Air Operations, Carolines

24 VII Bomber Command B-24s attack fuel stores and the power plant at the Truk Atoll.

Air Operations, CBI

• More than 40 14th Air Force P-51s attack various transportation targets in northern French Indochina and southern and eastern China.

• 16 341st Medium Bomb Group B-25s attack fortifications at Bac Ninh, barges at Ha Dong, and rail targets at several other locations.

Air Operations, East Indies

• Supplementing Royal Australian Air Force efforts, FEAF B-24s attack the Manggar and Oelin airfields on Borneo, Balikpapan, and defenses at Sepinggang.
• 42nd Medium Bomb Group B-25s attack Keningau.
• XIII Fighter Command P-38s attack the Keningau airfield on Borneo, Kudat, and caves near Jesselton.

Air Operations, Formosa

V Fighter Command P-38s attack the Kagi and Mato areas, and targets of opportunity along the west coast.

Air Operations, Japan

During the night 25 505th Very Heavy Bomb Group B-29s 29s sow mines in Yuya Bay and off Fushiki, Nanao, and Senzaki.

Air Operations, Philippines

V Fighter Command fighter-bombers attack supplies and various other targets on Luzon.

Air Operations, Ryukyus

• US Navy and Marine Corps aircraft support US 10th Army ground forces on Okinawa and attack airfields in the Sakishima Islands.
• VMF-223 F4Us down 4 Ki-44 'Tojo' fighters near Amami O Shima at 1830 hours.
• Lt-Gen Roy S. Geiger, the US 10th Army commanding general, declares Okinawa secure at 1330 hours.

Okinawa

Japanese resistance is almost finished. Height 89 is taken by the 32nd Inf, 7th Div. In a cave they find the bodies of Gen Mitsuru Ushijima, Commander of the 32nd Army, and his Chief of Staff, both of whom have committed suicide.

Damaged by suicide aircraft in the day's action include the destroyer escort Halloran (DE-305) and the seaplane tenders Curtiss (AV-4) and Kenneth Whiting (AV-14).

Pacific

Coastal gunfire damages the US motor minesweeper YMS-335 in the Balikpapan area of Borneo.

Philippines

On Luzon the American advance in the Cagayan valley proceeds with almost no opposition. In the north, units of the task force sent by the Americans make contact with the Filipino guerrillas.

Soviet Union, Home Front

12 of the 16 Poles on trial in Moscow are found guilty of engaging in 'underground activities'.

Images from June 21, 1945

Canadian soldiers boarding a tender going out to a troopship en route to Canada, Gourock, Scotland, 21 June 1945. (LAC)

Canadian Soldiers Going Home

Tarkan Island. 21 June 1945. Members of a patrol from C Company, 2/24 Infantry Bn, aboard a jeep and trailer on the last stages of a patrol through 2/4 Commando Squadron area.

Tarkan Island

Japanese prisoners of war at Okuku, Okinawa Island

Japanese POWs

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, June 1945 -- A rifle salute was fired in honor of the dead, the British flag was run up at the same moment as a flame-thrower set fire to the last hut. A German flag and portrait of Hitler went up in flames inside the hut. This was the camp where Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, died

Destruction of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp