, but did not provide any specific information. Philippe Pétain caused an uproar when he spoke for the first time during his treason trial, claiming that he was deaf and had not heard a thing which had been said in court up to that time. Many in the courtroom did not believe him, pointing out that he had frequently appeared to be listening attentively and fidgeted the most when serious charges were being made against him.
Clement Attlee became Prime Minister after Labour won a landslide victory in the General Erection. Helen Lydia Mirren born in Hammersmith. The Forces' Network's Navy Mixture featured the radio debut of George Martin, playing his own composition, 'Prelude'. Sandra Eileen Anne Smith born in Reading. Helen Lydia Mironoff born in London.
Serenade In Sepia - 'sweet music in the Negro style, sung by Evelyn Dove and Edric Connor' - broadcast on The Home Service. Roy William Neil's The Woman In Green - starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Hillary Brooke and Henry Daniell - premiered. On the island of Tinian in the Marianas chain, the Little Boy atomic bomb began being prepared for use. Ernest Bevin became the new Foreign Secretary. Clement Attlee's first cabinet also included Herbert Morrison (Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons), Hugh Dalton (Chancellor), Lord Stansgate (Secretary of State for Air), Ellen Wilkinson (Minister of Education), Aneurin Bevan (Minister of Health), Stafford Cripps (President of the Board of Trade) and Manny Shinwell (Minister of Fuel and Power).

Lionel Brown's This Land Is Ours broadcast on The Home Service. A B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed into New York's Empire State Building during a heavy fog, resulting in fourteen deaths.
The Light Programme was launched, aimed at mainstream light entertainment and music. First day highlights included As The Commentator Saw It, Transatlantic Quiz, Variety Band-Box, Tyneside Salutes The Merchant Navy and They Lived To Tell Their Tale.
The USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine after having delivered atomic bomb material to Tinian. Because of the secrecy of its mission, the ship's whereabouts were unknown for some time and many of its men drowned or were attacked by sharks during the next four days.
The new parliament assembled for the first time to elect a Speaker of the House of Commons. As Winston Churchill entered the House for the first time as an ex-Prime Minister, he was greeted by cheers and singing of 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' by Tory MPs, to which the Labour majority responded by singing 'The Red Flag'. When Douglas Clifton Brown was re-elected Speaker he said he was not quite sure whether he was becoming chairman of the House of Commons or director of a musical show. David Anderson born in Rutherglen.
Paul Tibbets, pilot of the lead plane in the planned atomic bomb run, reported to General Curtis LeMay's Air Force headquarters on Guam and was briefed on the mission over Hiroshima.
The Soviets gifted a plaque to the US Ambassador to Moscow which was bugged with 'The Thing,' one of the earliest covert listening devices invented. It would hang in the Spaso House for seven years until its secret was discovered. Esther Anderson born in Highgate, Jamaica.
The dropping of the first atomic bomb - Little Boy - on Hiroshima from the Enola Gay.
The Nuremberg Charter was issued, setting down the laws and procedures by which the Nuremberg Trials were to be conducted. Pride of The Marines - starring John Garfield - premiered.
The dropping of the second atomic bomb - Fat Man - on Nagasaki, by the B-29 bomber Bockscar (which, unlike the Enola Gay has never had a song written about it). The Soviet–Japanese War began with the invasion of Manchukuo.
The Japanese government announced that a message had been sent to the Allies accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration provided that it 'does not comprise any demand that prejudices the prerogatives of the Emperor as sovereign ruler.' Edward Killy's West Of The Pecos - starring Robert Mitchum and Barana Hale - premiered.
David Horovitch born in London.
Paul L Stein's Waltz Time - starring Carol Raye, Peter Graves and Patricia Medina - premiered.
The World Zionist Congress demanded that one million Jews be admitted to Palestine. Emperor Hirohito recorded a radio message to the Japanese people saying that the war should end and that they must 'bear the unbearable.' That evening the Kyūjō incident occurred, an effort by a group of junior officers to steal the recording and stop the surrender. The attempt failed and the conspirators committed suicide. Alfred Eisenstaedt took the V-J Day In Times Square photograph of an American sailor kissing a woman during celebrations in New York. The August Revolution began when the Viet Minh launched an uprising against French colonial rule in Viet'nam.
V-J Day was celebrated following the Japanese surrender. The British government revealed details of one of the biggest secrets of the war, radar. Eighty nine-year old Philippe Pétain was sentenced to death in Paris court for treason, but Charles de Gaulle gave him a reprieve on account of his age. Nesta Pain's The Atom Explodes broadcast on The Home Service. Peter Nigel Terry born in Bristol. Valerie Jill Haworth born in Hove. Peter Nigel Terry born in Bristol.
George Orwell's Animal Farm published.
England won the fifth and final 'Victory' test against the Australian Services by six wickets. EW Swanton - having spent the previous three years since the fall of Singapore as a Japanese prisoner of war in Burma - wrote, movingly, of his experience hearing the BBC's radio coverage of this game: 'I had, by then, already taken my first walk for three-and-a-half years as a free man. We found ourselves in a Thai village on the edge of the jungle. In the little café our hosts politely turned on the English programme. Yes, we were at Old Trafford and a gentleman called [Bob] Cristofani was getting a hundred.'
Robert Peck born in Leeds.
Clement Attlee told Parliament that Britain was in 'a very serious financial position' due to the abrupt ending of Lend-Lease and that 'the initial deficit with which we start the task of re-establishing our own economy and of contracting our overseas commitments is immense.'
Judith Matheson born in Thurrock.
At a non-Communist meeting in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh assumed a leading role in the movement to wrest power from the French. Ho Chi Minh's guerrillas occupied Hanoi and proclaimed a provisional government. The Allied occupation of Japan began.
A British battle squadron led by the aircraft carrier Indomitable arrived at Hong Kong to reoccupy the colony. Douglas MacArthur landed in Japan and set up temporary headquarters in Yokohama.
George Ivan Morrison born in Belfast.
The Surrender of Japan became official when the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The Second World War ended after six years and one day.
General Tomoyuki Yamashita formally surrendered the remaining Japanese troops in the Philippines to General Jonathan Wainwright, the same commander who was compelled to surrender to Yamashita at Corregidor in 1942. John Harlow's The Agitator - starring William Hartnell, Mary Morris, John Laurie and Moore Marriott - premiered.
The last German troops surrendered on Svalbard. William Kenwright born in Liverpool.
Singapore was officially liberated by British and Indian troops. Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada, defected with one hundred and nine documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West. Gouzenko's defection would be kept secret from the public for five months, but it would force Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King to call a Royal Commission to investigate espionage in Canada. Christian Rodska born in Cullercoats.
Isle Of The Dead - starring Boris Karloff - premiered.
The Académie française expelled Philippe Pétain, Charles Maurras and Abel Bonnard for their naughty collaborating ways.
José Monserrate Feliciano García born in Lares, Puerto Rico.
Japanese General Hideki Tojo attempted suicide when American troops arrived at his home to arrest him as a war criminal. Tojo shot himself below the heart with a revolver, but survived. Franz Anton Beckenbauer born in München.
Maria Penelope Katharine Aitken born in Dublin.
The War in Vietnam began. The first episode of Send For Paul Temple Again - starring Barry Morse - broadcast.
The Guardian reported that a copy of Sonderfahndungsliste GB - a list of prominent British residents to be arrested, produced in 1940 by the SS as part of the preparation for Unternehmen Seelöwe - had been discovered in the Berlin headquarters of the Reich Security Police. When told that they were on the Gestapo's list, Nancy Astor said: It is the complete answer to the terrible lie that the so-called "Cliveden Set" was pro-Fascist,' while Lord Vansittart said 'The German black-list might indicate to some of those who now find themselves on it that their views, divergent from mine, were somewhat misplaced. Perhaps it will be an eye-opener to them.' The cartoonist David Low said: 'That is all right. I had [the Nazis] on my list too.' Being included on the list was considered a mark of honour by many. For example, Noël Coward recalled that, on learning of both of their places on the list, his friend the author Rebecca West sent him a telegram saying: 'My dear - the people we should have been seen deadwith.' The information was prepared by under the direction of Reinhard Heydrich. SS-Oberführer Walter Schellenberg claimed in his memoirs that he had compiled the list, starting at the end of June 1940. It contained over two thousand eight hundred names - including some duplicates - of people, including British nationals and European exiles, who were to be immediately arrested by SS Einsatzgruppen upon the occupation of Great Britain by the Third Reich. The book had some errors, such as the inclusion of people who had either died (Lytton Strachey, in 1932) or who were no longer living in the UK (Paul Robeson, moved back to the United States, as had both Alexander Korda and Aldous Huxley) and omissions such as George Bernard Shaw, one of the few English language writers whose works were published and performed in Nazi Germany. Amongst those included on the list were Max Beaverbrook, Fergus Anderson, the two-time Grand Prix motorcycle road-racing World Champion, Clement Attlee, Robert Baden-Powell, Violet Bonham Carter, Winston Churchill, Seymour Cocks, Duff Cooper, Anthony Eden, EM Forster, Sigmund Freud, Charles de Gaulle, Victor Gollancz, Megan Lloyd George, Harold Nicolson, Vic Oliver, Sylvia Pankhurst, Harry Pollitt the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, JB Priestley, Robert Smallbones the diplomat who granted visas to forty eight thousand Jews, Sybil Thorndike, HG Wells, Ted Willis, Leonard and Virginia Woolf and Alfred Zimmern.
Commemorative parades were held throughout Britain to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the RAF victory on Battle of Britain Day. Clive Merrison born in Tenby.
The first WAC Corporal dummy rocket was launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. A Victory Thanksgiving service was held in Westminster Abbey.
The Belsen Trial began. Josef Kramer and forty four SS aides went on trial in British military court in Lüneburg on charges of conspiracy to commit murder.
At the Old Bailey, William Joyce was sentenced to death for treason. During the processing of the charges, Joyce's American nationality came to light and it seemed that he would have to be acquitted, based upon a lack of jurisdiction; he could not be convicted of betraying a country that was not his own. However, the Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, successfully argued that Joyce's possession of a British passport, even though he had misstated his nationality to obtin it, entitled him until it expired to British diplomatic protection in Germany and, therefore, he owed allegiance to the King at the time he commenced working for the Germans. The historian AJP Taylor remarked in his book English History 1914–1945 that: 'Technically, Joyce was hanged for making a false statement when applying for a passport, the usual penalty for which is a small fine.' Clement Attlee made a worldwide broadcast promising independence for India 'at the earliest possible date. Kim Il-sung arrived at Port Wonsan and began to organise the Communist Party of Korea.
German rocket engineers captured at the end of the war and brought to the United States under Operation Paperclip began work on the American rocket programme.
Paul Dehn's The Race For The Atom Bomb broadcast.
General George Patton complained in an interview that he had 'never seen the necessity of the denazification program' and compared 'this Nazi thing' to a 'Democratic and Republican election fight.' 'Till The End Of Time' by Perry Como reached number one on the Billboard singles charts.
Charles Crichton's Painted Boats - starring Jenny Laird, Bill Blewitt and Harry Fowler - premiered.
Bryan Ferry born in Washington, County Durham. The Japanese garrison surrendered the Andaman Islands to the Anglo-Indian sloop Narbada.
Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City - scripted by Federico Fellini - premiered.
Michael Curtiz's adaptation of Mildred Pierce - starring Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth - premiered. The Friday Discussion: San Fransisco & The Atom Bomb broadcast on The Home Service. Anti-Dutch rioting took place in Indonesia.
Sandra Bryant born in Edgware.
The Weixian–Guangling–Nuanquan Campaign began in China.
The non-fraternisation directive for American troops against German civilians was rescinded. Previously even speaking to a German could lead to court martial, except for 'small children.'
As a result of George Patton's remarks about denazification, General Eisenhower's headquarters announced that Patton had been relieved as US Third Army commander in Bavaria and made head of a unit compiling a military history of the war in Germany. US Marshal for the Western District of Missouri Fred Canfil sent a gift to President Truman: a painted glass sign mounted on a walnut base with the phrase 'The Buck Stops Here!' Truman placed the sign on his desk and occasionally referred to it in public statements over the course of his presidency.
The first episode of Family Favourites broadcast on The Light Programme and on The British Forces Network in Germany.
Kiss & Tell - starring Shirley Temple and Jerome Courtland and The Spanish Main - starring Maureen O'Hara - premiered.
Brian Francis Connolly born in Govenhill, Glasgow. The first episode of Stand Easy - starring Charlie Chester - broadcast as part of the Merry-Go-Round strand.
In Chicago, Billy Goat Tavern owner Billy Sianis was asked to leave a World Series game at Wrigley Field because the odour of his pet goat, Murphy, was bothering other fans. According to baseball lore, Sianis placed a curse on the Cubs so they would never win the World Series. It would be 2016 before they would do so again.
The ocean liner SS Corfu docked at Southampton carrying the first fifteen hundred prisoners of war to return from the Far East.
The first episode of Today In Parliament broadcast on The Home Service.
CBS conducted a successful experiment in colour television when images were sent between the Chrysler Building and CBS headquarters at Madison Avenue.
German general Anton Dostler was sentenced to death in Rome for war crimes. The Supreme Court of Norway upheld the death sentence imposed on Vidkun Quisling.
Lesley Diana Joseph born in Finsbury Park.
Alexander Korda's Perfect Strangers - starring Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr - premiered.
Vernon Sewell's Latin Quarter - starring Derrick De Marney, Beresford Egan, Joan Greenwood, Sybille Binder and Valentine Dyall - premiered.
In Argentina, deposed Vice President Juan Perón was released from prison in Martín García Island in response to a massive labour demonstration. Iva Toguri D'Aquino, the most infamous of the 'Tokyo Rose' pro-Japanese English-speaking broadcasters was arrested by Allied authorities.
The Allied tribunal in Nuremberg formally charged twenty four top Nazis - including Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess and Wilhelm Keitel - with war crimes. Juan Perón married the actress María Eva Duarte in Buenos Aires. Compton Bennett's The Seventh Veil - starring James Mason and Ann Todd - premiered.
The United Kingdom ratified the United Nations Charter.
Legislative erections were held in France to elect a Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution for a Fourth Republic. A three-party alliance of the French Communist Party, Popular Republican Movement and French Section of the Workers' International won a large majority. French women were allowed to vote for the first time.
Montgomery Tully's Murder In Reverse - starring William Hartnell, Jimmy Hanley, Chili Bouchier, Brefni O'Rorke, John Slater, Dinah Sheridan and Petula Clark - premiered.
Chancellor Hugh Dalton presented an interim budget which reduced taxes by almost four hundred million quid but deferred other tax relief measures until the next financial year.
The United Nations Organisation was formally inaugurated during a short ceremony at the US State Department in Washington.
Bulgarian Communists and opposition members battled in the streets of Sofia. In an interview published in the Atlantic Monthly, Albert Einstein said that the secret of the atomic bomb should be given to a world government with power over all military matters as a means of preventing nuclear war. Otto Preminger's Fallen Angel - starring Alice Faye and Dana Andrews, Love Letters - starring Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotton - and Roy William Neil's Pursuit To Algiers - starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce and Marjorie Riordan - premiered.
The Battle of Surabaya began as part of the Indonesian National Revolution.
Ballpoint pens first went on sale at Gimbels department store in New York. Charles Frend's Johnny Frenchman - Tom Walls, Patricia Roc, Françoise Rosay and Paul Dupuis - premiered.
Henry Franklin Winkler born in Manhattan. Richard Morant born in Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire. René Clair's Ten Little Indians - premiered.
Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound - staring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck - premiered.
British intelligence officers announced that exhaustive investigation indicated Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide in a Berlin bunker.
Forty two staff members of Dachau concentration camp were indicted at Nuremberg. Good Bad Books by George Orwell was published in Tribune.
Gerhard Müller born in Nördlingen, Germany.
Riots by Arabs in Libya killed at least one hundred and twenty Jews. British troops fired on the rioters and arrested over five hundred. Dynamo Moscow arrived in London for a goodwill tour of friendlies against British teams.
Dockers in Britain ended their unofficial seven-week strike.
RAF Pilot Hugh Wilson set a new world speed record, flying the Gloster Meteor at an average speed of six hundred and six miles per hour over Herne Bay.
British commander EC Mansergh ordered all Indonesians to surrender their arms or face 'all the naval, army and air forces under my command.' That night President Sukarno of the unrecognised Indonesian Republic appealed to President Truman and Prime Minister Attlee to intervene in the conflict to prevent bloodshed. In Budapest, former Hungarian Prime Minister László Bárdossy was sentenced to death. Regular civic air traffic began between London and New York. Angela Margaret Scoular born in London.
Five Germans were hanged for the murder of six American airmen in the Rüsselsheim massacre of August 1944.
Neil Percival Young born in Toronto.
The United States and Britain agreed to create a joint commission of inquiry to examine the question of European Jews and Palestine as riots broke out in Tel Aviv. David Lean's Brief Encounter - starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard - premiered.
Anni-Frid Lyngstad born in Bjørkåsen, Norway. Leslie Arliss's The Wicked Lady - starring Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Patricia Roc, Griffith Jones and Michael Rennie and Alfred Santell's Mexicana premiered.
The Lost Weekend - starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman - and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's I Know Where I'm Going premiered.
Charles de Gaulle made a broadcast to the people of France announcing that he was handing back his mandate as president to the French Assembly because of 'excessive demands regarding ministerial posts.' De Gaulle said that he was willing to continue serving as President but would refuse to entrust a Communist with 'any post related to foreign affairs.' Sentencing was handed down in the Belsen Trial. Josef Kramer, Irma Grese and nine others were sentenced to the gallows.
Start of the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal. Robert Hamer's Pink String & Ceiling Wax - starring Mervyn Johns, Mary Merrall, Gordon Jackson, Jean Ireland and Sally Ann Howes - premiered.
Sam Woods's Saratoga Trunk - starring Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman and Flora Robson - premiered.
Anthony Eden told the House of Commons that the first duty of the United Nations should be to 'take the sting out of nationalism.' Eden also said that the United Nations 'ought to review their Charter in the light of the discoveries about atomic energy which were not before us when the Charter was drawn up. Nothing showed more clearly the hold that nationalism has upon us all than the decision of that Conference to retain the power of veto. Surely in the light of what has passed since San Francisco the United Nations ought to look at that again and, having looked at it, I hope they will unanimously decide that the retention of such a provision in the Charter is an anachronism in the modern world.'
Twenty six people were injured in Bombay during a day of rioting in India.
US Attorney General Tom Clark said that Ezra Pound had been indicted for a second time on nineteen counts of treason for accepting payment from Fascist Italy in exchange for making propaganda broadcasts during the war. John Graham McVie born in Ealing. David Lean's adaptation of Noël Coward's brief Encounter premiered. Anne Kettle born in Nottingham.
British fascist John Amery pleaded extremely guilty to high treason for making broadcasts in support of the Nazis, even though British law did not allow any sentence for the crime other than death. His entire hearing lasted eight minutes. Dynamo Moscow played the final game of their UK goodwill tour, earning a two-two draw against Glasgow Rangers before ninety thousand fans at Ibrox.
Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend - starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman - premiered.

The first episode of Waterlogged Spa - starring Eric Barker, Pearl Hackney, Jon Pertwee and Cherry Lind - broadcast in The Light Programme's Merry-Go-Round strand. Rudolf Hess told the tribunal at Nuremberg that he had faked amnesia, fooling Allied medical experts and his own attorney, but he was now prepared to stand trial and 'bear full responsibility for everything I have done.' Mary Ruth Quilter born in Kenton, Middlesex. Allan Dwan's Getting Gertie's Garter - starring Dennis O'Keefe, Marie McDonald and Barry Sullivan - premiered.
British military police swept the Ruhr and Rhineland and arrested over seventy Nazi industrialists and arms manufacturers.
John Paterson Sinclair born in Chichester.
Five Grumman TBF Avengers of the US Navy - 'Flight Nineteen' - disappeared during a training flight over the Bermuda Triangle. All fourtyeen airmen on the flight were missing, presumed lost, as were the thirteen crew members of a Martin PBM Mariner flying boat which was subsequently launched from Naval Air Station Banana River to search for missing Avengers.
General George C Marshall testified at the Pearl Harbour Inquiry that he did not anticipate the attack but that an 'alert' defence would have prevented all but 'limited harm.' Leo McCarey's The Bells of Saint Mary's - starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman - premiered.
Clive Russell born in Reeth, North Yorkshire.
General MacArthur ordered that Masaharu Homma and four other Japanese commanders be put on trial for their role in the Bataan Death March.
General George Patton broke his neck in a relatively minor auto accident near Mannheim which left him paralysed from the neck down. Patton spent the next twelve days in spinal traction then died. The United States granted Britain a reconstruction loan of about 4.4 billion dollars.
The Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm. The recipients were Wolfgang Pauli of Austria for Physics, Artturi Ilmari Virtanen (Finland) for Chemistry, Sir Alexander Fleming and Ernst Boris Chain (both United Kingdom) and Howard Florey (Australia) for Medicine, Gabriela Mistral (Chile) for Literature and Cordell Hull (United States) for Peace.
Gabriel Pascal's Caesar & Cleopatra - starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains - premiered. Zienia Merton born in Arakan, Burma.
The House of Commons voted to approve both the British-US loan deal and the Bretton Woods agreement. RCA gave a 'live' demonstration of colour television from its Princeton labs.
Occupation authorities in Japan issued a directive abolishing state support for the Shinto religion.
Charles Lindbergh spoke in public for the first time since 1941 when he addressed the Aero Club in Washington, DC, advocating a world organisation backed by military power and based on Christian principles. Northamton Town's five-one victory over Chelmsford City in the First Round of the FA Cup saw the club debut of Tommy Flower - the first of five hundred and fifty two games for The Cobblers in a career that lasted until 1961. In the process he broke Edwin Freeman's appearance record for the club, established in 1920. John Harlow's The Echo Murders - starring David Farrar, Dennis Price, Pamela Stirling and Ferdy Mayne - premiered.
John Ford's They Were Expendable - starring Robert Montgomery, John Wayne and Donna Reed - premiered. The fascist John Amery was hanged at Wandsworth nick for his Nazi-supporting ways.
John M Stahl's Leave Her To Heaven - starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde and Vincent Price - premiered. Benito Mussolini's daughter, Edda, was sentenced to two years hard stir for aiding Fascism.
Charles Lamont's The Bride Wasn't Willing (aka Frontier Gal) - starring Yvonne De Carlo and Rod Cameron - premiered. Alibe Parsons born in New York.
Atlantic Spotlight broadcast on The Light Programme. Carol Hedges born in Woking.
Denis Ogden's The Peaceful Inn broadcast.
Ian Fraser Kilmister born in Burslem, Stoke On Trent. The Sodder children disappearance occurred in Fayetteville, West Virginia. A fire destroyed the home of George and Jennie Sodder and nine of their ten children. Four of the nine were rescued, but the bodies of the other five were never found.
The Carroll Levis Christmas Show broadcast on The Light Programme.
Out & About On Boxing Day broadcast on The Light Programme. George Bernard Shaw proposed a new phonetic alphabet with only one sign for each sound.
The Tragedy Of A Comic Song broadcast in The Home Service's Stories Old & New strand.
The War Brides Act was enacted in the United States to allow alien spouses, natural children and adopted children of American troops to enter the US as non-quota immigrants, 'if admissible.'
Winner Lose All broadcast on The Home Service.
David Thomas Jones born in Openshaw, Manchester. Don Seigel's Oscar-winning documentary, Hitler Lives premiered.
Britain received its first shipment of bananas since the beginning of the war. The Home Guard was disbanded.