March 18, 1945, marks the 80th anniversary of one of the last surface fleet engagements in the European theater, the Battle of the Ligurian Sea.
1 German destroyer and 2 torpedo boats were conducting a mine-laying operation in the Ligurian Sea off the northern coast of Italy, when 2 British destroyers intercepted them. In the ensuing engagement, both torpedo boats were sunk and the German destroyer damaged, with few casualties on the British side. The German commander in the operation, Franz Burkhart, was taken prisioner by the British. The battle effectively marked the end of any possible Axis naval activity in the Mediterranean.
March 24, 1945, marks the 80th anniversary of Operation Varsity, the largest single-day airborne operation of all time (Operation Market Garden took place over several days). An Anglo-American airborne force of almost 17,000 were sent to support Bernard Montgomery’s Operation Plunder, the planned crossing of the Rhine to invade northern Germany. The goal was to capture key areas on the other bank so the Allied ground force would have an easier time pushing into Germany. The operation was very successful, with most of the operation’s targets captured that day, paving the way for a smooth Allied advance into northern Germany.
March 26, 2025, marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Iwo Jima. The island was declared secure by American forces that day, although several Japanese soldiers continued to “hold out” until several years after the war (like other islands).
The deadliest battle in Marine Corps history, the battle also featured the sinking of USS Bismarck Sea by kamikaze attacks, the last American carrier to be sink during the war.
April 1, 1945, marks the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Okinawa. The contest over this island was one of the largest ground battles of the Pacific War, with hundreds of thousands of American troops involved. Widely considered the last stepping stone to the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands, the Japanese responded with a large number of kamikaze attacks and the doomed final voyage of the Yamato against one of the largest Allied fleets ever assembled. In the end, the heavily outnumbered Japanese lost, with both sides accruing nearly 200,000 casualties combined and over 100,000 dead (most of which Japanese).
The battle would outlast the end of the war in Europe, leading some to call it the final major battle of the war.
April 5, 1945, saw the beginning of a fierce battle in an unexpected location: the Georgian uprising against the Germans on the Dutch island of Texel. Now how did the Georgians get there, and why did they rebel?
The “Georgian Legion” in the German Army consisted of volunteers of Georgian origin, including many who had first fought in the Red Army and had been captured. They hoped that the German advance towards the Caucasus would eventually reach Georgia so that they could assist in liberating their homeland from the Soviets, but by 1945 that hope was of course long gone. The Germans didn’t quite trust them but welcomed the manpower, and as it happened to be, had assigned about 800 of them man a part of the Atlantikwall on the island of Texel.
The Georgians were not in an enviable position at all. Germany was rapidly losing the war, and even when they were far away from the fighting in the east, the possibility of ending up in Soviet hands and being executed as traitors, seemed far from remote. So when they were summoned to fight the advancing Canadians in the east of the Netherlands, they rose in rebellion against their German overlords, hoping to capture the entire island of Texel and hold out until those very Canadians would arrive, thus being able to claim being on the Allied side. It was a desperate plan, but it was all they had.
It ended very badly. They failed to capture the whole island, the Germans sent reinforcements, almost all Georgians were killed, and probably even more Germans, and also a substantial number of Dutch civilians. Curiously, the fighting went on even after the overall German capitulation, ending only on June 20.
Some good information can be found here: https://www.landmarkscout.com/the-last-battle-of-ww2-in-europe-the-georgian-uprising-on-texel-the-netherlands/ even when the claim that this was the last WW2 battle in Europe is somewhat inaccurate.
Tragic.
Reminds me of the Cossacks ending up in Italy for similar reasons and the Slovakians rebelling in 1945.
Thanks for sharing!
April 6, 1945, is the 80th anniversary of the beginning of Operation Grapeshot. The last major Allied offensive of the Italian campaign, it lasted until the end of the war on Europe. The battle was a follow-up to breaking of the Gothic Line several months before.
Overall, the Italian campaign lasted almost 2 years and cost tens of thousands of Allied lives.
80 Years Ago Today;
Japanese Battleship Yamato is sunk by US Navy carrier aircraft North of Okinawa - April 7, 1945
Yamato was hit by multiple bombs & torpedos from US Navy aircraft during Operation Kikusui I / Operation Ten-Go.
As Yamato capsized one of the two bow magazines detonated in a tremendous explosion, an estimated 3,055 of her 3,332 crew perished.
Operation Kikusui I was the last major Japanese naval operation in the Pacific during WW2.
(Kikusui I refers to the naval aspect of Operation Ten-Go, which was the overall name for all Japanese kamikaze operations during the Okinawa campaign)
The Naval Operation consisted of sending Yamato, the largest battleship in the world, and nine other Japanese warships for a suicide attack on Allied forces engaged in the Battle of Okinawa.
Photographed from an aircraft from USS Yorktown CV-10
US Navy photos
Mushroom cloud from the Japanese Battleship Yamato after she exploded - April 7, 1945
An escorting destroyer is on the left.
Photographed from an aircraft from USS Yorktown CV-10
US Navy photo NH 62582
Beat me to it.
