May 19th, 1945 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Minesweeper HMS Pyrrhus launched.
GERMANY: Flensburg: Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi Party's unofficial philosopher, responsible for formulating the party's race policies, is arrested.
Hermann Göring is captured by forces of the American Seventh Army. (Gene Hanson)
MIDDLE EAST: French troops arrive in Syria and Lebanon, sparking off nationalist demonstrations
NEW GUINEA: Australian forces capture Wewak, the last Japanese-held port on the mainland, after a bitter struggle.
JAPAN: As 272 B-29s today hit Hamamatsu on Mission 178, it was revealed that a quarter of Nagoya, Japan's main aircraft-manufacturing city, has been flattened by two raids in the last week.
The aircraft, from the USAAF's Twentieth Air Force based on the Mariana Islands, also made an abortive raid on aircraft industry targets in Tachikawa. 14 others hit targets of opportunity; four B-29s are lost.
The raids on the two cities are the start of attacks on Japan's secondary industrial centres with populations under 200,000.
Reconnaissance photos released today revealed the results of two fire-bomb raids by fleets of over 450 B-29s, the largest so far to strike at mainland Japan, which hit Nagoya three and five days ago, setting fire to 5.9 square miles of the city. Since incendiary attacks began, nearly 60 square miles of Japanese cities have been wiped out. Nagoya's Aichi aircraft works and two other key factories were destroyed, while Mitsubishi's aircraft plant, the world's largest, was damaged. Results of today's high-explosive raid on Hamamatsu, 120 miles from Tokyo, are not known. Bombs were dropped through the clouds from medium altitude using precision instruments.
RYUKU ISLANDS: Ie Shima: VII Fighter Command, United States' Seventh Air Force bases the 413th Fighter Group flying P-47Ns on this island.
CHINA: Foochow: Japanese troops today abandoned the east coast treaty port of Foochow, seven months after capturing it. Two other east-coast ports, Amoy and Swatow, have also been abandoned, their forces retreating to Hong Kong, confirming reports that Tokyo has ordered a strategic withdrawal from south China. Since the US recapture of the Philippines these ports have come within US bomber range. In the event of an invasion these garrisons would be isolated, cut off from support from Japan or Formosa.
CANADA: The only submarine to be operated by the RCN during the war is commissioned. HMCS Esquimault is the former U-190. (Dave Hornford)
U.S.A.: Escort carrier USS Salerno Bay commissioned.
U-873 commander, Kptlt Friedrich Steinhoff, committed suicide while being kept in a street prison in Boston instead of a POW camp.
Corvette HMCS Barrie departed New York with Convoy HX-357.