World Aviation in 1945 - Part 2

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23 April
United States Navy Consolidated PB4Y Liberators of Patrol Bombing Squadron 109 launch two Bat missiles against Japanese shipping in Balikpapan harbour in Borneo. This is the first use of automatic homing missiles during the Second World War.

26 April
Hanna Reitch, flying a Fiesler Fi156 Storch, flies General Ritter von Greim from Berlin, Gatow into Berlin. In Hitler's underground bunker he is promoted to command the Luftwaffe in place of Hermann Göring.

28 April
Benito Mussolini is captured at Dongo, near Lake Como and is shot by Italian Communist partisans.

29 April
The war in Italy comes to an end with German envoys signing terms of unconditional surrender.

30 April
Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide in the air raid bunker beneath the German Chancellery in Berlin.

7 May
Documents for the unconditional surrender of all German forces are signed at General Eisenhower's Headquarters. Ratified in Berlin, the war in Western Europe ends officially at midnight.

22 May
United States authorities disclose that Japanese balloon attacks have been, and continue to be made on the United States. One ballon had come down in Montana and another in British Columbia

29 May
An advance party of the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) arrives in the Mariana Islands.

31 May
The United States War Department announces that a woman and five children have been killed by a Japanese bomb-carrying balloon on 5 March at Lake View in Oregon.

11 June
Boeing B29s of the 393rd Very Heavy Bomber Squadron, the only combat aircraft of the 509th Composite Group, land at Tinian in Marianas.

25 June
The National Skyway Freight Corporation is established as the first all freight airline in the USA. In 1946 it will adopt the title Flying Tiger Line Inc.

1 July
With air support from the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and the 5th and 13th United States Army Air Force (USAAF), the Australian 7th division lands on the South-east coast of Borneo.

2 July
Japanese authorities begin a major evacuation of people from Toyko, due to heavy and continuous air attacks by the Americans.

10 July
The final United States aircraft carrier operations begin against targets on the Japanese home islands.

11 July
The United States announces the transfer of the 8th United States Army Air Force (USAAF) via the United States to the Far East.

13/14 July
The Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Forces is disbanded at midnight.

14 July
United States Army Air Force (USAAF) Douglas A20s operating from Hollandia attack Japanese-held oil fields at Boela on Ceram Island. They use rocket bombs for the first time in the southwest Pacific.

16 July
The first atom bomb is successfully detonated at Alamogordo in New Mexico in the United States.

16 July
Major General Curtis LeMay takes command of the 20th United States Army Air Force (USAAF).

21 July
Japanese forces are decimated by air attacks as they attempt to retreat across the Sittang river in Burma.

28 July
A North American B25 Mitchell bomber of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF), flying in bad visibility, collides with the 79th floor of the Empire State Building in New York. 19 people are killed, including the crew of six, and twenty-six people are injured.

30 July
The Mediterranean Allied Air Forces are disbanded.

1 August
851 Boeing B29s mount the largest operation against Japanese cities.

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