24 May 1945
  • The Allies began exchanging the prisoners of war they had freed in Germany. ww2dbase [TH]
  • Operation Kikusui No. 7 was launched off Okinawa, Japan, participated by about 65 Japanese Navy and 100 Japanese Army special attack and escorting aircraft. On the island, seven Type 97 bombers attempted to crash-land at an American-controlled airfield to deliver suicide commandos during Operation Gi; several aircraft were shot down, but those who successfully reached the airfield delivered 69 commandos who destroyed 9 aircraft and damaged 29 others and set the fuel dump aflame; all commandos were killed or committed suicide. ww2dbase [Okinawa Campaign | CPC]
  • USS Pompon arrived at Guam, Mariana Islands, ending her eighth war patrol. ww2dbase [Pompon | CPC]
  • USS Ray sank 2 small Japanese vessels west of Japan with her deck gun. ww2dbase [Ray | CPC]
Austria
  • At Salzburg, Austria, Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim, head of the Luftwaffe, committed suicide in American captivity. Having learnt that he was to be a part of a Soviet-American prisoner exchange and, fearing torture and execution at the hands of the Russians, he took cyanide. His final words were: "I am the head of the Luftwaffe, but have no Luftwaffe." ww2dbase [Robert von Greim | Salzburg | AC, CPC]
Caroline Islands Japan
  • Aircraft of US Navy Task Force 58 attacked airfields in southern Kyushu, Japan while 520 US Army B-29 bombers attacked urban and industrial areas south of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. Many buildings on the grounds of the Imperial Palace complex were destroyed. ww2dbase [Bombing of Tokyo and Other Cities | Tokyo | CPC]
  • Submarine I-369 arrived at Yokosuka, Japan. ww2dbase [I-369 | Yokosuka, Kanagawa | CPC]
Philippines United States Photo(s) dated 24 May 1945
Germany’s Minister of Production Albert Speer, Großadmiral (and later President) Karl Dönitz, and Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, speak to British war correspondents the day after their arrest in Flensburg, Germany, 24 May 1945.An aerial view of the San Francisco Naval Shipyard at Hunters Point, San Francisco, California United States, May 24, 1945.

24 May 1945 Interactive Map

Timeline Section Founder: Thomas Houlihan
Contributors: Alan Chanter, C. Peter Chen, Thomas Houlihan, Hugh Martyr, David Stubblebine
Special Thanks: Rory Curtis




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