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WWII On This Day: April 18

What happened on April 18 during World War II? This date brings together 9 events from 1940, 1941, 1944 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1940
German mountain troops landing in Norway, April 1940.
Photo: Bagn Bygdesamling – Valdres Folkemuseum, Norway · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Operation Weserübung

A second Allied force lands at Åndalsnes

British troops landed at Åndalsnes and moved inland toward Dombås and the Gudbrandsdal to support Norwegian units retreating north from the Oslo region. The force entered a narrow road-and-rail corridor bounded by steep valleys. German aircraft could strike the port, railway and columns while the defenders had few alternate routes for movement. The northern and southern Allied forces now approached Trondheim from separate directions, while German ground troops advancing from Oslo worked to connect with the Trondheim enclave.

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1941
A reconnaissance detachment of the German 5th Panzer Division entering Athens on 27 April 1941.
Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1979-123-32 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
German Invasion of Greece, April 1941

The Pinios Gorge rearguard is overcome

Australian and New Zealand troops held the western end of the Pinios Gorge while German tanks, motorised infantry and mountain troops searched for crossings through and around the defile. The first German tanks crossed the river by nightfall on 17 April but bogged down while trying to bypass demolitions. On the morning of 18 April armoured infantry crossed on floats as 6th Mountain Division worked around the defenders. The mixed rearguard was fragmented under pressure from several directions, and German troops gained access to the Thessalian plain. The delay mattered…

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German Invasion of Greece, April 1941

Prime Minister Alexandros Koryzis dies as the military crisis deepens

Prime Minister Alexandros Koryzis died in Athens on 18 April while the government was confronting the collapse of the northern front, the withdrawal of the Greek armies from Albania and the prospect that British forces would have to leave the mainland. His death occurred during an already compressed command crisis. King George II, Papagos and British commanders were discussing how the state and armed forces could continue while German mobile formations moved toward Thermopylae and the Greek armies in Epirus faced encirclement. A new government had to be assembled while…

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A German Panzer IV of the 11th Panzer Division advancing into Yugoslavia in April 1941.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-770-0280-20 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Invasion of Yugoslavia, April 1941

The armistice takes effect

At noon on 18 April, the capitulation terms took effect across Yugoslavia, ending organised resistance by the Royal Yugoslav armed forces in the April campaign. German records counted about 254,000 Yugoslav prisoners in German hands, with the total shaped by subsequent screening and releases. German losses for the campaign were recorded as 151 killed, 392 wounded and 15 missing. Occupation and partition followed the military result. Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria divided control of territory, while the Independent State of Croatia occupied a central place in the new Axis political…

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1944
American troops landing on a beach in England during Exercise Tiger in April 1944.
U.S. Signal Corps · Library of Congress cph.3c32795 · Public domain · Source
Exercise Tiger

Barton issues the division exercise order

The 4th Infantry Division staff prepared Field Order No. 1 for Exercise Tiger using the developing VII Corps Neptune plan as its guide. Combat Team 8 would lead, followed by Combat Teams 22 and 12, while engineers and support units rehearsed the same ship-to-shore sequence expected at Utah.

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Wrecked rolling stock in the severely damaged marshalling yard at Juvisy-sur-Orge after Allied air attacks in 1944.
Bridge B (Fg Off), Royal Air Force official photographer / Imperial War Museums, CL 4170 · Public domain · Source
The Transportation Plan

Juvisy and the Paris rail belt are hit

Bomber Command attacked Juvisy during the night, part of the widening assault on the rail system around Paris. The same campaign struck Rouen and Noisy-le-Sec. At Noisy-le-Sec, later research records hundreds of civilian deaths alongside the destruction of the railway centre and surrounding housing.

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1945
Soldiers of the U.S. 95th Infantry Division patrol Soest after its capture during the reduction of the Ruhr Pocket, 7 April 1945.
Men of the 95th Infantry Division patrol Soest, 7 April 1945 · Photographer Pick · U.S. Army Signal Corps / NARA · Public domain
The Ruhr Pocket

Organised resistance ends

Organised resistance in the remaining Ruhr Pocket ended by 18 April. MacDonald’s detailed U.S. Army history records about 317,000 German prisoners from the encirclement and reduction, a total far above the initial American estimate when the ring closed. For Ninth Army’s reduction north of the Ruhr, the same history records 341 killed, 121 missing and fewer than 2,000 wounded. It estimates First Army losses at roughly three times Ninth Army’s total and supplies no separate audited First Army figure. Other First and Ninth Army formations were already fighting far to…

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Displaced people in a crowded room at Wittlich, Germany, photographed on 18 April 1945; the U.S. Army caption states that 48 people shared the room.
Displaced people in a crowded room at Wittlich, Germany, photographed on 18 April 1945; the U.S. Army caption states that 48 people shared the room. U.S. Army / History of the Fifteenth United States Army · Public domain (US Government) Source
Refugees, Expulsion and Postwar Displacement

Crowded quarters at Wittlich show the DP emergency

The U.S. Army photographed a room at the displaced-persons camp in Wittlich on 18 April 1945. Its caption records that forty-eight people were living in the same room. The image shows the emergency conditions in which Allied occupation authorities had to house civilians moved by German wartime policies. The people in such centres had different nationalities, legal status and aims. Registration was intended to make repatriation possible, yet reunification and finding a safe home were separate problems that could last long after a camp was opened.

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Yevgeny Khaldei's photograph of Soviet soldiers raising a Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin on 2 May 1945.
Yevgeny Khaldei / TASS · 2 May 1945 · CC BY 4.0 via the Russian Ministry of Defence · Source
The Battle of Berlin

The final defensive belt is breached

By 18 April 1st Belorussian Front had broken ten to twelve miles into the German system in several sectors. Ninth Army still held fragments of a connected front, but the defensive belts were losing the depth that had made the opening resistance effective. Soviet commanders concentrated armour and infantry against narrower points rather than repeating the first day's broad congestion. The price remained heavy because the defenders still possessed anti-tank guns, local armour and prepared ground. Konev's northern formations were meanwhile across the Spree. The German command now had to…

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