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• » 20 Apr 1945

• ww2dbase [Adolf Hitler | TH]
• Germany evacuated civilians from the island of Helgoland after sundown; the evacuation was ordered after a major bombing attack by over 900 British bombers on the previous day. ww2dbase [CPC]
• US Army troops landed on Catanduanes, Philippine Islands. ww2dbase [Philippines Campaign, Phase 2 | CPC]
• USS Charr arrived at the naval base at Subic Bay, Luzon, Philippine Islands. ww2dbase [Charr | CPC]
• USS Snook failed to respond when requested by a British carrier task force to rescue a downed airman in the Ryukyu Islands, Japan. ww2dbase [Snook | CPC]
• ww2dbase [Hermann Göring | CPC]
• German General of the Infantry Hermann Niehoff distributed chocolate to the encircled troops defending Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) in honor of Adolf Hitler's birthday. ww2dbase [Silesian Offensive and the Siege of Breslau | CPC]
• German pilot Leutnant Rudolf Schmitt became the first to use the He 162 jet fighter's ejection seat. ww2dbase [He 162 Volksjäger | CPC]
• ww2dbase [Léon Degrelle | CPC]
• ww2dbase [Karl Burk | CPC]

• I-400 arrived at Dalian, China and began loading fuel. ww2dbase [I-400 | CPC]
• Chinese and American agents of the Sino-American Special Technical Cooperative Organization (SACO) destroyed a Japanese supply train near Wuchang, Hubei Province, China with 50 pounds of TNT. ww2dbase [CPC]

• Between 13,500 and 15,000 prisoners were transferred from Buchenwald and Gross-Rosen subcamps to the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia over the following 20 days. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Theresienstadt Concentration Camp | CPC]

• ww2dbase [CPC]

• Lorraine completed a week-long bombardment of German positions in the Gironde estuary in western France between La Rochelle and Bordeaux as the Germans surrendered the Girond-Nord fortress in Royan. ww2dbase [Lorraine | CPC]

• ww2dbase [Southern Germany Campaign | TH]
• ww2dbase [Battle of Berlin | Zossen | CPC]
• Instructed to sacrifice everything for speed the French 5th Armoured Division and Spahi reconnaissance regiment enthusiastically overcame fanatical resistance from German SS units to enter the western suburbs of Stuttgart, Germany. The tanks had moved so fast that it would not be until the following day that their supporting infantry, Moroccan and Algerian Tiralleurs, could catch up, but they had beaten the Americans to the Southwest German city. ww2dbase [AC]
• Jacques Leroy was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, but no written record survived the war about this award. ww2dbase [Jacques Leroy | CPC]
• Theodor Morell was ordered by Adolf Hitler to leave Berlin, Germany. ww2dbase [Theodor Morell | CPC]
• Thousands of prisoners were marched out of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Germany toward the northeast, ahead of oncoming Soviet troops. Many of them would die en route. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp | CPC]

• USS Springer departed Guam, Mariana Islands for her second war patrol. ww2dbase [Springer | CPC]

• US 5th Army broke through German defensive lines and reached the Po River Valley north of Bologna, Italy. ww2dbase [Operation Grapeshot and Operation Roast | TH, CPC]

• Light carrier Ryuho was transferred from Carrier Division 1 of the 2nd Fleet to the Japanese Navy Kure Naval District Force as Reserve Ship No. 4. ww2dbase [Ryuho | CPC]

• Vice Admiral Gisaburo Yamaguchi was named the commanding officer of Chinkai Guard District in southern Korea. ww2dbase [Chinkai Guard District | CPC]

• USS Franklin transited through the Panama Canal. ww2dbase [Panama Canal | Franklin | CPC]

• Joseph Stalin ordered the Soviet Stavka to influence troops to be more humane toward the civilians of conquered German territories in order to ease the future occupation. ww2dbase [Joseph Stalin | CPC]

• US P-51 fighters based in the Philippine Islands attacked Koshun Airfield, Takao Prefecture, Taiwan. ww2dbase [Koshun Airfield | CPC]

• In Britain the government lifted the black-out restrictions apart from a five-mile wide strip along the coast. However, theatre lights, floodlighting and neon-type advertising was still banned, not to foil bombers but to save fuel. ww2dbase [AC]

• USS Ticonderoga departed Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Washington, United States for Alameda, California, United States, and then on to Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii. ww2dbase [Ticonderoga | DS, CPC]

20 Apr 1945 Interactive Map