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http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/5/15.htm

June 15th, 1945 (FRIDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: London: King George VI officially dissolves a parliament that has lasted for nine and a half years.

Destroyer HMS Armada adopted by the town of Brentwood, Essex.

Frigate HMS St Brides Bay commissioned.

GERMANY: Hamburg: British troops capture the former foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop”>Ribbentrop.
JAPAN: The USAAF’s XXI Bomber Command based in the Mariana Islands flies two missions.

Mission 203: 444 B-29s fly an incendiary mission against the Osaka-Amagasaki urban area, ending a month of concentrated fire raids against large Japanese cities; an additional 1.9 square miles (4.9 square km) of Osaka and 0.59 square miles (1.5 square km) of Amagasaki are burned out; 25 other B-29s hit alternate targets; 2 B-29s are lost. 123 P-51s are dispatched as escort but 380 miles (612 km) from Iwo Jima the fighters are warned by a weather plane of a towering front over Japan and they abort the mission; 1 P-51 is lost.

Mission 204: During the night of 15/16 June, 30 B-29s mine Shimonoseki Strait and waters around Fukuoka, Karatsu, and Fushiki, Japan.

FORMOSA: Two B-32s dropped sixteen 2,000 pound (907 kg) bombs on a sugar mill at Taito, Formosa.

BORNEO: The Australian 9th Division met no opposition when it landed at Brunei Bay and on Labuan and Muara islands, after a heavy air and naval bombardment, five days ago.

Brunei Bay is the best harbour on the north-west coast of Borneo, and the US chiefs of staff proposed it as an advance base for the British Pacific Fleet. The British argued that it was too far from the main theatre of operations and was in any case unlikely to be ready in time. Developing the naval base would be a waste of construction effort, they said, especially as it could not be made ready until the end of the year - and by then Singapore might have been recaptured. The operation has gone ahead nonetheless, using Australian troops supported by the US Seventh Fleet and the Royal Australian First Tactical Air Force.

A brigade of the 9th Division quickly occupied Labuan Island and secured the port on 10 June. By the end of the day it had also occupied the airport. Surviving Japanese withdrew into a pocket. Advancing against slight resistance, the Australians captured Brunei Town on 13 June and today reported the capture of the islands of Labuan and Muara.

CANADA: Corvettes HMCS Buctouche and Cobourg paid off Sorel, Province of Quebec.

803 (Fighter) Sqn reformed with 25 Supermarine Seafire LIII, aircraft, at RNAS Arbroth for HMCS WARRIOR(31).

U.S.A.: The US Navy establishes Experimental Development Squadron Two Hundred (XVF-200) and Experimental Utility Squadron Twenty Five (XVJ-25) at Naval Air Station Brunswick, Maine, to provide, under the direct operational control of Commander-In-Chief (COMINCH, flight facilities for evaluating and testing tactics, procedure, and equipment for use in special defence tasks particularly those concerned with defence against the Kamikaze.

Submarine USS Volador laid down.