April 8
Eastern Front, Crimea
General Fedor I. Tolbukhin's 4th Ukrainian Front (470,000 men, 6000 field guns and mortars, 560 tanks and self-propelled guns, and 1250 combat aircraft) begins the liberation of the peninsula. The German and Romanian forces defending the region as part of the Seventeenth Army can muster only 200,000 men, 3600 field guns and mortars, 200 tanks and self-propelled guns, and 150 aircraft.

April 9
Eastern Front, Ukraine
The Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front reaches the outskirts of Odessa.

April 12
Politics, ROMANIA
In reply to a Romanian mission regarding the conditions for an armistice between Romania and the Soviet Union, Moscow demands that Romania break with the Germans, that its forces fight alongside the Red Army, and insists on the restoration of the Romanian and Soviet border. It also calls for reparations for damage inflicted on the Soviet Union by Romania, freedom of movement through the country for Soviet and other Allied forces, and the repatriation of Soviet prisoners. The Romanians reject these conditions and remain with the Axis.

A US A-20 bomber hits an important rail
junction at Busigny in northern France

April 15
Air War, Europe
The US 8th Army Air Force and RAF Bomber Command decide to switch bombing from German urban centers to railroads in Belgium and France to prepare for the forthcoming Allied invasion by preventing German reinforcements reaching the Front.

A force of 448 Flying Fortresses and Liberators of the US 15th Army Air Force, escorted by 150 Mustang fighters, also attacks the oil fields at Ploesti and the Romanian capital, Bucharest. During the night the RAF bombs the railroad lines at Turnu Severin in Romania.

April 22
Pacific, Papua New Guinea
General Douglas MacArthur, leading a 52,000-strong Allied invasion force, makes an amphibious landing in Hollandia, northern New Guinea. Hollandia will be the base for the next phase of MacArthur's Operation Cartwheel, which is designed to drive the Japanese from northwest New Guinea.

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