Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss was overall commandant of the Auschwitz complex from May 1940 – November 1943 ; Obersturmbannführer Arthur Liebehenschel from November 1943 – May 1944 ; and Sturmbannführer Richard Baer from May 1944 – January 1945.

During the Western Allied invasion of Germany in April 1945, the airfield was seized by the United States Third Army, and used by the USAAF 354th Fighter Group which flew P-47 Thunderbolts from the aerodrome ( designated ALG R-82 ) from late April until the German capitulation on 7 May 1945.

On 4 May 1945 he took the German surrender at Luneburg Heath in northern Germany.

Eversharp, a maker of mechanical pencils, teamed up with Eberhard Faber in May 1945 to license the design for sales in the United States.

Following the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Attlee and Churchill wanted the coalition government to last until Japan had been defeated.

As the war began to wind down with Germany's surrender in May 1945, the team parlayed Brown's ties to college football and the military to build its roster.

In 1945, Engelbart had read with interest Vannevar Bush's article " As We May Think ", a call to action for making knowledge widely available as a national peacetime grand challenge.

In January 1944, he resumed command of ETOUSA and the following month was officially designated as the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force ( SHAEF ), serving in a dual role until the end of hostilities in Europe in May 1945.

From then until the end of the war in Europe on May 8, 1945, Eisenhower through SHAEF had command of all Allied forces, and through his command of ETOUSA, administrative command of all U. S. forces, on the Western Front north of the Alps.

The Soviets, along with the Polish, captured Berlin in a very large-scale bloody battle, and the Germans finally surrendered on May 7, 1945.

David Huffman ( 10 May 1945 – 27 February 1985 ) was a character actor with many television, film and stage credits.

In May 1945, after a year of growing hostility between the president and the assembly, which was vainly awaiting deeds to substantiate Velasco's rhetorical advocacy of social justice, the mercurial chief executive condemned and then repudiated the newly completed constitution.

At the end of World War II in Europe, in May 1945, the U. S. Army's Information and Educational Branch was ordered to establish an overseas university campus for demobilized American service men and women in Florence, Italy.

When the war ended in May 1945, as many as two million former Russian citizens were forcefully repatriated into the USSR.

In the spring of 1945 Germany itself was invaded from the east by the Soviet Union and from the west by the other Allies respectively ; After Red Army conquered the Reichstag in Berlin, Hitler committed suicide and Germany surrendered in early May ending the war in Europe.

Following the Allied invasion of Normandy ( June 1944 ), the German army was pushed back on all fronts until the final collapse in May 1945.

Final German surrender was signed on 8 May 1945.

On 5 May 1945, the war ended after liberation by mainly Canadian forces.

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler ( 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945 ) was Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel ( SS ), a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party ( NSDAP ) of Nazi Germany.

While in British custody, he committed suicide on 23 May 1945.

In 1945, Vannevar Bush wrote an article in The Atlantic Monthly called " As We May Think ", about a futuristic proto-hypertext device he called a Memex.

Hamburg surrendered without a fight to British Forces on 3 May 1945.

On 3 May 1945, one of the biggest disasters in naval history occurred in the Bay of Lübeck when RAF bombers sank three ships-the SS Cap Arcona, the SS Deutschland, and the SS Thielbek-which, unknown to them, were packed with concentration-camp inmates.

The Valiant entered service in 1955, the Vulcan in 1956 and the Victor in April 1958, with the first Valiant squadron, No. 138 Squadron RAF forming at RAF Gaydon in 1955, and the first Vulcan squadron, No. 83, at RAF Waddington in May 1957.

* May 30 – James Harry Lacey, British World War II RAF Fighter pilot ( b. 1917 )

Hostilities between the Iraqi and British forces began on 2 May 1941, with heavy fighting at the RAF air base in Habbaniyah.

Less frequently, individual strategic attacks are made against ' point ' targets, such as Britain's RAF Bomber Command attacks against the Ruhr dams by means of the bouncing bomb designed by Barnes Wallis in May 1943.

By the end of May, the siege of RAF Habbaniya was lifted, Falluja was taken, Baghdad was surrounded by British forces, and the pro-German government of Rashid Ali collapsed.

During the Second World War he was called up and joined the RAF Police but was later invalided from service, whereupon he joined Entertainments National Service Association ( ENSA ) and then ( on 4 May 1942 ) the BBC's Drama and Repertory company in Manchester.

During the Dambuster Raids Royal Air Force missions in May 1943, the RAF Bomber Command's No. 5 Group and the operation HQ was in St Vincents, a building which was later owned by Aveling-Barford and housed a district council planning department.

Abingdon is one of the few towns in the UK to have its own annual air display — the Abingdon Air & Country Show, which takes place every May at Dalton Barracks, the former RAF Abingdon ( see below ).

After joining the RAF in 1940, he received a promotion to sergeant in September 1941 He was commissioned as a war substantive pilot officer a year later, and promoted to war substantive flying officer in May 1943.

In May 1947, he was granted a short service commission in the RAF, with the substantive rank of flying officer ( seniority from 25 May 1946 ; later adjusted to 22 March 1946 ).

The capitulation of Germany in May 1945 was followed by a rapid rundown of Coastal Command with the immediate disbandment of combat units and the transfer of aircraft to the RAF Transport Command.

German success against the RAF plummeted, reaching a nadir on 30 / 31 May 1942 when the first 1, 000 bomber raid attacked Cologne, losing only four aircraft to German night fighters.

Michael Rennie enlisted in the RAF Volunteer Reserve on May 27, 1941 ( Serial No 1391153 ).

Six days later ( on 28 May according to other sources ) the Fiat CR. 42s, in what was to prove the final air-to-air combat of the brief campaign, intercepted RAF Blenheims, claiming two No. 94 Sqn Gladiators, with the loss of one CR. 42 shot down by a Gladiator flown by Wg Cdr Wightman, close to Khan Nuqta.

On 2 May, the commander at RAF Habbaniya, Air Vice-Marshal Harry George Smart, responded to the Iraqi demands by launching a pre-emptive strike against the Iraqi forces overlooking the air base.

102 Logistics Brigade was relieved by 101 Logistic Brigade in late May Most of the RAF aircraft left the area with a few retained for patrols over Iraq and support of ground forces.

On 14 May 1945 Galland was flown to England and interrogated by RAF personnel about the Luftwaffe, its organisation, his role in it and technical questions.

In May 1982, the Chilean government allowed RAF Nimrod MR2s to fly maritime reconnaissance sorties from the island, gathering information on the movements of the Argentine Navy.

The Obersalzberg was bombed by hundreds of British Lancaster bombers, including aircraft from No. 617 Squadron RAF (" The Dam Busters "), on 25 April 1945, twelve days before the surrender of German forces on 7 May.

The Eyebrook Reservoir near Uppingham was used by Lancaster Bombers flying from RAF Scampton as the final practice run for Guy Gibson's 617 Squadron Dambusters prior to Operation Chastise, the attack on the Ruhr valley Dams on the night of the 16 / 17 May 1943.