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• USS South Dakota was damaged by a magazine explosion off Okinawa, Japan. Nearby, the British Royal Navy Aircraft Carrier HMS Formidable was hit by Kamikaze planes but her steel decking (most US Aircraft Carriers had wooden decking) saved her. Further south, the British Pacific Fleer shelled Japanese positions on the Sakishima Islands of the Ryukyu Islands, 550 miles south of Japan. ww2dbase [Okinawa Campaign | AC]
• German submarine U-853, having sunk the last American merchant ship to be lost in the war on the previous day, was discovered by American blimps and destroyers. She was destroyed off Block Island, Rhode Island, United States with all 55 aboard lost, becoming the second-to-last German submarine to be sunk in WW2. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Grand Admiral Dönitz announced that Himmler was to be relieved of all government duties; he also abolished the Schutzstaffel in all its forms, and banned any further resistance by members of the SS. ww2dbase [Heinrich Himmler | AC]
• The Dutch Nazi Party, Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging, was outlawed. ww2dbase [CPC]
• USS Cero fired three torpedoes at a Japanese transport east of Japan; all torpedoes missed. ww2dbase [Cero | CPC]
• German General of the Infantry Hermann Niehoff surrendered Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) to the Soviets, ending the 82-day siege. ww2dbase [Silesian Offensive and the Siege of Breslau | TH, CPC]
• HMS Cumberland rejoined East Indies Fleet to provide cover during air strikes on the Andaman Islands. ww2dbase [Cumberland | DS]

• US Fifth Army entered southern Austria through the Brenner Pass on the same day that the German forces in Austria surrendered to the Allies. ww2dbase [TH]

• Liberator VLR bombers of No. 86 Squadron of British RAF Coastal Command sank the German submarines U-1008 and U-2534 in the Kattegat off Denmark. ww2dbase [Kattegat | AC]

• In Burma, Anglo-Indian XV Corps linked up with IV Corps, which had been advancing down the Sittang River, and effectively cut off 20,000 sick, hungry and increasingly desperate Japanese from their bases in Indo-China. ww2dbase [Battle of Rangoon | AC]

• Czech resistance leaders made a radio broadcast, appealing to the Americans for military assistance in their war against the Germans, not knowing that the Western Allies had already made a deal with the Soviet Union in terms of operational boundaries in Central Europe. ww2dbase [Prague Strategic Offensive | CPC]

• SMERSH agents of Soviet 3rd Shock Army sneaked into a section of Berlin, Germany occupied by a different Soviet unit to secretly retrieve two burned bodies near the Chancellery; they believed that one of them might be that of Adolf Hitler's. ww2dbase [Reich Chancellery | Adolf Hitler | Berlin | CPC]
• Werner Haase was brought by the Soviets to examine and identify the remains of the Goebbels family in Berlin, Germany. ww2dbase [Werner Haase | Berlin | CPC]
• Investigation of crimes at Flossenbürg Concentration Camp began, oversaw by 11 US Army appointed investigators. ww2dbase [Nuremberg Trials and Other Trials Against Germany | Flossenbürg Concentration Camp | Flossenbürg, Bayreuth | CPC]

• USS Capitaine departed Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii for her first war patrol. ww2dbase [Capitaine | Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]
• Barbers Point Naval Air Station: Carrier Night Air Group 53 (CVGN-53) departed. ww2dbase [Barbers Point Naval Air Station | Ewa, Oahu | DS]

• 400 American B-17 bombers dropped food and other supplies over the Netherlands. ww2dbase [Operations Manna, Chowhound, and Faust | CPC]

• Portugal severed diplomatic ties with Germany. ww2dbase [CPC]

• US B-24 bombers attacked Matsuyama Airfield in Taihoku (now Taipei), Taiwan. ww2dbase [Matsuyama Airfield | Taihoku | CPC]

• The USAAF 306th Bomb Group flying from RAF Thurleigh launched a leaflet dropping mission (nickels) to 14 cities in the Netherlands, France, and Germany. ww2dbase [Bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Other Cities | Bombing of Cities in France and Low Countries | RAF Thurleigh | Thurleigh, England | DS]

• Joseph Rochefort was requested to report on the situation of Japanese war materials by the office of Admiral Ernest King. ww2dbase [Joseph Rochefort | Washington | CPC]

6 May 1945 Interactive Map