366 Days
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January
News Headlines
1
SURPRISE BODENPLATTE MAULS ALLIED AIR FORCES
SHAEP HQ, Versailles, France • January 1, 1945 Nazi Germany’s position on the Western Front had declined precipitously after the D-Day landings of Allied troops on June 6, 1944. Gen. George S. Patton’s Third U.S. Army was driving rapidly into the enemy’s rear. The German High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) was aware that German troops […]
2
NUREMBERG DEALT AERIAL KNOCKOUT BLOW
London, England • January 2, 1945 In the 19th century the Bavarian city of Nuremberg, long associated with gingerbread, sausages, handmade toys, and Christkindlmaerkte (Christmas markets), had become an important industrial center with companies such as engineering and manufacturing giants Siemens and MAN. Both firms contributed mightily to Germany’s war effort—Siemens by producing everything from […]
3
GERMANS SET TO SNUFF OUT BASTOGNE GARRISON
Bastogne, Eastern Belgium • January 3, 1945 Beginning on this date and the next in January 1945 the German Wehrmacht (armed forces) began a risky, last-ditch attack on the U.S. garrison at Bastogne in Eastern Belgium. Adolf Hitler, in planning his massive onslaught against Anglo-American forces via the densely forested Ardennes region shared by Belgium, […]
4
JAPAN LAUNCHES TWO-WEEK ASSAULT ON RABAUL
Rabaul, Island of New Britain • January 4, 1942 The Battle of Rabaul was fought from January 23 to late February 1942 on the island of New Britain, part of Australia’s League of Nations-mandated Territory of New Guinea (1921 to 1941) lying roughly 660 miles northnorthwest of Australia. More forward observation post than anything else, the 1,400‑strong […]
5
AUSSIES SCORE BIG WIN IN OPERATION COMPASS
Bardia, Eastern Libya • January 5, 1941 In June 1940 Italian dictator Benito Mussolini declared war on Great Britain and France and began building up forces in his North African colony of Libya. That September the Italian Tenth Army under Gen. Rodolfo Graziani invaded Egypt, a British colony to the east of Libya, threatening British […]
6
ROOSEVELT’S LEND-LEASE TO AID WAR AGAINST AXIS
Washington, D.C. • January 6, 1941 Three days after Adolf Hitler had sent his Wehrmacht (German armed forces) into neighboring Poland on September 1, 1939, Great Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany. Nine months later, following France’s surrender to the Wehrmacht in June 1940, the British government, which since 1939 had been paying for […]
7
IWO JIMA UNDER U.S. AIR ASSAULT
Saipan Island, Northern Marianas • January 7, 1945 In early October 1944, nearly three years into the Pacific War, the U.S. high command decided that, after securing the Philippine island of Leyte (done before the end of December), Gen. Douglas MacArthur was to liberate neighboring Luzon Island, while Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, from his station […]
8
JAPAN TELLS SOLDIERS: “NEVER SURRENDER”
Tokyo, Japan • January 8, 1941 On this date in 1941 the Tokyo Gazette published the Imperial War Department’s newly adopted Japanese Field Service Code. It advised soldiers in part, “Do not give up under any circumstances, keeping in mind your responsibility not to tarnish the glorious history of the Imperial Army with its tradition […]
9
JAPAN DEPLOYS SECOND KAITEN ATTACK FLEET
Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands, Western Pacific • January 9, 1945 Toward the end of 1943, the Japanese high command in Tokyo recognized the unfavorable progress of the war that shrank their nation’s watery outer defense perimeter closer and closer to the four Home Islands themselves as the Allies seized one Pacific island after another. Seemingly […]
10
RED ARMY TIGHTENS STALINGRAD NOOSE
Outside Stalingrad, Southern Russia • January 10, 1943 The contest between the German Wehrmacht (armed forces) and the Red Army for possession of Stalingrad (August 23, 1942, to February 2, 1943) proved to be the most strategically decisive battle on Germany’s Eastern Front and arguably of World War II. Known today as Volgograd, Stalingrad (population 400,000) occupied the west […]
11
GERMANS UNLEASH DEADLY U-BOATS OFF U.S. COAST
Washington, D. C. • January 11, 1942 On this date in 1942 the German Kriegsmarine launched Operation Drumbeat (Unternehmen Paukenschlag, or “roll of the kettledrums”), intending to destroy U.S. coastal shipping, particularly oil shipments from the Gulf of Mexico, and disrupt the stream of troops and key resources (e.g., agricultural products, steel, and oil) crossing […]
12
SOVIETS BEGIN ASSAULT ON GERMAN BORDER
Moscow, Soviet Union • January 12, 1945 On New Year’s Day 1945 Germans of every stripe faced the stark reality of impending defeat. That reality materialized in the cacophony of the opening salvos of the Soviet Union’s offensive on Germany’s eastern frontier, the Vistula-Oder operation, that began on this date in 1945. The strongest Soviet […]
13
SAAR VOTERS CHOOSE UNION WITH GERMANY
Saarbruecken, Saarland, Germany • January 13, 1935 On this date in 1935 Germans held a plebiscite in the only part of Germany that remained under foreign occupation following their country’s defeat in World War I—the Saar region, or Saarland in German. The wealth of its coal deposits and their large-scale industrial exploitation, coupled with its location on […]
14
ROOSEVELT, CHURCHILL ENDORSE NEW WAR AIMS
Casablanca, French Morocco • January 14, 1943 On this date in 1943 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and their respective Chiefs of Staff opened a ten-day strategy conference in Casablanca, a seaside resort halfway down the Moroccan coast in Northwest Africa. (Casablanca was a significant venue, chosen to underscore the liberation […]
15
M1 FLAMETHROWERS SEE FIRST COMBAT SUCCESS
Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands • January 15, 1943 On this date in 1943 M1 portable flamethrowers were used successfully in combat for the first time relatively late in the six‑month Battle of Guadalcanal (August 7, 1942, to February 9, 1943). In one attack by U.S. Marines several 2‑man flamethrowing teams crawled close enough to three Japanese […]
16
HITLER TAKES SANCTUARY IN UNDERGROUND BUNKER
Berlin, Germany • January 16, 1945 The Soviet Union’s offensive that began on the Vistula River, the principal river in Poland, on January 12, 1945, spread out over the following days to engulf Nazi Germany’s entire Eastern Front, running from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Carpathian Mountains in Southern Poland. Four days later, […]
17
SOVIETS CAPTURE POLAND’S CAPITAL
Warsaw, Liberated Poland • January 17, 1945 On this date in 1945 Warsaw fell to Soviet and Polish Communist forces as the Nazis beat a hasty retreat from the ruins of Poland’s capital. In moving against the retreating Wehrmacht (German armed forces), the Soviets liberated 800 Jews in Częstochowa and 870 Jews in Łódź, Poland. Ten […]
18
POLISH JEWS SET STAGE FOR APRIL’S MONTHLONG WARSAW UPRISING
Warsaw, Occupied Poland • January 18, 1943 In October 1940, a little over a year after Nazi Germany’s conquest of its eastern neighbor Poland, German Governor-General Hans Frank established a Jewish ghetto in Poland’s capital, Warsaw, moving some 90,000 Jews from all over Poland into the ghetto. (Poland’s Jewish community numbered 3.5 million at the time.) The […]
19
ROMMEL’S AFRIKA KORPS ORDERED TO LIBYA
Fuehrer HQ on the Obersalzberg, Germany • January 19, 1941 On this date in 1941 Adolf Hitler and Italian leader Benito Mussolini began two days of crisis talks at the Berghof, Hitler’s palatial Alpine residence whose enormous sliding window afforded magnificent views of nearby Berchtesgaden and, in the distance, Salzburg, Austria. High on the agenda was […]
20
HIMMLER TO HEAD NAZIS’ SCHUTZSTAFFEL (SS)
Munich, Germany • January 20, 1929 On this date in 1929 failed German chicken farmer Heinrich Himmler became Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The SS in his title “Reich Leader-SS” referred to Schutzstaffel, meaning “Protection Squad.” Informally known by its initials, the SS was created after National Socialist (Nazi) party leader Adolf Hitler, himself a Viennese vagrant, […]
21
BRITISH USE ENIGMA MESSAGES TO DEFEAT ROMMEL
London, England • January 21, 1943 Arguably one of Germany’s greatest assets early in World War II was the Enigma machine. It could encrypt and decrypt sensitive diplomatic and military messages in billions of ways (actually 10 to the 23rd power). The location of German surface ships and U‑boats and Allied supply convoys in the Atlantic […]
22
U.S. AGENCY TO RESCUE JEWS, OTHERS
Washington, D.C. • January 22, 1944 On this date in 1944 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9417, which created the War Refugee Board (WRB), an independent government agency. The president said that “it was urgent that action be taken at once to forestall the plan of the Nazis to exterminate all the Jews […]
23
OPERATION HANNIBAL TO RESCUE TRAPPED SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS
Gotenhafen, German-Occupied Poland • January 23, 1945 On this date in 1945 German Grand Adm. Karl Doenitz launched Operation Hannibal, a seaborne evacuation or, as Germans called it, a rescue operation (Rettungsaktion) of well over a million people trapped by war in Latvia, East Prussia, and German-occupied Poland. Mounted by naval, merchant marine, and civilian vessels, […]
24
FIRST ALL-BLACK UNIT SEES ACTION ON GUADALCANAL
South West Pacific Area HQ, Brisbane, Australia • January 24, 1944 On this date in 1944 an advance party of the 93rd Infantry Division landed on the Pacific Island of Guadalcanal, the first African American (“colored” was the term used at the time) infantry unit to see action in World War II. Reactivated on May 15, 1942, […]
25
ARDENNES BULGE ELIMINATED, GERMANS RETREAT
Bastogne, Belgium • January 25, 1945 On this date in 1945, in the thickly forested Belgian Ardennes, the Battle of the Bulge (referring to the German-induced bulge in Allied lines) effectively ended. The largest, most costly land battle fought by American soldiers in World War II marked in many ways the U.S. Army’s finest performance. Besides […]
26
2ND LIEUTANANT KILLS/WOUNDS 50 ENEMY
Near Holtzwihr, Colmar Pocket, Northeastern France • January 26, 1945 On this date in 1945 U.S. Army Second Lt. Audie Murphy, age 20, commanded an infantry company when it came under attack from 200 German infantrymen and a half dozen Mark VI Tiger tanks on the outskirts of Holtzwihr (now part of Porte-du-Ried), a village near Colmar on […]
27
SOVIETS LIBERATE AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU DEATH CAMP
Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland • January 27, 1945 In the months following the Red Army’s entry into the abandoned Nazi death camp at Majdanek on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, where more than 79,000 people had been killed, the growing list of liberated camps (the Nazis had over 40 death camps) characterized by mounds of corpses and emaciated […]
28
U.S. EIGHTH AIR FORCE ACTIVATED
Savannah, Georgia • January 28, 1942 On this date in 1942 the fledgling U.S. Eighth Air Force was activated at Savannah Air Force Base in Georgia. Second-in-command Brig. Gen. Ira Eaker was sent to England to form and organize its bomber command, the VIII Bomber Command. An advanced detachment was established at RAF Bomber Command […]
29
ALLIES SHUT DOWN GERMANY’S NORDWIND, OPEN OWN OFFENSIVE
SHAEF HQ, Versailles, France • January 29, 1945 On this date in 1945 Allied armies in Western Europe returned to the offensive after having shut down Nazi Germany’s Operation Nordwind (German, Unternehmen Nordwind) four days earlier. Nordwind was the last major German offensive of World War II on the Western Front. It began on the last […]
30
DARBY’S RANGERS SUFFER GRIM END
Cisterna di Littoria, Italy • January 30, 1944 The Allied invasion of mainland Italy began in early September 1943, nearly six weeks after the Fascist Grand Council had deposed Germany’s Axis ally Benito Mussolini on July 24–25, 1943, and placed the Italian dictator in detention. Elements of Bernard Law Montgomery’s Eighth Army landed at the coastal […]
31
SOVIETS DESTROY AXIS ARMIES AT STALINGRAD
Stalingrad, Soviet Union • January 31, 1943 On this date in 1943 Red Army staff officers arrived at German Sixth Army headquarters in Stalingrad (present-day Volgograd) to discuss surrender terms for an invading enemy now bereft of ammunition, food, effective command, and 150,000 men who belonged to the dead or missing. Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus’ […]
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