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WWII On This Day: April 29

What happened on April 29 during World War II? This date brings together 6 events from 1941, 1942, 1944 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

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

Kalamata is lost before the remaining troops can be embarked

Thousands of British, Australian and other Allied personnel had gathered around Kalamata for evacuation when German troops reached the area during the final phase of the Peloponnese pursuit. Fighting and confusion around the town disrupted the planned lift. The available destroyers could remove only small groups before withdrawing. Around 7,500 troops and civilians were left behind in the Kalamata area, including the Australian 2/7th Battalion, which entered captivity after the evacuation attempt failed. German operational records place the main mobile forces on the south coast on 29 April. Small naval…

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1942
Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival and the British surrender party walking to the Ford Motor Factory in Singapore on 15 February 1942.
British official photographer / Imperial War Museums HU 2781 · UK Government public domain · Source
The Fall of the Southern Empires

Lashio Falls and the Burma Road Is Cut

Japanese forces captured Lashio on 29 April. The town was the railhead and road junction through which the Burma communications system connected to the Burma Road, and its loss cut the principal overland supply route to China. Once Lashio was gone, the remaining Allied positions inside Burma could no longer serve the strategic purpose for which much of the campaign had been fought. Chinese forces had to find routes back toward China, while British and Indian formations turned toward India. The Japanese advance had reached the point where another defensive…

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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

Moon writes to Collins

Rear Admiral Moon sent Collins a message expressing sympathy for the losses suffered by the 1st Engineer Special Brigade in their first contact with the enemy. The exercise now had to be examined for lessons without allowing news of Force U's preparations to reveal the coming invasion.

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1945
Ground crew load supplies into the bomb bay of a No. 514 Squadron Lancaster at RAF Waterbeach for Operation Manna, 29 April 1945.
Ground crew load supplies into the bomb bay of a No. 514 Squadron Lancaster at RAF Waterbeach for Operation Manna, 29 April 1945. Penfold (Plt Off) / Imperial War Museums, CL 2489 · Public domain Source
World War II Famines

Operation Manna begins; Chowhound follows

Under negotiated arrangements with German occupation authorities, RAF aircraft began dropping food over the western Netherlands on 29 April 1945. USAAF Operation Chowhound followed on 1 May. The aircraft flew low over agreed drop zones under assurances that German anti-aircraft units would not fire. The drops were too late to reverse most famine deaths, but they provided emergency relief while ground and maritime supply routes were being reopened.

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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 Spree crossing

Before dawn on 29 April assault units of 3rd Shock Army forced the Moltke Bridge area and fought through the Interior Ministry toward Königsplatz and the Reichstag. The Spree crossing brought the government district into the immediate ground battle. German fire from buildings, barricades and heavy weapons made the exposed approaches costly. Soviet engineers and artillery worked to open routes while direct-fire guns reduced positions that could not be bypassed. The military importance of the district and its symbolic importance were now converging. Soviet formations were competing for objectives associated…

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The Battle of Berlin

Part of Ninth Army reaches Wenck

By 29 April groups from Ninth Army had forced passages through the Halbe pocket and reached elements of Twelfth Army around Beelitz. The movement was fragmented and costly; much of Ninth Army had already been killed, captured or broken into smaller groups. Wenck's formations were not in a position to continue to Berlin. Their practical role became holding open routes toward the Elbe and absorbing soldiers, wounded personnel and civilians moving west. The event ended the last plausible connection between the bunker idea of a relief army and the forces…

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