June 6th, 1945 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: London: It is announced that 184,512, British and Canadian soldiers went missing, or were killed or wounded between D-Day and VE-Day.
HMCS New Glasgow complete her refit at Rosyth.
HMS Heron, 768 RN Sqn Wildcat a/c #JV356, Lt(A) Herbert Michael "Mike" LITTLE 0-42250 RCNVR of Montreal lost, Spun into sea on take-off during deck landing training.
Minesweeper HMCS Vegreville paid off (constructive total loss) and laid up in Falmouth UK. Scrapped 1947 at Hayle.
GERMANY: Berlin: Soviet troops find a body, believed to be Hitler's in the Chancellery garden.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA: Postoloprty (Postelberg in German): Hundreds of Germans are gathered on the parade ground. Meanwhile a fatigue party of men are led off. Five boys who were hidden among the fatigue party are discovered and led back.
"Mr Marek wanted the boys to be flogged," recalls 81-year-old Peter Klepsch, an eye-witness. "But Captain Cerny, the commander of the Czech troops, said the boys should be shot."
The boys' names were Horst, Eduard, Hans, Walter, and Heinz. The oldest was 15, the youngest 12. They were flogged and then shot dead -- in full view of the others, who were held back at gunpoint. The Czechs didn't use machine guns, but their rifles, so it took a long time to kill all five. "One of the boys who hadn't been mortally wounded by the gunfire ran up to the marksmen begging to be allowed to go to his mother," recalls 80-year-old Heinrich Giebitz. "They just carried on shooting." In 2009 Czech prosecutors accused this atrocity on Bohuslav Marek, a policeman and Vojtech Cernuy, an army captain. Hans-Ulrich Stoldt, Spiegel Online (4 September, 2009)(Peter Kilduff)
CHINA: Liuchow: Japan's front in southern China is collapsing in the face of a Chinese advance that has covered 150 miles in the last 11 days, and recaptured Liuchow and Mengshan, two key cities in Kwangsi province. Mengshan, a vital road junction, was taken without a fight as the Japanese abandoned their defences. The loss of Liuchow's airbase will expose Japanese garrisons in Hong Kong and Canton to fighter-supported US bombing attacks and menace Japanese attempts to reopen the overland corridor to Malaya. Last night Japanese forces were falling back on Kweilin, 90 miles north of Liuchow.
JAPAN: The 6th Marine Division makes good progress on the Oruku Penninsula, Okinawa, after their landing 2 days ago.Kamikazes are busy off Okinawa. The light minelayers USS Harry F. Bauer (DM-26, ex DD-738) and USS J. William Ditter (DM-31, ex DD-751) are patrolling when they are attacked by eight Japanese aircraft. Each ship shoots down three but the seventh aircraft crashed close aboard USS Harry F. Bauer, flooding two compartments; survey of her damage during repairs revealed an unexploded bomb in one of her flooded compartments. The eighth aircraft crashes USS J. William Ditter on the port side near the main deck. The ship loses all power and suffers many casualties but both ships make it to Kerama Retto for emergency repairs.
The Japanese Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, meets to adopt a "Fundamental Policy" which includes "immediate preparations for a decisive battle on the homeland and will annihilate the attacking enemy forces at points where the attack will be decided". The SCDW is known as the Big 6 of the Japanese Cabinet. PM, FM, War Minister, Navy Minister, Army CofS, Navy CofS.
CANADA: Frigate HMCS Inch Arran commences tropicalization refit Sydney, Nova Scotia.