For the last day, the Japanese cabinet have been locked in fraught debate, interrupted by news of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria & of a second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Senior ministers are split on whether to surrender. War Minister Korechika Anami tells cabinet that a captured US pilot has "admitted", under torture, that USA has 100 atom bombs ready to hit Japan. However, he still opposes surrender: "Would it not be wondrous for this whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower?"

US bomber plane Enola Gay has dropped "Little Boy", the American atomic bomb, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It explodes with force equal to 15 kilotons of TNT. The atom bomb detonates 1968 feet above Hiroshima. In less than one second, a 900 foot wide fireball blasts the centre of the city, vaporising hundreds of people without trace, & killing thousands more in seconds.

Cruiser USS Indianapolis has been torpedoed & sunk by Japanese submarine near Guam. She was returning from a top-secret mission to deliver the "Little Boy" atomic bomb to a US Pacific airbase on Tinian Island, where it will be flown to its target: the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Hull rent by two Japanese torpedoes, the top-heavy USS Indianapolis sinks in 12 minutes. ~300 crew go down with the ship, 890 are adrift, without US Navy's knowledge, with slim hope of rescue. It's the worst single disaster in the history of the US Navy.

US General Staff have approved plan for Operation Downfall: the invasion of Japan, beginning in November of this year. Over a million Allied casualties are expected. Allied plan for the invasion of Japan begins with Operation Olympic, amphibious assault on the southern island of Kyūshū- with 14 Allied divisions, 42 aircraft carriers, & 400+ more warships. Kyūshū will act as staging post to invade rest of the Home Islands of Japan.

US Army Private Kurt Vonnegut, recently released from a German prisoner of war camp after 6 months, writes home, describing his captivity in Dresden- when it was bombed by the Allies. After being taken prisoner during last December's "Battle of the Bulge", Kurt Vonnegut was taken to a work camp in Dresden: "Under the Geneva Convention, Officers & NCOs are not obliged to work when taken prisoner. I am, as you know, a Private."

Last battle in Yugoslavia, at Poljana, as 30,000 Germans & their fascist collaborators try to fight their way past the partisans & escape to Austria. Croatian Ustaše & Serbian Chetniks, who have aided Nazi occupiers, hope to surrender to British rather than face Communists. Ustaše fascists were so brutal in their pogroms against Serbs & Roma, even their Nazi allies have condemned them; SS head Himmler criticised the "bestial atrocities" of Croatian fascists.

British doctors are trying to care for 29,000 survivors of Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, most starved & with typhus epidemic raging. 9000 have died since liberation last month, with some unable to digest food such as bully beef rations or milk after years of hunger. British have forced the SS guards of Bergen-Belsen to bury the thousands of dead, without gloves & on starvation rations. Exhausted Nazi guards are permitted a brief rest by British troops, provided they lie face-down in an empty mass grave. 20 are dead to typhus or suicide.

US Navy aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill, supporting the Allied invasion of Okinawa, has been hit by two Japanese kamikaze suicide planes within 30 seconds. USS Bunker Hill erupts in flames, smashed by two 250kg bombs & then two Japanese kamikaze planes within a minute; 389 sailors & airmen have been killed.

After a last farewell to Goebbels, Bormann & Führerbunker staff, Adolf & Eva Hitler go to their private rooms. Hitler is determined not to be taken alive, having heard of Mussolini's fate via Allied radio broadcasts. A shot echoes through Berlin's Führerbunker. Adolf Hitler is dead. The war continues.

Hitler is outraged to learn SS General Steiner has not attacked from north to "throw back" Red Army from Berlin with his imaginary "army group". In reality, Steiner commands 3 tattered battalions, untrained Volkssturm, & a few tanks, barely holding ground & incapable of attack. In Fürerbunker beneath Berlin, despondent Hitler summons German generals & Himmler for conference. When told Red Army cannot be stopped, Hitler starts raving & condemning "traitorous" troops.

After a brief birthday tour, Hitler abandons the ruined Reich Chancellery, retreating into underground Führerbunker to hide from Red Army shells & Allied bombs. In Chancellery gardens, Hitler, twitching from drugs, reviews a group of Hitler Youth boys being awarded Iron Cross for disabling a Soviet tank.

American conscript Eddie Slovik, 24, has been executed by the US Army for desertion, after refusing to fight against Germans with his regiment in France. After deserting from front line last October, Slovik gave himself up to US Army & presented a note stating refusal to fight & intent to run: "They were shelling us again. I was so scared, nerves and trembling, that at the time the other replacements moved out, I couldn’t move."

Nazis have created a new, multiracial unit of the Waffen-SS: 1st Croatian division, made up of mostly Bosnian Muslims who have volunteered to fight against Yugoslav partisans on behalf of German occupiers. Germans think Bosnian Muslim troops will be reliable force to police the Balkans. Head of SS Himmler believes Islam creates fearless soldiers & is a personal supporter of the project; including arranging a blessing from the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem:

Famine is sweeping East Bengal, in British-controlled Indian Raj; British government is refusing to supply food to help starving population. Wartime inflation & rationing have left millions unable to buy enough food to stave off starvation. Churchill blocks shipments of food to India, claims Europe more urgent: "starvation of anyhow underfed Bengalis is less serious than that of sturdy Greeks."

Prisoners at the Treblinka extermination camp have revolted against Nazi guards, with hundreds of Jewish inmates setting fire to buildings & escaping after storming the main gate. Led by Polish army officers & inspired by Warsaw ghetto uprising, Treblinka prisoners have broken into camp armory to take rifles, hand grenades, & pistols. Several SS men shot & 300 inmates have broken free.

Racial violence has broken out in UK between white & black American servicemen stationed in Lancashire: "Battle of Bamber Bridge" starts as US military police attempted to arrest African American soldiers in a local pub, only to be attacked by British locals & other black troops. British locals have rejected American attempts to import racial segregation: told that they shouldn't allow African Americans to mix with whites, three pubs in Bamber Bridge have put up "Black troops only" signs.

The Nazi destruction of the Jewish ghetto in German-occupied Warsaw is complete. SS commander Jürgen Stroop reports: "The former Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no longer in existence... Total number of Jews dealt with 56,065." Survivors are sent to concentration camps. For almost a month, resistance fighters in the Warsaw ghetto have fought against the SS "liquidators", killing or wounding over 100 Germans & their collaborators. It's the single largest Jewish revolt against the Nazis.

The "Bat Bomb", a top-secret American experimental weapon, has had its first, disastrous test run at an airbase in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Bats fitted with incendiary bombs were accidentally released, burning down most of the base. "Bat Bomb" project uses Mexican free-tailed bats, gluing on small napalm charge with a time fuse. Bats are meant to be parachuted over enemy cities, roost in buildings, then explode to cause uncontrollable fires.

The Australian Hospital Ship Centaur has been attacked while sailing off the coast of Queensland. Brightly lit, & an illegal target under rules of war, she has been torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Sister Ellen Savage, 1 of 12 nurses (& 332 medical staff) onboard: "Awakened by two terrific explosions & practically thrown out of bed… I registered mentally that it was a torpedo explosion. In that instant the ship was in flame."

173 people have been killed in a disaster at Bethnal Green Tube Station, London. Packed crowds were descending stairs during an air-raid last night when a woman carrying a baby tripped, causing a cascade in the blackout. Most victims were crushed or asphyxiated by mass of bodies. Panicked by noise of British anti-aircraft guns being tested in nearby Victoria Park, crowds piled into Bethnal Green tube, forcing 300 bodies into small dark stairwell. Most of the dead are women & children: worst single civilian loss of life during the Blitz.

In Leningrad, Soviet scientists of the Institute of Plant Industry protect one of world's largest seed banks. At least 12 staff have starved to death while guarding a vast collection of edible plants. The Institute's peanut expert died at his desk, surrounded by stored peanuts. No researcher is allowed to be unaccompanied, less hunger get the better of them.