October 12th, 1945 (FRIDAY)
ITALY: On the orders of a US Military Court in Rome today, former Wehrmacht Generaloberst Anton Dostler is executed for the illegal shooting of 15 American PoWs at La Spezia on the 24th March, 1944.
The two officers and 13 enlisted men had disembarked from USN vessels about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of LaSpezia. This is 250 miles (402 kilometers) behind the German lines. Their mission is to destroy the railroad tunnel on the mainline between La Spezia and Genoa. The entire group is captured that morning by Italian fascist and German troops. After interrogation, General Dostler, commander of the LXXV Corps, ordered that the prisoners be shot. Several attempts are made by local Army and Navy officers to have the execution stayed but General Dostler would not relent and the 15 men are executed early in the morning of 26 March.
FRENCH INDOCHINA: A joint Anglo-French force launches a campaign to pacify the area around Saigon.
FS-163 was lost in a typhoon.
UNITED STATES: Private First Class Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia, is presented the Medal of Honor for outstanding bravery as a medical corpsman on Okinawa, the first conscientious objector in American history to receive the nation's highest military award. When called on by his country to fight in World War II, Doss, a dedicated pacifist, registered as a conscientious objector. Eventually sent to the Pacific theater of war as a medical corpsman, Doss voluntarily put his life in the utmost peril during the bloody battle for Okinawa, saving dozens of lives well beyond the call of duty.