The Allies overran Germany from the west during April 1945 as Russian forces advanced from the east. Only a few strategic targets remained for attack from the air and these were rapidly destroyed. The last mission against an industrial target took place on April 25 when the famous Skoda armament works at Pilsen, Czechoslovakia were bombed.
The AAF then began flying mercy missions, dropping food to people in northern Italy and the Netherlands and evacuating released prisoners of war. On May 2, German forces in Italy and southern and western Austria stopped fighting and on May 7, after 3 1/2 years of war with the U.S., Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally.
The air offensive conducted by the AAF in conjunction with the RAF against Germany and Italy was of tremendous value in bringing about victory in Europe with the final defeat of these two nations. It was costly, however, for the AAF losses from all causes totaled 27,694 aircraft, including 8,314 heavy bombers, 1,623 medium and light bombers, and 8,481 fighters destroyed in combat. Total AAF battle casualties were 91,105 personnel--34,362 killed, 13,708 wounded, and 43,035 missing, captured, or interned.
By April 1945, the German Army was shattered. On April 25, American and Soviet forces met at the Elbe River. Five days later, Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. His successor, Admiral Karl Doenitz, sent General Alfred Jodl to the SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces) detachment in Rheims to seek terms for an end to the war. At 2:41 a.m. on May 7, general Jodl signed for the unconditional surrender of German forces on all fronts, which was to take effect on May 8 at 11:01 p.m. After six years and millions of live lost, the Nazi scourge was crushed and the war in Europe was finally over.
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS
ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
Public Relations Division
This copy has been
Transmitted to M0I London
and OWI Washington for
release to Combined U.S.
and Canadian Press and Radio.
8 MAY 45
SHAEF RELEASE No. 1453
VICTORY
ORDER OF THE DAY
Men and women of the Allied Expeditionary Force:
The crusade on which we embarked in the early summer of 1944 has reached its glorious conclusion. It is my especial privilege, in the name of all Nations represented in this Theatre of War, to commend each of you for valiant performance of duty Though these words are feeble they come from the bottom of a heart overflowing with pride in your loyal service and admiration for you as warriors. Your accomplishments at sea, in the air, on the ground and in the field of supply, have astonished the world. Even before the final week of the conflict, you had put 5,000,000 of the enemy permanently out of the war. You have taken in stride military tasks so difficult as to be classed by many doubters as impossible. You have confused, defeated and destroyed your savagely fighting foe. On the road to victory you have endured every discomfort and privation and have surmounted every obstacle, ingenuity and desperation could throw in your path. You did not pause until our front was firmly joined up with the great Red Army coming from the East, and other Allied Forces, coming from the South. Full victory in Europe has been attained. Working and fighting together in a single and indestructible partnership you have achieved a perfection in unification of air, ground and naval power that will stand as a model in our time. The route you have travelled through hundreds of miles is marked by the graves of former comrades. From them have been exacted the ultimate sacrifice; blood of many nations - American, British, Canadian, French, Polish and others - has helped to gain the victory. Each of the fallen died as a member of the team to which you belong, bound together by a common love of liberty and a refusal to submit to enslavement. No monument of stone, no memorial of whatever magnitude could so well express our respect and veneration for their sacrifice as would perpetuation of the spirit of comradeship in which they died. As we celebrate Victory in Europe let us remind ourselves that our common problems of the immediate and distant future can be best solved in the same conceptions of co-operation and devotion to the cause of human freedom as have made this Expeditionary Force such a mighty engine of righteous destruction. Let us have no part in the profitless quarrels in which other men will inevitably engage as to what country, what service, won the European war. Every man, every woman, of every nation here represented, has served according to his or her ability, and the efforts of each have contributed to the outcome. This we shall remember - and in doing so we shall be revering each honored grave, and be sending comfort to the loved ones of comrades who could not live to see this day.
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