April 30 1940 German units advancing northward from Oslo linked up with the Germans fighting around Trondheim. The important rail center of Dombas was captured. The first enclosed and guarded getto in Poland was established by the Germans in Lodz.
1941 German troops completed their occupation of Greece. Rommel’s forces continued pouring into Egypt and advanced 6 miles beyond the frontier. Nine thousand Iraqi troops with 28 pieces of artillary surrounded the R.A.F. base at Habbaniyah. The 230 British woman and children who had taken refuge at the base were declared to be hostages. There were 6,000 civilians at Habbaniyah, with a military force of 2,200. The Oil pipelines out of Iraq were blocked.
1942 British civilian air raid casualties for the month were 938 killed and 998 injured, a reflection of the intensification of Luftwaffe attacks on British cities. All of central Burma fell to the Japanese as the defending forces fell back across the Irrawaddy River.
1943 New antisubmarine strategies were formally adopted by the Royal Navy, centering on a carrier based aircraft cover and long range patrol planes. They were immediatly employed in the Bay of Biscay, where in the following month 38 U-Boats were sunk. The key to the program was catching the submarines while they were leaving or returning from their bases on the French coast. Ultra messages were invaluablr in giving British ships and planes specific times and locations for intercepting the submarines.
1944 For the first time Stalin himself publicly acknowledged that the Soviet Union was receiving American and British aid. U.S. and R.A.F. bombers dropped 80,000 tons of explosives in western Europe during the month. British civilian air raid casualties for April were 146 killed and 226 injured.
1945 Hitler committed suicide. Dressed in anew Nazi uniform and modestly bemetaled , Hitler took a cyanide capsule while seated on a couch in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. So ended the thousand year Reich. His new wife Eva Braun, also took poisen. Their bodies were doused in gasoline and burned. Only the Russians saw the remains, and it is still not known what became of the final evidence of Hitlers death. Goebbels and his wife killed themselves and their six children at the same time. Most of the world rejoiced at the news of Hitlers death, but it was by no means a universal feeling. In neutral Portugal, for example, the government ordered two days of national mourning and flags were flown at half-staff. Marshal Graziani was executed by Italian partisans. U.S. First Army units hooked up with Russian troops at Eilenburg. Munich was occupied. More than 110,000 Allied P.O.W. were liberated. U.S. and French troops met on the French-Italian border. Turin was occupied by the U.S. Fifth Army. Dachau concentration camp was liberated and 32,000 prisoners were released. Yugoslav Partisans entered Trieste. Units of the 17th Indian Division advanced to Pegu in Burma. Japanese assults on U.S. ships off Okinawa intensified. During the month 20 were sunk and 157 damaged, 90 by Kamikazes. U.S. Naval forces during this period destroyed 1,100 Japanese planes U.S. forces advanced to within four miles of Davao on Mindanao. There were no civilian air raid casualties in Britian this month. A total of 60,585 were killed and86,175 seriously wounded since September 1939.
Actually Hitler escaped on a sub, and that was one of his doubles that they found . . .he caught Eva cheating on him, killed them both and decided he better do away with any witnesses. . . the Goebbels