1945 in aviation

Years in aviation: 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948
Centuries: 19th Century · 20th century · 21st century
Decades: 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s
Years: 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1945:

Events

January 1 - the Luftwaffe begins targeting Allied airfields in Europe as "Operation Bodenplatte"

The U.S. Navy's first recorded use of JATO, utilized to lift a PBM-5 Mariner off of a stretch of the Colorado River near Yuma, Arizona after being forced down. [1]
February 13-15 - Allied bombers attack Dresden with incendiary weapons, destroying most of the city and killing some 50,000 people.
February 21 - aircraft carrier USS Saratoga is badly damaged by a kamikaze attack

March 13-14 - an Avro Lancaster of No. 617 Squadron RAF drops the first 22,000 lb (9,980 kg) Grand Slam bomb
March 21 - the Ohka dedicated kamikaze weapon is used operationally for the first time but with no success.
March 24 - Allied forces began large-scale crossings of the Rhine as Operation Varsity, the operation involved 2,000 transport aircraft and gliders.
March 27 - the final V-2 missile to hit England falls in Kent

April 1 - Ohkas score hits on the USS West Virginia and three of her escorts.
April 10 - the Luftwaffe flies its final sortie over England (with an Arado Ar 234 on a reconnaissance mission from Norway)
April 12 - USS Mannert L. Abele is sunk by an Ohka
April 23 - the US Navy puts its first radar-guided bomb into use, the SWOD-9 "Bat", dropped from Consolidated PB4Ys on Japanese shipping in Balikpapan Harbour.
April 25 - 275 B-17s escorted by four groups of P-51 Mustangs attacked the Pilzen-Škoda armament factory in Czechoslovakia - the last heavy bomber mission by the United States 8th Air Force against an industrial target.

May 3 - the Royal Air Force sinks Cap Arcona, Thielbek, and Deutschland
World's top-scoring fighter ace German pilot Erich Hartmann surrenders to Allied forces
May 7 - the Royal Air Force sinks its last German submarine
May 8 - VE Day - Germany surrenders, ending the War in Europe

July 5 – American Airlines acquires American Export Airlines and forms American Overseas Airlines
July 12 – An Eastern Air Lines flight en route from Boston, Massachusetts to Miami with stops in Washington, DC and Columbia, SC collided with a US Army B-25 Mitchell bomber about 3,000 feet above Syracuse, SC (about 20 miles from Florence, SC). The commercial pilot, G. D. Davis, landed his craft in a cornfield nearby. One passenger, an infant, was killed. The bomber exploded; two died and one was able to parachute safely.
July 28 - a B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed into the Empire State Building

August 1 - Toyama is the subject of an incendiary attack by the USAAF that destroys almost the entire city
August 6 - B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay drops "Little Boy" the first nuclear weapon used in warfare over the Japanese city of Hiroshima
August 9 - B-29 Bockscar drops a plutonium-239 nuclear weapon, Fat Man, on Nagasaki.
August 14 - VJ Day - Japan surrenders, ending the War in the Pacific, and World War II.
August 15 - seven Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft make the last kamikaze attack of the war.
August 19 - two Mitsubishi G4Ms carry Japan's surrender delegation to Ie Shima

a captured Focke Achgelis Fa 223 makes the first helicopter crossing of the English Channel
September 20, an experimental Gloster Meteor with Rolls-Royce Trent engines makes the first turboprop-powered flight.

1 October - 1st annual general meeting of the International Air Transport Association begins in Montreal, Canada.
24 October - American Overseas Airlines operates the first scheduled commercial trans-atlantic flight by a landplane (Douglas C-54 Skymaster), between New York and Hurn, England.

November 7 – Gp Cpt H. J. Wilson sets a new official airspeed record of 606 mph (976 km/h) in a Gloster Meteor. Unofficial German speed records by the rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 during the war had already exceeded 625 mph (1,000 km/h)