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...1945

Map - Approaches to Japan, British Pacific Fleet Operations (see May 1945)

MAY 1945

 

ATLANTIC - MAY 1945

Russian Convoys - One last convoy sailed each way soon after the German surrender. JW67 left the Clyde on the 12th with 23 merchantmen and reached Kola on the 20th. Three days later return RA67, again with 23 ships, set out and on the last day of the month sailed up the Clyde. Since August 1941, 78 convoys had sailed in both directions and passed through nearly 1,400 merchant ships for the loss of 85 - a loss rate of 6 percent. Millions of tons of vital cargo and thousands of tanks and aircraft had been delivered to the Russians. The cost to the Royal Navy included one escort carrier severely damaged, two cruisers, six destroyers, eight other escorts sunk in the cold and often stormy waters of the Arctic. The Germans lost "Scharnhorst" and indirectly "Tirpitz", three big destroyers, over 30 U-boats.

Battle of the Atlantic, Conclusion - Just 68 months before, northwest of the British Isles liner "Athenia" was torpedoed by "U-30" and 11 days later "U-39" sunk by Royal Navy destroyers. Since then, tens of thousands of lives, thousands of ships and hundreds of U-boats had been lost in the battle to sustain Britain as the base without which the liberation of Europe would have been impossible. As the United States took over from Britain the mantle of the world's most powerful navy, so the last merchantmen and U-boats of the Battle of the Atlantic went to the bottom in American waters and involved American ships. 6th - "U-881" was sunk by the US Navy south of Newfoundland. On the same day, "U-853" torpedoed freighter "Black Point" off New York, was hunted down and sunk by US destroyer escort "Atherton" and frigate "Moberley". The cost of the Battle is usually measured in terms of the 2,400 merchantmen sunk in the North and South Atlantic. To this must be added one battlecruiser, three fleet and escort carriers, two cruisers, 47 destroyers and escorts of the British and Canadian Navies lost in the Atlantic, excluding the convoy routes to Russia. Plus the warships lost by the US and other Allied Navies.

Monthly Loss Summary: 1 merchant ship of 5,000 tons in the Atlantic: 2 German U-boats

EUROPE - MAY 1945

End of the U-boats - Right to the end of the war there was no let-up in the struggle against the U-boats, especially faced with the threat from the new and dangerous Type XXI and XXIII. Between the 2nd and 6th, 23 U-boats of all types were destroyed by the Typhoons, Beaufighters, Mosquitoes and Liberators of the RAF and Allied Tactical Air Forces. As the German fighter defences crumbled, the Allied aircraft roamed the Kattegat and nearby waters catching many of the U-boats in the Baltic or sailing for Norway. One more was lost by unknown causes off Scotland. Two others respectively represent the last U-boat destroyed by the Royal Navy and the final sinking of the European war. While much of this was happening, steps were taken to arrange for the surrender of Germany's still formidable submarine fleet. 4th - A Royal Navy task force consisting of escort carriers Queen, Searcher and Trumpeter with cruisers and destroyers and under the command of Vice-Adm R. R. McGrigor returning from Murmansk, launched strikes against shipping off Norway, and "U-711" was sunk near Narvik. The same day Adm Doenitz ordered his U-boats to stop operations and return to base. Many crews prefered to scuttle their boats. 7th - U-boats gained their last success when Type XXIII coastal boat "U-2336" sank merchantmen "Avondale Park" and "Sneland" off the Firth of Forth. Further north, to the west of Bergen, a RAF Catalina of No 210 Squadron on Northern Transit Area patrol destroyed "U-320", the very last U-boat casualty. 8th - Operational U-boats were ordered to surface and sail for Allied ports flying a black flag of surrender. Most made for the UK, although a few reached the US. 9th - The first of over 150 surrendered boats started to arrive, but more than 200 were scuttled. Of those surrendering, a quarter were taken over by the Allied powers and the rest sunk by the Royal Navy in the Atlantic off Northern Ireland in Operation 'Deadlight' through to January 1946.

Germany, Final Defeat and Surrender -

Western Front - In the last week of the war in Europe, US First and Ninth Armies stood along the west bank of the River Elbe. To their north, British Second Army reached the Baltic on the 2nd and next day took Hamburg. In the south, US Third Army pushed into Czechoslovakia as far as Pilsen and Austria around Linz, and Seventh Army into Austria and through Innsbruck before crossing the Brenner Pass into Italy. There the Western Allies stopped. On the 4th outside Hamburg, German envoys surrendered their forces in Holland, Denmark and northwest Germany to Field Marshal Montgomery.

Eastern Front - Berlin fell to the Russian Army on the 2nd. Fighting continued in Czechoslovakia and Austria and, on the 5th, resistance forces rose to take over Prague. A few days later the last major German units surrendered to the Russians to the east of the Czech capital.

Surrender and Occupation - At Gen Eisenhower's HQ at Rheims in France on the 7th, the unconditional surrender of Germany was signed to take effect from midnight on the 8th - VE day. On the 9th it was ratified in Berlin and signed for the Allies by ACM Tedder (as Gen Eisenhower's Deputy) and Russian Marshal Zhukov. As the last remaining German forces surrendered in France, Germany, Norway and elsewhere, and the Allies completed the liberation of all Europe from their hold, the four major powers moved into their zones of occupation in Germany and Austria. The war in Europe was over.

Monthly Loss Summary: 2 merchant ships of 5,000 tons in UK waters.

MEDITERRANEAN - MAY 1945

Italy, Conclusion - As agreed, the cease-fire took place on the 2nd just as the Allies reached Trieste near the Yugoslavian border. On the 6th they arrived at the Brenner Pass into Austria in time to meet units of the US Seventh Army coming from the north through Germany.

Mediterranean, Final Victory - The entire Mediterranean basin, the Middle East, and North and East Africa were now completely free from threat of German and Italian military domination. In five short years the RN had moved from having to fight hard to maintain a presence in the Mediterranean, to where it had been largely responsible for landing large Allied armies on enemy shores and supplying and supporting them. The cost had been high - over 40 percent of total major warship losses of the Royal Navy world-wide: one battleship, two fleet carriers, 20 cruisers and cruiser-minelayers, 67 destroyers and escort destroyers, 45 submarines, escorts, minesweepers, landing craft, coastal forces, and thousands of officers and men.

INDIAN & PACIFIC OCEANS - MAY 1945

Burma, Conclusion - Concerned that 14th Army coming from the north would not reach Rangoon - the capital and major port of Burma, before the monsoon broke, the go-ahead was given for airborne and amphibious landings. On the 1st, Gurkha paratroops landed near the coast. Early next morning the main landings took place. 2nd, Landings near Rangoon, Operation 'Dracula' - Under the naval command of Rear-Adm B. C. S. Martin, an Indian division was carried from Ramree Island in landing ships and craft and put ashore at Rangoon, covered by escort carriers, cruisers and destroyers (Cdre G. N. Oliver). At the same time, diversionary attacks were made on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands by Vice-Adm H. T. C. Walker with battleships Queen Elizabeth and the French "Richelieu" and aircraft from two escort carriers. Rangoon was entered on the 3rd by the Indian landing force to find the Japanese gone. On the 6th they met up with 14th Army units just a few miles to the north. The rest of the war was spent mopping up those Japanese unable to escape to Thailand.

16th, Sinking of the "Haguro", Last Major Surface Warship Action of the War - Japanese heavy cruiser "Haguro" sailed for the Andaman Islands to evacuate the garrison. She was reported by East lndies Fleet submarines in the Malacca Strait and Adm Walker set out with his escort carriers to catch her. They were are sighted on the 11th and "Haguro" turned back. She tried again a few days later. This time 26th Destroyer Flotilla (Capt M. L. Power) with "Saumarez", "Venus", "Verulam", "Vigilant" and "Virago" was waiting off Penang. In a classic night torpedo action they attacked from all sides and sent "HAGURO" to the bottom early on the 16th.

19th - On patrol in the Java Sea, submarine "TERRAPIN" attacked an escorted Japanese tanker and was badly damaged by depth charges in the counter-attack. She was not repaired, the last Royal Navy submarine casualty of the war.

Borneo - Australian forces under Gen MacArthur started landing operations in Borneo, partly to recover the oil fields. On the 1st they went ashore at Tarakan on the east coast of Dutch Borneo, covered by ships of Seventh Fleet including the Australian cruiser "Hobart". Similar assaults took place at Brunei Bay on the north coast of British Borneo on 10th June, after which the Australians advanced south down the coast of Sarawak. In the last major amphibious operation of the war on the 1st July, the Australians landed at Balikpapan, south of Tarakan on the east coast. Tough fighting was needed to secure the port.

Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands (see map above) - As the struggle for Okinawa continued, US Fifth Fleet was hit by four 'kikusui' attacks in May. By the 4th, BPF was back off the Sakishimas and also under fire: 4th - Formidable and Indomitable were hit by one aircraft each. 9th - Victorious was damaged and "Formidable" hit again by a suicide aircraft. In all cases the carriers' armoured deck allowed them to resume flight operations in a remarkably fast time. On the 25th the RN ships headed first for Manus to prepare for the next stage of the attack on Japan. In two months the aircraft of BPF had flown over 5,000 sorties. (HMS Indomitable in the Far East 1944-45, a Photographic Record)

DEFENCE OF TRADE - June 1944 to May 1945

Total Losses = 210 British, Allied and neutral ships of 942,000 tons ( 78,000 tons per month)

 

By Location

 By Cause

JUNE 1945

INDIAN & PACIFIC OCEANS - JUNE 1945

8th - As Japanese heavy cruiser "ASHIGARA" (sister-ship to "Haguro") carried troops from Batavia to Singapore, she was torpedoed five times by submarine "Trenchant" and sank in the Banka Strait off southeast Sumatra.

British Pacific Fleet - The main body of the Fleet prepared to leave Sydney to join the US fleet, now the Third under Adm Halsey. As they did, newly arrived fleet carrier Implacable with an escort carrier and cruisers in support, launched raids on the by-passed island of Truk in the Carolines on the 14th and 15th.

Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands - The fighting finally came to an end on the 22nd after one of the bitterest of campaigns. More than 7,000 men of the US Army and Marine Corps had been killed - and nearly 5,000 men of the US Navy, mainly from kamikaze attacks. The Japanese had lost well over 100,000 killed. USN losses in ships include five carriers badly damaged and 32 destroyer types, many on radar picket duty, sunk or never repaired. Over 7,000 Japanese aircraft were lost from all causes.

JULY 1945

ATLANTIC - JULY 1945

Atomic Bomb - The world's first A-bomb was successfully exploded at Alamogordo, New Mexico on the 16th July in Operation 'Trinity'.

EUROPE - JULY 1945

Potsdam Conference - In the second half of the month, the heads of the three great powers met at Potsdam outside Berlin to continue discussing the future of Europe and final defeat of Japan. By the end of the conference only Stalin remained of the original three major Allied leaders who had met in the past. Accompanied by President Truman of the United States for the first time, Winston Churchill was only there at the start. On the 26th the Potsdam Declaration was broadcast, demanding the unconditional surrender of Japan.

Britain - Winston Churchill's Conservative Party was swept from power and the Labour Party under Clement Attlee took over the reins of the wartime Coalition Government. The new Prime Minister travelled to Potsdam for the rest of the conference.

INDIAN & PACIFIC OCEANS - JULY 1945

Australia - Prime Minister John Curtin failed to see the end of the war dying on the 5th after an illness. Acting PM, Joseph Chiffley, succeeded him.

24th/26th, Last Major Warship Casualties of the RN in the War - In East lndies Fleet operations against the Phuket Island area off the west coast of southern Thailand, including mine clearance, fleet minesweeper SQUIRREL was mined and sunk on the 24th. Two days later on the 26th, kamikaze aircraft attacked for the first and last time in the Indian Ocean theatre. Fleet minesweeper "VESTAL" was hit and scuttled. Heavy cruiser Sussex (right - NavyPhotos) was very slightly damaged by a near miss.

29th - Late on the 29th after delivering atomic bomb components to Tinian, US cruiser "lNDIANAPOLIS" was sunk by a Japanese submarine in the Philippines Sea.

31st, Sinking of the "Takao" - Japanese heavy cruiser "Takao", previously damaged by US submarines on passage to the Battle of Leyte Gulf, was now laying off Singapore in the Johore Straits. On the night of the 30th/31st, midget submarines "XE-1" (Lt Smart) and "XE-3" (Lt Fraser) were released by towing submarines "Spark" and "Stygian" and managed to reach the cruiser to drop their charges. "XE-3" was almost trapped beneath the hull of "Takao" on a falling tide. "TAKAO" was badly damaged in the resulting explosions and sank to the bottom. Lt Ian Fraser RNR and his diver, Leading Seaman James Magennis were awarded the Victoria Cross. Other XE craft cut or damaged the undersea telephone cables off Saigon and Hong Kong at this time.

British Pacific Fleet - Adm Rawlings, now with King George V, Formidable, Implacable, Victorious and six cruisers including the Canadian Uganda and New Zealand Achilles and Gambia joined Third Fleet in mid-month to bombard Japan by sea and air through into August.

Japan - During the attacks on Japan the US Navy reserved the right to finish off the Imperial Japanese Navy and in aircraft strikes on Kure destroyed battleship "HARUNA", battleship/carriers "ISE" and "HYUGA", carrier "AMAGI" and several carriers under construction.

AUGUST 1945

INDIAN & PACIFIC OCEANS - AUGUST 1945

Japan - As US Third Fleet and the British Pacific Fleet continued to bombard Japan, the British and Commonwealth Navies won their last Victoria Cross of World War 2. Lt Robert Gray RCNVR, Corsair fighter-bomber pilot with Formidable's 1841 Squadron pressed home an attack on shipping in Onagawa harbour, north-eastern Honshu on the 9th. Under heavy fire, he sank his target before crashing in flames and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

Japan - Final Defeat .....

Although Japan's cities and production facilities were being destroyed by the strategic bombing offensive and now by Third Fleet warships laying off her shores, the Imperial Navy and merchant marine annihilated, and remaining overseas conquests isolated and under attack, the country was not beaten. There was therefore no let-up in the planning and execution of the campaigns needed to bring the war to a final conclusion. In South East Asia, Adm Mountbatten prepared to land in Malaya and the Americans planned to invade the southern Japanese island of Kyushu in the Autumn and Honshu around Tokyo early in 1946. US casualties of a million or more were expected, plus how many million Japanese? In a matter of days, all the planning came to nought: 6th - B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay", flying from Tinian dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT killed 80,000 people. 8th - Russia declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria early next day overwhelming the Japanese defenders. 9th - The second A-bomb was detonated over Nagasaki and over 40,000 people died. 15th, VJ-Day - After days of internal argument, Emperor Hirohito over-rode the politicians and military and broadcast Japan's unconditional surrender over the radio. 27th - Ships of Third Fleet under Adm Halsey started to arrive in Tokyo Bay and anchor within sight of Mount Fuji. Representative ships of the British Pacific Fleet and Dominion Navies included Duke of York (flying the flag of Adm Fraser), King George V, Indefatigable, cruisers Newfoundland and New Zealand Gambia and two Australian destroyers. Australian cruisers Shropshire and Hobart later joined them. 29th - Adm Nimitz, C-in-C Pacific flew to Japan, followed by Gen MacArthur, C-in-C South West Pacific and future Allied overlord of Japan.

TOTAL MERCHANT SHIP LOSSES

SEPTEMBER 1939 to AUGUST 1945

Summarised here in all its immensity are the losses in ships suffered by Britain, its Allies and neutral countries throughout the war. Of the grand totals that follow, Britain's losses amounted to around 50% of tonnage, with a similar percentage applying to sinkings in the North and South Atlantic. Both figures point to the critical importance of the Battle of the Atlantic and the price Britain paid for keeping open the sea-lanes. In concentrating on losses, it should not be overlooked that taking the war as a whole, well over 99 percent of merchantmen reached their destination safely. On the other side of the balance sheet, more than 30,000 officers and men of the British Merchant Navy did not come home plus the many men of Allied and Neutral nations. Axis losses were also considerable.

Total Losses = 5,150 British, Allied and neutral ships of 21,570,000 tons (300,000 tons per month)

 

By Location

 By Cause

SEPTEMBER 1945

INDIAN & PACIFIC OCEANS - SEPTEMBER 1945

 ... and Surrender

2nd - Gen MacArthur accepted Japan's surrender on behalf of the Allied powers on the quarterdeck of US battleship "Missouri". Amongst the signatories of the surrender document were Adm Sir Bruce Fraser for Great Britain, Gen Blamey for Australia, Col Moore-Cosgrove for Canada, Air Vice Marshal lsitt for New Zealand and, for the United States, Adm Nimitz.

Royal Navy - As ships of the Royal and Dominion Navies repatriated Allied prisoners of war and transported food and supplies throughout South East Asia, other surrenders followed during the next few days: 6th - On board light carrier Glory off the by-passed Japanese stronghold of Rabaul, Australian Gen Sturdee took the surrender of the Bismarck Archipelago, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Local surrenders in the area took place on Australian warships. 12th - South East Asia was surrendered to Adm Mountbatten at a ceremony in Singapore. 16th - Arriving at Hong Kong in cruiser Swiftsure, Rear-Adm C. H. J. Harcourt accepted the Japanese surrender.