Online Encyclopedia

1945 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1945:

January

January 1 - the Luftwaffe begins targeting Allied airfields in Europe as "Operation Bodenplatte "

February

February 13-15 - Allied bombers attack Dresden with incendiary weapons, destroying most of the city and killing some 50,000 people.
February 21 - aircraft carrier USS Saratoga is badly damaged by a kamikaze attack

March

March 13-14 - an Avro Lancaster of No. 617 Squadron RAF drops the first 22,000 lb (9,980 kg) Grand Slam bomb
March 21 - the Ohka dedicated kamikaze weapon is used operationally for the first time but with no success.
March 27 - the final V-2 missile to hit the England falls in Kent

April

April 1 - Ohkas score hits on the USS West Virginia and three of her escorts.
April 10 - the Luftwaffe flies its final sortie over England (with an Arado Ar 234 on a reconnaissance mission)
April 12 - USS Mannert L. Abele is sunk by an Ohka
April 23 - the US Navy puts its first radar-guided bomb into use, the SWOD-9 "Bat", dropped from Consolidated PB4Y s on Japanese shipping in Balikpapan Harbour.

May

Germany's top-scoring fighter ace Hans-Joachim Marseille surrenders to Allied forces
May 7 - the Royal Air Force sinks its last German submarine
May 8 - VE Day - Germany surrenders, ending the War in Europe

July

August

August 1 - Toyama is the subject of an incendiary attack by the USAAF that destroys almost the entire city
August 6 - B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay drops "Little Boy" the first nuclear weapon used in warfare over the Japanese city of Hiroshima
August 9 - B-29 Bockscar drops a plutonium-239 nuclear weapon, Fat Man, on Nagasaki.
August 14 - VJ Day - Japan surrenders, ending the War in the Pacific, and World War II.
August 15 - seven Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft make the last kamikaze attack of the war.
August 19 - two Mitsubishi G4Ms carry Japan's surrender delegation to Ie Shima

September

a captured Focke-Achgelis FA 223 makes the first helicopter crossing of the English Channel
September 20, an experimental Gloster Meteor with Rolls-Royce Trent engines makes the first turboprop-powered flight.

November

November 7 – Gp Cpt H. J. Wilson sets a new official airspeed record of 606 mph (976 km/h) in a Gloster Meteor. Unofficial German speed records by the rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 during the war had already exceeded 625 mph (1,000 km/h)

December