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1945  Jan 1, On Operation Bodenplatte, German planes attacked American forward air bases in Europe. This was the last major offensive of the Luftwaffe.
 (HN, 1/1/99)
1945  Jan 1, France was admitted to the United Nations.
 (AP, 1/1/98)

1945  Jan 2, Allies made an air raid on Nuremberg.
 (MC, 1/2/02)

1945  Jan 3, Stephen Stills singer, songwriter, guitarist: group, was born: Buffalo Springfield: For What It’s Worth; group: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
 (440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1945  Jan 3, US aircraft carriers attacked Okinawa.
 (MC, 1/3/02)

1945  Jan 4, The last German offensive in Bastogne, Belgium failed.
 (HN, 1/4/99)

1945  Jan 5, Pepe LePew, cartoon character, debuted in the Warner Brothers production "Odor-able Kitty."
 (MC, 1/5/02)

1945  Jan 6, George Herbert Walker Bush married Barbara Pierce in Rye, N.Y.
 (AP, 1/6/98)
1945  Jan 6, B-29’s in the Pacific struck new blows on Tokyo and Nanking.
 (HN, 1/6/99)

1945  Jan 7, U.S. air ace Major Thomas B. McGuire Jr. was killed in the Pacific.
 (HN, 1/7/99)

1945  Jan 9, American forces began landing at Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines. U.S. troops landed on Luzon, 107 miles from Manila and MacArthur finally mounted his invasion of Luzon.
 (HN, 1/9/99)(AP, 1/9/99)
1945  Jan 9, Maj. Raymond Cromley, head of the top secret “Dixie Mission,” sent a cable to US military headquarters in Chunking that said Mao Tse-tung would like send a group to Pres. Roosevelt to explain the situation in China. Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, who opposed the meeting, intercepted the message and failed to pass it to Pres. Roosevelt.
 (WSJ, 5/30/02, p.A2)

1945  Jan 12, US Task Force 38 destroyed 41 Japanese ships in Battle of South China Sea.
 (MC, 1/12/02)
1945  Jan 12, German forces in Belgium retreated in Battle of Bulge.
 (MC, 1/12/02)
1945  Jan 12, Soviet forces began a huge offensive against the Germans in Eastern Europe.
 (AP, 1/12/98)

1945  Jan 13, The Red Army opened an offensive in South Poland, crashing 25 miles through the German lines.
 (HN, 1/13/99)

1945  Jan 16, The U.S. First and Third armies linked up at Houffalize, effectively ending the Battle of the Bulge.
 (HN, 1/16/99)

1945  Jan 17, Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw during World War II.
 (AP, 1/17/98)(HN, 1/17/99)
1945  Jan 17, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody. Raoul Wallenberg was jailed by the Soviets who believed that he was an American spy. He had saved more than 20,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps. Wallenberg was a graduate of the Univ. of Michigan and studied there from 1931-1935. In 2000 a Kremlin commission believed that he was shot in a KGB prison.
 (SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-7)(AP, 1/17/98)(MT, Spg. ‘99, p.18)(SFC, 11/28/00, p.A18)

1945  Jan 18, The German Army launched its second attempt to relieve the besieged city of Budapest from the advancing Red Army.
 (HN, 1/18/99)

1945  Jan 19, The Red Army captured Lodz, Krakow, and Tarnow.
 (HN, 1/19/99)

1945  Jan 20, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated for his fourth term.
 (HN, 1/20/99)
1945  Jan 20, The Allies signed a truce with the Hungarians.
 (HN, 1/20/99)

1945  Jan 21, Andrew Stein, pres of NYC council (D), was born.
 (MC, 1/21/02)

1945  Jan 22, There was a heavy US air raid on Okinawa.
 (MC, 1/22/02)
1945  Jan 22, The Burma highway reopened.
 (MC, 1/22/02)

1945  Jan 23, Helmuth J. Moltke (37), German general, politician (July 20th Plot), was executed.
 (MC, 1/23/02)

1945  Jan 24, A German attempt to relieve the besieged city of Budapest was finally halted by the Soviets.
 (HN, 1/24/99)

1945  Jan 26, Soviet forces liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. [see Jan 27]
 (MC, 1/26/02)

1945  Jan 27, The Soviet army arrived at Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland, and found the Nazi concentration camp and crematorium where 1.1 - 1.5 million people were murdered. It is now believed that 1 million Jews were murdered here, up to 75,000 Polish Christians, 21,000 Gypsies, and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war.
 (SF E&C, 1/15/1995, A-10)(AP, 1/27/98)

1945  Jan 28, During World War II, Allied supplies began reaching China over the newly reopened Burma Road.
 (AP, 1/28/98)
1945  Jan 28, Chiang Kai-shek renamed the Ledo-Burma Road the Stillwell Road, in honor of General Joseph Stillwell.
 (HN, 1/28/99)
1945  Jan 28, The Red Army captured Klaipeda, the last German-held Lithuanian city.
 (LHC, 1/28/03)

1945  Jan 30, US Army Rangers and Filipino guerrillas executed a flawless rescue of 500 POWs from Camp Cabanatuan north of Manila. In 2001 Hampton Sides authored “Ghost Soldiers,” an account of the rescue. [see Feb 1]
 (WSJ, 5/24/01, p.A20)(SSFC, 6/17/01, DB p.70)
1945  Jan 30, The Allies launched a drive on the Siegfried line in Germany.
 (HN, 1/30/99)
1945  Jan 30, Nazi SS guards shot down an estimated 4,000 Jewish prisoners on the Baltic coast at Palmnicken, Kaliningrad. The town was later renamed by the Russians to Yantarny. Some 7,000 prisoners had been marched 25 miles from Koenigsberg to a vacant lock factory at Palmnicken where they were mowed down with machine guns. The prisoners had been vacated from a network of 30 camps that made up Poland's Stutthoff concentration camp. 90% of the Jews were women from Lithuania and Hungary.
 (SFC, 1/31/00, p.C1)
1945          Jan 30, The German liner "Wilhelm Gustloff" sank in the Baltic Sea between the Bay of Danzig and the Danish island of Bornholm. An estimated 7000-8000 people, civilian refugees from East Prussia and wounded German soldiers, drowned in the icy waters. Three torpedoes fired from a Russian submarine had scored direct hits on the ship. The result was the largest and most horrible naval disaster of all time.
  (NW, 3/18/02, p.11) http://www.cybercreek.com/cybercity/WWIIps/gu

1945    Jan 31, Private Eddie Slovik (25) became the only U.S. soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion.
  (AP, 1/31/98)(MC, 1/31/02)

1945   Jan, The Albanian Communist provisional government of Enver Hoxha agreed to restore Kosova to Yugoslavia under Tito as an autonomous region; Yugoslav leaders brought Kosova under marshal law. Tribunals began in Albania to condemn thousands of "war criminals" and "enemies of the people" to death or prison. The Communist regime began to nationalize industry, transportation, forests, pastures.
 (www, Albania, 1998)(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.A9)(SFC, 3/3/98, p.A8)

1945  Jan, Allied forces repulsed the German counter-offensive in the Battle of the Bulge.
 (WUD, 1994, p.195)(SFC, 9/1/96, T3)

1945  Jan, The Red Army drove the Wehrmacht out of Poland and demolished Danzig (Gdansk) by bomb and gunfire.
 (SFEC, 5/24/98, p.T4)

1945  Feb 1, U.S. Rangers and Filipino guerrillas rescued 513 American survivors of the Bataan "death march". [see Jan 30]
 (HN, 2/1/99)

1945  Feb 2, President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill departed Malta for the Yalta summit with Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
 (AP, 2/2/97)
1945  Feb 2, Some 1,200 Royal Air Force planes blasted Wiesbaden and Karlsruhe.
 (HN, 2/2/99)
1945  Feb 2, Karl F. Goerdeler (60), mayor of Leipzig, "July 20th plot", was hanged.
 (MC, 2/2/02)

1945  Feb 3, The Allies dropped 3,000 tons of bombs on Berlin.
 (HN, 2/3/99)
1945  Feb 3, The month-long Battle of Manila began.
 (HN, 2/3/99)

1945  Feb 4, The Big Three, American, British and Soviet leaders, met in Yalta to discuss the war aims.
 (HN, 2/4/99)
1945  Feb 4-12, President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin held a wartime conference at Yalta, in the southern Ukraine. Roosevelt joked to Stalin that the only concession he might give to Ibn Saud in Saudi Arabia was "the 6 million Jews in the US."
 (AP, 2/4/97)(WUD, 1994, p.1653)(WSJ, 3/8/99, p.A16)

1945  Feb 5, American and French troops destroyed German forces in the Colmar Pocket in France.
 (HN, 2/5/99)
1945  Feb 5, US troops under General Douglas MacArthur entered Manila ("I have returned!").
 (MC, 2/5/02)

1945  Feb 6, Bob Marley, reggae superstar, was born. He is best remembered for his songs "Buffalo Soldier" and "Fire on the Mountain."
 (HN, 2/6/99)
1945  Feb 6, MacArthur reported the fall of Manila, and the liberation of 5,000 prisoners.
 (HN, 2/6/99)
1945  Feb 6, Russian Red Army crossed the river Oder.
 (MC, 2/6/02)

1945  Feb 7, US 76th and 5th Infantry divisions began crossing Sauer.
 (MC, 2/7/02)

1945  Feb 8, Allied air attack on Goch, Kleef, Kalkar, Reichswald.
 (MC, 2/8/02)

1945  Feb 9, [Maria] Mia Farrow, actress (Rosemary's Baby, Purple Rose of Cairo, was born in LA.
 (MC, 2/9/02)

1945  Feb 10, "Rum & Coca Cola" by the Andrews Sisters hit #1.
 (MC, 2/10/02)
1945  Feb 10, B-29s hit the Tokyo area. It was a B-29 that dropped the bomb that ended World War II.
 (HN, 2/10/97)

1945  Feb 11, President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin signed the Yalta Agreement during World War II and adjourned. Alger Hiss was one of the advisors who accompanied Roosevelt.
 (WSJ, 5/5/95, p.A-12)(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A3)(HN, 2/11/97)(AP, 2/11/97)
1945  Feb 11, The 1st gas turbine propeller-driven airplane was flight tested, at Downey, Ca.
 (MC, 2/11/02)

1945  Feb 12, Mayor Roger Lapham of SF was informed by Washington that San Francisco was chosen as the site of the Founding Conference of the UN.
 (SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W39)

1945  Feb 13, British bombers in Operation Thunderclap firebombed the city of Dresden, Germany, and 135,000 people were killed. The Royal Air Force Bomber Command attacked the city of Dresden at night with raids by 873 heavy bombers. 796 Lancaster heavy bombers were led by 9 target marking Mosquito light bombers. A look at aerial maps of the city before and after the terror attacks clearly shows the large white oil tanks owned by British-controlled Shell Oil. These tanks remained entirely untouched by the bombardment.  [see Feb 14]
 (WW, 2/23/95)(WSJ, 10/22/96, p.A20)(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A10)(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.T6)(HN, 2/13/99)(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.T13)(MC, 2/13/02)
 (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/61/001.html)
1945  Feb 13, During World War II, the Soviets captured Budapest, Hungary, from the Germans ending a 50-day siege.
 (HN, 2/13/98)(AP, 2/13/98)

1945  Feb 14, Gregory Hines, actor, dancer (White Nights, Taps), was born in NYC.
 (MC, 2/14/02)
1945  Feb 14, 521 American heavy bombers flew daylight raids over Dresden, Germany following the British assault. The firestorm killed an estimated 135,000 people. At least 35,000 died and some people place the toll closer to 70,000. The novel “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut was set in Dresden during the firebombing where he was being held as a prisoner of war. US B-17 bombers dropped 771 more tons on Dresden while P-51 Mustang fighters strafed roads packed with soldiers and civilians fleeing the burning city. [see Feb 13]
 (WSJ, 10/22/96, p.A20)(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A10)(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.T6)(HN, 2/13/99)(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.T13)
1945  Feb 14, The siege of Budapest ended as the Soviets took the city. Only 785 German and Hungarian soldiers managed to escape.
 (HN, 2/14/99)
1945  Feb 14, Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador joined the United Nations.
 (AP, 2/14/98)

1945  Feb 16, American paratroopers landed on Corregidor during World War II, in a campaign to liberate the Philippines.
 (AP, 2/16/98)(HN, 2/16/98)

1945  Feb 17, Gen. MacArthur’s troops landed on Corregidor in the Philippines. General Tomoyuki Yamashita was the Japanese general opposing MacArthur.
 (HN, 2/17/98)

1945  Feb 18, U.S. Marines stormed ashore at Iwo Jima. Navajo code talkers used their native language to communicate by radio on Japanese troop movements.
 (HN, 2/18/98)(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A6)

1945  Feb 19, About 60,000 [75,000] US marines went ashore at Iwo Jima, an 8-sq. mile island of rock, volcanic ash and black sand. During World War II, some 30,000 U.S. Marines landed on Iwo Jima, where they began a month-long battle to seize control of the island from Japanese forces. The 36-day battle took the lives of 7,000 Americans and about 20,000 of 22,000 Japanese defenders.
 (SFC, 6/19/96, p.A20)(HN, 2/19/98)(AP, 2/19/98)(SFC, 9/21/00, p.C6)
1945  Feb 19, On Ramree Island off the coast of old Burma, some 900 Japanese soldiers retreated from British soldiers into an alligator filled swamp. Only about 20 men survived.
 (SFEC, 2/23/96, Z1 p.2)(MC, 2/19/02)
1945  Feb 19, Ivan Kozhedub of the Ukraine became the only Soviet pilot to shoot down a Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter and, on April 19, 1945, he downed two Focke-Wulf Fw-190s to bring his final tally to 62--the top Allied ace of the war. He was the Allies` top ace and one of only two Soviet fighter pilots to be awarded the Gold Star of a Hero of the Soviet Union three times during World War II. Ironically prevented from fighting because his skill as a pilot made him more useful as an instructor, Kozhedub did not fly his first combat mission until March 26, 1943.
 (HNQ, 4//01)

1945  Feb 21, The Bismarck Sea was the last U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to be sunk in combat during World War II. The escort carrier Bismarck Sea  was supporting the invasion of Iwo Jima, when about 50 kamikazes attacked the U.S. Navy Task Groups 58.2 and 58.3. Fleet carrier Saratoga was struck by three suicide planes and so badly damaged that the war ended before she returned to service. At 6:45 p.m., two Mitsubishi A6M5 Zeros approached Bismarck Sea, which opened fire with her anti-aircraft guns. One Zero was set on fire, but its suicidal pilot pressed home his attack and crashed into the carrier abreast of the aft elevator, which fell into the hangar deck below. Two minutes later, an internal explosion devastated the ship, and at 7:05 p.m., Captain J.L. Pratt ordered Abandon Ship. Ravaged by further explosions over the next three hours, Bismarck Sea sank at 10 p.m., the last U.S. Navy carrier to go down as a result of enemy action during World War II. Of her crew of 943, 218 officers and men lost their lives.
 (HNQ, 10/5/01)

1945  Feb 23, Eisenhower opened a large offensive in the Rhineland.
 (HN, 2/23/98)
1945  Feb 23, During World War II, U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima captured Mount Suribachi, where they raised the American flag. John Bradley (d.1994), was one of the soldiers who raised the US flag at Iwo Jima. The carnage on the 8-sq.-mile island continued for another 31 days. The flag raising was captured by AP photographer Joseph Rosenthal and inspired the 1954 sculpture by Felix de Weldon (d.2003) erected in Washington DC.
 (AP, 2/23/98)(SFC, 9/21/00, p.C6)(SFC, 6/14/03, p.A21)
1945  Feb 23, Turkey declared war on Germany and Japan.
 (HN, 2/23/98)

1945  Feb 24, U.S. forces liberated prisoners of war in the Los Baños Prison in the Philippines.
 (HN, 2/24/99)
1945  Feb 24, American soldiers liberated the Philippine capital of Manila from Japanese control during World War II.
 (AP, 2/24/98)
1945  Feb 24, Egyptian Premier Ahmed Maher Pasha was killed in Parliament after reading a decree.
 (HN, 2/24/98)

1945  Feb 26, Mitch Ryder, rocker (Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels-Devil With the Blue Dress), was born.
 (SC, 2/26/02)
1945  Feb 26, A midnight curfew on nightclubs, bars and other places of entertainment was set to go into effect across the US.
 (AP, 2/26/98)
1945  Feb 26, Very heavy bombing on Berlin by 8th US Air Force.
 (SC, 2/26/02)
1945  Feb 26, Syria declared war on Germany and Japan. [see Mar 26]
 (HN, 2/26/98)

1945  Feb 28, U.S. tanks broke the natural defense line west of the Rhine and crossed the Erft River.
 (HN, 2/28/98)

1945  Mar 1, Burning Spear [Winston Rodney], Jamaican reggae singer, was born.
 (SC, 3/1/02)
1945  Mar 1, President Roosevelt, back from the Yalta Conference, proclaimed the meeting a success when he addressed a joint session of Congress.
 (AP, 3/1/98)
1945  Mar 1, US infantry regiment captured Mönchengladbach.
 (SC, 3/1/02)
1945  Mar 1, British 43rd Division under General Essame occupied Xanten.
 (SC, 3/1/02)
1945  Mar 1, Chinese 30th division occupied Hsenwi.
 (SC, 3/1/02)
1945  Mar 1, Field marshal Kesselring succeeded von Rundstedt as commander.
 (SC, 3/1/02)

1945  Mar 2, The American flag is raised again over Corregidor, with General Douglas MacArthur and members of his staff present. MacArthur, commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, reluctantly fled his headquarters on the rocky Philippine island of Corregidor in March 1942 as the Japanese closed in. MacArthur praised the gallant but futile defense of Corregidor as “an inspiration to carry on the struggle until the Allies should fight their way back” and vowed to return one day. On February 16, 1945, elements of the U.S. Sixth Army began the assault on Corregidor, and after furious fighting, MacArthur made good on his promise.
 (HN, 3/2/99)
1945  Mar 2, 8th Air Force bombed Dresden.
 (SC, 3/2/02)
1945  Mar 2, King Michael of Romania gave in to Communist government.
 (SC, 3/2/02)

1945  Mar 3, The Mutual Broadcasting System played the first encounter between Superman, Batman and Robin on the radio.
 (HC, Internet, 3/3/98)
1945  Mar 3, US and Philippine forces recaptured Corregidor.
 (SC, 3/3/02)
1945  Mar 3, US 7th Army occupied last part of Westwall (Germany).
 (SC, 3/3/02)
1945  Mar 3, Churchill visited Montgomery's headquarters.
 (SC, 3/3/02)
1945  Mar 3, Finland declared war on the Axis.
 (HN, 3/3/99)
1945  Mar 3, Roermond-Venlo, Netherlands, was freed.
 (SC, 3/3/02)
1945  Mar 3, RAF bombing error hit The Hague and killed 511.
 (SC, 3/3/02)

1945  Mar 5, US 7th Army Corps captured Cologne.
 (MC, 3/5/02)
1945  Mar 5, Allies bombed The Hague, Netherlands.
 (MC, 3/5/02)

1945  Mar 6, Rob Reiner, actor, director (All in the Family, Stand By Me), was born in Bronx, NY.
 (MC, 3/6/02)
1945  Mar 6, Federico Garcia Lorca's "La Casa," premiered in Buenos Aires.
 (MC, 3/6/02)
1945  Mar 6, Cologne, Germany, fell to General Hodges' First Army.
 (HN, 3/6/98)
1945  Mar 6, Erich Honnecker and Erich Hanke fled Nazis.
 (MC, 3/6/02)
1945  Mar 6, In Holland SS General Hans Albin Rauter, was ambushed, and his driver and orderly were killed. Rauter was seriously wounded. SS Brigadefuhrer Dr. Eberhardt Schongarth immediately ordered reprisals and a total of 263 people were shot. A Special Court of Justice in the Hague sentenced Rauter to death and he was executed March 25, 1949. Schongarth was tried by a British Military Court, found guilty on another war crime charge, sentenced to death and was hanged in 1946.
 http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres.html
 (WW2D, p.610)

1945  Mar 7, During World War II, U.S. 9th Armored Division crossed the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany, using the damaged but still usable Ludendorff Bridge. This marked the 1st incursion of Allied forces into Germany.
 (AP, 3/7/98)(SFC, 4/9/03, p.A16)
1945  Mar 7, Cologne was taken by allied armies.
 (MC, 3/7/02)
1945  Mar 7, In Yugoslavia the Communist government of Tito formed.
 (MC, 3/7/02)(AP, 10/20/02)

1945  Mar 8, "Kiss Me Kate" opened in Britain.
 (MC, 3/8/02)
1945  Mar 8, Phyllis Mae Daley received a commission in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She was the first African-American nurse to serve duty in World War II.
 (HN, 3/8/99)
1945  Mar 8, The U.S. First Army crossed the Rhine between Cologne and Coblenz.
 (HN, 3/8/98)
1945  Mar 8, 53 Amsterdammers were executed by Nazi occupiers.
 (MC, 3/8/02)

1945  Mar 9, During World War II, 334 U.S. B29 bombers launched incendiary bomb attacks against Tokyo, Japan, causing widespread devastation.
 (HFA, '96, p.26)(AP, 3/9/98)(MC, 3/9/02)

1945  Mar 10, Patton's 3rd Army made contact with Hodge's 1st Army.
 (MC, 3/10/02)
1945  Mar 10, Germany blew up the Wessel Bridge on the Rhine.
 (MC, 3/10/02)
1945  Mar 10, Some 300 American B-29s bombed Tokyo at night with almost 2,000 tons of incendiaries killing 100,000.
 (HN, 3/10/98)(MC, 3/10/02)
1945  Mar 10, US troops landed on Mindanao.
 (MC, 3/10/02)
1945  Mar 10, In the Philippines Pfc. Thomas Eugene Atkins (d. 1999 at 78) repulsed a Japanese attack while wounded and killed 14 enemy soldiers in northern Luzon.
 (SFC, 9/24/99, p.D6)

1945  Mar 11, 1,000 allied bombers harassed Essen with 4,662 tons of bombs.
 (MC, 3/12/02)
1945  Mar 11, Flemish Nazi collaborator Maria Huygens was sentenced to death.
 (MC, 3/12/02)

1945  Mar 12, NY became the 1st state to prohibit discrimination by race and creed in employment.
 (MC, 3/12/02)
1945  Mar 12, Italy's Communist Party (CPI) called for armed uprising in Italy.
 (MC, 3/12/02)
1945  Mar 12, In Amsterdam 30 people were executed by Nazi occupiers.
 (MC, 3/12/02)
1945  Mar 12, USSR returned Transylvania to Romania.
 (MC, 3/12/02)
1945  Mar 12, Anne Frank, author of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp a month before it was liberated. When the British arrived in April, they found more than 10,000 unburied corpses. Some 14,000 of the prisoners found at the camp died within a few days.
 (SFEC, 1/5/97, p.B8)(HNQ, 4/13/00)(HN, 3/12/01)

1945  Mar 13, Queen Wilhelmina returned to Netherlands.
 (MC, 3/13/02)
1945  Mar 13, Peru declared war on Germany.
 (HN, 3/13/98)

1945  Mar 14, Chile declared war on Germany.
 (HN, 3/14/98)
1945    Mar 14, A supreme Lithuanian independence committee was re-formed in Germany. The committee was 1st formed Nov 25, 1943, in Lithuania.
 (LHC, 3/14/03)

1945  Mar 15, Bing Cosby and Ingrid Bergman were winners in the 17th Academy Awards along with the film "Going my Way."
 (MC, 3/15/02)

1945  Mar 16, During World War II, the island of Iwo Jima in the Pacific Ocean was declared secured by the Allies. The U.S. defeated Japan at Iwo Jima. Small pockets of Japanese resistance still exist.
 (AP, 3/16/97)(HN, 3/16/99)

1945  Mar 17, Allied ships bombed North Sumatra.
 (MC, 3/17/02)

1945  Mar 18, 1,250 US bombers attacked Berlin.
 (MC, 3/18/02)
1945  Mar 18, US Task Force 58 attacked targets on Kyushu.
 (MC, 3/18/02)
1945  Mar 18, Suicide bombs were introduced.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.26)

1945  Mar 19, US Task Force 58 attacked ships near Kobe and Kure.
 (MC, 3/19/02)
1945  Mar 19, About 800 people were killed as kamikaze planes attacked the U.S. carrier Franklin off Japan; the ship, however, was saved.
 (AP, 3/19/97)
1945  Mar 19, Adolf Hitler issued his so-called “Nero Decree,” ordering the destruction of German facilities that could fall into Allied hands. Hitler ordered a scorched-earth policy. Hitler had decreed that Paris should be left a smoking ruin, but Dietrich von Choltitz thought better of his Führer’s order.
 (AP, 3/19/97)(HN, 3/19/98)

1945  Mar 21, During World War II, Allied bombers began four days of raids over Germany.
 (AP, 3/21/97)
1945  Mar 21, A British bombing raid was made on Gestapo Headquarters in Denmark to thwart a planned German arrest of the leadership of the banned Freedom Council. A 2nd wave of bombers hit a school by mistake killing 86 students and 13 adults.
 (SFC, 9/23/02, p.B5)

1945  Mar 22, The Arab League was formed with the adoption of a charter in Cairo, Egypt. Saudi Arabia became a founding member of the UN and the Arab League.
 (AP, 3/22/97)(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)
1945  Mar 22, The US 3rd Army crossed the Rhine at Nierstein.
 (MC, 3/22/02)

1945  Mar 23, Premier Winston Churchill visited Montgomery's headquarter in Straelen.
 (SS, 3/23/02)
1945  Mar 23, British 7th Black Watch crossed the Rhine.
 (SS, 3/23/02)
1945  Mar 23, Largest operation in Pacific war: 1,500 US Navy ships bombed Okinawa.
 (SS, 3/23/02)

1945  Mar 24, Gens. Eisenhower, Montgomery and Bradley discussed advance in Germany.
 (MC, 3/24/02)
1945  Mar 24, Largest one-day airborne drop: 600 transports and 1300 gliders.
 (MC, 3/24/02)
1945  Mar 24, Operation Varsity: British, US and Canadian airborne landings east of Rhine.
 (MC, 3/24/02)
1945  Mar 24, Egypt declared war on Germany.
 (HN, 3/24/98)

1945  Mar 25, US 1st army broke out bridgehead near Remagen.
 (MC, 3/25/02)

1945  Mar 26, Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton attack at Remagen on the Rhine.
 (SS, 3/26/02)
1945  Mar 26, US 7th Army crossed Rhine at Worms.
 (SS, 3/26/02)
1945  Mar 26, Japanese resistance ended on Iwo Jima.
 (SS, 3/26/02)
1945  Mar 26, Kamikazes attacked US battle fleet near Kerama Retto.
 (SS, 3/26/02)
1945  Mar 26, Syria declared war on Germany. [see Feb 26]
 (HN, 3/25/98)
1945  Mar 26, David Lloyd George (b.1863), former prime minister (1916-1922), died. In 1973 John Grigg (d.2001 at 77) authored “The Young Lloyd George.” 2 more volumes of the biography were published in 1978 and 1985.
 (WUD, 1994 p.839)(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A16)(SS, 3/26/02)

1945  Mar 27, Ella Fitzgerald and the Delta Rhythm Boys recorded "It's Only a Paper Moon."
 (MC, 3/27/02)
1945  Mar 27, General Dwight D. Eisenhower told reporters in Paris that German defenses on the Western Front had been broken.
 (AP, 3/27/97)(HN, 3/27/98)
1945  Mar 27, Iwo Jima was occupied, after 22,000 Japanese & 6,000 US killed.
 (MC, 3/27/02)
1945  Mar 27, US 20th Army corps captured Wiesbaden.
 (MC, 3/27/02)

1945  Mar 28, Germany launched the last of the V-2 rockets (buzz bomb) against England.
 (HN, 3/28/99)

1945  Mar 30, A Soviet cable was intercepted that referred to an agent named Ales, later suspected of being Alger Hiss. The intercepted cables were classified as part of the “Venona Project” released in 1996. The US began releasing the coded Venona cables in 1995. They implicated 349 US citizens and residents as Soviet helpers. In 1999 John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr published "Venona," the story of the Soviet infiltration of Washington.
 (SFC, 11/21/96, p.A27)(WSJ, 6/24/99, p.A20)
1945  Mar 30, 289 anti-fascists were murdered by Nazis in Rombergpark,  Dortmund.
 (MC, 3/30/02)
1945  Mar 30, The Soviet Union invaded Austria during World War II.
 (AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)

1945  Mar 31, The Tennessee Williams play “The Glass Menagerie” premiered on Broadway.
 (AP, 3/30/97)
1945  Mar 31, The U.S. and Britain barred a Soviet supported provisional regime in Warsaw from entering the U.N. meeting in San Francisco.
 (HN, 3/31/98)
1945  Mar 31, US artillery landed on Keise Shima and began firing on Okinawa.
 (MC, 3/31/02)
1945  Mar 31, Sicherheitsdienst murdered 10 political prisoners in Zutphen.
 (MC, 3/31/02)

1945  Mar, Marcel Carne (1906-1990), French film director, premiered “The Children of Paradise” (Les Enfants du Paradis). The 3 ½ hr. film starred Jean-Louis Barrault and Arletty and centered on the life of 19th century mime Jean-Baptiste Debureau. The epic film classic was a singular evocation of show biz in the time of Balzac. Maria Casares (1922-1996) achieved stardom for her 1943 role in “Les Enfants du Paradis.”
 (SFC, 11/1/96, p.A28)(WSJ, 10/20/95, p. A-12)(SFC, 11/25/96, p.B2)

1945  Mar, In the Philippines Gen'l. Tomoyuki Yamashita retreated with 140,000 soldiers to the Central Cordillera and Caraballo mountain ranges of northern Luzon island.
 (SFC, 9/24/99, p.D6)

1945  Apr 1, Easter Sunday, the American assault on Okinawa began with 150,000 army and marine soldiers. It was the last campaign of World War II. The island was defended by 100,000 Japanese troops and auxiliaries. It took three months of heavy fighting to secure the island. US casualties numbered 68,000 with 8,000 dead. Japanese civilian casualties are estimated at 100-200 thousand killed. A book was published in 1995 by Col. Hiromishi Yahara, chief Japanese strategist of Okinawa titled “The Battle for Okinawa.” A counterpoint to the colonel’s account is a collection of first hand accounts from US soldiers in Gerold Astor’s “Operation Iceberg.”
 (WSJ, 8/29/95, p.A-12)(AP, 4/1/98)(HN, 4/1/98)
1945  Apr 1, Canadian troop freed Doetinchem, Enschede, Borculo & Eibergen.
 (MC, 4/1/02)

1945  Apr 2, Linda Hunt, actress (Bostonians, Eleni, Silverado), was born in Morristown, NJ.
 (MC, 4/2/02)
1945  Apr 2, 1st US units reached the east coast of Okinawa.
 (MC, 4/2/02)

1945  Apr 3, Nazis began evacuation of camp Buchenwald. [see Apr 20]
 (MC, 4/3/02)

1945  Apr 4, U.S. forces liberated the Nazi death camp Ohrdruf in Germany.
 (AP, 4/4/97)
1945  Apr 4, US tanks and infantry conquered Bielefeld.
 (MC, 4/4/02)
1945  Apr 4, U.S. troops on Okinawa encountered the first significant resistance from Japanese forces. The largest battle of the Pacific was waged here.
 (AP, 4/4/97)
1945  Apr 4, Hungary was liberated from Nazi occupation (National Day).
 (MC, 4/4/02)

1945  Apr 6, During World War II, the Japanese warship Yamato and nine other vessels sailed on a suicide mission to attack the U.S. fleet off Okinawa; the fleet was intercepted the next day.
 (AP, 4/6/99)

1945  Apr 7, During World War II, American planes intercepted a Japanese fleet that was headed for Okinawa on a suicide mission. The Japanese battleship Yamato, the world's largest battleship, was sunk during the battle for Okinawa along with 4 Japanese destroyers.
 (AP, 4/7/97)(HN, 4/7/99)(MC, 4/7/02)

1945  Apr 8, Nazi occupiers were executed. Nazi general Christiansen fled the Netherlands.
 (MC, 4/8/02)

1945  Apr 9, The Red Army was repulsed at the Seelow Heights on the outskirts of Berlin.
 (HN, 4/9/00)
1945  Apr 9, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian and antifascist, was hanged by the Nazis. He had participated in a failed plot to assassinate Hitler.
 (MC, 4/9/02)(SFC, 2/15/03, p.A14)
1945  Apr 9, Hans Oster, German major-general, spy and participant in the "July 20th plot", was hanged by Nazis.
 (MC, 4/9/02)
1945  Apr 9, Hans von Dohnanyi, "July 20th plotter", hanged by Nazis.
 (MC, 4/9/02)
1945  Apr 9, Wilhelm Canaris, Admiral, headed Germany Abwehr, was hanged by Nazis.
 (MC, 4/9/02)

1945  Apr 10, US troops landed on Tsugen Shima, Okinawa.
 (MC, 4/10/02)
1945  Apr 10, The Allies liberated their first Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald, north of Weiner, Germany. [see Apr 11]
 (HN, 4/10/01)(MC, 4/10/02)
1945  Apr 10, German Me 262 jet fighters shot down ten U.S. bombers near Berlin.
 (HN, 4/10/99)
1945  Apr 10, In their second attempt to take the Seelow Heights, near Berlin, the Red Army launched numerous attacks against the defending Germans. The Soviets gain one mile at the cost of 3,000 men killed and 368 tanks destroyed.
 (HN, 4/10/00)

1945  Apr 11, The Americans liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Some 250,000 prisoners passed through the camp and 50,000 are known to have died there. [see Apr 10]
 (SFEC, 2/9/97, p.C13)(AP, 4/11/97)(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.B1)(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A10)
1945  Apr 11, U.S. troops reached the Elbe River in Germany.
 (HN, 4/11/98)
1945  Apr 11, After two frustrating days of being repulsed and absorbing tremendous casualties, the Red Army finally takes the Seelow Heights north of Berlin.
 (HN, 4/11/00)
1945  Apr 11, The Nazi SS burned and shot 1,100 at Gardelegen.
 (MC, 4/11/02)

1945  Apr 12, Richard Strauss completed his "Metamorphosis."
 (MC, 4/12/02)
1945  Apr 12, Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt the 32nd president of the United States, died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63. Roosevelt, a polio victim confined to a wheelchair, spent a great deal of time in the soothing waters of the resort. He succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage while posing for a portrait by Elizabeth Shoumatoff at what came to be known as the Little White House in Warm Springs, where the unfinished portrait remains on display. Lucy Rutherford Mercer, his secret companion, was at his bedside. He was succeeded by his Vice-President, Harry S. Truman. The 63-year-old president had been at Warm Springs, Georgia, since March 28, resting from the rigors of leading a nation at war. Roosevelt, left paralyzed by polio in 1921, was elected to the nation's highest office four times and is judged by historians to be among the greatest American presidents. He was buried at the Roosevelt family home in Hyde Park, New York. The period is covered in “Mr. Truman’s War” (1996) by Robert Moskin. In 2001 “The  New Dealer’s War,” the 5th and last volume of the Roosevelt biography by Thomas Fleming (d.1999) was published. In 2001 Kenneth S. Davis authored “FDR: The War President.”
 (A & IP., ESM, p.167)(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A8)(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A10)(AP, 4/12/97)(HN, 4/11/99)(HNQ, 6/16/00)(WSJ, 4/26/01, p.A18)
1945  Apr 12, Robert Daniell (1901-1996), British tank commander, entered with his tank crew into Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He found some 10,000 corpses killed by the guards as the allies approached. Of the remaining 38,500 prisoners, barely a third survived.
 (SFEC, 1/5/97, p.B8)
1945  Apr 12, Canadian troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Westerbork, Neth.
 (MC, 4/12/02)

1945  Apr 13, US marines conquered Minna Shima off Okinawa.
 (MC, 4/13/02)
1945  Apr 13, Vienna fell to Soviet troops.
 (HN, 4/13/99)

1945  Apr 14, Robert Dole, later US senator and 1996 presidential candidate, was severely crippled by an artillery shell. During World War II, Robert Dole served in the 85th Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division. While stationed in Italy he participated in Operation Craftsman where he was wounded during a firefight with German troops. Dole spent nearly 40 months in army hospitals and lost most of the use of his right arm as a result.
 (SFC, 4/14/96, p.A-4)(HNQ, 2/7/02)
1945  Apr 14, US 7th Army and allies forces captured Nuremberg and Stuttgart, Germany.
 (MC, 4/14/02)
1945  Apr 14, US forces conquered Motobu peninsula on Okinawa.
 (MC, 4/14/02)
1945  Apr 14, B-29's damaged the Imperial Palace during firebombing raid over Tokyo.
 (HN, 4/14/98)
1945  Apr 14, Arnhem and Zwolle were freed from Nazis.
 (MC, 4/14/02)

1945  Apr 15, US troops occupied the concentration camp at Colditz.
 (MC, 4/15/02)
1945  Apr 15, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was buried on the grounds of his Hyde Park home.
 (HN, 4/15/98)
1945  Apr 15, Commenting on the death of American President Franklin Roosevelt in his Order of the Day, Adolf Hitler proclaimed: “Now that fate has removed from the earth the greatest war criminal of all time, the turning point of this war will be decided.”
 (HNQ, 10/8/99)
1945  Apr 15, British and Canadian troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. It is a village in west Germany about 30 miles north of Hanover.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.28)(AHD, p.122)(AP, 4/15/97)
1945  Apr 15, The deadly battle for Berlin began. The Seelow Heights posed the last natural barrier to Berlin in April 1945 from an advancing Red Army. The rolling plains and plateaus of the Seelow Heights were only 35 miles from the German capital and were well defended. The battle, which raged for a week, was extremely costly to both sides, leaving some 30,000 Red Army soldiers and at least 80,000 Germans killed.
 (HNQ, 4/16/99)

1945  Apr 16, In his first speech to Congress, President Truman pledged to carry out the war and peace policies of his predecessor, President Roosevelt.
 (AP, 4/16/97)
1945  Apr 16, U.S. troops reached Nuremberg, Germany, during World War II.
 (AP, 4/16/98)(HN, 4/16/98)
1945  Apr 16, US troops landed on He Shima, Okinawa.
 (MC, 4/16/02)

1945  Apr 17, 8th Air Force bombed Dresden.
 (MC, 4/17/02)
1945  Apr 17, Mussolini fled from to Milan.
 (MC, 4/17/02)
1945  Apr 17, Hannie Schaft, "Girl with red hair," was executed.
 (MC, 4/17/02)
1945  Apr 17, Walter Model (54), German field marshal, committed suicide. [see Apr 21]
 (MC, 4/17/02)

1945  Apr 18, Ernie Pyle (b.1900), famed American war correspondent, was killed at age 44 by Japanese gunfire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima, off Okinawa. He did a syndicated aviation column from 1928-1932, and served as a roving reporter from 1935-1939. In 1997 James Tobin published “Ernie Pyle’s War: America’s Eyewitness to World War II.”
 (AP, 4/18/97)(MT, Sum. ‘98, p.22)

1945  Apr 19, The Rodgers and Hammerstein adopted Ferenc Molnar’s “Lilliom” and produced the musical “Carousel” on Broadway.
 (SFEC, 8/25/96, DB p.40)(AP, 4/19/97)
1945  Apr 19, US aircraft carrier Franklin was heavily damaged in Japanese air raid.
 (MC, 4/19/02)

1945  Apr 20, During World War II, Allied forces, the U.S. 7th army, took control of the German cities of Nuremberg and Stuttgart.
 (AP, 4/20/97)(HN, 4/20/98)
1945  Apr 20, American forces liberated Buchenwald. 350 Americans were imprisoned at Berga, a sub-camp of Buchenwald, following their Dec, 1944, capture at the Battle of the Bulge. Charles Guggenheim's (d.2002) last documentary film was title "Berga."
 (WSJ, 5/28/03, p.D8)
1945  Apr 20, US forces conquered Motobu peninsula on Okinawa.
 (MC, 4/20/02)
1945  Apr 20, Soviet troops began their attack on Berlin.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.28)(HN, 4/20/98)

1945  Apr 21, Allied troops occupied a German nuclear laboratory.
 (MC, 4/21/02)
1945  Apr 21, German Field Marshal Walther Model, known as the “Fuhrer‘s Fireman,” shot himself near Dusseldorf. Hitler, who called Model “the Savior of the Eastern Front,” sent him to shore up the perceived failings of others and to faithfully carry out his most ignorant and impossible orders. A sycophant to the end, Model sent Hitler a note commending his survival of the July bomb plot. Model‘s army was eventually enveloped in the Ruhr in 1945 and, although offered terms for surrender, Model chose to commit suicide.
 (HNQ, 2/25/00)
1945  Apr 21, He Shima, Okinawa, was conquered in 5 days with 5,000 dead.
 (MC, 4/21/02)
1945  Apr 21, Russian army arrived at outskirts of Berlin.
 (MC, 4/21/02)

1945  Apr 22, Hitler acknowledged that the war was lost. A stenographic record of Hitler’s conferences with his generals from Apr, 1942, until Apr, 1945, was published in 2003 as: “Hitler and His Generals.” It was edited by Helmut Heiber and David M. Glantz.”
 (WSJ, 2/5/03, p.A1)
1945  Apr 22, Concentration Camp at Sachsenhausen was liberated.
 (MC, 4/22/02)

1945  Apr 23, US troops in Italy crossed the river Po.
 (MC, 4/23/02)
1945  Apr 23, The concentration camp at Flossenburg was liberated.
 (MC, 4/23/02)
1945  Apr 23, The Soviet Army fought its way into Berlin.
 (HN, 4/23/99)

1945  Apr 25, Stu Cook, rock bassist (Creedence Clearwater Revival-Proud Mary), was born.
 (SS, 4/25/02)
1945  Apr 25, Bjorn Ulvaeus, rock vocalist, guitarist (ABBA-Waterloo, Dancing Queen), was born.
 (SS, 4/25/02)
1945     Apr 25, Delegates from some 50 countries met in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.
 (AP, 4/25/97)(HN, 4/25/98)
1945  Apr 25, During World War II, U.S. and Soviet forces linked up at Torgau, on the Elbe River, in central Europe, a meeting that dramatized the collapse of Nazi Germany.
 (AP, 4/25/97)(HN, 4/25/98)
1945  Apr 25, Last B-17 attack against Nazi Germany.
 (HN, 4/25/98)
1945  Apr 25, Clandestine Radio 1212, used to hoax Nazi Germany, made its final transmission.
 (SS, 4/25/02)

1945  Apr 26, Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, the head of France's Vichy government during World War II, was arrested. In 2001 Adam Nossiter authored “The Algeria Hotel: France, Memory and the Second World War.” The Algeria Hotel had been headquarters for the Vichy government’s anti-Jewish agency. Nossiter included accounts of the hangings at Tulle and the massacre of 642 people in Oradour.
 (AP, 4/26/98)(SSFC, 8/26/01, DB p.80)

1945  Apr 27, August Wilson, US playwright (Fences, Pulitzer 1987), was born.
 (MC, 4/27/02)
1945  Apr 27, US 5th army entered Genoa.
 (MC, 4/27/02)
1945  Apr 27, Italian partisans captured Mussolini.
 (MC, 4/27/02)

1945  Apr 28, US 5th army reached the Swiss border.
 (MC, 4/28/02)
1945  Apr 28, British commands attacked Elbe and occupied Lauenburg.
 (MC, 4/28/02)
1945  Apr 28, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were executed by Italian partisans as they attempted to flee the country. In 1961 Charles F. Delzell, a historian at Vanderbilt Univ., wrote "Mussolini's Enemies: The Italian Anti-Fascist Resistance.
 (AP, 4/28/97)(HN, 4/28/98)(SFC, 9/21/99, p.E4)

1945  Apr 29, American soldiers liberated 31,601 in the Dachau, Germany, concentration camp; that same day, Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun and designated Adm. Karl Doenitz his successor.
 (AP, 4/29/98)(HN, 4/29/98)(MC, 4/29/02)
1945  Apr 29, The German Army in Italy surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. Venice and Mestre were captured by the Allies. In 1956 Norman Kogan, historian at the Univ. of Connecticut, wrote "Italy and the Allies."
 (HN, 4/29/99)(SFC, 9/21/99, p.E4)(MC, 4/29/02)
1945  Apr 29, Japanese army evacuated Rangoon.
 (MC, 4/29/02)

1945  Apr 30, Annie Dillard, writer (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek), was born.
 (HN, 4/30/01)
1945  Apr 30, US troops attacked at the Elbe.
 (MC, 4/30/02)
1945  Apr 30, Lord Haw-Haw called for a crusade against the Bolsheviks.
 (MC, 4/30/02)
1945  Apr 30, Red Army opened an attack on German Reichstag building in Berlin.
 (MC, 4/30/02)
1945  Apr 30, Russian Army freed the Ravensbruck concentration camp.
 (MC, 4/30/02)
1945  Apr 30, Adolf Hitler (56) committed suicide along with his wife of one day, Eva Braun (33), in his Fuhrerbunker as Russian troops approached Berlin. Karl Donitz became his successor. Their bodies were cremated and their remains hastily buried in a shell hole in the Reich Chancellery garden just hours before Berlin's fall. A few days later a Soviet officer showed British troops Hitler's probable gravesite. In 1973 Robert Payne authored a definitive biography. In 1998 Ron Rosenbaum authored "Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origin of His Evil." In 1977 Robert G.L. Waite (d.1999) authored The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler." In 2002 Ingo Helm made a film for TV titled “Hitler’s Money.”
 (AP, 4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98)(HNPD, 4/30/99)(WSJ, 8/31/99, p.A22)(SFC, 10/11/99, p.A24)(WSJ, 7/24/02, p.A1)(SFC, 8/8/02, p.A14)
1945  Apr 30, Hanna Reitsch evaded Soviet searchlights and fighters to reach temporary freedom in German-held territory. During the final days of World War II, German female test pilot Reitsch was ordered to fly General Ritter von Greim 60 miles to Berlin to personally accept Adolf Hitler’s appointment as Supreme Commander of the German Luftwaffe. Flying her light plane through heavy Soviet anti-aircraft fire, Reitsch and her passenger reached Hitler’s underground bunker safely, where they were among the last to see the German dictator alive. Although both expected to die in the bunker, Hitler ordered Reitsch and Greim to escape from Berlin to continue the fight.
 (HNPD, 4/27/00)

1945  Apr, US troops arrived at Erfurt, Thuringia, Germ.
 (Hem., Nov.’95, p.114)
1945  Apr, In the Battle for Okinawa 35 American ships were sunk and over 300 damaged. 5,000 American sailors were killed. Much of the damage was due to Japanese kamikaze operations. [see Apr 1]
 (WSJ, 9/10/02, p.D8)

1945  Apr, Black officers of the 477th Bombardment Group of the Army Air Forces were arrested for entering the Freeman Field officer’s club near Seymour, Ind. 101 black officers refused to sign a document that established segregation of the club and were put up for court-martial. Criminal charges were dropped but reprimands were placed in the officers’ files. The reprimands were only removed in 1995.
 (SFC, 4/11/98, p.A15)

1945  Apr, In Croatia 87 inmates escaped from the Jasenovac camp. 1000 others were recaptured or shot and killed while fleeing.
 (SFC, 3/23/99, p.A10)

1945  Apr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Evangelical Protestant theologian, was executed a few weeks before the end of the war. In 1998 Denise Giardina published her novel “Saints and Villains,” that reconstructed his story.
 (SFEC, 8/28/98, Par p.20)

1945  May 1, A day after Adolf Hitler committed suicide, it was announced that Admiral Karl Doenitz had succeeded Hitler as leader of the Third Reich.
 (AP, 5/1/97)
1945  May 1, Martin Bormann, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, escaped the Fuehrerbunker as the Red Army advanced on Berlin. His skeleton was identified in 1998 and his ashes were dropped into the Baltic in 1999.
 (HN, 5/1/99)(WSJ, 8/30/99, p.A1)
1945  May 1, Arthur Seys-Inquart, Nazi overlord of Netherlands, fled to Flensburg.
 (MC, 5/1/02)
1945  May 1, Paul Joseph Goebbels, Nazi minister of propaganda, committed suicide with wife and 8 children.
 (MC, 5/1/02)

1945  May 2, German Army in Italy surrendered.
 (MC, 5/2/02)
1945  May 2, The Soviet Union announced the fall of Berlin and the Allies announced the surrender of Nazi troops in Italy and parts of Austria. The Russians took Berlin after 12 days of fierce house-to-house fighting and General Weidling surrendered. Yevgeny Khaldei (d.1997 at 80), soldier-photographer, made pictures of Soviet soldiers hoisting the red flag over the Reichstag in Berlin.
 (HFA, '96, p.30)(AP, 5/2/97)(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A19)(HN, 5/2/98)(MC, 5/2/02)
1945  May 2, Martin Bormann, right hand man and deputy Fuhrer to Hitler, supposedly died while trying to escape Berlin.
 (MC, 5/2/02)
1945  May 2, Yugoslav troops occupied Trieste.
 (MC, 5/2/02)

1945  May 3, Allies arrested German nuclear physicist Werner Heisenberg.
 (MC, 5/3/02)
1945  May 3, German ship "Cap Arcona" sank and 5,800 were killed.
 (MC, 5/3/02)
1945  May 3, Indian forces captured Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.
 (AP, 5/3/97)

1945  May 4, During World War II, German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany agreed to surrender.
 (AP, 5/4/00)

1945  May 5, Ezra Pound (60), poet and author, was arrested by American Army soldiers in Italy for treason. He had served during the war as a profascist and anti-Semitic spokesman for the Mussolini government. He was soon transferred to Pisa where he wrote his "Pisan Cantos." In 1999 Omar Pound and Robert Spoo published "Ezra and Dorothy Pound: Letters in Captivity, 1945-1946." After Pisa Pound spent the next 12 years in St. Elizabeth's Hospital for the criminally Insane.
 (NPR, 5/5/95 interview with the sergeant who arrested Mr. Pound.)(WSJ, 2/5/99, p.W10)
1945  May 5, A Japanese balloon bomb exploded on Gearhart Mountain in Oregon, killing Mrs. Elsie Mitchell, the pregnant wife of a minister, and five children after they attempted to drag it out the woods in Lakeview, Oregon. The balloon was armed, and exploded soon after they began tampering with it. They became the 1st and only known American civilians to be killed in the continental US during World War II.
 (AP, 5/5/97)(MC, 5/5/02)
1945  May 5, The Mauthausen Concentration camp in Austria was liberated.
 (MC, 5/5/02)
1945  May 5, There was an uprising against SS-occupation troops in Prague.
 (MC, 5/5/02)
1945  May 5, Netherlands and Denmark were liberated from Nazi control.
 (HN, 5/5/98)

1945  May 6, Bob Seger, folk singer (Silver Bullet Band-Shake Down), was born in Dearborn, Mich.
 (MC, 5/6/02)
1945  May 6, Axis Sally made her final propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.
 (HN, 5/6/99)

1945  May 7, A Pulitzer prize was awarded to John Hersey (Bell for Adano).
 (MC, 5/7/02)
1945  May 7, Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims, France, to take effect the following day, ending the European conflict of World War II. After five years, World War II in Europe ended when Colonel General Alfred Jodl, the last chief of staff of the German Army, signed the unconditional surrender at General Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters at Rheims, France.
 (AP, 5/7/97)(HN, 5/7/98)(HNPD, 5/8/99)
1945  May 7, SS opened fire on a crowd in Amsterdam and killed 22.
 (MC, 5/7/02)

1945  May 8, Keith Jarrett, jazz musician, film composer (Nachtfahrer), was born in Allentown, Pa. http://www.ecmrecords.com/ecm/bio/47.html
 (MC, 5/8/02)
1945  May 8, Life photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt got signalman Jim Reynolds to pose for a kiss with a nurse in a famous photo that later appeared in life Magazine’s issue of Aug 27. This was denied by Life and not verified by Reynolds.
 (WSJ, 8/14/96, p.A14)(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A11)
1945  May 8, Germany surrendered and Victory in Europe was achieved by the allies. Marshal Wilhelm Keitel surrenders to Marshal Zhukov. The day is commemorated as V-E Day. President Truman announced in a radio address that World War II had ended in Europe.
 (WSJ, 5/5/95, p.A-12)(AP, 5/8/97)(MC, 5/8/02)
1945  May 8, Oskar Schindler gave a speech and urged the Jews who worked for him not to pursue revenge attacks. An original list of 1,200 of his workers at the Plaszow concentration camp was found in 1999.
 (SFC, 10/16/99, p.A13)

1945  May 9, U.S. officials announced that the midnight entertainment curfew was being lifted immediately.
 (AP, 5/9/97)
1945  May 9, Czechoslovakia was liberated from Nazi occupation (Nat’l Day).
 (MC, 5/9/02)
1945  May 9, Jersey was liberated from Nazis.
 (MC, 5/9/02)
1945  May 9, Norwegian Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling was arrested.
 (MC, 5/9/02)
1945  May 9, There was a victory celebration at Red Square.
 (MC, 5/9/02)

1945  May 10, Allies captured Rangoon from the Japanese.
 (MC, 5/10/02)
1945  May 10, Russian troops occupied Prague.
 (MC, 5/10/02)

1945  May 11, Kiyoshi Ogawa, Japanese pilot, crashed his plane into the US carrier Bunker Hill near Okinawa. 496 Americans died with him and the ship was knocked out of the war.
 (SFC, 3/29/01, p.A15)

1945  May 13, US troops conquered Dakeshi, Okinawa.
 (MC, 5/13/02)

1945  May 14, A Kamikaze Zero struck the US aircraft carrier Enterprise.
 (MC, 5/14/02)
1945  May 14, US offensive on Okinawa. Sugar Loaf was conquered.
 (MC, 5/14/02)

1945  May 19, Peter Townshend, England, rock guitarist, vocalist, composer (Who-Tommy), was born.
 (MC, 5/19/02)
1945  May 19, The UN Charter committee met in Muir Woods. The meeting was planned by Roosevelt on a suggestion by Sec. of the Interior Ickes: one of the sessions “might be held among the giant redwoods in Muir Woods. Not only would this focus attention upon the nation’s interest in preserving these mighty trees for posterity, but in such a “temple of peace” the delegates would gain a perspective and sense of time that could be obtained nowhere better than in such a forest.”
 (Park, Spring/95, p.2)

1945  May 21, Actors Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were married.
 (SFEC, 5/18/97, Par p.6)(MC, 5/21/02)
1945  May 21, German Reichsfuhrer, SS Heinrich Himmler, was captured.
 (MC, 5/21/02)

1945  May 23, British military police arrested Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, Hitler's designated successor ("Fuhrer for a Weekend").
 (MC, 5/23/02)
1945  May 23, Lord Haw Haw was arrested at the Danish border.
 (MC, 5/23/02)
1945  May 23, Winston Churchill resigned as British PM.
 (MC, 5/23/02)
1945  May 23,  Heinrich Himmler (44), the head of the Nazi Gestapo, committed suicide while imprisoned in Luneburg, Germany.
 (AP, 5/23/97)(HN, 5/23/01)(MC, 5/23/02)

1945  May 25, Arthur C. Clark proposed relay satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
 (SC, 5/25/02)

1945  May 26, US dropped fire bombs on Tokyo.
 (MC, 5/26/02)

1945  May 29, US 1st Marine division conquered Shuri-castle in Okinawa.
 (SC, 5/29/02)

1945  May, The Wayne Victory, a merchant marine ship, was commissioned with the Detroit Wayne Univ. name.
 (WSUAN, Winter 1997, p.10)

1945  May-Jun, The graves of some 1,000 Croatian soldiers killed at this time were found in 1999 near Maribor in eastern Slovenia. Another 6-7,000 bodies were believed to be buried in the area.
 (SFC, 6/17/99, p.C3)
1945  May-Jun, Some 40,000 anti-Soviet Cossacks, who had surrendered to the British in Austria, were turned over to the Red Army. Some 30,000 Yugoslavs were handed over to Tito under the pretense that they were being sent to Italy. The Yugoslavs (mostly Croatian soldiers) were locked into trains and taken to Slovenia, where they were shot and buried in mass graves.
 (WSJ, 3/17/98, p.A16)(SFC, 6/17/99, p.C3)

1945  Jun 3-14, Koki Hirota, Japanese envoy, met with Russian ambassador in Tokyo to propose a new relationship between the two countries and divide up Asia.
 (WSJ, 5/5/95, p.A-12)

1945  Jun 4, Anthony Braxton, jazz composer and saxophonist, was born.
 (HN, 6/4/01)
1945  Jun 4, US, Russia, England & France agreed to split occupied Germany.
 (MC, 6/4/02)

1945  Jun 5, Opera "Peter Grimes" by Benjamin Britten," premiered in London.
 (MC, 6/5/02)

1945  Jun 6, Meinoud M. Rost van Tonningen, anti Semite, NSB (1937-41), committed suicide.
 (MC, 6/6/02)

1945  Jun 9, Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki declared that Japan will fight to the last rather than accept unconditional surrender.
 (HN 6/9/98)

1945  Jun 11, Adrienne Barbeau, wife of John Carpenter, actress (Maude, Swamp Thing), was born.
 (SC, 6/11/02)

1945  Jun 14, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was honored as a Companion of the Liberation by Gen. Charles de Gaulle.
 (WSJ, 8/2/00, p.A12)
1945  Jun 14, Burma was liberated by the British.
 (HN, 6/14/98)

1945  Jun 18, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower received a tumultuous welcome in Washington, where he addressed a joint session of Congress. Eisenhower went on to meet Pres. Harry Truman and the 2 men established a warm relationship that later soured. In 2001 Steve Neal authored “Harry and Ike: The Relationship That Remade the Postwar World.”
 (AP, 6/18/97)(WSJ, 11/5/01, p.A19)
1945  Jun 18, William Joyce, known as “Lord Haw-Haw,” was charged in London with high treason for his English-language wartime broadcasts on German radio. He was hanged the following January.
 (AP, 6/18/00)
1945  Jun 18, Organized Japanese resistance ended on the island of Mindanao, Philippines.
 (HN, 6/18/98)

1945  Jun 19, Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar poet, Nobel peace laureate (1991), was born.
 (DT, 6/19/97)(HN, 6/19/01)
1945  Jun 19, Tobias Wolff, American writer (This Boy's Life: A Memoir, The Night in Question), was born.
 (HN, 6/19/01)
1945  Jun 19, Millions of New Yorkers turned out to cheer Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was honored with a parade.
 (DT, 6/19/97)

1945  Jun 21, The Battle of Okinawa ended. Japanese forces on Okinawa surrendered to the Americans. The embattled destroyer USS Laffey survived horrific damage from attacks by 22 Japanese aircraft off Okinawa. American soldiers on Okinawa found the body of the Japanese commander, Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, who had committed suicide.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.32)(HN, 6/21/98)(AP, 6/21/99)

1945  Jun 22, The World War II battle for Okinawa officially ended; 12,520 Americans and 110,000 Japanese were killed in the 81-day campaign. The battle for Okinawa proved to be the bloodiest in the Pacific Theater. A huge assemblage of American forces from both Admiral Chester W. Nimitz's Central Pacific drive and General Douglas MacArthur's Southwest Pacific thrust converged on Okinawa--over 180,000 troops. For three months they faced more than 100,000 Japanese troops of Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima's Thirty-Second Army. Tokyo needed time to prepare for the expected American invasion of the home islands, so Ushijima wanted to make his adversary wrench each hill and ridge from his well-armed men.
 (AP, 6/22/97)(HN, 6/27/01)

1945  Jun 23, Lt Gen Ushijima, Japanese commander, committed suicide at Okinawa.
 (MC, 6/23/02)

1945  Jun 25, Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo announced the fall of Okinawa.
 (MC, 6/25/02)

1945  Jun 26, The United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO) was held in San Francisco. Officials gathered to draft a UN Charter, and 50 countries signed the Charter on this date at what is now the Herbst Theater. This signifies the birth of the UN.
 (Park, Spring/95, p.2)(AP, 6/26/97)

1945  Jun 27, Norma Kamali, dress designer (Costumes for the Wiz), was born in NYC.
 (SC, 6/27/02)

1945  Jun 28, General Douglas MacArthur announced the end of Japanese resistance in the Philippines.
 (HN, 6/28/98)

1945  Jun 29, Ruthenia, formerly in Czechoslovakia, became part of Ukrainian SSR.
 (MC, 6/29/02)

1945  Jun, During this time, General Curtis LeMay had been firebombing Japanese cities daily, dropping napalm-filled bombs. In one three-day period, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe and Osaka had been destroyed.
 (WSJ, 7/19/95, p.A-12)

1945  Jun, James Franck, head of a group of scientists in the study of the social and political implications of nuclear weapons, delivered the report to Washington directed to Sec. of War Henry L. Stimson.
 (SFEM, 7/30/00, p.16)

1945  Jul 1, New York established the New York State Commission Against Discrimination to prevent discrimination in employment because of race, creed or natural origin; it was the first such agency in the United States.
 (HN, 7/1/98)

1945  Jul 3, U.S. troops landed at Balikpapan and took Sepinggan airfield on Borneo in the Pacific.
 (HN, 7/3/98)

1945  Jul 5, US General Douglas MacArthur announced that the liberation of the Philippines from its Japanese occupiers was complete.
 (MC, 7/5/02)
1945  Jul 5, Labour Party won British parliamentary election.
 (MC, 7/5/02)

1945  Jul 6, President Truman signed an executive order establishing the Medal of Freedom.
 (AP, 7/6/97)

1945  Jul 7, Matti Salminen, operatic basso (King Philip-Don Carlos), was born in Turku, Finland.
 (MC, 7/7/02)

1945  Jul 9, Dean R[ay] Koontz, US author (Star Quest, Beastchild), was born.
 (MC, 7/9/02)

1945  Jul 10, Robert Goddard (b.1882), American rocket scientist, died. He received 214 patents for rocket systems and components. In 2003 David Clary authored "Rocket Man," a biography of Goddard.
 (HN, 10/5/98)(ON, 1/01, p.5)(WSJ, 8/7/03, p.W8)(MC, 7/10/02)

1945  Jul 11, Napalm was first used.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.34)

1945  Jul 14, American battleships and cruisers bombarded the Japanese home islands for the first time. The battleship USS South Dakota was 1st US ship to bombard Japan.
 (HN, 7/14/98)(MC, 7/14/02)

1945  Jul 16, The first US test explosion of the atomic bomb was made at Alamogordo Air Base, south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, equal to some twenty thousand tons of TNT. The bomb was called the Gadget and the experiment was called Trinity from a poem by John Donne (Batter my heart, three-person’d God), and it was conducted in a part of the desert called Jornada del Muerto, (Dead Man’s Trail), and measured the equivalent of 18,600 (21,000) tons of TNT. It was the culmination of 28 months of intense scientific research conducted under the leadership of physicist Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer under the code name Manhattan Project. The successful atomic test was witnessed by only one journalist, William L. Laurence of the New York Times, who described seeing the blinding explosion: “One felt as though he had been privileged to...be present at the moment of the Creation when the Lord said: Let There be Light.” Oppenheimer’s own thoughts from the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita were very different: “I am become death, the shatterer of worlds.” The event is described in Richard Thode’s "The Making of the Atomic Bomb."
 (V.D.-H.K.p.327)(NOHY, 3/1990, p.212-213)(HNPD, 7/16/98)(SFC, 12/31/98, p.D4)(SFEC, 12/19/99, Par p.15)

1945  Jul 17-Aug 2, President Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill (and his successor Clement Atlee) began meeting at the Schloss Cecilienhof in Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II. It re-established the European borders that were in effect as of Dec 31, 1937.
 (WSJ, 5/5/95, p.A-12)(Voruta #27-28, Jul 1996, p.2)(AP, 7/17/97)(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.T6)

1945  Jul 23, French Marshal Henri Petain, who had headed the Vichy government during World War Two, went on trial, charged with treason. He was condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted.
 (AP, 7/23/00)

1945  Jul 24, U.S. Navy bombers sank the Japanese battleship-carrier Hyuga in shallow waters off Kure, Japan.
 (HN, 7/24/00)

1945  Jul 26, The US, Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration to Japan that she surrender unconditionally. Two days later Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki announced to the Japanese press that the Potsdam declaration is to be ignored.
 (WSJ, 5/5/95, p.A-12)

1945  Jul 26, Winston Churchill resigned as Britain’s prime minister after his Conservatives were soundly defeated by the Labor Party. Clement Attlee became the new prime minister.
 (AP, 7/26/97)

1945  Jul 28, A twin-engine U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building between the 78th and 79th floors and killed 14 [13] people. The plane’s propellers severed elevator cables and sent one on a 38-story fall in which the operator survived.
 (TMC, 1994, p.1945)(SFC, 2/24/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/11/97, p.A1)(HT, 5/97, p.26)(AP, 7/28/97)(HN, 7/28/98)

1945  Jul 29, After delivering parts of the first atomic bomb to the island of Tinian, the U.S.S. Indianapolis was hit and sunk by the I-58 Japanese submarine around midnight. Some 900 survivors jumped into the sea and were adrift for 4 days. Nearly 600 died before help arrived. In 1958 Richard F. Newcomb authored “Abandon Ship,” the story of the Indianapolis and the subsequent court-martial of Capt. Charles Butler McVey III.  [see Jul 30] Charles B. McVay III was exonerated in 2001.
 (HN, 7/29/98)(SFEC, 8/20/00, Par p.4)(SFC, 7/14/01, p.A9)

1945  Jul 30, The USS Indianapolis, which had just delivered key components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to the Pacific island of Tinian, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Only 316 [317] out of 1,196 men survived the sinking and shark-infested waters. [see Jul 29] In 2001 Doug Stanton authored “In Harm’s Way,” an account of the sinking and trial of Capt. McVey. In 2001 the Navy exonerated the Indianapolis’ captain, Charles Butler McVay the Third, who was court-martialed and convicted for failing to evade the submarine that sank his ship.
 (AP, 7/30/97)(SFEC, 8/20/00, Par p.4)(WSJ, 4/6/01, p.W9)(AP, 7/29/01)

1945  Jul, Vannevar Bush published his report: “Science—The Endless Frontire.”
 (WSJ, 10/20/97, p.A20)

1945  Jul, Soviet troops took over the city of Erfurt, Thuringia, Germ.
 (Hem., Nov.’95, p.114)

1945  Aug 2, President Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee concluded the Potsdam conference.
 (AP, 8/2/97)

1945  Aug 3, Chinese troops under American General Joseph Stilwell took the town of Myitkyina from the Japanese.
 (HN, 8/3/98)

1945  Aug 6, Hiroshima, Japan, was struck with the uranium bomb, Little Boy, from the B-29 airplane, Enola Gay, piloted by Col. Paul Tibbets of the US Air Force along with 11 other men. The atom bomb killed an estimated 140,000 people in the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare. Major Thomas Wilson Ferebee (d.2000 at 81) was the bombardier. Richard Nelson (d.2003) was the radio operator.
 (WSJ, 7/19/95, p.A-12)(AP, 8/6/97)(HN, 8/6/98)(SFC, 3/17/00, p.D6)(SFC, 2/7/03, p.A23)

1945  Aug 8, President Truman signed the United Nations Charter.
 (AP, 8/8/97)
1945  Aug 8, The Soviet Union declared war against Japan.
 (SFC, 9/9/96, p.A19)(AP, 8/8/97)(HN, 8/8/98)

1945  Aug 9, The 10,000 lb. plutonium bomb, Fat Man, was dropped over Nagasaki after the primary objective of Kokura was passed due to visibility problems. It killed an estimated 74,000 people. The B-29 bomber plane Bock’s Car so named for its assigned pilot, Fred Bock, was piloted by Captain Charles W. Sweeney. Kermit Beahan (d.1989) was the bombardier.
 (WSJ, 7/19/95, p.A-12)(AP, 8/9/97)(HN, 8/9/98)(SFC, 3/17/00, p.D6)(HNQ, 3/31/00)

1945  Aug 10, Japan surrendered. Yosuke Yamahata photographed the aftermath of the bombing of Nagasaki. He was dispatched by the Japanese military, but did not turn over the pictures to the military authorities.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.36)(WSJ, 8/1/95, p.A-8)

1945  Aug 14, Steve Martin, American comedian, actor and screenwriter, was born.
 (HN, 8/14/98)
1945  Aug 14, V-J Day, Japan surrendered. Shaken by the atomic destruction wreaked on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and faced with the daunting prospect of Allied invasion, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito met with his ministers on the morning of August 14 and announced, “We cannot continue the war any longer.” World War II was over. Japan accepted the Allies “Potsdam Declaration,” a cease-fire. In 1999 Prof. John W. Dower published "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II." Dower earlier published "War Without Mercy," a study of the war in the Pacific.
 (WSJ, 8/14/95, p. A-11)(AP, 8/14/97)(HNPD, 8/13/98)HN, 8/14/98) (WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A20)
1945  Aug 14, Japanese occupation of Hong Kong ended.
 (SFEC, 6/22/97, p.A14)

1945  Aug 15, Gasoline and fuel oil rationing ended in the United States.
 (HN, 8/15/98)
1945  Aug 15, This day was proclaimed “V-J Day” by the Allies, a day after Japan agreed to surrender unconditionally. At 7 p.m. reporters gathered in the Oval Office to hear President Harry S. Truman announce the unconditional surrender of Japan.
 (AP, 8/15/97)(HNPD, 8/13/98)
1945  Aug 15, The liberation of Korea from nearly 40 years of Japanese colonial rule.
 (SFC, 6/17/00, p.A9)

1945  Aug 16, Suzanne Farrel, ballerina, was born.
 (HN, 8/16/00)
1945  Aug 16, Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright, who was taken prisoner by the Japanese on Corregidor on May 6, 1942, was released from a POW camp in Manchuria by U.S. troops.
 (HN, 8/16/98)

1945  Aug 17, Indonesian nationalists declared independence from the Netherlands. Upon hearing confirmation that Japan has surrendered, Sukarno proclaims Indonesia’s independence. Sukarno helped lead Indonesia to independence from the Dutch. President Sukarno, an ardent nationalist, became president at the time of Indonesian independence and helped the Communists become the leading party in the country. The Dutch resisted and 4 years of fighting followed.
 (SFC, 10/12/96, p.A13)(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A12)(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.T7)(HNQ, 5/21/98)(AP, 8/17/99)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)(HN, 8/17/00)

1945  Aug 21, President Harry S. Truman ended the Lend-Lease program that had shipped some $50 billion in aid to America’s Allies during World War II.
 (AP, 8/21/97)(HN, 8/21/98)

1945  Aug 22, Soviet troops landed at Port Arthur and Dairen on the Kwantung Peninsula in China.
 (HN, 8/22/98)
1945  Aug 22, The French went into Indo-China in 1945.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.36)

1945  Aug 24, The women at the Japanese internment camp in Sumatra were liberated.
 (SFEC, 4/20/97, p.C3)
1945  Aug 24, A blast aboard a Japanese Navy transport carrying 4,000 Koreans home killed at least 524 Koreans and 25 Japanese crew members in Mizuru port in Kyoto. In 2001 a Japanese court awarded $375,000 to 15 Korean survivors of the explosion.
 (SFC, 8/24/01, p.A16)

1945  Aug 25, At Leavenworth Prison in Kansas the last US mass execution was held. 7 German U-boat seamen were hanged for the murder of a fellow seaman, a traitor in their eyes who spied on them on behalf of the US military.
 (HC, 1/29/98)

1945  Aug 27, B-29 Superfortress bombers began to drop supplies into Allied prisoner of war camps in China.
 (HN, 8/27/98)
1945  Aug 27, American troops began landing in Japan following the surrender of the Japanese government in World War II.
 (AP, 8/27/97)
1945  Aug 27, Life Magazine’s issue for VJ-Day featured a photo that Life photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt made on May 8, VE-Day when he got signalman Jim Reynolds to pose for a kiss with a nurse on Times Square. That the photo was posed was denied by Life and Reynold’s role was not verified. Edith Shain in a letter claimed to be the nurse with documented letters from Eisenstaedt.
 (WSJ, 8/14/96, p.A14)(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A11)

1945  Aug 28, US forces under General George Marshall landed in Japan.
 (HTNet, 8/28/99)
1945  Aug 28, Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-Tung arrived in Chunking to confer with Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek in a futile effort to avert civil war.
 (HN, 8/28/98)

1945  Aug 29, Gen MacArthur was named the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan.
 (MC, 8/29/01)
1945  Aug 29, U.S. airborne troops landed in transport planes at Atsugi airfield, southwest of Tokyo, beginning the occupation of Japan.
 (HN, 8/29/98)
1945  Aug 29, British liberated Hong Kong from Japan.
 (MC, 8/29/01)

1945  Aug 30, Gen. Douglas MacArthur arrived in Japan and set up Allied occupation headquarters.
 (AP, 8/30/97)
1945  Aug 30, Dmitri Shostakovitch completed his 9th Symphony.
 (MC, 8/30/01)

1945  Aug 31, Itzhak Perlman, violinist, was born.
 (HN, 8/31/00)
1945  Aug 31, Van Morrison, singer (Here Comes the Night), was born in Belfast, Ireland.
 (YN, 8/31/99)

1945  Aug, Harry Truman signed a death order for the execution of 7 German prisoners of war. The German submariners had killed an 8th POW for giving information to the US captors. They were hanged.
 (SFC, 4/19/97, p.E4)

1945  Summer’s end, The Ukrainian Trophy Brigade occupied the castle of Count von Althmann in Silesia, Poland. It was packed with Nazi archival records.
 (WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A18)

1945  Sep 1, Americans received word of Japan’s formal surrender that ended World War II. Because of the time difference, it was Sept. 2 in Tokyo Bay, where the ceremony took place.
 (AP, 9/1/97)

1945  Sep 2, The Japanese surrender delegation boarded the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay to formally sign documents of surrender, ending World War II.
 (WSJ, 8/31/95, p.A-10)(AP, 9/2/97)(HN, 9/2/98)
1945   Sep 2, Ho Chi Minh promulgated the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence and unity from the north to the south. He was known to have written letters to President Truman asking for humanitarian assistance and advocated political rather than military action. His letters went unanswered.
 (WSJ, 11/30/95, p.A-23)(SFEM, 6/9/96, p.9)(AP, 9/2/97)

1945  Sep 3, George Biondo (musician-Steppenwolf: Born to Be Wild), was born.
 (MC, 9/3/01)
1945  Sep 3, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the Japanese commander of the Philippines, surrendered to Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright at Baguio.
 (HN, 9/3/98)

1945  Sep 4, US regained possession of Wake Island from Japan. The American flag was raised on Wake Island after surrender ceremonies there.
 (HN, 9/4/98)(MC, 9/4/01)

1945  Sep 5, Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist "Tokyo Rose," was arrested in Yokohama. D'Aquino served six years in prison; she was pardoned in 1977 by President Ford. [see Oct 17]
 (AP, 9/5/99)

1945  Sep 8, Jose Feliciano, blind singer, was born.
 (MC, 9/8/01)
1945  Sep 8, Bess Myerson of New York was crowned Miss America, the first Jewish contestant to win the title.
 (AP, 9/8/99)
1945  Sep 8, Hideki Tojo, Japanese PM during most of WW II, failed in his attempted suicide rather than face war crimes tribunal attempt. He was later hanged.
 (MC, 9/8/01)
1945  Sep 8, Korea was partitioned by the Soviet Union and the United States. The US invaded Japanese-held Korea.
 (HN, 9/8/98)(MC, 9/8/01)

1945  Sep 9, The Japanese in S. Korea, Taiwan, China and Indochina surrendered to Allies.
 (MC, 9/9/01)
1945  Sep 9, The 1st "bug" in a computer program was discovered by Grace Hopper. A moth was removed with tweasers from a relay and taped into the log.
 (MC, 9/9/01)

1945  Sep 10, Vidkun Quisling was sentenced to death in Norway for collaborating with the Nazis.
 (AP, 9/10/97)

1945  Sep 11, Leo Kottke, guitarist (Ice Water, Greenhouse), was born in Athens, Ga.
 (MC, 9/11/01)

1945  Sep 12, French troops landed in Indochina.
 (HN, 9/12/98)

1945  Sep 13, Iran demanded the withdrawal of Allied forces.
 (HN, 9/13/98)

1945  Sep 15, Jesse Norman, soprano, was born.
 (HN, 9/15/00)

1945  Sep 16, Japan surrendered Hong Kong to Britain.
 (HN, 9/16/98)

1945  Sep 18, 1000 white children walked out of Gary, Indiana, schools to protest integration.
 (MC, 9/18/01)

1945  Sep 19, Nazi propagandist William Joyce, known as “Lord Haw-Haw,” was sentenced to death by a British court.
 (AP, 9/19/97)

1945  Sep 20, German rocket engineers began work in US.
 (MC, 9/20/01)

1945  Sep 22, President Truman accepted U.S. Secretary of War Stimson’s recommendation to designate the war World War II.
 (HN, 9/22/98)

1945  Sep 23, The first American died in Vietnam during the fall of Saigon to French forces.
 (HN, 9/23/98)

1945  Sep 25, Bela Bartok, Hungarian composer, died at 64. [see Sep 26]
 (MC, 9/25/01)

1945  Sep 26, Bryan Ferry, singer in group Roxy Music and solo, was born.
 (MC, 9/26/01)
1945  Sep 26, Bela  Bartok, Hungarian pianist and composer, died at 64. [see Sep 25]
 (MC, 9/26/01)

1945  Sep 27, Misha Dichter, pianist (Tchaikovsky 2nd prize-1966), was born in Shanghai, China.
 (MC, 9/27/01)
1945  Sep 27, Stephanie Pogue, artist and art professor, was born.
 (HN, 9/27/98)

1945  Sep 28, "Mildred Price" starring Joan Crawford opened at the Strand.
 (MC, 9/28/01)

1945  Oct 6, Gen Eisenhower was welcomed in Hague on Hitler's train.
 (MC, 10/6/01)

1945  Oct 8, President Truman announced that the secret of the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada.
 (AP, 10/8/97)

1945  Oct 11, Negotiations between Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and Communist leader Mao Tse-tung broke down. Nationalist and Communist troops we soon engaged in a civil war.
 (HN, 10/11/98)

1945  Oct 15, The former Vichy French Premier Pierre Laval was executed by a firing squad for his wartime collaboration with the Germans.
 (AP, 10/15/97)(HN, 10/15/98)

1945  Oct 17, Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist "Tokyo Rose," was arrested by 3 CIC officers in her Tokyo apartment. [see Sep 5]
 (AH, 10/02, p.27)
1945  Oct 17, Col. Juan Peron staged a coup, becoming absolute ruler of Argentina.
 (AP, 10/17/97)

1945  Oct 18, The first German War Crimes Trial began in 1945. The International Military Tribunal met at Nuremberg and lasted through to 1946. Ranking nazi officials were tried and convicted of war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. The proceedings were endorsed by the UN. William D. Denson (d.1998 at 85) was the chief prosecutor for the US.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.40)(MT, Dec. ‘95, p.16)(SFC, 12/14/98, p.C4)
  Telford Taylor in 1992 published “Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials.” He helped write the rules for the prosecution of the war criminals and became the trial’s chief prosecutor.
 (SFC, 5/26/98, p.B2)

1945  Oct 19, Divine, [Harris Glenn Milstead], cross-dressing actor-actress (Pink Flamingo), was born in Baltimore, Md.
 (MC, 10/19/01)

1945  Oct 20, British Chief Justice Geoffrey Lawrence opened the trial of Nuremberg.
 (MC, 10/20/01)
1945  Oct 20, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon formed the Arab League to present a unified front against the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
 (HN, 10/20/98)

1945  Oct 21, Women in France were allowed to vote for the first time.
 (AP, 10/21/99)

1945  Oct 23, Jackie Robinson signed a Montreal Royal contract.
 (MC, 10/23/01)

1945  Oct 24,  The United Nations was born with the ratification of its charter by the first 29 nations at a San Francisco Conference chaired by the State Department’s Alger Hiss.
 (CFA, '96, p.56)(TMC, 1994, p.1945)(AP, 10/24/97)(HN, 10/24/98)
1945  Oct 24, Vidkun Quisling, Norway's wartime minister president, was executed by firing squad for collaboration with the Nazis.
 (HN, 10/24/00)
1945  Oct 24, Robert Ley, Nazi, committed suicide.
 (MC, 10/24/01)

1945  Oct 25, Japanese surrendered Taiwan to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.
 (MC, 10/25/01)

1945  Oct 26, Pat Conroy, American writer (Great Santini, Prince of Tides), was born. [see Oct 26, 1944]
 (MC, 10/26/01)

1945  Oct 29, A.B. ("Happy") Chandler, resigned as a US Senator. He remained as baseball commissar.
 (MC, 10/29/01)
1945  Oct 29, The first ball-point pen was sold by Gimbell's department store in New York for a price of $12.
 (HN, 10/29/00)

1945  Oct 30, The U.S. government announced the end of shoe rationing.
 (AP, 10/30/97)

1945  Nov 1, John H. Johnson published the first issue of Ebony magazine.
 (HN, 11/1/98)

1945  Nov 6, HUAC began an investigation of 7 radio commentators.
 (MC, 11/6/01)
1945  Nov 6, The first landing of a jet on a carrier took place on the USS Wake Island when an FR-1 Fireball touched down.
 (HN, 11//99)

1945  Nov 8, A riverboat sank off Hong Kong and 1,550 were killed.
 (MC, 11/8/01)

1945  Nov 9, FBI agents staked out a house in Berkeley, Ca., to watch George Eltenton, a suspected Soviet spy. In 1946 Eltenton admitted that he had tried to obtain secret data on Berkeley’s radiation lab. Eltenton moved to Britain in 1947.
 (SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F2)

1945  Nov 11, Jerome Kern (60), US composer (Sally, Leave it to Jane), died.
 (MC, 11/11/01)

1945  Nov 12, Tracy Kidder, writer, was born. (Among Schoolchildren, Old Friends).
 (HN, 11/12/00)
1945  Nov 12, Neil Percival Young, musician, singer and songwriter, was born in Toronto. His rock groups later included “Buffalo Springfield,” “Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young” and “Crazy Horse.” In 2002 Jimmy McDonough authored: “Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography.”
 (SSFC, 5/12/02, p.M1)(MC, 11/12/01)
1945  Nov 12, Cordell Hull (d.1955) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in founding the United Nations. Hull served as secretary of state in the Franklin Roosevelt Administration (1933-1944) longer than any other individual. Hull, born in Tennessee in 1871, had been a U.S. senator prior to his appointment by Roosevelt.
 (HNQ, 7/6/98)(MC, 11/12/01)

1945  Nov 13, Charles de Gaulle was elected president of France.
 (HN, 11/13/98)

1945  Nov 14, H. Lindsay & R. Crouse "State of the Union," premiered in NYC.
 (MC, 11/14/01)

1945  Nov 16, Eighty-eight German scientists, holding Nazi secrets, arrived in the U.S.
 (HN, 11/16/98)

1945  Nov 20, Dmitri Shostakovitch's 9th Symphony  premiered.
 (MC, 11/20/01)
1945  Nov 20, 24 Nazi leaders went on trial before an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.
 (AP, 11/20/97)

1945  Nov 21, Goldie Hawn, Takoma Park, Md., actress (Laugh-in, Private Benjamin), was born.
 (MC, 11/21/01)
1945  Nov 21, General Motors workers went on strike.
 (MC, 11/21/01)
1945  Nov 21, The last residents of the US Japanese-American internment left their camps.
 (SFEC, 4/13/97, Z1 p.6)
1945  Nov 21, Robert Benchley (56), US humorist (My 10 Years in a Quandary), died.
 (MC, 11/21/01)

1945  Nov 23, Most U.S. wartime rationing of foods, including meat and butter, ended.
 (AP, 11/23/97)

1945  Nov 27, Gen. George C. Marshall was named special U.S. envoy to China to try to end hostilities between the Nationalists and the Communists.
 (AP, 11/27/99)
1945  Nov 27, Argentina declared war on Axis.
 (HN, 11/27/98)

1945  Nov 28, Deborah Kerr wed Anthony Bartley.
 (DT, 11/28/97)

1945  Nov 30, Radu Lupu, pianist (Enesco 1st prize-1967), was born in Galati, Romania.
 (MC, 11/30/01)
1945  Nov 30, Russian forces took Danzig, and invaded Austria.
 (HN, 11/30/98)

1945  Nov, Glenn Miller’s Army Band was dissolved.
 (WSJ, 10/24/96, p.A16)

1945  Dec 1, Bette Midler, singer, actress (Do You Want to Dance?), was born in Patterson, NJ.
 (MC, 12/1/01)

1945  Dec 4, The Senate approved U.S. participation in the United Nations.
 (AP, 12/4/97)

1945  Dec 5, Four TBM Avenger bombers disappear approximately 100 miles off the coast of Florida, in what is considered the Bermuda Triangle.
 (HN, 12/5/99)

1945  Dec 6, U.S. extended a $3 billion loan to Britain to help compensate for the termination of Lend-Lease.
 (HN, 12/6/98)

1945  Dec 7, The microwave oven was patented. Percy Spencer accidentally discovered that microwaves would also heat food. Spencer, an eighth-grade dropout and electronic wizard, worked for the Raytheon Manufacturing Corporation of Massachusetts developing a radar machine using microwave radiation.
 (HN, 9/5/01)(MC, 12/7/01)

1945  Dec 11, B-29 Superfortress shattered all records by crossing the U.S. in five hours and 27 minutes.
 (HN, 12/11/98)

1945  Dec 13, France and Britain agreed to quit Syria and Lebanon.
 (HN, 12/13/98)

1946  Dec 15, Vietnam leader Ho Chi Minh sent a note to the new French Premier, Leon Blum, asking for peace talks.
 (HN, 12/15/98)

1945  Dec 19, Congress confirmed Eleanor Roosevelt as the U.S. delegate to the UN.
 (HN, 12/19/98)
1945  Dec 19, Jean Giraudoux' "La Folle de Chaillot," premiered in Paris.
 (MC, 12/19/01)

1945  Dec 20, The US Office of Price Administration announced the end of tire rationing, effective Jan. 1, 1946.
 (AP, 12/20/97)

1945  Dec 21, Gen. George S. Patton died at the age of 60 in Heidelberg, Germany, of injuries from a car accident. He was buried at Hamm, Luxembourg. A biography of Patton was written in 1995 by Carlo D’Este titled: “Patton: A Genius for War.” In 1998 Brian Sobel published “The Fighting Pattons.” It was a history of the Patton family.
 (AP, 12/21/97)(WSJ, 8/14/98, p.W7)(HN, 12/21/98)

1945  Dec 22, Diane Sawyer, newscaster (60 Minutes, ABC Prime Time), was born in Glasgow, Ky.
 (MC, 12/22/01)
1945  Dec 22, The U.S. recognized Tito's government in Yugoslavia.
 (HN, 12/22/98)

1945  Dec 23, Frederick Ashton's "Cinderella" premiered in London.
 (MC, 12/23/01)

1945  Dec 26, The Big Three, the US, Soviet Union and Great Britain, ended a 10-day meeting, seeking an atomic rule by the UN Council.
 (HN, 12/26/98)

1945  Dec 27, Arthur Laurent's "Home of the Brave," premiered in NYC.
 (MC, 12/27/01)
1945  Dec 27, Foreign ministers from the former Allied nations of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain agreed to divide Korea into two separate occupation zones and to govern the nation for five years.
 (MC, 12/27/01)
1945  Dec 27, 28 nations signed an agreement creating the World Bank. The International Monetary Fund and the Bank for Reconstruction and Development was created. Better known as the World Bank, the IMF was created to promote healthy international trade.
 (AP, 12/27/97)(HN, 12/27/98)
1945  Dec 27, The Dutch formally relinquished sovereignty to Indonesia.
 (WSJ, 7/24/01, p.B4)

1945  Dec 28, Congress officially recognized the “Pledge of Allegiance.”
 (AP, 12/28/97)
1945  Dec 28, Max Hastings, British editor-in-chief (Daily Telegraph), historian, was born.
 (MC, 12/28/01)

1945  Dec 31, The ratification of the UN Charter was completed.
 (MC, 12/31/01)
1945  Dec 31, Czechoslovakia began forcing the German population of the Sudetenland back to Germany.
 (WSJ, 11/25/96, p.A15)

1945  Dec, In Albania elections were held for the People's Assembly. Only members of the Democratic Front were permitted to participate.
 (www, Albania, 1998)

1945  The German Quedlinburg Manuscript of 1516 and other church treasures were stolen from a cave where they were being stored and guarded. Lt. Joe Tom Meador of Whitewright, Texas, shipped 13 items home. They were then sold by his brother and sister. In 1996 a criminal trial focused on the issue.
 (WSJ, 12/11/96, p.A20)

1945  The Schliemann treasure from Troy, bequeathed to the German people, was shipped by the Soviets to Moscow.
 (WSJ, 4/17/96, p.A-18)

1945  Willem de Kooning painted “Study for Pink Angels” and “Still Life.”
 (SFC, 6/28/02, p.D1)

1945  Pierre Bonnard painted his “Large Landscape, South of France (Le Cannet).”
 (WSJ, 6/24/98, p.A16)

1945  Polish born painter Irving Norman won the prestigious Albert Bender Prize. His work included The Bridge (1953), War and Peace (1965-67), and Rebellions and Revolutions (1970). He was much influenced by his experiences in Spain while serving with the Abraham Lincoln battalion against Gen’l. Franco.
 (SFEM, 9/22/96, p.33,34)

1945  Georgia O’Keeffe painted “Pelvis Series, Red With Yellow.”
 (SFC, 7/16/97, p.E3)

1945  Jackson Pollock (d.1956) and Lee Krasner (d.1984) purchased a property in East Hampton, NY, with a loan from Peggy Guggenheim. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1994. (www.pkhouse.org)
 (Brochure, 2002)

1945  The photograph used for a “Rosie the Riveter” poster was taken at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, Ca. Charles Etta Turner, 21, posed for the photo at which time she also met her future husband.
 (SFC, 10/4/96, p.A1)

1945  Alan Cranston, later US Senator, authored “The Killing of the Peace,” about America’s decision to stay out of the League of Nations.
 (SFC, 1/1/01, p.A5)

1945  John Hersey won a Pulitzer Prize for his novel “Bell for Adano.” It was later made into a Broadway play and a movie. The story was modeled on Major Frank E. Toscani (d.2001 at 89), military governor of Licata, Italy.
 (SFC, 1/30/01, p.A22)

1945  George Orwell authored “Animal Farm.”
 (SFEC, 10/1/00, BR p.5)

1945  Varian Fry published “Surrender on Demand,” the story of his experiences helping some 4,000 Jewish refugees escape from France between 1940-1941.
 (SFC, 3/11/98, p.E3)

1945  Chester Himes authored "If He Hollers Let Him Go," an exploration of work-place racism.
 (SFC, 5/9/03, p.E7)

1945  Christopher Isherwood wrote his novella “Prater Violet.” It was about a young English screenwriter and an old Austrian director and the romance of filmmaking.
 (WSJ, 11/25/98, p.A16)

1945  Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002) of Sweden authored her novel “Pippi Longstocking.”
 (SFC, 1/29/02, p.A17)

1945  Writer Richard Patrick Russ changed his name to Patrick O’Brian. He went on to author 20 sea novels that featured Capt. Jack Aubrey and surgeon Stephen Maturin. In 2000 Dean King published “Patrick O’Brian: A Life Revealed.”
 (SFEC, 4/30/00, BR p.3)

1945  John Steinbeck wrote his novel “Cannery Row.”
 (SFEC, 6/21/98, DB p.35)

1945  Meridel Le Sueur (1900-1996) wrote “North Star Country.” It told the story of how Minnesota and Wisconsin were settled.
 (SFEC, 11/24/96, C12)

1945  E.B. White published his children’s book “Stuart Little,” about a tiny mouse that is adopted by a family. It was planned as a movie in 1998.
(NG, 5/93, p.6)(SFC, 7/17/98, p.D5)

1945  The nonfiction book by Ira Wolfert “American Guerilla in the Philippines” was made into a 1950 film of the same title.
 (SFC,11/28/97, p.B8)

1945  Richard Wright (1908-1960) authored “Black Boy.”
 (SSFC, 8/12/01, DB p.61)

1945  JB Priestly, British playwright, staged his thriller “An Inspector Calls.” The play is set in 1912.
 (SFC, 4/12/96, p.D-1)

1945  Mary Hunter Wolf (d.2000 at 95) made her Broadway debut as director of “Only the Heart.”
 (SFC, 11/13/00, p.A24)

1945  Paramount Studios released a theatrical short cartoon titled “The Friendly Ghost.” It featured Casper, a character invented by Seymour V. Reit (d.2001 at 81) and 1st drawn by Joe Oriolo.
 (SFC, 12/19/01, p.A25)

1945  Rogers and Hammerstein converted the 1933 film “State Fair” into a musical film with original songs.
 (WSJ, 3/29/96, p.A-9)(SFC, 6/19/97, p.A22)

1945  Samuel Barber composed his “Sonata for Piano and Cello, Op.6.”
 (SFC, 1/30/97, p.B3)

1945  Pierre Boulez, composer, wrote his “Opus 1, a Sonatina for Flute and Piano.”
 (WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A16)

1945  Hadda Brooks (d. 2002 at 86) sang the hit “Swingin’ With the Boogie,” her 1st record.
 (SFC, 11/23/02, p.A19)

1945  In Germany Hans Pfitzner composed his last work: “the Sextet for Piano, Clarinet and Strings.”
 (WSJ, 7/29/97, p.A12)

1945  Oscar Peterson, Canadian Jazz pianist, in a trio made his first record for Victor.
 (WSJ, 1/11/95, A-12)

1945  George Kleinsinger composed “Tubby the Tuba,” a children’s piece about a fat, brass tuba. It was re-issued in 1997 on a CD.
 (SFEM, 8/31/97, p.13)

1945  Todd Duncan (d.1998 at 95), baritone, became the first black artist to perform with the NY City Opera as Tonio in “Pagliacci.”
 (SFC, 3/3/98, p.D8)

1945  Benjamin Britten composed his opera "Peter Grimes."
 (SFC, 12/29/99, p.E1)

1945  Florence Wysinger “Flo” Allen (d.1997 at 84), legendary SF artist’s model, founded the Models Guild. She was sketched, painted and sculpted by such artists as: Diego Rivera, Mark Rothko, Elmer Bischoff, Hassel Smith, Roy De Forest, Ralph Du Casse, Wayne Thiebaud, Eleanor Dickenson, Beth Van Heusen, Mark Adams, Richard Shaw, Nathan Oliveira, Karl Kasten, Glenn Wessels, Helen Salz, Art Grant, Joan Brown, Frank Lobdell and Bill Wiley.
 (SFC, 6/18/97, p.A20)

1945  The Kentucky Derby was won by Hoop Jr., owned by Fred Hooper (d.2000 at 102).
 (SFC, 8/5/00, p.A21)

1945  The Pulitzer Prize for drama went to Mary Chase for her play “Harvey.”
 (SFEC, 4/13/97, DB p.54)

1945  Sir Alexander Fleming was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his co-discovery of penicillin along with Ernst B. Chain (b.1908), German chemist, bacteriologist.
 (WUD, 1994, p.542)(MC, 6/10/02)
1945  Wolfgang Pauli (b.1900), Austrian-born physicist, received the Nobel prize.
 (SS, 4/25/02)

1945  William O’Dwyer was elected mayor of NYC. He left the post after 5 years to become the ambassador to Mexico.

1945  Saipan and some nearby islands began to be administered by the US on behalf of the United Nations after WW II.
 (WSJ, 2/20/97, p.A20)

1945  US submarine losses for WW II totaled 52.
 (SFC, 5/27/97, p.A17)

c1945  LCVPs (landing craft vehicle, personnel). LCVPs (landing craft vehicle, personnel), an innovation by Andrew Jackson Higgins prompted General Dwight D. Eisenhower to refer to Higgins as "the man who won the war for us." For the Allied war effort Andrew Jackson Higgins designed and built approximately 20,094 boats and landing craft, including the LCVPs, LCPLs (landing craft personnel, large) and LCMs (landing craft, mechanized) that made beach landings of large numbers of equipment and troops, such as D-Day, possible.
 (HNQ, 6/11/01)

1945  It was made illegal to chew tobacco in any US federal building.
 (SFC, 1/30/99, p.D3)

1945  From this year on Congress left the regulation of the insurance industry to the individual states.
 (WSJ, 1/14/98, p.A1)

1945  The 120 members of the Werner von Braun German rocket team came to the US to help start the US space program.
 (SFC, 4/4/98, p.A24)

1945  John S. Service (d.1999 at 89), one of the US "China hands" experts, participated in the "Dixie Mission" as a US Foreign Service officer, and visited Mao Zedong at Yanan. He reported that Chiang Kai-shek was vulnerable due to corruption and that the Communists would win the war. The US ambassador to China, Army Gen'l. Patrick Hurley, ordered him back to the US and later accused him of handing secret US documents to the Chinese. In the US Service was arrested by the FBI in the Amerasia affair and became a target of Joseph McCarthy. He was dismissed from the State Dept. in 1951 but later vindicated.
 (SFC, 2/5/99, p.D4)

1945  With the war over 16 million GIs began reentry to civilian life. Some 406,000 Americans died in WW II. In 1987 a national war memorial was proposed and in 1993 Congress approved funding to build it on the Mall in Washington DC. www.wwiimemorial.com
 (TMC, 1994, p.1945)(SFEC, 5/30/99, Par p.16)

1945  The US War Production Board lifted the motor vehicle production ban.
 (WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)

1945  The Soviets presented American ambassador Averell Harriman a plaque that contained a listening device designed by Leon Theremin. Harriman hung the seal over his desk and the implanted device was not discovered until 1952.
 (ON, 11/01, p.8)

1945  The offices of Amerasia, a twice-monthly journal of Asian affairs, were raided by the US government. Hundreds of classified documents of US-China policy and other matters were found.
 (SFC, 7/19/96, p.B1)

1945  The US Forest Service named “Smokey the Bear” as its spokesman to fight forest fires. “Remember, only you can prevent forest fires.” Rudolph A. Wendelin (d.2000 at 90) served as the “caretaker” of the Smokey Bear icon. [see 1944]
 (SFEC, 9/3/00, p.C8)

1945  The 1st plastic mannequin was introduced.
 (SSFC, 2/24/02, p.M6)

1945  Joseph P. Kennedy bought Chicago’s Merchandise Mart for $13 million, less than half of what it cost to build.
 (WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A1)

1945  Henry Ford II (1917-1987) was named president of the Ford Motor company.
 (WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)

1945  Bill Miller (d.2002 at 98) bought the Las Vegas hotel Riviera. It closed in 1953 to make way for the Palisades Parkway.
 (SFC, 12/17/02, p.A23)

c1945  After WW II the Topps Co. of Brooklyn began wrapping bubble gum in comics and calling it Bazooka.
 (SFC, 1/13/98, p.A19)

1945  British author Arthur C. Clarke was the first to put forward the idea of a communications satellite in a magazine article in 1945. The American satellite Telestar, launched in 1962, ushered in the age of satellite communications.
 (HNQ, 4/21/99)

1945  At the Mayo Clinic streptomycin was first used to treat TB. Also the first lab principles to evaluate chemotherapy were established.
 (SFC, 7/5/96, PM, p.5)

1945  Mary Caroline Richards (d.1999 at 83) joined the faculty at Black Mountain College near Ashville N.C. Her later books included "The Crossing Point" (1973), "Opening Our Moral Eye" (1996), "Imagine Inventing Yellow" (1991) and "Toward Wholeness: Rudolf Steiner Education in America."
 (SFC, 9/21/99, p.E4)

1945  A new medium priced home in the US was priced at $7,500.
 (WSJ, 6/14/96, p.B10)

1945  The industrial force exceeded the number of people engaged in agriculture in France.
 (V.D.-H.K.p.284)

1945  Ralph Ellis Jr. was released from commitment. He had collected some 65,000 books, plates, manuscripts and illustrations with such a mania that his mother feared bankruptcy and had him committed.
 (SFC, 9/6.96, p.C5)

1945  The US merchant marine ship Bushnell sank in the Arctic Ocean after being hit by a German torpedo. It was headed for the Russian port of Murmansk.
 (SFC,12/9/97, p.A15)

1945  W.T. Anderson, editor and publisher of the Macon Telegraph, died. He willed much of his wealth to help indigent blacks receive medical care but by 1996 his will had still not been executed. The original bequest of $600,000 had only grown to $2 million and the executor’s were under scrutiny for negligence.
 (WSJ, 9/27/96, p.B1)

1945  Bela Bartok, Hungarian composer, died of leukemia in New York. He composed the 6 volume Mikrokosmos for piano students amongst other extensive works.
 (WSJ, 8/18/95, p.A-1)

1945  Robert Benchley, New Yorker theater critic and actor, died. He was a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table. Members included George S. Kaufman, Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woolcott, Robert Sherwood, Heywood Broun, Franklin P. Adams, Edna Ferber and Marc Connelly. In 1997 Billy Altman wrote: “Laughter’s Gentle Soul: The Life of Robert Benchley.” His films included “Foreign Correspondent” by Alfred Hitchcock and “I Married a Witch” by Rene Clair.
 (WSJ, 4/14/97, p.A13)

1945  Edgar Cayce (b.1877), American mystic, died. Jess Stearn (d.2002) authored “The Sleeping Prophet: The Life and work of Edgar Cayce” (1968), and “A Prophet in His Own Country: The Story of the Young Edgar Cayce” (1974). In 2000 Sidney D. Kirkpatrick authored Edgar Cayce, An American Prophet.
 (SFEC, 7/26/98, BR p.3)(SSFC, 1/14/01, BR p.12)(SFC, 4/2/02, p.A15)

1945  David Lloyd George (b.1863), former British prime minister (1916-1922), died.
 (WUD, 1994 p.839)

1945  Milton Hershey (b.1857), Philadelphia chocolate tycoon, died.
 (WSJ, 8/12/99, p.A1)

1945  Rene Jules Lalique, French jewelry designer, died.
 (SFC, 5/8/03, p.A26)

1945  Paul Valery (b.1871), French poet, died and was buried in his home town of Sete.
 (SSFC, 6/17/01, p.T10)

1945  Anton Webern (b.1883), Austrian composer, died. He was accidentally shot by an American soldier policing his town.
 (WSJ, 2/14/00, p.A20)

1945  N.C. Wyeth, illustrator of children’s adventure books, died. He was the father of artist Andrew Wyeth and grandfather of artist Jamie Wyeth.
 (SFEC, 4/30/00, p.T3)

1945  Austria retrieved some 18,000 looted artworks from a US Army depot in Munich. The bulk of them were restituted to former owners over the next 3 years.
 (WSJ, 12/9/98, p.A20)

1945  In Britain Clement Atlee was the prime minister after WW II. The Labor party toppled Winston Churchill with a 146-seat majority win.
 (WSJ, 2/21/97, p.A12)(WSJ, 5/2/97, p.A1)

1945  Some 732 teenage concentration camp survivors were settled in Britain. They formed the Primrose Club of London in 1947 to maintain contact. Their story was told in the 1997 book “The Boys: The Story 0f 732 Young Concentration Camp Survivors” by Martin Gilbert.
 (SFC, 7/8/97, p.B4)

1945  In China Aisingyoro Henry Puyi, the last emperor, Xuantong, and the figurehead ruler of the Manchurian state, was captured by Soviet troops and later turned over the Chinese Communists. He was sent to a re-education camp.
 (SFC, 6/11/97, p.C16)

1945  In France the magazine Point de Vue was founded as a general-interest publication. By the 1960s its coverage was directed to royalty.
 (WSJ, 1/30/97, p.A16)

1945  The Salon de Mai was held in France and organized to continue the French tradition of salon art exhibits, but by this time artists no longer needed salon approval and presented their work through public galleries. private exhibitions, and individual art dealers.
 (Calg. Glen., 1996)

1945  In Germany an American air raid destroyed most of the buildings of Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest” above the town of Berchtesgaden in the Alps. The area was used by the Americans for recreational purposes until it was returned to Bavaria in 1996
 (LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.16A)

c1945  In Germany Josef Ritter von Gadolla saved the people, the old town and the square of Gotha by surrendering to the advancing Americans. He was shot for surrendering without a fight. His conviction was overturned in 1998.
 (SFC, 1/21/98, p.C12)

1945  In Germany a US transport train collided with a trainload of German war prisoners and 102 people were killed.
 (SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)

1945  In Germany Albert A. Hutler (d.1998 at 89) served as chief of the Displaced Persons Section of the US 7th Army Military Government. He authored “Agony of Survival” in 1988, a recounting of his efforts to aid the concentration camp survivors.
 (SFC, 10/24/98, p.A22)

c1945  In Hong Kong Nadya Jacobova Moiseeva (daughter of Jacob Moiseef) and John Henry McCann, a former officer with Gen’l. Claire Chennault and the Flying Tigers, managed CAT Airlines, formed by formed by former Flying Tiger pilots. The couple had met and married in Shanghai in 1944.
 (SFC, 12/2/97, p.A22)

c1945  The India Gate in New Delhi was built to memorialize the 85,000 Indians who died in WW II.
 (Hem., 2/97, p.58)

1945  Indonesia claimed West Timor.
 (SFC, 3/3/98, p.A6)

1945  From Iraq foreign minister Fadhel al-Jamali (1903-1997) signed the UN Charter for Iraq. He later became prime minister under colonial rule and tried to get more freedom from Britain.
 (SFC, 5/27/97, p.A22)

1945  An uprising in Kosovo was put down by Tito’s Communists.
 (SFC, 3/14/98, p.A8)

1945  The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) was founded by Mullah Mustafa Barzani. He played a major role in establishing the short-lived Kurdish Republic of Mehabad, “Red” Kurdistan, in Iran. In the 30s and 40s he had organized “Pesh merga” guerrillas from clans in the Zagros region.
 (SFC, 9/4/96, p.A7)(WSJ, 12/20/02, p.A14)

1945  On the island of Saipan thousands of (Japanese) civilians killed their wives and children and then committed suicide (hara-kiri). This was in response to imminent US takeover and is quoted from an eye-witness account along with other incidents.
 (WSJ, 6/13/95, p.A-19)

1945  In Lithuania the 2nd Communist invasion occurred.
 (DrEE, 11/23/96, p.3)

1945  In the Philippines the US recaptured the island of Corregidor and nearly 6,000 Japanese soldiers leapt to their death off a ridge rather than face capture and dishonor.
 (SFEC, 12/15/96, p.T6)

1945  The Portuguese returned after WW II to run Roman Catholic East Timor.
 (SFC, 10/12/96, p.A13)

1945  Russian code clerk Igor Gouzenko defected to Canada and Elizabeth Bentley changed her role from Soviet courier to FBI informant. They helped the West gain an understanding of Soviet spy rings in North America.
 (WSJ, 9/22/99, p.A22)

1945  The Soviet Army adopted the SKS-45, a semi-automatic rifle adopted. It fired the same 7.62x39mm round as the AK-47, which was a shortened, lighter round that was the standard Soviet cartridge of World War II. This meant the rifle firing the round could be lighter, and the soldier could carry more ammunition. Although VC and NVA soldiers preferred the fully-automatic AK-47, the SKS was an effective weapon that many of them carried during the Vietnam war.
 (HNQ, 6/3/02)

c1945  After the war Sweden returned about 14 tons of presumably looted gold to Belgium and the Netherlands that it had received from the Nazis in payment for exports.
 (SFC,1/22/97, p.A9)

1945  Switzerland agreed with the US to freeze financial transactions with Germany in early 1945. The agreement was violated.
 (SFC, 12/1/97, p.A10)

1945  The Union Bank of Switzerland took over the Eidgenoessische Bank which had built up an extensive business with Germany during the Third Reich.
 (SFC, 1/17/97, p.A1)

1945  The island of Taiwan was returned to Chinese control following the Japanese occupation during WW II.
 (SFC, 6/9/97, p.A8)

1945  A secret internal US Treasury Dept. document, hidden for 50 years, revealed in 1997 that the Vatican held some 200 million Swiss francs plundered from Serbs and Jews by the Nazi puppet government of Croatia after WW II.
 (SFC, 7/22/97, p.A8)

1945  In Vietnam Bao Dai abdicated his throne in the city of Hue with the approach of the Viet Minh guerrillas. He moved to China and then became an advisor to Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi until 1949 when the French set him up as chief of state of Vietnam.
 (SFC, 8/2/97, p.A21)

1945  In Vietnam Ho Chi Minh united the north and south. He was known to have written letters to President Truman asking for humanitarian assistance and advocated political rather than military action. His letters went unanswered.
 (WSJ, 11/30/95, p.A-23)

1945-1946 Picasso painted his purposely unfinished “Charnal House.”
 (SFC, 10/10/98, p.E8)

c1945-1946 After the war the US and its allies made a deal with the Swiss to accept repayment of $60 million and waived further claims. The claims were for gold acquired from the Nazis during the war. Much of the gold was from occupied countries and Jews.
 (FB, 9/12/96, p.A9)

1945-1946 In India the British government organized elections for a constituent assembly.
 (SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)

1945-1947 The US West Coast sardine industry plummeted from abundance to empty nets.
 (PacDis, Summer ’97, p.2)

1945-1947 A nutrition study at Vanderbilt Univ. gave a radioactive iron tracer to 829 women. Four of their children later died of childhood cancers. In 1998 a $10.3 million settlement was awarded to the women.
 (SFC, 7/28/98, p.A2)

1945-1950 In 2002 Ruth Gay authored “Safe Among the Germans,” an account of Eastern European Jews in the post-war refugee camps.
 (SFC, 9/19/02, p.D12)

1945-1952 Lithuanian Freedom Fighters (partizanai) continued resistance against Soviet occupation.
 (DrEE, 11/23/96, p.6)

1945-1953 Harry S. Truman became the 33rd President of the US. He was elected Vice-President under FD Roosevelt in 1945, and assumed the presidency upon Roosevelt’s death. “Make no little plans,” advised Harry. “Make the biggest one you can think of and spend the rest of your life carrying it out.”
 (A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo,171)(SFEC, 11/17/96, zone 1 p.2)

1945-1971 William Tubman, president of Liberia, began to address the inequalities between the Americo-Liberians and the native tribes.
 (SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)

1945-1973 The modern American middle class was created thanks to favorable economic trends and government policies that encouraged investments in education and home ownership.
 (LSA, Spg/97, p.21)

1945-1974 This period in US history is covered in a book by James T. Patterson. It is the 3rd volume of the Oxford History of the US and is titled: “Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974.”
 (WSJ, 6/7/96, p.A12)

1945-1988 The Swiss maintained contingency plans for building 400 nuclear warheads. A supply of uranium was maintained in Wimmis, 21 miles southeast of Berne.
 (SFC, 6/7/96, p.A12)

1945-2002 Some 100,000 nuclear bombs were manufactured over this period.
 (SSFC, 12/15/02, p.E6)

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