June 1st, 1945 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: 10 Squadron RAAF ceases operations. (Daniel Ross)
GERMANY: Berlin: The Lord Mayor warns that 50 Nazis will be killed for every attack made on the occupying forces.
AUSTRIA: The British Army is beginning to hand over some 40,000 Cossacks many of them accompanied by their families, to the Red Army. The Cossacks, led by General Timophey Domanoc, had served with the Wehrmacht and had surrendered to British forces.
In order to complete the handover without trouble British officers were told to continue the pretence that the Cossacks would be allowed to settle in the west. They were disarmed - with British troops under orders to shoot to kill if they resisted. The deception was maintained with the Cossack officers being summoned to a fake conference two days ago. When they realized that they were to be handed over to the Russians many resisted, but the British guards, swinging rifle butts and pickhandles and using bayonets, forced them into trucks.
There were even more distressing incidents when the main units were being forcibly loaded onto trains. Some Cossacks were shot, others knowing what awaits them in Russia, committed suicide. The British soldiers have been told that the repatriations are being carried out under the terms of the Yalta agreement. Nevertheless, many of them feel that they have betrayed men whom they had grown to admire.
U.S.S.R.: The Soviet Navy lists submarine S-4 missing. Baltic Fleet Danzig Bay (rammed by German torpedo boat T-33 in Danzig) (Mike Yared)
MIDDLE EAST: British troops occupy Syria and Lebanon.
BURMA: HQ RAF Burma is renamed Air HQ Burma.
JAPAN: US aircraft drop over 3,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Osaka.
The USAAF's Twentieth Air Force in the Mariana Islands flies Mission 187:
458 B-29 Superfortresses attack Osaka, Japan and 16 others hit targets of opportunity; 148 P-51s of the VII Fighter Command, enroute to the escort rendezvous with the B-29s, encounter a severe weather front; flying behind in excessive turbulence, many of the fighters collide and 27 are lost; 27 others manage to find the B-29s and escort them over the target; the B-29s claim 16 Japanese fighters and the P-51s claim 1-0-0; ten B-29s are lost.
Mines previously laid by B-29s sink a Japanese army cargo ship, three freighters and a tanker off Japan.
BONIN ISLANDS: Iwo Jima: A single Japanese plane drops a string of small bombs killing five and wounding seventeen.
CANADA: Patrol vessel HMCS Nitinat paid off and returned to owners.
U.S.A.: The Last issue of The US Technical and Tactical Trends No 59 published. (Bill Howard)
During WW II, the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) produced numerous documents, most commonly known are the Intelligence Bulletins. The Military Intelligence Special Series continues with "Guide to Maps of the Far East." (William L. Howard)