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On 3 May 1945, Zvonimir Čučković, an imprisoned Yugoslav communist resistance member from Croatia who worked as a handyman at the prison, [15] left the castle under the pretext of performing an errand for the prison's commander Sebastian Wimmer. Čučković went to seek Allied assistance.
On 5 May, U-853, lying in wait off Point Judith, Rhode Island, sighted and fired on SS Black Point, a collier underway for Boston, Massachusetts. Her torpedoes struck, and within 15 minutes, Black Point had capsized in 95 ft (29 m) of water, the last US-flagged merchant ship sunk in World War II. Twelve men died and 34 were rescued.
German forces in Bavaria surrender: At 14:30 on 5 May 1945, General Hermann Foertsch surrendered all forces between the Bohemian mountains and the Upper Inn river to the American General Jacob L. Devers, commander of the American 6th Army Group. Central Europe: On 5 May 1945, the Czech resistance started the Prague uprising.
The British and Soviet forces near Wismar on the Baltic coast, 3 May 1945. The German ocean liner Cap Arcona was sunk by British warplanes in the Bay of Lübeck with 5,000 concentration camp prisoners aboard. Over 400 SS personnel made it to lifeboats and were rescued but only 350 of the prisoners survived. [6] [7]
German forces counter-attacked, but their progress was slowed by barricades constructed by the insurgents. On 8 May, the Czech and German leaders signed a ceasefire allowing all German forces to withdraw from the city, but some Waffen-SS troops refused to obey. Fighting continued until 9 May, when the Red Army entered the nearly liberated city.
World War II [b] or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war .
1: The Germans begin a surprise offensive (Operation Nordwind) in northern Alsace.: Unternehmen Bodenplatte (Operation Baseplate) is launched by the Luftwaffe against western Allied air bases in Belgium and Holland by elements of ten different Jagdgeschwadern (fighter wings), as its last major air offensive of the war in the West.
Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945; it marked the official end of World War II in Europe in the Eastern Front, with the last known shots fired on 11 May.