Air Operations, CBI

• 14 341st Medium Bomb Group B-25s and 6 14th Air Force P-51s attack bridges motor-vehicle convoys, rail targets and artillery positions at 7 locations.
• 30 fighter-bombers attack targets of opportunity at 9 locations.

Air Operations, East Indies

• XIII Bomber Command B-24s attack Bintula, Miri, Samarinda, and Tawau.
• 42nd Medium Bomb Group B-25s attack Fort Brook and Weston.
• XIII Fighter Command P-38s attack Tarakan Island.

Air Operations, Japan

• 7 28th Composite Bomb Group B-24s attack the Kataoka naval base with the aid of radar.
• During the night, in the largest B-29 mission of the war, 520 of 562 XXI Bomber Command B-29s dispatched attack Tokyo urban areas with a record 3,646 tons of incendiary bombs. More than 17 square miles of the city area is burned out. 5 B-29s attack targets of opportunity.
• 17 B-29s are lost.

Air Operations, Philippines

V Bomber Command B-25s and A-20s, and V Fighter Command P-38s and P-51s attack various targets on Luzon.

Air Operations, Pacific

1,000 B-29s partcipate in 2 climactic night raids on Tokyo this night and the night of the 25th. There is determined fighter opposition and heavy flak. 30 bombers are lost but the total burned-out area is up to 90 sq km.

Air Operations, Ryukyus

US Navy, Marine Corps, and Royal Navy aircraft support US 10th Army ground forces on Okinawa and attack airfields in the Sakishima Islands.

Britain, Politics

The Labour Party has decided not to maintain the coalition government until the end of the war and Churchill, therefore, resigns in order to prepare for the election. He forms a new caretaker government to hold office until after the election.

Germany

Members of the Dönitz Government, the German High Command and General Staff are taken into custody and interned aboard the liner Patria in Flensburg harbor. Adm Hans-Georg von Friedeburg commits suicide.

Julius Streicher, a notorious Jew baiter, is captured in Bavaria by a Jewish officer from New York. Ostracized during most of the war and hated by even his fellow Nazis, Streicher had turned to farming in his final years and pursued his hobby, collecting pornography.

Japan, Home Front

Japan's largest port, Yokohama, stops functioning because of Allied air and sea attacks.

Okinawa

The 6th Marine Div crosses the Asato River in force and enters the ruins of the town of Naha without meeting any serious resistance. But when they try to turn east to outflank the Shuri line from the south they run into extremely determined enemy resistance on the fortified hill of Machishi. On the left of the American line the 32nd Inf of the 7th Div goes on with the outflanking of Shuri. A period of torrential rain begins, which slows operations down, especially in the central sector.

Philippines

US X Corps and elements of the US 40th Div meet in central Mindanao in positions around Impalutao. Japanese forces are increasingly compressed into a small pocket of resistance in the east of the island, around 100 miles long by 50 miles wide.

War Crimes

Himmler has been captured by the British forces, but he commits suicide at Lüneburg while being held by the British, before he can be searched or questioned properly.

Images from May 23, 1945

German Admiral Arrested. 23 May 1945, Eckernforde, Germany. Adm Wilhelm Meendsen-Bohlken, commanding all the German surface fleet was ordered off his yacht Hela at short notice and placed under arrest.

German Admiral Arrested

The body of Heinrich Himmler lying on the floor at British 2nd Army HQ after his suicide on 23 May 1945

Heinrich Himmler Suicide

Tank crews of The British Columbia Dragoons lined up in front of their Sherman tanks during a review by General H.D.G. Crerar followed by a mounted marchpast, Eelde, Netherlands, May 23rd 1945.

British Columbia Dragoons