12 March 1945

UNITED KINGDOM: The Mk 35 variant of the de Havilland Mosquito light bomber makes its maiden flight. With Merlin 113-144 engines, it has a top speed of 422 mph, and carries 2,000-lb of bombs for 2,050 miles. (22)

ENGLISH CHANNEL: U-683 (type VIIC) is listed as missing in the North Atlantic after 20 Feb, 1945 south-west of Ireland or in the English Channel. 49 dead (all hands lost). Probably sunk today near Land's End, in position 49.52N, 05.52W, by depth charges from the British frigate HMS Loch Ruthwen and the sloop Wild Goose (Alex Gordon)

GERMANY: Hohenlychen: Himmler signs an agreement promising to surrender the death camps to the Allies intact, with the prisoners still alive, and to order a halt to camp executions, contrary to Hitler's express orders.

Bergen-Belsen: Disease is sweeping through the camp, killing the starved and weakened inmates with an efficiency that the Nazis might envy. Anne-Frank, a 15-year-old German Jewish girl, died of typhus today. She spent two years hiding with her family in Amsterdam before being betrayed to the Gestapo and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau last August. Later she was moved on to Belsen. She hid her diary, to which she confided her deepest thoughts, in Amsterdam; it is a document of human dignity and hope in the face of relentless persecution.

Zhukov enters Kustrin, the entire Russian front has now reached the Oder-Neisse line as far south as Görlitz, excepting a small pocket near Stettin.

Kustrin fell after a week of savage fighting which culminated in the street-by-street destruction of the citadel by dive-bombers, artillery and assault teams armed with mortars and flame-throwers. Kustrin was a vital roadblock in the German plan of defence for Berlin. Now Marshal Zhukov has a clear road and Berlin is only 40 miles away.

JAPAN: 274 US aircraft tonight bomb Osaka and wipe-out 8.1 square miles of the city.

A Japanese incendiary balloon is shot down near Coal Harbour, on Vancouver Island. Launched from Japan and carried across the Pacific by winter winds, the enemy expects them to land in Canada's forests and begin huge fires. Unfortunately for the Japanese, most of the intended target areas are covered in snow and mist - hardly conducive to massive conflagrations.

Destroyer USS Glennon laid down.

Destroyer escort USS Henry W Tucker commissioned.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-260 (type VIIC) is scuttled at 2230hrs south of Ireland, in position 51.15N, 09.05W, after being mined at 80 meters depth. Whole crew interned in Ireland 48 survivors (No casualties).

U-296 (type VIIC/41) is listed as missing in the approaches to the Northern Channel on 12 March, 1945 in the approximate position 55.30N, 07W. There is a possibility that she was lost on or about 12 March to the minefields T1 or T21 which were laid in the path to her operational area. 42 dead (all hands lost).