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• Weather data for 23 Feb 1945

• USS Hoe collided with USS Flounder underwater at the depth of 60 feet, incurring light damage. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• USS Wake Island refueled east of Iwo Jima, Japan. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• Fortress Posen (now Poznan, Poland) was captured by Soviet troops after a month-long siege. ww2dbase [TH]
• Fighting at the Intramuros district of Manila, Philippine Islands began. On the same day, the US 11th Airborne Division, with Filipino guerrillas, freed the captives of the Los Baños internment camp in the Philippine Islands. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• 23 German Ju-88 bombers attacked an Allied convoy from Murmansk in northern Russia to Scotland, United Kingdom. American liberty ship Henry Bacon shot down three and damaged two, setting a liberty ship record, but was eventually hit by a torpedo and sank. 23 men, including the skipper Alfred Carini, were killed. She became the last Allied vessel to be sunk by the Germans. ww2dbase [AC]
• South African pilot Captain Edwin Swales with the 582 squadron of the RAF Bomber Command held steady his heavily damaged Lancaster bomber so that the crew could parachute out of the doomed bomber. He was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously, the last to receive this reward posthumously from the Bomber Command. ww2dbase [AC]
• Troops of Soviet 6th Army entered southern districts of Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland). ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• Chiang Kaishek unexpectedly withdrew all Chinese forces from Burma. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• A raid of 379 British bombers attacked the German town of Pforzheim, killing 17,000 people and destroying 80% of the town's buildings. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• Ba 349 prototype aircraft conducted its first unmanned vertical launch with rocket power. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• The Verona Philharmonic Theatre in Italy was bombed by Allied forces. ww2dbase [CPC]

• USS Yorktown (Essex-class) departed the Bonin Islands to resume strikes on Japan proper. ww2dbase [Main Article | DS]
• USS Wasp's aircraft attacked targets in the Tokyo, Japan area. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• US Marines and a Navy corpsman raised an American flag atop Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima, Japan. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• Turkey declared war on Germany and Japan, effective 1 Mar 1945. ww2dbase [TH, AC]

• USS Permit arrived at Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, United States. ww2dbase [Main Article | Facility | CPC]

23 Feb 1945 Interactive Map