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• » 5 Apr 1944

• USAAF and RAF coordinated to start round-the-clock raids on the oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania. ww2dbase [TH]
• The SS Economic and Administrative Office submitted a report to the Supreme Command of the German SS organization noting the existence of 20 concentration camps with 165 connected labor camps. In Hungary, Jews were required to wear the yellow Star of David. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | CPC]
• Soviet troops entered Ternopil, Ukraine. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Escort carrier Makin Island was launched. ww2dbase [Makin Island | DS]
• Oberleutnant Matthias Bermadinger of the German Kampfgeschwader 55 wing was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. ww2dbase [CPC]

• Roza Shanina killed her first German soldier southeast of Vitebsk, Byelorussia. ww2dbase [Roza Shanina | Vitebsk | CPC]

• 26 Japanese A6M Zero fighters of the Sanya Kokutai and the Kaiko Kokutai based in Hainan, China attacked Nanning, Guangxi, China, destroying 2 B-25 bombers and 3 P-40 fighters on the ground and shooting down 7 P-40 fighters in the air. 8 A6M fighters were lost. ww2dbase [Nanning Airfield | Nanning, Guangxi | CPC]

• Japanese authorities in Hong Kong completed the liquidation of Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, better known by their acronym HSBC. ww2dbase [CPC]

• On the Imphal front in India, the Japanese 60th Regiment probed south towards a large store dump, where staff of the British 221st Advanced Ordnance depot, under continuous and heavy fire, repeatedly foiled the Japanese infiltration attacks for three days. Meanwhile, realizing that the movement of Indian 161st Brigade from Kohima to Dimapur was a poorly calculated move, he moved the brigade back; with no room in Kohima for the troops of the brigade, they settled down at Jotsoma 2.5 miles to the northwest to support from a distance. ww2dbase [Battle of Imphal-Kohima | Imphal, Manipur | AC]

• Landing ship No. 130 was launched. ww2dbase [No. 101/103-class | CPC]

• Siegfried Lederer escaped from Auschwitz-Birkenau camp and made it safely to Czechoslovakia; he warned the Elders of the Council at Theresienstadt about the atrocities being committed at Auschwitz. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Auschwitz Concentration Camp | Oswiecim | CPC]

• Soviet troops captured Dorohoi, Romania. ww2dbase [Jassy-Kishinev Offensive and Romania's Surrender | Dorohoi | CPC]

• Violette Szabo boarded a B-24 aircraft at Bedfordshire, England, United Kingdom and paradropped near Cherbourg, France. ww2dbase [Violette Szabo | Bedfordshire, England | CPC]

• At Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States, Emilio Segrè received the first sample of reactor-refined plutonium from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. He would soon discover that the spontaneous fission rate of this plutonium was too high for use in a gun-type fission weapon. ww2dbase [Operation Trinity and Manhattan Project | Los Alamos, New Mexico | CPC]

5 Apr 1944 Interactive Map