June 20th, 1945 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Frigates HMCS Annan, Loch Achanalt and Loch Morlich paid off and returned to RN at Sheerness.
FRANCE: The pilots of the "3rd Groupe de Chasse" (3rd Fighter Group) "Normandie" (given the honourific 'Niemen' after supporting Soviet forces in battles to cross the river in 1944) fly their 40 new Yak-3s home to Le Bourget airfield, Paris. After fighting alongside the Red Air Force since March 1943 and notching up 273 confirmed victories and 38 probables they are afforded a hero's welcome by the French populace. More... (Russell Folsom)
JAPAN: Okinawa: US General Simon Bolivar Buckner is KIA (Killed in Action) by an artillery round. Senior Corps Commander, Marine Lt-Gen Gieger (sic), assumes command of the Tenth Army, the only occasion in which a US Field Army was commanded by a Marine.
Mines previously laid by B-29 Superfortresses in Japanese waters sink a cargo ship, a freighter and a tanker and damage two freighters. Other mines sink a freighter. PB4Y-2 Privateers of the USN's Patrol Bombing Squadron One Hundred Eighteen (VPB-118) based at Yonton, Okinawa, again sow mines in the Korean Archipelago.
BORNEO: Australian troops capture the Seria oilfields, and reinforcements land at Lutong, in Sarawak.
PACIFIC OCEAN: The USN's Task Group 12.4 launches five strikes against Japanese positions on Wake Island while enroute from Pearl Harbor to Leyte in the Philippine Islands; this is the fifth Wake Raid. TG 12.4 consists of the light aircraft carrier USS Cowpens (CVL-25) with Light Carrier Air Group Fifty (CVLG-50), and the aircraft carriers USS Hancock (CV19) with Carrier Air Group Six (CVG-6) and USS Lexington (CV-16) with CVG-94 plus escorting vessels. This practice will assist them when they join the 3rd Fleet.USN submarines in the Pacific sink an auxiliary sailing vessel, an army cargo ship and a freighter.
CANADA: HMCS Runnymede departed Halifax for Esquimalt.
Corvettes HMCS Dauphin and Chambly paid off Sorel, Province of Quebec.
U.S.A.: New York: Four million people cheer Eisenhower as he drives in a motorcade for 35 miles through the city.
The Liberty ship American Victory is launched by the California Shipbuilding Corp. She is preserved to this day as a museum at Tampa, Florida. More... (William L. Howard)
Destroyers USS Epperson and Robert H McCard laid down.