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04/01/1945 The last major battle in the Pacific begins with 60,000 Marines and GIs of Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner's 10th Army landing on the west coast of Okinawa.
The Japanese offer little resistance as the 1st and 6th Marine divisions and the Army's 7th "Bayonet" and 96th "Deadeye" Infantry seize a nine-mile-wide beachhead and overrun Kadena and Yontan airfields. The landings are supported by an armada of 40 carriers, 18 battleships and 260 smaller warships.
In Europe, the U. S. 2nd "Hell on Wheels" and 3rd "Spearhead" Armored divisions trap 400,000 Germans in the Ruhr when they meet at Lippstadt, 75 miles east of the Rhine.
Alarmed by the advances of Eisenhower's armies in Europe, Stalin orders a hurry-up "take Berlin" offensive.
04/02/1945 The 7th "Bayonet" Infantry reaches the east coast of Okinawa and pens the Japanese into a southern enclave and a northern pocket.
Japanese commander Mitsuru Ushijima will repeat the tactics of Iwo Jima, burrowing into several lines of fortifications on the island's southern eight miles that will mangle attacks by Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner's 10th Army.
The 6th Marine division begins overrunning northern Okinawa. Kamikazes hit eight ships of a convoy carrying the 77th "Statue of Liberty" Infantry.
The Allies' spring offensive in Italy begins with a surprise attack by British commandos on Commachio, 20 miles south of the Po river.
In Germany, the U. S. 17th "Golden Talon" Airborne takes Munster, and Patton's 80th "Blue Ridge" Infantry reaches Kassel, a Hessian town 180 miles southwest of Berlin.
04/03/1945 Kamikazes seriously damage escort carrier Wake Island and hit two smaller ships.
The German Western Front collapses.
Upwards of 20,000 Wehrmacht soldiers are surrendering daily as American, British, Canadian and French columns race across Germany. As Allied tanks roll east on autobahns, thousands of unguarded Germans trudge west in the highway median strips toward prison camps.
04/04/1945 Patton's 4th Armored division overruns a German death camp at Ohrdruf in central Germany.
The Americans find the corpses of 3,200 Jewish, Polish and Russian slave laborers. Patton marches the residents of nearby Gotha through the camp, has them bury the victims and help the skeletal survivors.
GIs of the 90th "Tough 'Ombres" Infantry discover a treasure trove in a mine 75 miles northeast of Frankfurt. The hoard includes $84 million in gold bullion, $2.7 Billion in bank notes and priceless paintings and artifacts.
Elsewhere, the British 6th Airborne takes Osnabruck in Lower Saxony, the French 1st Army occupies Karlsruhe, a manufacturing center near the Black Forest, and the Red Army completes the liberation of Hungary.
04/05/1945 In Tokyo, Gen. Kuniaki Koiso and his government resign after the Soviet Union renounces its nonaggression treaty.
The new government of 78-year-old Baron Suzuki Kantaro realizes the Soviets will soon declare war and decides it will accept any reasonable American peace offer.
On Okinawa the 96th "Deadeye" Infantry assaults the Shuri defense line in the south of the island. Japanese artillery scores five hits on battleship Nevada.
Allied armies continue rolling into northern and central Germany. The 2nd "Hell on Wheels" Armored division takes Hamelin on the Wesser river. Patton's 89th "Rolling W" Infantry takes Eisenach in Thuringia.
04/06/1945 Allied ships off Okinawa endure the first of 10 "Floating Chrysanthemum" kamikaze assaults that will inflict severe losses during the next three months.
Fighters and anti-aircraft guns knock down 90 kamikazes, but 67 sink or wreck 120 ships, including destroyers Bush, Calhoun, Leutze, Morris, Mullany, Newcomb and destroyer escort Witter. Thirteen ships are damaged, including British carrier Illustrious and American carrier San Jacinto.
On Okinawa, the U. S. 96th "Deadeye" Infantry clears half of Cactus Ridge, an outpost of the Shuri defense line.
In Europe, the American 1st and 9th Armies open new offensives by crossing the Wesser River in central Germany.
On the Eastern Front, the battle for Vienna begins with the Germans destroying all but one of the city's Danube bridges.
04/07/1945 The 72,800-ton super-battleship Yamato, a cruiser and four destroyers are sunk near Okinawa by planes from seven carriers of Task Force 58.
Yamato is hit by 10 torpedoes and five bombs as, without air cover, it tries a desperation sortie on American forces on Okinawa. Yamato is the last battlewagon to go down fighting. The Americans lose 10 planes.
Kamikazes seriously damage battleship Maryland and destroyer Bennett and score hits on carrier Hancock and three other ships.
The air war marks milestones as P-51 Mustangs based on Iwo Jima make their first bomber escort mission to Japan.
American fighters knock down 60 Germans in Europe's last big dogfight.
On the Eastern Front, the Soviets encircle Vienna and take Bratislava, capital of Slovakia.
04/08/1945 The American drive into sparsely populated northern Okinawa traps 2,500 Japanese troops on the Motobu peninsula, a rocky peninsula in the East China Sea. The entrenched Japanese will give the 6th Marine division a murderous 10-day fight.
In southern Okinawa, GIs of the 96th "Deadeye" Infantry probe Kakuzu ridge, a bastion of Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima's powerful Shuri defense line. Offshore, kamikazes and suicide boats damage five ships, including three destroyers.
In Europe, the American 84th "Railsplitters" Infantry crosses the Leine river near Hanover, 145 miles west of Berlin; the 42nd "Rainbow" Infantry battles into the suburbs of Schweinfurt in Bavaria; and the British 2nd Army closes in on Bremen, Germany's second largest seaport.
On the Eastern Front, the 3rd Ukrainian Army takes several Vienna suburbs and tank columns overrun much of eastern Austria.
04/09/1945 On Okinawa, a surprise attack on Kakazu ridge by the 96th "Deadeye" Infantry is repulsed with heavy casualties.
The last month of the war in Europe begins with the Allies launching an offensive in Italy.
A brief campaign by British Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander's forces will overwhelm Gen. Heinrich von Vietinghoff's Army Group C, liberate northern Italy and storm through the Alps into Austria.
The British 8th Army strikes the first blow as British, Indian, Italian, Jewish, New Zealand and Polish units bridge the Senio river on the east side of the Italian peninsula.
The American 5th "Victory" Armored division closes in on Brunswick, 110 miles from Berlin; the 75th Infantry nears Dortmund, a steelmaking center; and the Canadian 1st Army nearly cuts off German forces in the Netherlands.
Soviet spearheads slash into the heart of Vienna.
04/10/1945 The American 9th Army takes several Ruhr armaments centers.
Wehrmacht resistance disintegrates as the 17th "Golden Talon" Airborne overruns Essen, the most bombed city in Europe and site of the Krupp Armaments works, and the 35th "Santa Fe" and 79th "Cross of Lorraine" Infantry divisions seize steel-making Gelsenkirchen and Bochum.
Another wing of the 9th rolls toward Berlin as the 84th "Railsplitters" Infantry captures Hanover, 140 miles west of the Reich capital.
The Allied offensive in Italy expands with the American 92nd "Buffalo" Infantry taking Massa near Italy's west coast. The 92nd contains a white regiment, a black regiment and the famous "Go for Broke" 442nd Japanese-American regiment.
The 10-week siege of Koenigsberg, capital of East Prussia, ends when 50,000 Germans surrender.
04/11/1945 In the Pacific, kamikazes seriously damage carrier Enterprise and hit battleship Missouri and three destroyers. On Okinawa, the American 10th Army is stopped by tough fortifications on Kakazu ridge.
The 2nd "Hell on Wheels" Armored division rumbles 57 miles to the Elbe and threatens Magdeburg, 80 miles from Berlin.
Eisenhower will halt his 1st and 9th American armies along the Elbe and Mulde rivers in central Germany and allow the Soviets to take Berlin.
Patton's 3rd Army takes Buchenwald concentration camp where 50,000 Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, German anti-Nazis and Soviet prisoners have been murdered, some by ghastly medical experiments.
Tankers of the 1st Army find the huge underground factory at Nordhausen where slave laborers built V-1 and V-2 rockets. The 7th Army's 42nd "Rainbow" Infantry mops up resistance in Schweinfurt, center of Germany's ball bearing industry.
04/12/1945 The Navy finally reveals that Japanese suicide pilots have been attacking American ships in the Pacific for six months.
The announcement occurs as kamikazes and Baka bombriders begin their second massive attack on Allied units near Okinawa. The two-day assault sinks a destroyer and damages 18 other vessels.
On Okinawa, a Japanese night attack on the 96th "Deadeye" Infantry is defeated with the help of warship search-lights.
President Roosevelt dies from a massive stroke in the Little White House, a clapboard cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia. Harry Truman becomes the nations's 33rd president at a somber ceremony in Washington.
Even as Hitler claims Roosevelt's death will lead to German victory, American units are spreading out along the Elbe, taking Dortmund and Duisburg in the Ruhr, and Erfurt and Weimar in central Germany.
04/13/1945 Domestically, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died suddenly at 4:35 PM Eastern War Time yesterday of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Comdr. Howard Bruens, naval physician, made this announcement shortly after White House Secretary William D. Hassett announced the death of the Nation's only four-term chief executive. Mr. Roosevelt died in the Little White House on top of Pine Mountain (Warm Springs, Georgia) where he had come for a three-week rest. He was 63 years of age. At 6:09 PM Thursday, Harry S. Truman of Missouri was sworn in as 32nd President of the United States.
Truman proclaims April 14 a national day or mourning as FDR's remains are being brought to Washington by rail.
In Japan, seven square miles of northern Tokyo are consumed by flames after an incendiary raid by several hundred B29 Superfortresses.
The 6th Marine division encounters little resistance as it reaches the northern tip of Okinawa.
In Europe, Vienna falls to Marshal Feodor Tolbukhin's 3rd Ukrainian Army. Patton's 80th "Blue Ridge" Infantry division takes Jena, a center of the German optics industry 90 miles from Dresden. Simpson's 9th Army -- which hasn't been told it's not going to Berlin -- establishes two bridgeheads across the Elbe.
04/14/1945 In Washington, FDR's funeral is held in the packed East Room of the White House as 500,000 hushed mourners line nearby streets.
The Allied offensive in Italy intensifies when the American 5th Army attacks German defenses in the Apennine mountains south of Bologna. The U. S. 1st "Old Ironsides" Armored and 10th Mountain divisions encounter tough resistance.
04/15/1945 As his 9th Army is preparing to storm the last 80 miles to the German capital, Gen. William Simpson is finally told he's not going to Berlin.
Simpson is ordered to remain west of the Elbe and await the Soviets.
Gen. Matthew Ridgway calls on Field Marshal Walter Model to surrender his surrounded Army Group B in the Ruhr.
Ridgway cites the lifesaving wisdom of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox as he tells Model "the German lives you save are sorely needed to restore your people."
The American 1st Army mops up five surrounded German divisions in central Germany's Harz mountains. Patton's 3rd Army reaches Chemnitz, 20 miles from Czechoslovakia.
The British are stunned by 35,000 unburied corpses and 30,000 skeletal prisoners in Belsen concentration camp.
Roosevelt is buried in a simple ceremony at his Hyde Park, N. Y., estate.
04/16/1945 The Red Army begins a massive offensive to take Berlin. Led by Zhukov and Konev, the Soviets have 2.5 million men, 6,000 tanks, 42,000 guns and mortars and 6,000 planes against 1 million poorly equipped Germans. Although Zhukov's initial assault is stopped near Seelow, Konev makes rapid progress toward Berlin's southern suburbs.
04/17/1945 On Okinawa, the 6th Marine division overcomes Japanese resistance on the Motobu peninsula, and the 77th "Statue of Liberty" Infantry captures Ie, largest town on nearby Ie Shima island.
The 24th "Victory" division establishes a beachhead on the south coast of Mindanao the Philippines' second largest island.
German troops begin surrendering en masse as Field Marshal Walther Model dissolves his surrounded Army Group B and gives his men a choice: quit or sneak through the American lines to continue the fight. Most quit.
In the Ruhr, the 97th "Trident" Infantry overruns Dusseldorf and Solingen and the 13th "Black Cat" Armored takes Duisburg. Other American forces crash into Magdeburg, 80 miles from Berlin, and close in on Leipzig, eastern Germany's largest city.
Zhukov's end-the-war offensive is slowed by ferocious fighting near Seelow, 35 miles from Berlin. Konev's forces cross the Neisse river, 60 miles south of the German capital.
04/18/1945 Ernie Pyle, America's best know war correspondent, is killed on Ie Shima, an island near Okinawa.
Pyle, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for Scripps Howard Newspaper Alliance, is in a jeep when a sniper opens fire. Pile dives into a roadside ditch but raises his head to look for a companion. He's instantly killed by a bullet in the left temple. President Truman announces Pyle's death to the American public.
Resistance in the Ruhr ends as the American 1st Army rounds up 325,000 Germans. In the Netherlands, the Wehrmacht's Army Group H is cut off when the Canadian 2nd Army reaches the Zuider Zee.
The American 9th Army takes Magdeburg, 80 miles from Berlin, and Patton's 3rd Army crosses into Czechoslovakia.
Zhukov's thrust toward Berlin is stalled for the third day by hard fighting, but Konev's army splits the 4th Panzer Army south of Berlin and Malinovsky's army launches a massive attack near the Baltic coast.
04/19/1945 On Okinawa, an enormous bombardment precedes attacks on the Shuri Line, but the 7th, 27th and 96th Infantry make small gains and suffer severe losses. The 1st and 6th Marine divisions complete occupation of north and central Okinawa.
Courtney Hodges's American 1st Army nears its final stop line in central Germany as it captures Leipzig and Halle.
Eisenhower has ordered the 1st and 9th Armies to halt along the Elbe and Mulde rivers and let the Red Army overrun areas that will be part of the postwar Soviet occupation zone. Leipzig is taken.
Zhukov's army crashes through German defenses and swarms to within 20 miles of Berlin's eastern suburbs. Konev's army threatens southern Berlin.
04/20/1945 Savage fighting continues on Okinawa.
Hitler celebrates his 56th birthday in Berlin's Reich Chancellery bunker.
The Allies' last bombing raid on Berlin smashes the city's gas, electric, water and sanitation lines. Water is available only from fire hydrants and there's a food shortage.
Zhukov's army fights into the eastern suburbs and Konev's army pushes to within 22 miles of the southern suburbs as it takes Zossen, the Wehrmacht high command headquarters.
Patch's U. S. 7th Army takes Nuremberg and 17,000 prisoners.
In Italy, the American 5th Army fights its way out of the Apennines and onto the Po River plain. Without Hitler's authorization, Gen. Heinrich Von Vietinghoff orders his army to retreat across the Po.
04/21/1945 Organized Japanese resistance on Ie Shima ends. Nearly 5,000 Japanese have been killed, 149 captured. The Americans have suffered 1,000 casualties.
Hitler announces he will remain in Berlin. Goering, Himmler and other top Nazis flee so they can surrender to the Americans or British.
Zhukov's advance into eastern Berlin is slowed by German counterattacks, some by ill-equipped "volkssturm" divisions filled out with teenagers and middle-aged draftees. Konev's army crunches into Berlin's southern suburbs.
Stuttgart is overrun by De Lattre de Tassigny's 1st French Army.
The Soviets sign a mutual assistance treaty with Poland's communist government, more evidence that Stalin will not honor his promise of free elections for Eastern Europe.
04/22/1945 In the Pacific, Gen. Hyotaro Kimura evacuates Rangoon, Burma, and prepares to make a last stand against the British 14th Army near the Burmese-Thai border.
Kamikazes damage eight ships near Okinawa.
The final American offensive in Europe begins with Patton's 3rd Army and Patch's 7th Army driving toward southern Germany and Austria.
The Allies believe that some German troops, notably SS Storm troopers, may plan to retreat to the Alps for a deadly last stand in a "National Redoubt." Eisenhower wants to overrun the region before the diehard Nazis organize.
Gen. Heinrich von Vietinghoff, German commander in Italy, decides to surrender. His armies have lost most of their tanks and guns during a chaotic retreat across the Po.
04/23/1945 The U. S. 7th, 27th and 96th Infantry divisions make their first substantial gains in southern Okinawa as mauled Japanese units abandon Kakazu ridge and the first line of their Shuri fortifications.
Nazi leaders squabble as the Allies dismember Germany.
An angry Hitler, who has remained in Berlin, fires Goering after the Luftwaffe commander offers to rule areas of the Reich outside Berlin. SS leader Heinrich Himmler notifies Eisenhower he will surrender German forces to the western Allies but not to the Soviets.
Zhukov and Konev's armies have nearly surrounded Berlin. Hodges's American 1st Army completes its drive into central Germany by taking Dessau, near the confluence of the Elbe and Mulde rivers.
In Italy, the U. S. 10th Mountain division leads the American 5th Army across the Po near Mantua, and the British 8th Army takes Ferrara and also prepares to cross the river.
04/24/1945 On Okinawa, Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima's army completes its retreat to the second line of his tough Shuri fortifications. The American 7th, 27th and 96th divisions pursue.
Zhukov and Konev's armies meet in Berlin's suburbs, preventing 200,000 Germans southeast of Berlin from reinforcing the city's ragtag garrison.
Patton and Patch's armies encounter light resistance as they race through Bavaria in southern Germany.
Another massive German surrender begins in Italy as the American 5th and British 8th Armies pour across the Po River. On Italy's west coast, the American 92nd "Buffalo" division overruns the Italian naval base at La Spezia and drives toward Genoa.
Italian partisans take Milan and attack retreating Germans.
04/25/1945 Representatives of 46 Allied nations begin a two-month conference in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.
Germany is cut in half as Americans and Soviets shake hands at Torgau on the Elbe River, 60 miles south of Berlin.
Berlin is surrounded when Zhukov and Konev's armies join hands near Postdam, 5 miles west of the city. The U. S. 8th Air Force flies its last bombing mission in Europe, hitting the Skoda armaments works in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia.
The German collapse in northern Italy accelerates as the American 5th Army takes Mantua, Parma and Verona and the British 8th Army rolls toward Venice.
04/26/1945 In the Philippines, the 33rd "Prairie" and 37th "Buckeye" divisions climax a two-month battle in northern Luzon by taking Baguio, the nation's summer capital and headquarters of Japanese commander Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita.
The final Soviet assault on Berlin begins with Zhukov and Konev's armies taking Tempelhof airport and battling house-to-house toward the center of the city.
Berlin is a madhouse as squads of roaming SS Storm troopers execute suspected Wehrmacht deserters.
Montgomery's British 2nd Army captures Bremen after a nine-day battle. Rokossovsky's army takes Stettin-on-the-Baltic.
Spearheads of Patton's 3rd Army bridge the Danube near Regensburg and cross the Austrian border north of Linz. Patch's 7th Army closes in on Augsburg and liberates large numbers of Allied POWs at Memmingen in southern Bavaria.
Mussolini is captured by Italian partisans while trying to flee to Switzerland.
04/27/1945 Kamikazes damage three destroyers and a troop transport near Okinawa and Japanese coastal guns hit cruiser Wichita. On the island, the 27th "New York" and 96th "Deadeye" divisions chew into Shuri Line.
Chinese troops begin counterattacks to protect B29 bases at Ankang and Sian.
Truman and Churchill reject Heinrich Himmler's proposal to surrender Germany to the western Allies but not to the Soviets. They demand simultaneous capitulation on all fronts.
Zhukov and Konev's armies have taken three-quarters of Berlin and squeezed its defenders into a slender, 10-mile-long corridor. Hitler still believes nearby Wehrmacht forces will rescue him.
Patton sees no sign of a Nazi last stand in an Alpine redoubt as his 3rd Army races through Bavaria. Regensburg falls to his 71st "Red Circle" division.
In Italy, the U. S. 92nd "Buffalo" division takes Genoa, and Gen. Lucian Truscott's 5th Army tries to cut off Germans retreating toward Austria.
04/28/1945 Communist partisans execute Mussolini, his mistress and 12 Fascist leaders. Their bodies are hung upside down in a Milan street.
Elsewhere in Italy, the U. S. 88th "Blue Devil" division overruns Vicenza in the foothills of the Alps, and the 1st "Old Ironsides" Armored division reaches Lake Como near the Swiss frontier.
In Berlin, Hitler realizes the war is lost. The Soviets are a mile from his bunker. Gen. Helmuth Weidling tells him the city's garrison is running out of food and Ammunition.
Patch's 3rd "Rock of the Marne" division overruns Augsburg in Bavaria and his 7th Army closes in on Munich. In Italy, the British 8th Army liberates Venice.
04/29/1945 On Okinawa, Pfc. Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector from Lynchburg, Virginia and 77th division medic, wins a Medal of Honor for rescuing 100 wounded GIs -- one by one -- from an embattled escarpment.
New York -- A false report that Germany had surrendered was broadcast to newspapers and radios throughout the country Saturday night, setting off premature victory celebrations in Time Square and elsewhere around the nation.
President Truman told newsmen the report was premature.
Hitler marries his mistress, Eva Braun, and begins writing his will. He blames the Third Reich's defeat on the Jews and names Adm. Karl Donitz his successor.
Berlin's garrison is cut into three small pockets. Fighting rages a few hundred yards from Hitler's bunker.
The German 10th and 14th Armies in Italy surrender. They will lay down their arms on May 2. Representatives of Gen. Heinrich von Vietinghoff attend a capitulation ceremony near Naples.
Patch's 7th Army pushes into the outskirts of Munich. His 45th "Thunderbird" division finds the Dachau concentration camp, and infuriated GIs execute 122 of its SS guards. Other SS guards are killed by freed prisoners.
In the Netherlands, the RAF begins parachuting food to German-occupied cities and towns. The Germans hold their fire as Operation Manna's food bundles ease a six-month famine that has caused 16,000 Dutch deaths.
04/30/1945 On Okinawa, the 77th "Statue of Liberty" and the 1st Marine division attack the Maeda Escapement, a Shuri Line stronghold. Offshore, a kamikaze hits destroyer Bennion, the 157th Allied ship to be sunk or damaged in the Ryukyus during the past five weeks.
Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide in his Berlin bunker. Their bodies are cremated in the chancellery garden and buried there by the Fuhrer's adjutant, chauffeur and butler.
Soviet troops hoist the Red Banner over the Reichstag, the parliament building, and Hans Krebs, Wehrmacht chief of staff, begins negotiating surrender of the city's garrison.
The American 5th Army occupies Milan and Turin and reaches the French-Italian frontier. The British 8th Army speeds toward Trieste, an Italian seaport seized by Yugoslav communists.
