On this day
Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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4 Brit destroyers rescue and evacuate 525 patriots to GB
Gers execute 4 officers, sentence 5th to death in absentia for permitting bridge to be captured intact
files proposed Dumbarton Oaks amendments with State Dept; on San Francisco Conf role
Emperor Hirohito inspects Tokyo damage; govt charged with inefficiency in civilian evacuation, Diet; Repr Ando urges compulsory evacuation of old and young
1945John Holder, English cricketer and umpire[†]
John Wakefield Holder is a Barbadian-born English former first-class cricketer and international cricket umpire. Holder was born in Saint George, Barbados. After completing his education, he emigrated to England in search of work with London Transport. After impressing in club cricket in London, Holder began playing county cricket for Hampshire as a fast-medium bowler, in a first-class county career that lasted from 1968 to 1972. Injury forced Holder to retire from professional cricket, though he later returned to play professionally in the Lancashire League and for Western Province in South Africa. After the conclusion of his playing career, Holder became an umpire at the domestic and international levels. He would stand as an umpire in both Test and One Day International cricket from 1988 to 2001. Holder retired from umpiring in 2009, having stood in over 400 first-class and List A one-day matches apiece. As of 2021, he remained the only non-white English umpire in nearly 150 years of Test cricket.
1945Modestas Paulauskas, Lithuanian basketball player and coach[†]
Modestas "Iron Modė" Paulauskas is a former Lithuanian professional basketball coach and basketball player.
1945World 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 US under her own power.[†]
A dive bomber is a bomber aircraft that dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the bomb it drops. Diving towards the target simplifies the bomb's trajectory and allows the pilot to keep visual contact throughout the bomb run. This allows attacks on point targets and ships, which were difficult to attack with conventional level bombers, even en masse. Dive bombing was especially effective against vehicles when integrated into early instances of Blitzkrieg.
1945World War II: Adolf Hitler issues his "Nero Decree" ordering all industries, military installations, shops, transportation facilities, and communications facilities in Germany to be destroyed.[†]
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany during the Nazi period from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. His invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 marked the outbreak of the Second World War. Throughout his leadership in the ensuing conflict, he was closely involved in the direction of German military operations and the perpetration of the Holocaust—the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.