UNITED KINGDOM: The US 8th Air Force makes its last bombing mission from England when 554 B-17s and B-24s attack airfields and rail targets in Czechoslovakia and south-eastern Germany.
The fighter groups including the 78th fly their last combat missions.
375 RAF Lancaster and Mosquito bombers drop six-ton bombs on Hitler's home at Berchtesgaden. Escorted by 98 Mustangs of the US Eighth Army Air Force and 13 Mustang squadrons of RAF Fighter Command, the bombers flew low, taking cover from the anti-aircraft fire behind mountains, until they were almost over the target, and then dropped their bombs. The Times reported on the attack that twelve 1,000-lb bombs, fused for deep penetration, were used against the Berghof chalet, and large numbers of 4,000-lb and 1,000-lb bombs were dropped on the SS barracks. After the second run, and with two Lancasters missing, the anti-aircraft batteries had been silenced. When it was all over, most of the buildings on the Obersalzburg were smoking ruins. (Russell Folsom)(128)
U-1197
damaged by bombs at Bremen and stricken at Wesermünde, 25 Apr 1945. Captured
there by British forces.
NORWAY: Tonight an oil target at Vallo is
the subject of the last raid by RAF Lancasters of the war. (22)
FINLAND: The last German
troops leave Finnish territory around Kilpisjärvi, in far north-western
Finland, thus ending the Fenno-German Lappland War and WWII for Finland. In this
last day, two Finnish soldiers die, one is wounded and one goes missing in
skirmishes with German patrols. During the seven-month war against Germany,
Finns lose 774 KIA, 262 MIA and 2904 WIA. The German losses are estimated
roughly equal.
ARCTIC OCEAN: Destroyers HMS Iroquois, Haida and Huron arrive Kola Inlet with Convoy JW-66.
ITALY: German resistance begins to collapse as Mantua, Parma and Verona
fall to the Allies. Just 40 miles away, Mussolini flees to Como.
Uprisings in Milan and Genoa are aided by Partisans.
PACIFIC OCEAN: PB4Y-2 Privateers of Patrol Bombing Squadron One Hundred Eighteen (VPB-118) based at Yonton, Okinawa, continue sewing aerial mines off the coast of Korea.
U.S.A.: An Allied conference at San Francisco meets to write a constitution for the post war organization "The United Nations". The meeting will conclude tomorrow.
US Secretary of War Stimson and General Leslie Groves arrive at the White House. They are here to brief President Truman on the Manhattan Project -- "S1" as Stimson preferred to call it.
Stimson meets alone with Truman at first. A memo of several pages, was given to Truman. Finished by Stimson that morning, it begins: "Within four months we shall in all probability have completed the most terrible weapon ever known in human history, one bomb of which could destroy a whole city." The memo acknowledges the shared development, by the US and Great Britain, of this "most terrible weapon".
General Groves then joins them with a memo of 25 pages on the status of the Manhattan Project. After President Truman reads this, Stimson and Groves answer his questions.
Stimson asked for an authorization to establish an advisory committee to "advise" the President regarding the implications and decisions of "this new force". The request is approved.
This is Truman's first briefing of specific activities at Hanford, Washington and other locations within the US. Truman had first become aware of the huge government activity during 1943 as Chairman of the "Truman Committee". At that time, after assurances by Col. Stimson, he kept the committee away from any serious investigations of the Manhattan Project. (From David McCullough "Truman")
During the organising conference USS CASPER makes two security patrols off the Farallon Islands.
Submarine USS Unicorn laid down.
Minesweeper USS Embattle commissioned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
U-326 sunk in the Bay of
Biscay west of Brest in position 48.12N, 05.42W by a homing torpedo from a
USN VPB-103 Sqn
Liberator. 43 dead (all hands
lost).