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06/01/1945 More than 400 Superfortresses level 3.1 square miles of Osaka, Japan's premier industrial city, 250 miles southwest of Tokyo. Osaka, Japan's second largest city, has ironworks, shipyards, cotton mills, sugar refineries and manufactures machinery, copper, aluminum and chemicals.
Escorting P51 Mustang fighters based on Iwo Jima lose 27 planes to violent weather.
On Okinawa, the 1st and 6th Marine divisions zero in on 5,000 [Japanese] marines on Oroku peninsula, and the 7th and 96th Infantry divisions lunge after survivors of Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima's 32nd Army near the island's southern tip.
Truman decides to meet with Stalin and Churchill "somewhere near Berlin" on July 15. He also announces American forces in the Pacific will be doubled to 3.5 Million by transferring troops from Germany.
06/02/1945 The Army and Navy have organized a sealift to transfer GIs from Europe to the Pacific.
The soldiers are being brought to the East Coast by 400 troop transports, including the British liner Queen Mary, then taken by train to the West Coast. Some unlucky units are going directly from Germany to the Far East.
Many of the transferees are "low point men" who weren't in Europe very long and didn't see much combat.
Planes from carriers Independence, Langley, Shangri-La, Ticonderoga and Yorktown begin a two-day raid on Kyushu's kamikaze bases.
The 1st and 6th Marine divisions prepare to attack 5,000 Japanese marines holed up on Okinawa's west coast. The 7th "Bayonet" and 96th "Deadeye" divisions close in on the island's southern tip.
06/03/1945 Ninety kamikazes begin the ninth Floating Chrysanthemum attack on American ships near Okinawa.
During a four-day assault, kamikazes will hit battleship Mississippi, escort carrier Natoma Bay, cruiser Louisville, destroyer Anthony, minelayers Harry F. Bauer and J. William Ditter, and a landing craft. Ditter and the landing craft will be damaged beyond repair.
A Marine detachment takes Iheya Island, 50 miles north of Okinawa. Several Marines are killed by "friendly fire" from rocket launching ships.
Thick mud hampers tanks, artillery, supply vehicles and the 7th and 96th divisions as they approach the Japanese bastion on Okinawa's tip.
Poland's Communist-dominated government orders all Germans not involved in reconstructing the country to leave Silesia and Poland's other newly acquired western territories.
06/04/1945 Another of Okinawa's nasty battles within the big battle begins with the 6th Marine division making an amphibious landing on the Oroku peninsula, a rocky promontory jutting into the East China Sea.
The Marines' targets are Naha airfield and 5,000 Japanese marines commanded by Rear Adm. Minoru Ota. Equipped with an unusual number of machine guns and light cannon salvaged from wrecked aircraft, Ota's force will inflict heavy casualties during the coming 10 days.
The 6th takes half of the airfield during its initial rush, and the 1st Marine division moves toward the base of the peninsula to isolate Ota's command from Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima's army.
Further south, the 7th "Bayonet" division pushes to within six miles of Okinawa's southern tip.
In Aachen, one of Germany's most wrecked cities, children return to school.
06/05/1945 For the second time in six months, Vice Adm. William Halsey runs the 3rd Fleet into a typhoon. The 138-mph winds damage 35 ships, including fleet carriers Bennington and Hornet; light carriers Belleau Wood and San Jacinto; escort carriers Attu, Bougainville, Salamaua and Windham Bay; battleships Alabama, Indiana and Massachusetts; cruisers Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, Duluth, Quincy, Pittsburgh (which has 100 feet of its bow wrenched off) and San Juan; 14 destroyers and destroyer escorts; and three supply ships. The winds also wreck 142 carrier planes.
The storm almost ends Halsey's career. A naval court of inquiry will recommend he and Task Force 38 commander John McCain be reassigned. Admirals King and Nimitz talk Navy Secretary Forrestal out of retiring Halsey. McCain also will be retained.
06/06/1945 The 6th Marine division completes the capture of Naha airfield on Okinawa's Oroku peninsula, but heavily armed Japanese marines fight on.
The 7th "Bayonet" and 96th "Deadeye" divisions hit Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima's last-stand defenses near the island's southern tip. The 96th is repulsed trying to storm Yaeju-Dake mountain.
Air Force spokesmen say fire raids have destroyed 11 square miles of Osaka and 4.3 square miles of Kobe, a seaport near Osaka.
In Washington, a government spokesman announces a Japanese balloon has fallen near Grand Rapids, Mich., after a 9,000-mile trans-Pacific journey. The Japanese have launched 100 balloons per month since November, 1944, each carrying four 10-pound incendiary bombs to ignite fires in North American forests.
06/07/1945 The 1st Marine division completes its drive across the base of Okinawa's Oroku peninsula, isolating Adm. Minoru Ota's marines. One of Oroku's strong points falls to a 6th Marine division tank-infantry assault.
Superfortress savage Osaka with another firebomb raid.
Norway's King Haakon gets a rapturous welcome as he returns to Oslo on the fifth anniversary of his exile to Great Britain.
Truman prevents French annexation of western Italy by telling Charles de Gaulle to remove his troops from the area or the United States will stop re-equipping the French army. The French pull out.
The American Joint Chiefs of Staff end Lend-Lease shipments to Great Britain and other European allies, except for equipment that will be used against Japan.
06/08/1945 MacArthur watches as cruisers Boise, Nashville, Phoenix, Australia's Hobart and seven destroyers bombard Japanese positions in Brunei Bay, northern Borneo.
MacArthur is on Boise's bridge as the task force softens landing beaches for the 9th Australian Infantry division. It's the next stage in MacArthur's campaign to liberate the Dutch East Indies.
Near Sumatra, Japanese cruiser Ashigara, which is carrying 1,200 troops, is sunk by five torpedoes fired by British sub Trenchant.
Planes from carriers Cowpens, Independence, Shangri-La and Yorktown again pound kamikaze bases on Kyushu.
On Okinawa, artillery, naval gunfire and air strikes pound Japanese positions on Yaeje-dake mountain, a strong point of Mitsuru Ushijima's last defense line.
The 6th Marine division compresses Minoru Ota's marines into a 3-mile pocket on Oroku peninsula.
06/09/1945 After a rare face-to-face meeting with Emperor Hirohito, Japanese premier Kantaro Suzuki and his cabinet decide to fight on rather than accept the American demand for unconditional surrender.
Suzuki is more afraid of right-wing Japanese Army diehards than he is of the Americans.
Okino Daito Shima, an island 270 miles from Kyushu, is bombed by planes from carriers Belleau Wood, Bon Homme Richard, Hancock, Lexington and San Jacinto, and hammered by gunfire from a task force that includes 27,500-ton battlecruisers Alaska and Guam.
06/10/1945 Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner sends a surrender demand to the Japanese commander on Okinawa as the American final offensive begins.
Buckner's parachuted message won't reach Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima for seven days, by which time the 10th Army will have overwhelmed Okinawa's last defenders.
The American attack opens with victories all along the 6-mile front. The 7th division takes a ridge near the island's east coast and the 1st Marine division seizes part of the hilly western anchor.
06/11/1945 One of two remaining Japanese pockets on Okinawa crumbles. Adm. Minoru Ota Sends a message saying his headquarters is being overrun and he will commit suicide.
Casualties mount as the 7th, 96th and 1st Marine divisions gradually overwhelm Ushijima's defenses near Okinawa's southern tip. The 7th takes Hill 95 near the east coast, and the 96th knocks out strong points on Mt. Yaeju-dake. The Japanese repulse the 1st Marine divisions's attack on Kunishi ridge near the west coast.
In Europe, 700,000 Germans are ousted from western Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. In 1938, Hitler used the presence of the Sudeten Germans as a pretext to dismember Czechoslovakia.
Eisenhower loosens his ban on GI fraternization with German civilians.
06/12/1945 The 6th Marine division is stunned by an unprecedented event in Japanese military history: a mass surrender.
Instead of committing suicide, 169 marines, the survivors of Adm. Minoru Oka's last stand on Okinawa's Oroku peninsula, lay down their arms and choose to live. Previously, Marines and GIs on Okinawa had captured an average of four prisoners per day.
During the 10-day battle, more than 4,000 Japanese have been killed. The U. S. Marines have suffered 1,608 casualties.
Elsewhere, a surprise night attack by the 1st Marine division overruns part of Kunishi ridge, a western bulwark of Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima'a final defense line, and the 96th division nearly reaches the summits of Yaeju-dake and Yazu-dake, twin centerpieces of Ushijima's stronghold.
Eisenhower receives a tumultuous hero's welcome on his return to London.
06/13/1945 Hard fighting continues on Okinawa as flamethrowing tanks knock out Japanese caves and redoubts near the bottom of a 100-foot bluff. GIs of the 7th Infantry division swarm up ropes to the top of the bluff.
Similar tactics also wipe out Japanese holdouts on mounts Yuza-dake, Yaeju-dake and two nearby hills.
The Australian 9th division takes Brunei, capital of North Borneo, and a nearby airfield.
Truman announces plans for a summit conference with Stalin and Churchill in Potsdam, a Berlin suburb. The Big Three will decide details of Europe's postwar future.
The Polish government-in-exile in London refuses to participate in a Moscow meeting intended to install a Communist dominated "unity administration."
06/14/1945 The last Japanese defense line on Okinawa begins disintegrating when the 96th "Deadeye" division takes Yaeju-dake, the island's tallest peak.
On the western end of the island, the 1st Marine division tightens its grip on Kunishi ridge. Tanks bring up reinforcements and evacuate wounded.
The British parade in Rangoon to celebrate Burma's liberation. Southeast Asia Supreme Commander Lord Louis Mountbatten plans the campaign to liberate Malaya.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff order MacArthur and Nimitz to make plans for a swift occupation of Japan in case of a sudden capitulation.
Planes from British carriers Implacable and Ruler begin a two-day assault on Truk, once Japan's mightiest central Pacific naval base. The atoll also is blasted by cruisers Achilles, Newfoundland, Swiftsure, Uganda and escorting destroyers.
British troops in Hamburg arrest Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's foppish foreign minister. He'll be hanged for war crimes.
06/15/1945 Marines and GIs still suffer heavy casualties on Okinawa.
The 96th "Deadeye" division takes part of Mt. Yuza-dake and mops up Japanese holdouts on Mt. Yaeju-dake. The 1st Marine division battles diehards on western Okinawa's Kunishi ridge.
The 75th Superfortress raid on Japan batters Osaka with 3,157 tons of bombs. It's part of Gen. Curtis LeMay's campaign to knock out the war plants of Japan's largest industrial cities: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kawasaki, Kobe and Yokohama.
Eisenhower announces the U. S. 3rd and 7th armies will continue occupying Germany. The U. S. 1st and 9th armies are being transferred to the Pacific to participate in the invasion of Japan. Ike urges retaining the draft in peacetime.
06/16/1945 The Japanese defense line on Okinawa crumbles when the second of its twin peaks, Mount Yuza-dake, falls to the 96th "Deadeye" division.
The 7th "Bayonet" division takes two hills near the island's east coast.
Domestically, 6,000 Chicago truckers go on strike and the Army orders GI drivers to keep the big wheels rolling.
Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King and Navy Secretary James Forrestal tell a congressional committee that the country should have peacetime universal military training.
The British Air Ministry announces 16,385 RAF planes were lost in the air and on the ground during the war in the European and Mediterranean theaters.
06/17/1945 Gen. Curtis LeMay begins a firebombing campaign against 50 small and medium-sized Japanese cities. LeMay orders warning leaflets to be dropped that say: "Civilians, evacuate at once! Your city will be bombed within 72 hours." The Japanese use the warnings to bolster firefighting crews with the result that many firefighters perish in the raids.
The first Superfortress targets are Hamamatsu and Yokaichi on Honshu and Kagoshima and Omuta on Kyushu.
The last Japanese defenses on Okinawa collapse as the 6th Marine division stamps out resistance on Kunishi ridge and the 7th "Bayonet" division closes in on Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima's headquarters.
GIs of the 86th "Blackhawk" Infantry become the first to return from Europe en masse when they disembark in New York. Because the Blackhawks have had only 34 days of combat, they're being transferred to the Pacific to participate in the invasion of Japan.
06/18/1945 One of the last Japanese artillery salvos on Okinawa kills Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, commander of the American 10th Army.
Buckner is observing a regiment of the recently arrived 2nd Marine division when the only surviving gun of a Japanese battery fires five rounds at a group of American officers. Buckner becomes the highest ranking American to be killed by enemy fire during the war. Lt. Gen. "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell will be the 10th's new commander.
Organized Japanese resistance ends on Mindanao in the southern Philippines. The survivors fade into the island's jungles, where American troops and Filipino guerrillas will hunt them until the end of the war.
Emperor Hirohito tells the Japanese Supreme Council the empire must seek peace by diplomatic means as soon as possible.
Eisenhower gets a tumultuous welcome by 1 million people in Washington, where he addresses a joint session of House and Senate.
06/19/1945 Japanese resistance dissolves as Marines reach Okinawa's tip, but fighting continues near Ushijima's underground headquarters on the east coast. Brig. Gen. Claudius Easley, assistant commander of the 96th "Deadeye" division, is killed while pointing out a Japanese machinegun nest.
Loudspeakers and leaflets persuade 343 Japanese to surrender on Okinawa. Another 35 quit on Guam, nearly a year after that island's liberation. The last Japanese straggler on Guam will not surrender until early 1970s.
LeMay's firebombing of small and medium Japanese industrial cities continues with strikes on Kukuoka on Kysushu and Shizuoka and Toyohashi on Honshu.
In the Philippines, the 37th "Buckeye" division takes Ilagoa, a provincial capital in Luzon's Cagayan Valley.
New Yorkers give Eisenhower a thunderous ovation during a Manhattan ticker tape parade.
06/20/1945 American artillery on Okinawa falls silent because gunners fear hitting GIs and Marines intermingled with pockets of still-resisting Japanese.
The 7th "Bayonet" division takes Hill 89, site of Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima's underground headquarters. The GIs are astounded by the surrender of 1,000 Japanese. Ushijima issues a final fight-to-the-end order and holds a farewell banquet with this staff.
After another meeting with Hirohito, Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki and Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo ask the Soviet Union to mediate peace. American codebreakers intercept Togo's message to the Japanese Embassy in Moscow. The wording indicates Suzuki won't accept unconditional surrender.
Planes from British escort carriers Ameer, Khedive and Stalker attack airfields in Sumatra and Japanese shipping in the nearby Malacca Straits.
The British liner Queen Mary is scheduled to arrive at the New York port of embarkation, carrying 14,526 Army and Navy veterans on her first voyage to the United States since V-E Day.
06/21/1945 Fighting in the Marines' sector on Okinawa ends. Nimitz says two small pockets of diehards are holding out. Loud-speakers persuade thousands of Japanese troops and Okinawans to surrender.
Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima and chief of staff Gen. Isamu Cho commit suicide. Ushijima's death three days after Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner's makes Okinawa the war's only battle in which both opposing army commanders have died.
The 10th and final "Floating Chrysanthemum" attack damages seven American ships near Okinawa and nearby Kerama Retto. The two-day assault by 85 kamikazes hits destroyer escort Halloran, two aircraft tenders, a minesweeper and several landing craft.
In the Philippines, an Army task force takes Aparri, a small seaport at the northern end of Luzon's Cagayan valley.
06/22/1945 Americans on Okinawa celebrate the end of the war's last major land battle with a flag-raising ceremony at 10th Army headquarters.
During the 82-day struggle, 120,000 men of Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima's 32nd Army and 42,000 Okinawa civilians have been killed.
The Americans have suffered 49,151 casualties: 12,520 killed and missing and 36,631 wounded. Thirty-six American warships have been sunk and 368 damaged. And 736 American planes have been destroyed.
Okinawa is the Pacific war's bloodiest land battle and costliest naval campaign.
Japanese resistance on Borneo's Tarakan island ends.
Eisenhower says his triumphant welcomes in London, Washington and New York haven't inspired him to run for political office.
06/23/1945 Paratroopers of the 11th "Angels" Airborne division drop into rice paddies near Aparri, a small port at the northern end of Luzon's Cagayan valley.
Gliders bring in artillery and jeeps and the paras drive 11 miles south toward a linkup with the 37th "Buckeye" division.
GIs and Marines mop up diehard Japanese on Okinawa as Lt. Gen. "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell takes command of the U. S. 10th Army.
In Tokyo, Emperor Hirohito tells the Japanese they're facing the worst crisis in the nation's history.
Australian troops seize the Seria oil fields in northern Borneo. Japanese demolition squads have set some of its 50 oil wells on fire.
Public use of trans-Atlantic telephone cables -- prohibited since the beginning of the war -- is restored between the United States and Britain.
06/24/1945 British bombers destroy two railway bridges over Thailand's River Kwai that were built by British POWs and slave laborers
It's sightseeing time for GIs in Europe.
Eisenhower has ordered a liberal leave and weekend pass policy for the 3rd and 7th armies occupying Germany and units scattered across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Requests for Paris are so heavy that visits are limited to 48-hour passes. Also popular: the Army's Riviera Recreation Area. Cannes is reserved for officers, Nice for enlisted men.
In Germany, the Rest and Recreation (R&R) Center at Bertschesgaden is popular, as are visits to Heidelberg and scenic boat rides on the Rhine from Mainz to Koblenz.
The Soviets stage a massive victory parade in Moscow's Red Square, highlighted by 200 Red Army soldiers flinging captured German battle flags at the base of Lenin's Tomb.
06/25/1945 GIs overrun a Japanese supply base in the Philippines nicknamed "Death Valley." Thousands of Japanese killed by long-range artillery fire and air strikes have been found in an 8-mile stretch of the Balud Valley in northern Luzon.
Nearby, the 37th "Buckeye" Infantry and 11th "Angels" Airborne divisions are nearing a junction in the Cagayan Valley, once the rice bowl of Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita's army. Yamashita's starving survivors have retreated to the Sierra Madre Mountains in Northeastern Luzon.
Radio Tokyo says six months of air raids on Formosa have forced that island's population to flee to the hills.
Australian troops retake the Miri oil fields in Sarawak, a British possession on Borneo's east coast.
Chicago's 6,000 striking truck drivers give up their walkout because GIs are driving their rigs.
06/26/1945 President Truman is welcomed by 1 million San Franciscans before his speech to the United Nations organizational meeting.
He says the UN's goal is to keep the world at peace "and free from the fear of war." Representatives of 50 nations sign the charter.
In the Pacific, superfortresses hit Nagoya and Osaka and begin night attacks on oil refineries. The Marines seize Kume Island, 50 miles west of Okinawa.
GIs of the 37th "Buckeye" Infantry and 11th "Angels" Airborne meet and complete the liberation of Luzon's Cagayan valley. That ends Gen. Walter Krueger's campaign to drive the Japanese out of Luzon's most populous and fertile areas.
Cruisers Concord, Richmond and four destroyers sink a ship from a Japanese convoy in the foggy Kurile Islands, north of Japan. Japanese destroyer Enoki goes down after hitting a mine in the Inland Sea.
06/27/1945 Japanese troops withdraw from central China's rice bowl to bolster their defenses in Manchuria in anticipation of a Soviet invasion.
Truman accepts the resignation of Secretary of State Edward Stettinius and appoints him head of the U. S. delegation to the United Nations.
The new secretary of state will be James Byrnes, a former Supreme Court justice and South Carolina senator. The appointment signals the beginning of the Cold War, as Byrnes, a member of FDR's Yalta delegation, believes Stalin is determined to communize the world.
06/28/1945 MacArthur announces the Philippines are liberated, but the statement is premature: 50,000 Japanese are holding out on Luzon and Mindanao.
American bombers blast targets on Formosa, Honshu and Kyushu. The most spectacular results are from raids on Formosan sugar refineries. Flames are visible for 100 miles.
06/29/1945 Truman approves the invasions of Kyushu and Honshu.
The Kyushu invasion is slated for November 1, with two beachheads on Japan's east coast -- one near Miyazaki, the other at Ariake Bay. Among the divisions of Gen. Walter Krueger's 6th Army that MacArthur will use: the 25th, 33rd, 41st, 43rd, 77th, 81st, 98th, 11th Airborne, 1st Cavalry, and 2nd, 3rd and 5th Marine divisions.
Halsey's 3rd Fleet and Spruance's 5th Fleet are to have 3,000 ships in support, including 63 carriers and 22 battleships. The 5th and 7th Air Forces based on Okinawa and the Ryukyus are to provide 1,850 aircraft.
The Honshu invasion is scheduled for March 1, 1945, with 23 divisions of the American 1st and 8th Armies landing east and west of Tokyo Bay. Participants include 16 divisions from Europe: the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 13th Airborne, 28th, 35th, 44th, 86th, 91st, 95th, 97th and 104th Infantry and 13th and 20th Armored.
The 97th "Trident" division becomes the second unit to return form Europe. It will ship out to the Pacific in September.
06/30/1945 An American, British, Dutch and Australian naval bombardment smashes Japanese defenses at oil-rich Balikpapan on Borneo's east coast. MacArthur watches from the bridge of cruiser Cleveland. Tomorrow's landing by the 7th Australian division is another step in the campaign to liberate the Dutch East Indies.
Elsewhere, the mopping up of Japanese stragglers on Okinawa is completed.
Radio Tokyo announces French Indo-China's name has been changed to Vietnam.
Melanesian natives of the Marshall Islands ask the United States to make the picturesque mid-Pacific atolls an American protectorate.
Chiang Kai-shek's resurgent army recaptures a B29 Superfortress base at Liuchow in south China and pushes to within 145 miles of Shanghai in north China.
