April 1945

April

• 01

  • Key eventThe landing on OkinawaOn 1 April 1945 General Buckner's Tenth Army landed on Okinawa almost unopposed. The Japanese were waiting in fortifications in the south of the island.
  • The capture of LegazpiOn 1 April 1945 the US 158th Infantry took the port and airfield of Legazpi on the Bicol Peninsula unopposed, opening the way to the San Bernardino Strait.
• 02

  • The battle for ViennaOn 2 April 1945 the Red Army took Wiener Neustadt and advanced on Vienna. From 6 April fighting was already raging in the suburbs of the Austrian capital.
  • The encirclement of the RuhrOn 1 April 1945 the US First and Ninth Armies met at Lippstadt. Model's Army Group B – 320,000–370,000 men – was trapped in the Ruhr Pocket.
• 04

  • The capture of BratislavaOn 4 April 1945 troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front took Bratislava. Tiso's government had already fled to Austria; the Slovak State ceased to exist.
  • The liberation of OhrdrufOn 4 April 1945 soldiers of the US Third Army entered Ohrdruf, a Buchenwald subcamp in Thuringia – the first Nazi camp liberated by the Americans.
• 06

  • The spring offensive in Italy beginsIn early April 1945 the Allies launched their last offensive in Italy. The attack across the Senio on 9 April opened the way to Bologna and the Po.
• 07

  • The sinking of the YamatoOn 7 April 1945 Task Force 58 aircraft sank the battleship Yamato, the cruiser Yahagi and four destroyers. Between 3,700 and 4,250 Japanese were killed.
• 09

  • The capture of KönigsbergOn 9 April 1945 General Otto Lasch surrendered Königsberg after a four-day assault by the 3rd Belorussian Front. The East Prussian capital lay in ruins.
  • The raid on KielOn the night of 9/10 April 1945, 591 RAF Lancasters bombed the port of Kiel. The Admiral Scheer capsized; the Admiral Hipper and Emden were badly damaged.
  • The execution of Dietrich BonhoefferAt dawn on 9 April 1945 Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged at Flossenbürg, together with Admiral Canaris, General Oster and three other conspirators.
• 11

  • Kamikaze over OkinawaOn 11 April 1945 a kamikaze hit the battleship Missouri and the carrier Enterprise was damaged. The attacks off Okinawa killed nearly 4,900 sailors.
  • The liberation of BuchenwaldOn 11 April 1945 the US 6th Armored Division reached Buchenwald near Weimar. The camp, taken over by the prisoners' underground, held some 21,000 inmates.
• 12

  • Spain breaks off relations with JapanIn April 1945 Franco's Spain broke off relations with Japan, citing the murder of Spaniards in Manila. It hoped to win the Allies' favour.
  • Key eventThe death of RooseveltOn 12 April 1945 President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral haemorrhage at Warm Springs. That evening Harry Truman took the oath at the White House.
• 13

  • The fall of ViennaOn 13 April 1945 the Red Army seized the Reichsbrücke and took Vienna. A reborn Austria was coming into being under Soviet occupation.
  • The Gardelegen massacreOn 13 April 1945, near Gardelegen in the Altmark, Germans burned and shot 1,016 concentration camp prisoners evacuated ahead of the front in a barn.
• 14

  • The Tokyo raid of 13–14 AprilOn the night of 13/14 April 1945 over 300 B-29s burned some 30 km² of northern Tokyo, killing about 2,500. On 15/16 April Kawasaki and Yokohama burned.
• 15

  • The liberation of Bergen-BelsenOn 15 April 1945 British troops entered the Bergen-Belsen camp. They found some 60,000 sick prisoners and more than 13,000 unburied bodies.
• 16

  • Key eventThe Berlin offensive beginsOn 16 April 1945 Soviet and Polish troops struck at Berlin from the Oder and the Neisse. At the Seelow Heights Zhukov's attack stalled for three days.
• 17

  • The Battle of MonteseOn 14–17 April 1945 the Brazilian 1st Division took the Apennine town of Montese and beat off counter-attacks – the bloodiest Brazilian battle of the war.
• 18

  • The death of Ernie PyleOn 18 April 1945 Ernie Pyle, America's most popular war reporter, was killed by a Japanese machine-gun burst on the island of Ie Shima off Okinawa.
• 19

  • Switzerland closes its borderFrom 19 April 1945 Switzerland closed its border with the Reich and Italy, leaving 11 crossings open. About 50,000 refugees came in before the war ended.
• 20

  • Hitler's last birthdayOn 20 April 1945 Hitler turned 56 in the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery. The leaders offered their wishes, and that evening most of them left Berlin.
• 21

  • The storming of BerlinOn 21 April 1945 Zhukov's troops broke into the outskirts of Berlin as Soviet artillery shelled the city. The battle for the Reich capital had begun.
• 22

  • Hitler's breakdownOn 22 April 1945, on learning that Steiner's attack had not begun, Hitler admitted the war was lost and declared that he would stay in Berlin to the end.
• 23

  • Göring's telegramOn 23 April 1945 Göring asked Hitler if he should take over power in the Reich. Hitler called it treason and stripped him of office; Greim took the Luftwaffe.
• 24

  • Himmler's offerIn Lübeck on the night of 23/24 April 1945 Himmler offered, via Count Bernadotte, to surrender to the Western Allies alone. Truman and Churchill refused.
  • The encirclement of BerlinOn 24 April 1945 Zhukov's and Konev's troops met south-east of Berlin, and on 25 April they closed the ring around the capital of the Reich.
  • The end of the fighting in ItalyOn 21 April 1945 the Poles entered Bologna, and on 22–24 April the Allies crossed the Po. The German armies in Italy ceased to exist as a fighting force.
• 25

  • Key eventThe meeting on the ElbeOn 25 April 1945 patrols of the US 69th Infantry Division met Red Army soldiers on the Elbe near Strehla and at Torgau. The Reich was cut in two.
• 27

  • The end of the Lapland WarOn 27 April 1945 the last Germans left Finland for Norway and a Finnish patrol planted a flag on the Three-Country Cairn. So ended the Lapland War.
• 28

  • The death of MussoliniOn 27 April 1945 partisans captured Mussolini at Dongo; on 28 April they shot him with Clara Petacci, and on 29 April the bodies were put on display in Milan.
  • The surrender of the 148th DivisionAt Collecchio and Fornovo di Taro the Brazilians trapped the German 148th Division and remnants of Italian divisions. On 29 April 1945 some 15,000 surrendered.
• 29

  • The liberation of DachauOn 29 April 1945 soldiers of the US Seventh Army entered Dachau, the first concentration camp of the Third Reich, and freed more than 30,000 prisoners.
  • The surrender at CasertaOn 29 April 1945 at Caserta, envoys of Vietinghoff and Wolff signed the surrender of the German forces in Italy. The guns fell silent at 2 p.m. on 2 May.
  • Operations Manna and ChowhoundOn 29 April 1945 RAF Lancasters began dropping food to the starving people of the occupied western Netherlands. American B-17s joined them on 1 May.
• 30

  • Key eventHitler's suicideOn 30 April 1945 Hitler and Eva Braun, whom he had married the day before, killed themselves in the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery in encircled Berlin.