20 April 1939

April 20th, 1939 (THURSDAY)

GERMANY: Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday is celebrated with Berlin bedecked in flags and floral displays and monolithic statues erected by Albert Speer. The Germans shall have a holiday today. Throngs will gather to congratulate the Führer, followed by a military review.

ITALY: Rome: Mussolini meets with Hungarian prime minister Teleki. Mussolini tells the Hungarian that "all Germany and Italy want is a few years of peace and we shall do all we can to achieve it."

U.S.A.: Baseball! A minor league attendance record is set at Jersey City and the Red Sox show off their prize rookie, Ted Williams. More....

RCA president David Sarnoff dedicates RCA pavilion at The New York World's Fair - The first U.S. news event shot for television. Sarnoff predicted that one day everyone would have a television in their home.

20 April 1940

April 20th, 1940 (SATURDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM:
RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group. Bombing - Kjeller, Fornebu, Stavanger and Trondheim airfields. 10 Sqn/. Five aircraft. One returned U/S, two bombed Stavanger.
51 Sqn. Three aircraft. One returned U/S. Two bombed Stavanger claiming hits on installations. Heavy opposition.
58 Sqn. Three aircraft bombed Stavanger.
102 Sqn. Three aircraft to Trondheim. No bombing due to weather.
35 Wellington's attack Stavanger Aerodrome reporting heavy damage to runways and parked aircraft.

Everywhere in London there are signs of preparation against air attack but ten million Londoners - the biggest bombing target in Europe - are still waiting for the action to begin. It is a city of sandbags, piled high round the windows and doorways of public buildings, shop fronts and underground shelters. They are beginning to turn green as they weather and to leak at the corners.

Estate agents' boards blossom in Belgravia and Mayfair, where the rich and titled have flown to safer nests in the shires. In Eaton Square only six houses out of 120 are occupied. There are no takers.
But in the City, which was so quiet six months ago when 3,500 firms fled to the provinces, daily life has returned to near-normal. At least 700 firms are back again, and thousands of office workers pour along almost traffic-free streets. Hardly one carries a gas mask.

There are no paintings on view at the National Gallery - they are stored in a slate quarry in Wales - but it is filled every day with music lovers who come to Myra Hess's lunch-time concerts. The middle of Hyde Park is wired off as a military area, and sandbagged shelters disfigure all the parks. But the barrage balloons shining in the evening sun look almost romantic - like pearls strung from clouds.

Greenock: HMS Ark Royal, having parted company with the destroyers HMS Westcott and HMS Bulldog off Plymouth, is joined by the destroyers HMS Saladin, HMS Juno, and HMS Hasty, all arriving in the Clyde at 0145. She then docks at Greenock. HMS Glorious remains in Greenock loading stores and equipment.

NORWEGIAN CAMPAIGN: Large scale German air attacks against Namsos begin. The wooden houses are set alight and the jetty damaged. Aandalsnes is bombed three times. Steinkjaer is reduced to ruins.
Using 150 bombers (He-111 and Ju88) and 60 Ju87s, Fliegerkorps X mounts an attack on the Allied landings that is so intense that it prevents strong formations of supplies from being landed to reinforce the troops already on Norwegian soil.

Fleet Air Arm (Mark Horan): Again, Fleet Air Arm activity was limited, primary to terrible flying weather.

At RNAS Hatston, Acting Captain C. L. Howe, RN, again decided to attack shipping in the vicinity of Bergen. An unspecified number of Skuas from both 800 and 801 Squadrons were dispatched. 800 Squadron, FAA dispatched a single Skua on an armed reconnaissance mission to Larvik. Capt. Partridge, RM and his Observer, Lt. Bostock, RN made the crossing at 12,000 feet. Opting to fly a detour around the known Luftwaffe fighter base at Stavanger, and reached Larvik safely, where nothing of importance was sighted. En-route home, they spotted a lone MTB, schnellboote S-22, at speed. Electing to attack her, he release his single 500 pound SAP bomb, but missed by some 50 yards. Shortly thereafter, the pair spotted a U-Boat on the surface. Having no remaining bombs, they had to settle for a strafing run.

While approaching the Orkney's on the return flight, Skua L2999 of 800 Squadron disappears, Midshipman(A) John Richard Crossley, RN (P) and Petty Officer Airman Maurice Hall, DSM, twice Mentioned in Dispatches, RN being missing and presumed killed. This was to be the last Skua operation from RNAS Hatston for some time.

Meanwhile, the carriers were on the move. HMS Glorious, now carrying only 825 Squadron (12 x Swordfish) and 802 Squadron (9 x Sea Gladiator) departed the Clyde for Scapa Flow.

GERMANY: On the his 51st birthday, Hitler orders a new SS regiment to be set up containing Norwegians and Danes as well as Germans.

20 April 1941

April 20th, 1941 (SUNDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM:
Plymouth: Heavy air raids wipe out an area of 600 yards radius around the Guildhall; mediaeval buildings simply vanished.
In all 1,000 people have died, with 30,000 made homeless as 18,000 houses have been destroyed.
However, Devonport dockyard - the bombers' target - is still working. The Royal Navy is clearing the wreckage and the lord mayor and lady mayoress, Lord and lady Astor have been raising morale. A band is playing on Plymouth Hoe for open-air dancing. At night 50,000 people leave Plymouth to shelter on the moors, in barns, in churches, even cow-sheds.

GERMANY:
Gen-Leut Kurt Student, leader of the new XI. Fliegerkorps which took under its control all air transport units, suggests to Goring that an attempt be made to invade Crete from the air.

GREECE:
Allied forces pull back to Kalamata, Nauplia and Monemvasia. They are retreating southwards through Thermopylae, with some detachments remaining to slow the German advance.

CHINA:
Japan captures Ningbo.

U.S.A.:
New York: Reuters News Agency announced:
Undersecretary-of-State Patterson of the US War Department, and other American and Canadian leaders, have seen a demonstration of the first 28-ton tanks built for the US Army. The new tanks have a 400-hp airplane engine, a maximum speed of 24 mph and are equipped with several heavy machine-guns and one 37-mm cannon.

Yorktown and four destroyers are transferred from Pacific to Atlantic Fleets. (By the summer, three battleships, one aircraft carrier, four light cruisers, seventeen destroyers and 16 auxiliaries had been transferred.) (Marc Small)

The motion picture "That Uncertain Feeling" is released in the U.S. The film, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, stars Merle Oberon, Melvyn Douglas, Burgess Meredith, Alan Mowbray and Eve Arden. This romantic comedy is about a married couple (Oberon and Douglas) who have problems and get involved with an absurd pianist (Meredith). The film was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Music category.

President Roosevelt announces an exchange of defence articles with Canada.

20 April 1942

April 20th, 1942 (MONDAY)

FRANCE: Paris: Corporal Rohland is severely wounded at metro Molitor, later dying.

Rennes: Resistants attempt to assassinate the leading French fascist Jacques Doriot.

VICHY FRANCE: The new head of the Vichy France government, Pierre Laval, today fawned on Hitler and attacked Britain that but sought friendship with the United States. Speaking on the very day that the Nazis shot 30 hostages in Rouen in reprisal for an attack on a German troop train, Laval called Hitler "a conqueror who did not abuse his victory". The gigantic battle that Germany was waging against "Bolshevism". he said, had given a new meaning to the war. But Laval took care not to attack the United States, which he hopes to influence.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Operation CALENDAR. Aircraft carriers USS Wasp (CV-7) escorted by the battle cruiser HMS Renown along with 2 cruisers and 6 destroyers ferry 47 Spitfires to Malta. USS Wasp flies off a CAP of Wildcats then launches her first delivery of Spitfires to Malta. They deliver 46 to the island; however, their arrival is also watched on radar screens in Sicily, and Stukas attack; 30 are immediately destroyed and within four days all but six are destroyed.

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Japanese heavy artillery, including 9.5-inch (24,1 cm) mortars, on Bataan smash US positions on Corregidor, 2 miles (3,2 km) away.

The Japanese conquest of the central Philippines is nearly complete as Cebu and Panay are conquered. Small U. S. and Filipino garrisons have fled into the hills of Leyte, Samar, Negros and Bohol.

AUSTRALIA: USAAF Major General George H Brett assumes command of the Allied Air Forces, which has units based in northern and eastern Australia, with advanced facilities in the Port Moresby, New Guinea, area.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Unarmed U.S. freighter SS West Imboden, her presence advertised by an accidental fire in her stack, is torpedoed by German submarine U-752 about 200 miles (322 km) off Nantucket lightship and abandoned as she is being shelled by the U-boat. U-752 nears one of the lifeboats and asks about casualties. "That's good," one German officer responds when told that the American merchant sailors have come through unharmed.

20 April 1943

April 20th, 1943 (TUESDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: The ban on ringing church bells is to be lifted from next Sunday, Easter Day, said Mr Churchill in the commons today. The cabinet decided that the ban can be relaxed on Sundays and special occasions "in the light of changing circumstances". Many of the 12,000 parish churches will not be able to ring their bells this Sunday as they have been disused for three years and their bellringers are in the armed services. No substitute signal of invasion has been announced.

GERMANY: 425 RAF bombers inflict heavy damage on German ports of Stettin and Rostock on the Baltic. German night fighters and anti-aircraft guns shoot down 29 aircraft.

TUNISIA: Company Havildar-Major Chhelu Ram (b.1905), 6th Rajput Rifles, knocked out a machine-gun post and led hand-to-hand fighting until he was killed. (Victoria Cross)

The British 8th Army takes Enfidaville, a road and rail junction 45 miles (72 km) from Tunis, but makes only limited headway against strong Italian defences.

Ninth Air Force P-40s fly sweeps, reconnaissance, and fighter-bomber missions in support of the 8th Army.

Northwest African Air Force B-17s and B-25s bomb the landing grounds of Mabtouha, La Marsa, La Sebala, Sidi Ahmed, Creteville, and near Protville. Fighters fly escort, carry out reconnaissance, and attack various Tunisian airfields.

Minesweeper HMS Fantome is mined during clearance operations off Cape Bon and has her stern blown off. She is towed back to Bizerta, but found to be beyond repair and paid off as a constructive loss. There is one casualty but 36 survive.

Due to incorrect operation of her Otway log (speed measuring device) submarine HMS Untamed begins to flood and settles in 160 feet of water off Sanda Island on the West coast of Scotland. Due to delays in escape attempts, and incorrect flood valve assembly, none are able to escape and the entire 36 man crew are poisoned by CO2. Untamed was eventually raised and recomissioned as HMS Vitality, finally being broken up in March 1946. (Alex Gordon)(108)

BURMA: 8 Tenth Air Force B-25s bomb the engine sheds at Thazai.

JAPAN: Tokyo: The Japanese Cabinet is re-organized with Mamoru Shigemitsu as Foreign Minister.

NEW GUINEA: Fifth Air Force B-17s bomb Wewak, Nubia, and Boram Airfields and shipping off Wewak sinking a cargo ship.

EAST INDIES: Fifth Air Force B-24s, under the operational command of the RAAF, bomb Kaimana and targets of opportunity on Kendari Island in the Celebes.

PACIFIC OCEAN: USAAF bombers raid the Japanese base on Nauru.

CENTRAL PACIFIC: 22 Seventh Air Force B-24s from Funafuti, in the Gilberts, carry out a photo-bombing mission over Nauru Island. Several direct hits on runways and the dispersal areas are claimed.

PACIFIC OCEAN: Submarine USS Runner (SS-476) mines the waters near Hong Kong while submarine USS Scorpion (SS-278) sinks a Japanese gunboat off the east central coast of Honshu, Japan.

TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: The Eleventh Air Force dispatches 15 B-24 Liberators, 16 B-25 Mitchells, 10 P-38 Lightnings, and 32 P-40s to hit shipping in the harbour at Kiska Island and gun positions in North Head. Other targets include buildings in the Main Camp area and the runway. The bombers sinks a Japanese ship north of Kiska.

U.S.A.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill decide to hold another strategy conference. This one, called Trident, will begin 12 May in Washington, D.C., with US and British military leaders deciding what the Western Allies will do in 1944. Led by US Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, the Americans will insist on invading northern France.

20 April 1944

April 20th, 1944 (THURSDAY)

FRANCE: Paris: Tonight an Allied air raid kills 641 people.

The Eighth Air Force flies Mission 309: 842 bombers and 388 fighters are dispatched to hit V-weapon sites in France; 24 of 33 sites briefed are hit; 9 bombers and 2 fighters are lost:

- 438 B-17s hit sites in the Pas de Calais and Cherbourg areas; 19 others hit targets of opportunity; 7 B-17s are lost.

- 113 B-24s hit sites in the Pas de Calais area; 2 B-24s are lost.

Escort is provided by 89 P-38s, 211 P-47 Thunderbolts and 88 P-51 Mustangs; they claim 4-0-2 Luftwaffe aircraft in the air and 4-0-0 on the ground; 2 P-51s are lost.

The Ninth Air Force dispatches almost 400 B-26 Marauders and A-20 Havocs to attack gun positions at Etaples, Bazinghen, Villerville, Gravelines and Fecamp, the airfield at Poix, and V-weapon sites and targets of opportunity in the Pas de Calais area; nearly 140 P-47s bomb marshalling yards at Creil and Mantes-La-Jolie.

Countdown to D-Day:

Field Marshal Rommel, commander, Army Group B,
stays at his headquarters at La Roche-Guyon today,
catching up on paperwork and chairing a number of
sessions with his staff. They attend a number of
subjects, including the distribution of an incoming
supply of "nutcracker" mines, the manufacture of
tetrahedrons, and areas along the coast where they
are needed, and the repositioning of several units.

That evening, the headquarters is in a festive mood.
First of all, it is a going away party for the outgoing
Chief of Staff, Alfred Gause, and the staff has really
put forth an effort to make this a festive occasion.
Second, it is the Führer's birthday, and the more
celebration that is done, the better it looks to outsiders.

The Rochfoucauld family, residing upstairs over the
noisy routine of a busy headquarters, has been invited
to the evening's celebration, and they have graciously
accepted invitation. The duke's younger son, dressed
in the uniform of the French navy attends. The duchess
donates a bouquet of lilacs and four bottles of her best
wine -- a 1900 claret - for the party.

The celebration begins. They are all present: Rommel,
his senior staff officers, the duke and his family, their
young, pretty daughter Charlotte (escorted by a number
of Rommel's junior officers), and most of the administrative
staff.

After a fine dinner, Rommel gets up and addresses his
audience. He prefaces his remarks with a well-intended
congratulatory comments recognizing the Führer's birthday,
and noting the strength that he has given their country.

He then begins an oratory on the finer qualities of his
outgoing chief of staff. He tells them of their struggles
together in the French campaign, and later in North
Africa. Rommel of course takes great fervour in outlining
Gause's many and varied accomplishments during this
time, sometimes describing in detail this episode, or
recanting with a caustic tone some tale of woe
that had befallen them.

At the end of the speech, after the applause dies down,
Gause stands and addresses the Rommel and his
attendants. He tells him of the privilege it has been
working for him, and that he has enjoyed working with
all of them. Formally recognizing members of the
Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe, he beseeches them to
strive to work together against the enemy, and to resist
trifling in petty power squabbles.

The final speaker is the Operations Officer, Colonel von
Tempelhoff, who puts in a few choice words welcoming
in Hans Speidel, and hoping, on behalf of the staff, that
Gause fines happiness in his future, and satisfaction in
his next assignment. Rumour has it that, based on
Rommel's recommendation, he is going to get command
of a panzer division.

Then the "unofficial" part of the evening begins. Gause is
informed that, after due consideration by the staff members,
he has been elected the "Tetrarch of the Tetragoner," with
a fancy (though unrefined) dark blue coat of arms.

Charlotte is waltzed around the dancing area by several
keen young men, while the senior officers spend their
time in glittering conversation.

Even though there is work to be done the next day, the
party does not wind down until about two in the morning -
unusual for the staff, but appropriate for the occasion.

Peter Margaritis

GERMANY: The so-called British Free Corps of the Waffen-SS holds its inaugural parade at the Haus Germanien in the St Michaeli Kloster, Hildesheim. Present are a small German staff and fourteen assorted British renegades including the senior NCO, SS-Oberscharfuehrer Thomas Cooper, a former concentration camp guard and veteran of 'aktions' in the Warsaw and Cracow ghettoes. After a brief speech from the German commanding officer and the formal presentation of rank insignia and side-arms, the British traitors are despatched to begin recruiting at POW camps throughout the Reich. (Adrian Weale)

U.S.S.R.: Soviet planes, destroyers, submarines and torpedo boats attack German and Romanian ships evacuating the 17th German-Romanian Army from Sevastopol. During the next three weeks, the Soviets will sink 10 Axis ships, but the sea lift will rescue more than 42,000 troops.

ITALY: B-25s and B-26s of the Twelfth Air Force score hits on a marshalling yard and 3 fuel dumps at Leghorn and near misses on Cecina and Certaldo bridges and Arezzo viaduct; fighter-bombers hit railroad lines and fuel dump in the Florence area; bridges, dump, rail lines and train cars near Civitavecchia and Zagarolo, at Sezze, near Ladispoli, southwest of Stimipliano and north of Monterotondo; and guns south of Albano Laziale; in the battle area around Cassino fighter-bombers blast several gun positions and hit bridges, trucks, troops and other targets, at several points, including Falconara, Recanati, San Benedetto de Marsi, and the Fondi-Itri and Orte-Orvieto areas.

300+ Fifteenth Air Force B-17s and B-24s attack targets in Italy; the B-17s bomb marshalling yards at Ancona, Castelfranco, Padua and Vicenza and Venice harbour installations; the B-24s hit marshalling yards at Mestre, Reviso and Fano, Venice harbour, Monfalcone dockyards and Trieste; 180+ other heavy bombers dispatched against communications targets in northern Italy are forced to abort due to bad weather; about 250 fighters provide cover for the bombing raids.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: German torpedo planes and submarine U-969 attack the 87-ship convoy UGS-38 in the Mediterranean off the coast of Algeria. The destroyer USS Landsdale (DD-426) is sunk by aerial torpedo; the survivors are rescued by two destroyer escorts. The US freighter SS Paul Hamilton is struck by an aerial torpedo and disintegrates; the 47-man merchant crew, the 29-man Armed Guard and 504 troops aboard are all killed.

TURKEY stops chrome exports to Germany under diplomatic pressure from the Allies.

INDIA: British forces reach the besieged Kohima garrison, but Japan still holds the surrounding land.

INDIAN OCEAN: During Operation COCKPIT, an Allied task force consisting of ships of the British Eastern Fleet, including the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, and the US aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3) and three US destroyers, attacks Japanese ships and positions at Sabang, Netherlands East Indies. This is the first joint naval exercise in the Indian Ocean.

BURMA: 11 Tenth Air Force B-25s hit a bivouac and supply area northwest of Manywet.

BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: With improved weather conditions bombing of targets in the Bismarck Archipelago by the Thirteenth Air Force resumes; on New Britain Island, 22 B-25s hit the Matupi supply area and 40+ fighter-bombers blast the airfields at Lakunai and Keravat.

MARSHALL ISLANDS: Tarawa-based Seventh Air Force B-25s, using Majuro Atoll as a shuttle base between strikes, bomb Maloelap and Jaluit Atolls.

CAROLINE ISLANDS: Thirteenth Air Force B-24s bomb Woleai Atoll.

NEW GUINEA: Fifth Air Force B-24s bomb airfields on Noemfoor Island, Schouten Islands. In New Guinea, B-25s, A-20s, and fighters hit a variety of targets around Hollandia, on Cape Croisilles, in the Bunabun area and along Hansa Bay.

WAKE ISLAND: Seventh Air Force B-24s from Kwajalein Atoll search the area near Wake Island for shipping; finding none, the bombers hit Wake and Peale Islands.

PACIFIC OCEAN: Submarine USS Seahorse (SS-304) sinks Japanese submarine HIJMS RO-45 off the Marianas.

U.S.A.: The documentary short "It's Your War Too" is released in the U.S. This ten-minute documentary film details the history of the U.S. Army's Women's Army Corps, the WACS.

20 April 1945

April 20th, 1945 (FRIDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: The first production de Havilland Vampire F. 1 jet fighter (TG 274) makes its maiden flight at Samlesbury, Lancashire. (22)

GERMANY: Berlin: At his 56th birthday party, Hitler is stooped and trembling, his uniform stained with food. The cheerless luncheon is attended by Göring and Himmler, who then flee the city, after giving the Führer their birthday congratulations.

Adolf Hitler celebrates his 56th and last birthday in the ruins of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. The cheerless luncheon ceremony is attended by various high ranking Nazi satraps, including Göring and Himmler, who then flee the doomed city amidst a mass exodus directly after the giving the Fuhrer their birthday congratulations. Both will be accused of treason and dismissed from all official offices by Hitler in little more than a week's time.

After an air-raid interruption by marauding RAF Mosquitos, Hitler, accompanied by one-armed Reich Youth Leader Artur Axmann, decorates a group of Hitler-Youth boys with the Iron Cross for bravery against the Russians (who are at the same moment steadily investing the outlying suburbs to the south and east of the city). The occasion is filmed by the propaganda cameras for the weekly 'Wochenschau', and will be the last photographic sequence taken of Hitler, his hands shaking and palsied by Parkinson's disease, before his suicide ten days later. After the ceremony, the Hitler-Youth boys aged 10-16, are sent back into defence of the city where most will perish. (Russ Folsom)

After an air-raid interruption by marauding RAF Mosquitos, Hitler, accompanied by one-armed Reich Youth Leader Artur Axmann, decorates a group of Hitler-Jugend with the Iron Cross for bravery against the Russians. The occasion is filmed by the propaganda cameras for the weekly 'Wochenschau', and will be the last photographic sequence taken of Hitler, his hands shaking and palsied by Parkinson's disease. After the ceremony, the Hitler-Jugend boys aged 10-16, are sent back into defence of the city where most will perish. (Russ Folsom)

The Second Byelorussian Front under Marshal Rokossovsky has now reinforced the offensives launched by Zhukov and Konev four days ago. Today Rokossovsky battled over marshy ground to cross the western branch of the Oder towards Neubrandenburg, Stralsund and Rostock, effectively preventing the 3rd Panzer Army from reinforcing the defence of Berlin. Konev crosses the River Spree, and takes Calau on the approach to Berlin from the south followed by Zossen, the Wehrmacht high command headquarters. Although the direct eastern attack by Marshal Zhukov's First Byelorussian Front has encountered strong resistance near Seelow, Germany's Ninth Army is being squeezed between the advancing armies of Zhukov and Konev. However Hitler has resisted pleas that it should be allowed to withdraw. Some government departments are being moved to southern Germany and Schleswig-Holstein, but Hitler rejected suggestions that he should also leave.

Zhukov takes Prötzel.

The French 1st Army advances rapidly in the Stuttgart area, taking the city.

Nuremberg, site of the ostentatious NSDAP 'Partei Tag' rallies, is captured by the US 7th Army.

At Flossenburg KZ, approx. 15,000 prisoners are assembled to make a forced march in the direction of Dachau concentration camp. Thousands are killed on the way, and the paths that they marched are littered with dead. As the already starved and weakened prisoners fell from exhaustion, SS guards bringing up the rear would kill them by a shot in the back of the head. Death was also caused by beatings. The prisoners marched from Friday to Monday with many perishing from exhaustion. On the 23rd of April they were liberated en route by American troops between the towns of Cham and Roding.

(Nuremberg document 2309-PS)

On the night of April 20th, near Hamburg, 20 children, ten boys and ten girls, originally from Auschwitz and used in medical experimentation, are transported from the Neuengamme KZ to the Bullenhuser Damm School in the Rothenburgsort district and murdered in the cellar by the SS. A few hours later 24 Soviet prisoners are also murdered there. (Russ Folsom)

The Eighth Air Force flies Mission 962: 837 bombers and 890 fighters are dispatched to hit rail targets north-northwest to south-southwest of Berlin, Bavaria and Czechoslovakia; they claim 7-0-4 Luftwaffe aircraft; 1 B-17 is lost:

- 82 B-17s are sent to hit the rail industry at Nauen and 77 bomb the marshalling yards at Wustermark, 57 hit Neuruppin and 82 Oranienburg; 1 hits Neuruppin Airfield, a target of opportunity. Escorting are 258 P-51s; 1 is lost.

- Marshalling yards are the target of 289 B-17s as 137 bomb Brandenburg, 66 hit Seddin (66) and 82 attack Treuenbrietzen; 1 B-17 is lost. The escort is 227 P-51s.

- 56 B-24s hit a rail bridge and junction at Zwiesel, 53 hit a marshalling yard and rail junction at Muhldorf while 56 bomb the railroad and rail junction at Irrenlohe and 54 attack Klatovy; 1 hits the secondary target, the marshalling yard at Straubing. 228 P-47s and P-51s escort.

564 Ninth Air Force A-20s, A-26 Invaders and B-26s strike oil storage at Deggendorf and Annaburg, marshalling yards at Memmingen and Wittenberg, ordnance depots at Nordlingen and Straubing, and other targets including flak positions; fighters escort the bombers, fly patrols, sweeps, and armed reconnaissance, attack special targets, and cooperate with US ground forces including the VII Corps west of Dessau, the VIII Corps between Plauen and Chemnitz, the XII Corps in the Grafenwohr area, the XX Corps attacking toward the Danube River and Regensburg, and the XIX Corps in the Magdeburg-Barby area.

ITALY: The US Fifth Army fights its way out of the Apennines and onto the Po River plain. Without Hitler's authorization, General Heinrich Von Vietinghoff orders his army to retreat across the Po.

Allied air forces commence Operation CORNCOB today. This is a three-day attack on the bridges over the rivers Adige and Brenta to cut off German lines of retreat on the peninsula. During the night of 19/29 April, Twelfth Air Force A-20s and A-26s on night intruder missions continue to pound Po River crossings and vehicle movement throughout the Valley; B-25s and B-26s considerably damage 4 of 6 railroad bridges and fills attached on the Brenner line, and also hit HQ in the battle area and 2 Reno River bridges north of Bologna.

Fifteenth Air Force bombers again pound railway systems and road bridges in an effort to hinder the supply or withdrawal of enemy forces in northern Italy; 700+ B-24s and B-17s hit railroad bridges at Campodazzo, Ponte Gardena, and Campo di Trens, a viaduct at Avisio, marshalling yards at Vipiteno, Fortezza, and Brennero, and road bridges at Lusia, la Carrare, and Boara Pisani, and in Austria, the Mariahof viaduct and Innsbruck marshalling yard. 115 P-38s dive-bomb the Innsbruck, Austria-Rattenberg, Austria-Rosenheim, Germany railroad line, hitting marshalling yards at Hall, Schwaz, Jenbach, Kundl, and Worgl, Austria and Kiefersfelden, Germany, 4 rail bridges, and several box cars, and cut rail lines at 42 places between Innsbruck and Rosenheim.

CHINA: 7 Fourteenth Air Force B-25s hit the town of Neihsiang and attack railroad targets of opportunity from Saiping to Lohochai and from Linying, Burma to Hsuchang; 9 B-25s bomb Loyang and Luchou; 100+ P-51s, P-40s, and P-47s concentrate attacks against town areas throughout southern and eastern China, also hitting troops, gun positions, river traffic, and other targets of opportunity.

BURMA: 32 Tenth Air Force P-38s knock out 3 bridges and damage 5 others in central Burma behind the enemy lines; 12 P-47s hit a troop concentration and ration dump at Tonglau, 18 attack a troop concentration around a monastery at Kengkawmanhaung, and 12 attack troops along a stream near Wan Nahpeit; 497 transport sorties land or drop 784 tons of supplies in forward areas.

JAPAN: III Corps completes its capture of Northern Okinawa. Attacks against the Shuri Line in the south begin.
A new US offensive on Okinawa has run into heavy resistance from General Ushijima's 80,000-man defence force concentrated on the southern end of the island. Despite intense bombardment, Lieutenant-General John Hodge's XXIV Corps, advancing on Machinato and Yonabaru airfields, has gained only 1,800 yards in two days, with the defenders operating from a vast network of tunnels and caves. US forces control the rest of Okinawa and Ie Shima, an offshore island needed as an air base, has been taken after a six-day battle.

B-29 bombers destroy the Musashi aircraft factory assembly plants. This stops production of the Nakajima Hayate Ki84-Ia fighter plane. (Ron Babuka)

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: U.S. Army troops, supported by USAAF aircraft and USN vessels, land on Catanduanes Island (13.45N, 124.15E) in the Philippine Islands.

Far East Air Forces aircraft support of the ground forces on Luzon, Cebu, and Negros Islands continues. USMC F4U Corsairs and SBD Dauntlesses attack targets on Mindanao and SBDs attack Japanese infantry positions on Jolo Island's Mount Daho.

BONIN ISLANDS: 11 VII Fighter Command P-51s from Iwo Jima bomb Haha Jima.

In a heavy ground fog five USAAF P-61s and three US Marine PBYs crash.

EAST INDIES: Submarine USS Guitarro (SS-363) lays mines in Berhala Strait off the northeast coast of Sumatra.

Thirteenth Air Force B-24s bomb Sepinggang and Labuan Island Airfields on Borneo while USN PV Ventura attack various targets. P-38s and B-25s hit Tarakan Island.

FORMOSA: Fifth Air Force B-24s bomb Tainan Airfield while P-51s attack Koshun Airfield.

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