On the morning of May 7, 1945, Havlat was a member of a Reconnaissance Company patrol seeking the location of German forces near the town of Volary, Czechoslovakia, in support of an attack by the 2nd Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division. On that day, it had been ordered by Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl that all German armed forces were to obey a ceasefire declaration before the unconditional surrender was signed, but the announcement took some time to make its way to all units. At about 8:20 AM, the American patrol encountered German troops of the 11th Panzer Division along a road and received a burst of small arms and Panzerfaust fire from a patch of woods. Several American soldiers were wounded, and Private First Class Havlat, taking cover behind a jeep, raised his head and was hit by a bullet. He was killed instantly. The announcement that German forces had agreed to a ceasefire reached Havlat's patrol only ten minutes later. The German officer who led the troops that had fired upon Havlat's patrol, not knowing about the ceasefire, later apologized for his actions. Charley Havlat is interred at the Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial, near Saint-Avold, France, in Plot C, Row 5, Grave 75. The Havlat family was not informed of the fact that Charley was the last American soldier to die in Europe during the Second World War until 1995.