League of Nations dissolved in 1946. This is a photograph from 1930.
By Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at [email protected].
On April 5, 1946, the last Soviet occupation troops leave Denmark’s Bornholm Island, which reverts to Danish sovereignty. In the U.S., Congress approves raising the federal minimum wage from 40 cents/hour to 65 cents/hour.
Capt. Susumu Hoshijima, Japanese commander of the Sandakan prisoner-of-war camp on Borneo, in Indonesia, is hanged at Rabaul, New Britain Island, Papua-New Guinea, on April 6 for war crimes. Hoshijima had ordered a series of 160-mile death marches for his sick and malnourished prisoners as the war approached its close in 1945. During his administration, over 6,000 prisoners died — over 4,000 Indonesians, 1,381 Australians and 641 Britons. The only survivors of his camp were six Australian servicemen who were able to escape into the jungle. Acting on a tip received in a Tokyo geisha house, American authorities in Japan recover platinum, gold and silver worth over two billion dollars that had been buried on the bottom of Tokyo Bay by Japanese military officers just prior to Japan’s surrender.
Hungary agrees on April 7 to pay $300 million in war reparations to Czechoslovakia, the U.S.S.R., and Yugoslavia. Syria, with French troops withdrawing, becomes officially independent of France. The nation will be run by a republican government that had been formed in 1943 during the French mandate. In Milan, the first free local-council elections are held since 1922, when Benito Mussolini installed his Fascist regime.
In Geneva, Switzerland, the League of Nations meets for the last time, on April 8. The agenda: to dissolve the organization.
On April 9, Dutch and Indonesian representatives resume negotiations in the Netherlands to try to resolve the future of the Netherlands East Indies. The Dutch are offering the island group’s residents citizenship, local autonomy and membership in the Dutch Commonwealth. The Indonesians want full independence. The talks will prove fruitless. On the same day, AURI — the Indonesian Air Force (Angkatan Udara Republik Indonesia) — is established, incorporating around 50 captured Japanese planes.
The first elections in post-war Japan — and the first multi-party elections since 1932 — are held on April 10. Japanese women are able to vote for the first time. However, the leader of the victorious Liberal Party, Ichirō Hatoyama, will be blocked from becoming prime minister by the Allied occupation authorities because of his prior service in the wartime Japanese government. In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission approves the first expansion of long-distance telephone service since the war began — AT&T is authorized to add 1,000 long-distance circuits.
The French National Assembly on April 11 passes a resolution outlawing “forced labor” in the nation’s overseas territories. Previously, French colonial governments could require adult males in its territories to work on government projects — without pay — for a set number of days per year. The Bell X-1 experimental jet airplane makes its first powered flight at Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards Air Force Base) in California’s Mojave Desert.
Prime Minister Achille Van Acker proclaims Belgium’s wage-and-price freeze to be over on April 12. The Soviet government establishes “Arzamas-16” — its secret center for the construction of nuclear weapons —at the Russian town of Sarov, some 324 miles east of Moscow.
On April 13 at the Langwasser internment camp (Stalag XIII-D) near Nuremberg, Germany, kitchen workers — Holocaust survivors, some of whom are members of the clandestine Jewish organization known as either Din (“Justice”) or Nakam (“Revenge”) — paint 3,000 loaves of bread with an arsenic compound. It is an attempt to kill the 12,000-15,000 prisoners — mostly former SS officers or prominent Nazis — temporarily incarcerated there by the U.S. Almost 2,300 of the inmates become sick, with over 200 needing hospitalization. No deaths occur, however, even though later analysis shows enough arsenic in each loaf to provide a fatal dose. Prosecutors decide to not file attempted murder charges against the kitchen workers because of “the special circumstances” of the case.
Chinese Communist leader Chou En-lai on April 14 announces the beginning of a war against the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek. Communist forces attack Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province in northeastern China, on the same day.
The first television network is created on April 15, as the DuMont Television Network links its stations in New York and Washington, D.C., by coaxial cable. A two-hour program featuring speeches, “along with a short play, a quiz show, and a dance routine” are broadcast simultaneously on both outlets. Frozen, concentrated orange juice is first offered for sale, by Florida Foods Corporation, as shipments arrive at local stores from a plant in Plymouth, Florida, under the brand name “Minute Maid.” For the first time since 1933, the Jewish observance of Passover is legally held in Germany. The last British and French troops evacuate Syria.
On April 16, the former NSB mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Frederik Ernst Müller, is sentenced to 100 years in prison for collaborating with the Nazis. The NSB (in Dutch: Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging in Nederland) was a fascist — and later Nazi — political party. During the German occupation of the Netherlands, it was the only legal political party. In Boston, Massachusetts, it is the first opening day for major league baseball since Germany and Japan surrendered. The excitement is palpable among the crowd coming to watch the Boston Braves play the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Braves win, 5-3, but it turns out that not all of Braves Stadium’s newly green-painted seats had dried completely by the time ballpark guests are seated. Braves management winds up paying a cleaning tab of around $6,000 for the more than 500 fans who submit claims for paint-damaged clothing.
The Republic of Syria on April 17 is officially proclaimed independent of France by its president, Shukri al-Quwatli. Close to 200,000 demonstrators march through the streets of Tokyo to protest the policies of Kijūrō Shidehara, appointed by the U.S. in October 1945 as the nation’s first post-war prime minister. (Ichirō Hatoyama, the winner of the election on April 10 and who would have replaced Shidehara, is blocked from taking office by the Allies because of his prior wartime government service.) U.S. soldiers are called upon to disperse the crowd.
Chinese Communist forces capture Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province, on April 18. The inaugural session of the International Court of Justice takes place at The Hague, the Netherlands. In Geneva, the League of Nations officially dissolves itself and transfers its assets of $11,700,000 to the United Nations. The United States extends full recognition to the Yugoslav government of Josip Broz Tito. At the War Crimes trials in Nuremberg, Hans Frank, former head of the General Government of Poland during the German occupation, admits he ordered the extermination of Jews, created ghettos and mandated forced labor. He does not blame anyone else for his actions. During the course of his trial, Frank states, “A thousand years will pass, and this guilt of Germany will still not be erased.” Former UCLA star athlete Jackie Robinson makes his professional baseball debut playing second base for the Montreal Royals, the International League team owned by the Brooklyn Dodgers.
