about 83% of the town's buildings destroyed, two-thirds of its complete area and between 80 and 100% of the inner city. Turkey joins the war on the side of the Allies. February 24 – Egyptian Premier Ahmad Mahir Pasha is assassinated in Parliament after declaring war on Germany and Japan. February 27 – The Bombing of Mainz results in 1,209 confirmed dead; 80% of the city is destroyed. February 28 – In Bucharest, a violent demonstration takes place, during which the Bolşevic group opens fire on the army and protesters. In response, Andrei Y. Vishinsky, USSR vice commissioner of foreign affairs and president of the Allied Control Commission for Romania, travels to Bucharest to compel Nicolae Rădescu to resign as premier. March March 1 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives what will be his last address to a joint session of the United States Congress, reporting on the Yalta Conference. March 2 Former U.S. Vice-president Henry A. Wallace starts his term of office as United States Secretary of Commerce, serving under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The rocket-propelled Bachem Ba 349 Natter is first test launched at Stetten am kalten Markt. The launch fails and the pilot, Lothar Sieber, dies. March 3 – WWII: Finland declares war on the Axis powers. United States and Filipino troops take Manila, Philippines. Pawłokoma massacre: A Polish Home Army unit massacres between 150 and 500 Ukrainian civilians in the Polish village of Pawłokoma. Bombing of the Bezuidenhout: The British Royal Air Force accidentally bombs the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood in The Hague, Netherlands, killing 511 people. March 4 – In the United Kingdom, Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), joins the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) as a truck driver/mechanic in London. March 5 – WWII: Brazilian troops take Castelnuovo (Vergato), in the last operations of the Allied Spring 1945 offensive in Italy. March 6 A Communist-led government is formed in Romania under Petru Groza, following Soviet intervention. Resistance fighters accidentally ambush and attempt to execute SS general Hanns Albin Rauter, the arch-persecutor of the Dutch. March 7 – WWII: At the end of Operation Lumberjack, American troops seize the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine at Remagen, Germany and begin to cross; in the next 10 days, 25,000 troops with equipment are able to cross. March 8 Josip Broz Tito forms a Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Nazi authorities kill 117