WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO MAY 1945
Find out what all happened January to May 1945

World War II: The United States invades Luzon in the Philippines. (9. January 1945)

World War II: Off the coast of Japan, a dive bomber hits the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing 724 of her crew. Badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the U.S. under her own power. (19. March 1945)

World War II: Soviet forces begin an offensive to push Germans from Upper Silesia. (15. March 1945)

World War II: A force of Allied aircraft unsuccessfully attacked a German destroyer in Førdefjorden, Norway. (9. February 1945)

World War II: Italian Campaign – General Heinrich von Vietinghoff signs the official instrument of surrender of all Wehrmacht forces in Italy. (2. May 1945)

World War II: The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with German refugees, sinks in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, leading to the deadliest known maritime disaster, killing approximately 9,500 people. (30. January 1945)

Osijek, Croatia, is liberated from fascist occupation. (14. April 1945)

World War II: The Captain class frigate HMS Goodall K479 is torpedoed by U-286 outside the Kola Inlet becoming the last ship of the Royal Navy sunk in the European theatre of World War II. (29. April 1945)

World War II: The German Luftwaffe launches Operation Bodenplatte, a massive, but failed attempt to knock out Allied air power in northern Europe in a single blow. (1. January 1945)

First combat mission of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator heavy bomber. (29. May 1945)

World War II: On the first day of the bombing of Dresden, the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony. (14. February 1945)

World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan's ports and waterways begins. Argentina declares war on the Axis Powers. (27. March 1945)

World War II: Battle of Bautzen – last successful German tank-offensive of the war and last noteworthy victory of the Wehrmacht. (26. April 1945)

World War II: The 11th Airborne Division, with Filipino guerrillas, free the captives of the Los Baños internment camp. (23. February 1945)

World War II: About 3,000 inmates from the Stutthof concentration camp are forcibly marched into the Baltic Sea at Palmnicken (now Yantarny, Russia) and executed. (31. January 1945)

Lapland War: Finland declares war on Nazi Germany. (4. March 1945)

Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are executed by a firing squad consisting of members of the Italian resistance movement. (28. April 1945)

World War II: US troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to later cede the city to the Soviet Union. (20. April 1945)

World War II: Soviet and Bulgarian forces capture Vienna, Austria. (13. April 1945)

World War II: Santo Tomas Internment Camp is liberated from Japanese authority (4. February 1945)