This page presents World War II Timeline events for the year 1945.
Links are provided in the timeline with additional information from Olive-Drab.com pages or relevant books on the event or subject. For additional compilations of the events of World War II, go to one of the recommended time line web sites listed at the bottom of the main WWII Timeline page. If you have other events to suggest, or spot any errors, please contact Olive-Drab.com.
| 1 January |
Operation Nordwind: last major German Army action in the west attacks US 7th Army & French 1st Army in NE France; halted by US reinforcements, 25 Jan.
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| 1 January |
Operation Bodenplatte: 800 German Luftwaffe aircraft attack Allied airfields in Belgium, Holland and northern France causing heavy losses.
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| 3 January |
New Pacific theater command structure puts Gen. Douglas MacArthur in command of all US ground forces; Adm. Nimitz commands all naval forces.
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| 4 January |
Operation Talon: British troops invade and occupy Akyab Island, Burma.
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| 9 January |
US invasion of Luzon, Philippines.
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| 12 January |
Japanese bombing balloon lands near Regina, Saskatchewa causing minor damage, one of over 9000 launched from Japan during 1944-1945 against US and Canada.
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| 12 January |
First convoy of 113 vehicles starts from Ledo [in India] via the reopened Burma Road to deliver supplies to China.
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| 16 January |
Adolf Hitler moves into the Führerbunker in Berlin, joined by his senior staff, where they will remain to the end of the war.
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| 16 January |
US 1st and 3rd Armies link up ending Battle of the Bulge.
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| 17 January |
Soviet troops capture Warsaw from German Army Group A who had occupied the city.
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| 20 January |
Hungary signs armistice with Allies. |
| 26 January |
The troops of Soviet General Georgy Zhukov, the 1st Byelorussian Front, cross the 1939 German-Polish border, moving West into Germany.
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| 27 January |
Soviet army enters Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland; more than 7000 remaining prisoners liberated.
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| 27 January |
Memel, Lithuania liberated by Red Army.
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| 28 January |
Rangers conduct their most complex operation of WW II, rescuing 511 Allied POWs from Japanese prison camp at Cabanatuan, Philippines.
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| 28 January |
German pushed back beyond their initial positions of 16 December 1944 bringing Battle of the Bulge to an end.
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| 31 January |
0600 hours: Soviet infantry crossed the Oder River ice to establish a bridgehead on the western side, 60 miles from Berlin.
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| 31 January |
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet in Malta.
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| 3 February |
US troops return to Manila, Philippines.
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| 4 February |
Yalta Conference between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin [Feb 4-12].
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| 4 February |
Supply truck convoy from India, en route since 12 January via the reopened Burma Road, arrives in Kunming, China.
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| 7 February |
Gen. Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila, Philippines.
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| 8 February |
Battle of the Reichswald: British and Canadian forces under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery begin Operation Veritable [8 Feb-11 Mar].
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| 13 February |
Dresden destroyed by Allied bombing firestorm in four raids [13-15 Feb].
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| 13 February |
Defenders surrender and Soviet forces occupy Budapest, ending a 100 day siege.
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| 19 February |
US Marines attack the Japanese held island of Iwo Jima, landing 30,000 troops on the congested beachhead the first day.
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| 21 February |
The last German V-2 rocket is launched from Peenemünde.
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| 23 February |
US Marines from 28th Marines, 5th Marine Division captured the summit of Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima, after days of intense fighting. Without realizing its significance, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal snapped the world famous Iwo Jima flag photo.
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| 23 February |
Allied Forces cross the Roer River [Operation Grenade].
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| 25 February |
Last pocket of Japanese resistance secured at Kitano Point, on the northern tip of Iwo Jima.
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| 26 February |
Japanese emerged from Iwo Jima caves to infiltrate US lines, staging a final bloody attack costing 100 American lives and another 200 wounded. Afterward, island declared secure.
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| 27 February |
Resistance ends on Corregidor, Manila Bay, Philippines after an assualt by US amphibious units.
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| 4 March |
With a new President in office since June 1944, and a truce with the USSR and Britain [Moscow Armistice, 19 Sep 1944], Finland finally declares war on Nazi Germany.
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| 4 March |
B-29 Superfortress Dinah Might lands on Iwo Jima while returning from bombing Tokyo, the first of 2251 emergency landings there that will save more than 20,000 airmen.
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| 5 March |
US 10th Mountain Division completes occupation of ridges and mountain crests, improving Allied positions in the Northern Apennines, preparing for invasion of the Po Valley.
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| 6 March |
Operation Frühlingserwachen: the last German operation of the war begins, to protect oil fields in the Lake Balaton region of Hungary, ended by 16 March.
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| 7 March |
US First Army, 9th Armored Division crosses Rhine at Remagen, unexpectedly capturing the Ludendorff Bridge intact.
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| 9 March |
279 B-29 Superfortress bombers ignite a firestorm in Tokyo, destroying 267,000 buildings, creating 1 million Japanese homeless [Mar 9-10].
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| 10 March |
Japanese incendiary balloon by chance becomes entangled in the electrical lines feeding the Hanford, WA plutonium reactor, forcing a shut down, the only American facility shut down by enemy action during WW II.
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| 16 March |
Formal end of fighting on Iwo Jima although pockets of Japanese resistance remain.
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| 16 March |
Würzburg, Germany 90 percent destroyed in 20 minute raid by British RAF bomber Group Number 5, with 5000 dead and missing.
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| 20 March |
Mandalay, Burma liberated from the Japanese by 19th Indian Division after diversionary attack at Meiktila [Mar 20-21].
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| 21 March |
Copenhagen, Denmark headquarters of the German secret police [Gestapo] bombed by 20 RAF Mosquitos escorted by 30 Mustangs. Nearby school accidently hit killing 123 civilians including 87 children.
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| 26 March |
US forces land on Kerama Islands in the Ryukyus, fifteen miles from Okinawa.
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| 27 March |
Final German V-2 rocket attacks of the war, one on Antwerp, killing 27 people, and one on England, which seriously injured 23 and killed one.
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| 29 March |
US Gen. George S. Patton's 3rd Army captures Frankfurt, Germany.
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| 29 March |
Last day of V-1 rocket bomb attacks on England.
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| 30 March |
As the Wehrmacht is pushed westward to Germany itself, Soviet troops capture West Prussian port city of Danzig.
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| 30 March |
German fortress city of Küstrin surrenders to Soviet troops after a 60 day siege, opening Reichsstrasse 1, the main route to Berlin now only 50 miles away.
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| 1 April |
US troops land on Okinawa.
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| 1 April |
Anne Frank dies from starvation, mistreatment and disease in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp [exact date unknown].
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| 4 April |
American troops liberate Ohrdruf death camp in Germany, the first encountered by US units.
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| 4 April |
War ends in Hungary with the expulsion of the last German troops.
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| 5 April |
Beginning of Allied operations to break out of the North Apennine mountains and surge into the Po Valley of Northern Italy.
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| 6 April |
Yugoslav Partisans liberate Sarajevo from the troops of Nazi Germany who then withdraw from Bosnia.
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| 6 April |
Japanese battleship Yamato and supporting ships sunk 200 miles [320 km] north of Okinawa while enroute there to relieve increasingly desperate defenders [6-7 Apr].
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| 7 April |
German aircraft ramming unit [Sonderkommando Elbe] makes its only flight, destroying 24 B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator bombers of the US Eighth Air Force.
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| 7 April |
Following the loss of Okinawa, Kantaro Suzuki becomes Prime Minister of Japan, ad advocte of ending the war on any terms, opposed by Japan's military leaders.
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| 8 April |
Japan's 20th Army launches the last major Japanese offensive in China, against Chihchiang, the Fourteenth Air Force's largest forward base south of the Yangtze.
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| 9 April |
Abwehr conspirators Wilhelm Canaris, Hans Oster and Hans Dohanyi are hanged at Flossenberg concentration camp, along with pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
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| 9 April |
Surrender of Königsberg, East Prussia [now Kaliningrad, Russia].
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| 11 April |
US Army troops liberate Buchenwald concentration camp, already taken over by its inmates.
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| 12 April |
President Franklin Roosevelt dies and V.P. Harry Truman becomes President.
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| 13 April |
Soviet Red Army enters Vienna, Austria.
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| 13 April |
Japanese wiped out on Fort Drum island, Manila Bay, Philippines after assault team sets off explosives in 3000 gallons of diesel fuel.
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| 14 April |
Gen. Truscott's US Fifth Army begins ground attack in the Po Valley of Northern Italy.
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| 15 April |
British-Canadian 21st Army Group liberates Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
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| 16 April |
After an immense artillery barrage, Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov's troops advance from the Oder River toward the Seelow Heights defenses of Berlin.
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| 16 April |
German troop transport Goya sunk by Soviet submarine L-3, with loss of about 7,000 lives.
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| 17 April |
German forces defeated by Brazilian troops who liberate the town of Montese, Italy.
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| 17 April |
US Eighth Army lands on Mindanao, liberating the last of the major Philippine Islands.
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| 18 April |
Esteemed American war correspondent Ernie Pyle killed by Japanese machine gun fire, island of Ie Shima off Okinawa.
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| 20 April |
Northern Italy: US 5th Army breaks out beyond the Apennines, into the broad Po River Valley, forcing retreat across the Po by forces of German Gen. Heinrich Von Vietinghoff.
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| 21 April |
Soviet Red Army reaches Berlin.
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| 21 April |
In Northern Italy, Bologna falls to the US 34th Infantry Division.
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| 22 April |
Heinrich Himmler, aware the Third Reich would end within days, attempts to surrender Germany to the Western Allies, but not the Soviet Union. Allies not interested.
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| 24 April |
Retreating German troops in Italy destroy all the bridges over the Adige in Verona, including the historical Ponte di Castelvecchio and Ponte Pietra.
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| 25 April |
United Nations founding meeting in San Francisco.
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| 25 April |
US and Soviet troops meet at Torgau, on the Elbe River in northwestern Saxony, Germany, only 60 miles from Berlin.
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| 26 April |
Last German panzer offensive operation, in Bautzen, Germany, initially gained ground, but battle ends with the city recaptured by Allies [21-26 Apr].
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| 26 April |
In Northern Italy, Verona falls to Allied troops.
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| 27 April |
In Northern Italy, the port of Genoa falls to Allied troops.
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| 28 April |
Benito Mussolini and mistress Clara Petacci executed by Italian Partisans, bodies hung by heels in Milan plaza.
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| 29 April |
British Lancaster bombers airdrop food to aid the starving Netherlands civilian population [Operation Manna].
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| 29 April |
Adolf Hitler and mistress Eva Braun are married in a civil ceremony at the Führerbunker in Berlin.
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| 29 April |
Dachau concentration camp near Munich liberated with the guards' surrender to US troops.
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| 30 April |
Germans abandon Stalag Luft I -- near Barth, Germany -- as advancing Russian forces near, liberating nearly 9,000 Allied airmen imprisoned there.
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| 30 April |
American troops enter Munich, Germany, the Bavarian capital, finding the city largely destroyed and undefended. |
| 30 April |
Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his bunker in Berlin.
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| 30 April |
Following Hitler's suicide, Adm. Karl Dönitz succeeds him as President of Germany while Joseph Göbbels succeeds as Chancellor.
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| 30 April |
Soviet flag raised over the Reichstag in Berlin.
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| 1 May |
Grand Admiral Dönitz takes command in Germany.
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| 2 May |
British Eighth Army forces in Northern Italy reach Trieste on the Adriatic where they join Tito's Yugoslavian Communist partisans.
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| 2 May |
Fall of Berlin to the Soviet Army.
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| 3 May |
German troops in Italy surrender, formally ending World War II in the Mediterranean.
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| 3 May |
Reconquest of Burma essentially completed with the capture of Rangoon.
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| 4 May |
US 349th Inf, moving north from Italy, meets patrols from 103rd Div (Seventh Army) coming from Austria in the north, at the Brenner Pass in the Alps, linking the European and Mediterranean fronts.
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| 5 May |
OSS Detachment 101 captures the Burma city of Sandoway from the Japanese.
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| 5 May |
Japanese balloon bomb attack killed six people in a rural area of Eastern Oregon, the only combat casualties for the United States in the 48 states.
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| 7 May |
Unconditional surrender of all German forces to Allies.
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| 8 May |
VE Day (Victory in Europe): celebrates the formal acceptance of the unconditional surrender Nazi Germany and the end of Hitler's Third Reich.
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| 9 May |
German officials in Berlin sign a document explicitly surrendering to Soviet forces in the presence of Soviet General Georgy Zhukov.
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| 19 May |
272 USAAF B-29 Superfortress bombers attack Hamamatsu, 120 miles (192 km) from Tokyo, as a secondary target after raid on Tachikawa aborted by weather.
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| 25 May |
Chiefs of Staff of US military set 1 November 1945 as start date for invasion of Japan [Operation Downfall]. The huge casualties of Downfall avoided by use of Atomic Bombs in Aug 1945.
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| 2 June |
Soviet delegates to proposed United Nations insist that permanent members of the Security Council, including USSR, have veto power in international disputes.
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| 12 June |
Yugoslav Army leaves Trieste; New Zealand Army takes control for the Allies.
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| 23 June |
Final battle on Okinawa ends with the harakiri suicide of Gen. Ushijima, Commander of the Japanese 32nd Army, and his Chief of Staff.
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| 26 June |
United Nations Charter signed in San Francisco.
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| 1 July |
Occupation forces from the US Britain and France enter Soviet-occupied Berlin.
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| 5 July |
In British election, Winston Churchill loses to Labour Party, Clement Atlee becomes Prime Minister.
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| 14 July |
Supreme headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), at Frankfurt-on-Main, was formally dissolved by General Eisenhower.
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| 14 July |
Italy issues a formal declaration of war to Japan, effective July 15, its nearly defeated former Axis partner, gaining nothing but symbolic alliance with the victorious Allies. |
| 16 July |
Trinity Test at the Alamogordo Test Range, New Mexico, detonates first US atomic bomb creating world's first nuclear explosion.
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| 17 July |
Potsdam Conference with Truman, Stalin, Churchill [17 Jul-2 Aug].
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| 23 July |
Submarine USS Barb [SS-220] destroys a Japanese locomotive and supply train at Patience Bay off the coast of Karafuto, Japan, the only known such attack by a submarine.
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| 26 July |
Allies issue the Potsdam Declaration calling for the surrender of Japan, promising 'prompt and utter destruction' if not.
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| 28 July |
B-25 Mitchell bomber, lost in fog, crashes into 79th floor of the Empire State Building in Manhattan, causing 14 deaths and extensive damage.
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| 30 July |
USS Indianapolis [CA-35] torpedoed by Japanese submarine, sinks in 12 minutes killing 300 immediately, leaving 900 men in shark-infested waters without lifeboats; only 316 rescued 4 days later.
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| 1 August |
US Army Air Force dropped one million leaflets over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 33 other Japanese cities warning of an imminent attack, advising residents to leave.
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| 6 August |
First atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
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| 8 August |
Soviet foreign minister Molotov informs Japanese ambassador Sato that the Soviet Union has declared war on the Empire of Japan.
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| 9 August |
Soviet army launches a classic double envelopment of Japanese-occupied Manchuria.
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| 9 August |
Second atomic bomb dropped, on Nagasaki, Japan.
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| 14 August |
Japanese agree to unconditional surrender [14 August east of the date line, 15 August in Japan].
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| 15 August |
Japanese surrender, remembered as VJ Day (Victory over Japan) in the U.K. [14 August east of the date line, 15 August in Japan].
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| 2 September |
Japanese formal surrender ceremony on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, remembered as VJ Day (Victory over Japan) in the US.
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| 3 September |
Gen. Wainwright receives the surrender of Gen. Yamashita, the Japanese commander in the Philippines, at Baguio.
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| 4 September |
Japanese troops on Wake Island surrender.
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| 5 September |
British land in Singapore to take over from Japanese.
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| 8 September |
Gen. Douglas MacArthur enters Tokyo, Japan.
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| 8 September |
Japanese forces in China surrender.
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| 8 September |
Japanese in Korea surrender.
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| 12 September |
Japanese forces in southeast Asia surrender in ceremony at Singapore.
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| 13 September |
Japanese forces in Burma surrender.
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| 24 October |
United Nations organization officially comes into existence.
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| 20 November |
Nuremberg war crimes trials begin.
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| 9 December |
Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. severely injured in a collision between his staff car and an Army truck, while on a hunting trip in the country outside Mannheim, Germany.
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| 21 December |
Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. dies in a military hospital in Heidelberg, Germany from complications following a 9 Dec 1945 road accident.
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