January 20, 1942. Eastern Front
180 miles west of Moscow, Soviet 11th Cavalry Corps pushes south from Rzhev towards Vyazma, attempting to isolate German 9th Army at Rzhev. 50 miles further west, Soviet 4th Shock Army finally reaches the German supply dumps at Toropets after several days without food. They attack and capture 6 tanks, 723 trucks, artillery with 450,000 shells, small arms with millions of rounds of ammunition, 1000 drums of fuel and much food.
Source: worldwar2daybyday
January 21, 1941. North Africa. Operation Compass
Assault on Tobruk, Libya, opens at 05:40hrs with an artillery barrage. Australian 6th Division sappers blast through the perimeter wire with Bangalore torpedoes and fill in antitank ditches, allowing 18 Matilda tanks and some captured Italian M11 and M13 medium tanks to move through. As at Bardia, Allied infantry and tanks pick off Italian machinegun posts, artillery batteries and dug-in tanks from within the defensive perimeter. They reach within 2 miles of the town of Tobruk and shell Italian cruiser San Giorgio from cliffs overlooking the harbour. 3 squadrons of RAF Blenheims bomb the defences continually. 8000 Italians are captured including the commander at Tobruk, General Petassi Manella, who refuses to surrender the garrison. Overnight, Italian bombers attack but only succeed in hitting a POW compound and killing 50-300 Italian prisoners.
Photo: The 37th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment has time for a spot of tea as it bombards Tobruk, 21 January 1941.
Source: worldwar2daybyday
It looks like a nose over landing caused by landing on rough ground…if the wheels can’t overcome an obstacle because forward momentum is running out then the entire plane rotates (just as locking the front brakes on a bicycle causes an over the handlebars crash)
The fire damage looks as if it burned upwards from the engine in place to me but I’m not a pilot so I’m just speculating. Assuming that the photo is of one of the planes in that raid, obv. thousands of stukas met their end during the war.
22 January 1944
Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, U.S. Army, Commanding General of Fifth Army, looks toward the shoreline from a Higgins PT boat carrying him to the beachhead near Anzio, Italy.
The Battle of Anzio was a battle of the Italian Campaign of World War II that took place from January 22, 1944 (beginning with the Allied amphibious landing known as Operation Shingle) to June 5, 1944 (ending with the capture of Rome).
Lieutenant General Mark Wayne Clark (May 1, 1896 – April 17, 1984)
(Photo source US Army Signals Corps #185793)
On this day in 1944, Allied troops landed at the Italian town of Anzio in an attempt to outflank the defences of the Gustav Line.
January 24, 1941. North Africa. Operation Compass
80 miles west of Tobruk, British tanks attack the Italian fort at Mechili in the Libyan desert. However, the British expect a speedy capitulation and are surprised by the vigorous defence put up by Italian tanks of the Babini Armour Group. Losses are about equal on both sides and the British withdraw.
Photo: Italian tanks with Fort Mechili in the background.
Source: worldwar2daybyday
January 24, 1945
M4 Sherman medium tanks of the 40th Tank Battalion, Combat Command R, 7th Armored Division, take up defensive positions in a field near St. Vith after retaking the village from the Germans.
(Photographed, Wednesday, January 24, 1945)
The 7th Armored, in a less famous but equally heroic stand than Bastogne, was cut off from reinforcements (except for scratch units of the 106th Infantry Division, 9th Armored Division and 28th Infantry Division) in St. Vith on December 17, 1944.
Faced with intermittent radio contact and a lack of supplies and reinforcements, the 7th Armored denied St. Vith from the Germans for five vital days. After regrouping and re-equipping in early January 1945, Combat Command B of the 7th Armored retook St. Vith on January 23.
(Caption from - worldwar2database.com)
(Photo source - United States Army Archive)
@captain-walker looks as if they probably had some air support that day, although fighting in the village, maybe not ?
Probably did elsewhere in the battle that would have helped them indirectly I would think.
Cool photo.
Lovely blue sky. Great read again .
January 25, 1944. Italy, Anzio
The ambitious hopes of the landing at Anzio now began to unravel. Although the landings themselves had been largely unopposed and the road was virtually clear for an advance on Rome, it was necessary to consolidate the bridgehead. The hills surrounding Anzio now began to fill up with German troops and German planes were swiftly moved to airfields within range.
For the men who were now ashore it was intensely frustrating time. Rome was only a short jeep ride away but landing an a force that was of sufficient strength to make the advance was going to take many days. An officer with the Royal Engineers had landed on the 22nd and watched the build up on the beach, the ships being hit offshore, and the growing threat of the Luftwaffe:
"The Guards Brigade, with 23 Field Company under command, were the floating divisional reserve and were brought ashore once the tactical picture could be seen. 23 Field Company passed us on the way to their concentration area and we exchanged cheery waves and the usual soldierly banter.
They had just moved out of sight along the track when we were alarmed by the frightening roar of a German fighter in low level attack. We heard the machine gun fire: the worst happened to our cheery friends of not a moment ago. The column was raked from end to end. It was all over in but a few seconds but 23 Fd. Coy. had a rough reception to the Beachhead. There were some number of dead and wounded.
The next set-back was a storm on D+3 The wind blew up and the waves pounded our beaches destroying the pontoon roadway so no further shipping could be received for the British Sector except through the small port of Anzio itself. This further increased the shipping congestion and made easy pickings for attacking planes despite an array of many barrage balloons and anti-aircraft fire.
Air activity increased and was growing more intense each day, and continued at night time with high level bombing, the enemy airfields being only a few minutes flying-time away, as compared to our own air forces way back somewhere behind Cassino. Low level attack happens so quickly and there always seemed to be aircraft somewhere in the sky but not that many of ours although I did see two US Lightning aircraft doing their best for us shot down into the sea.
The Luftwaffe main action appeared to be directed against shipping crowded into the small bay at Anzio although they were not averse to amusing themselves with anything which moved on the ground!"
Despite the attentions of the Luftwaffe the build up on the beach head was going extremely well and better than expected. I can speak now only of the British Sector but doubtless the US on X-Ray beaches were equally satisfied.
My Colonel returned with the tale that he had stood at the front surveying the terrain; all was quiet and the Alban Hills beckoned and it seemed he could have taken his walking stick and strolled towards them. It seemed that nothing in the world could stop a quick advance to seize the Alban Hills at a small price and that our objective would be achieved and consolidated. Everyone was geared up for the big race.
For reasons, some understandable, some incomprehensible, some political and some plainly self-seeking individualism nothing happened. We were waiting on the leash for two days; days when all the advantages of complete surprise were frittered away and time given for German forces to be improvised with the usual German efficiency.
Photo: A British soldier inspects a German Heinkel He 111 bomber shot down during a night raid on the Anzio bridgehead, 25 January 1944.
Source: WWII Today
Messerschmitt 109 shot down during a night raid on the Anzio bridgehead. January 25, 1944
USS Hornet (Essex-class), distance, steaming with USS Langley (Independence-class) and USS Enterprise on their way back to Ulithi Atoll in the Caroline Islands, 25 Jan 1945.
On this date, 27 January 1942, the American steam tanker SS Francis E. Powell was torpedoed and sunk by U-130 off the Delaware coast.
The ship was enroute from Port Arthur, TX to Providence, RI with 81.000 barrels of #2 furnace oil and gasoline.
At 09.43 hours on 27 Jan 1942 the unarmed and unescorted Francis E. Powell (Master Thomas J. Harrington) was hit by the last torpedo from U-130 about eight miles northeast of the Winter Quarter Light Vessel, while proceeding completely blacked out at 10.5 knots. The torpedo struck on the port side aft of the midships house, between the #4 and #5 tanks. The explosion started a small fire in the pump room and destroyed the radio antenna. The U-boat, sighted a few hundred yards away, had planned to attack with the deck gun, but gave up when other vessels came into sight. The eight officers and 24 crewmen abandoned ship in two lifeboats. The master was crushed to death when he slipped and fell between the boat and the ship. The same boat was lifted back on the ship by a wave and the occupants had to launch another boat. Another officer and two men were also lost. The tanker later broke in two, caught fire, and sank at about 14.00 hours.
After five hours, 17 men in one of the boats were picked up by the American steam tanker W.C. Fairbanks and landed at Lewes, Delaware. The remaining eleven survivors in the other boat were picked up by a US Coast Guard boat from the Assateague Station and landed at Chincoteague, Virginia.
Those killed aboard SS Francis E. Powell were:
Canavan, James Joseph, Merchant Marine, 40, Third Mate
Harrington, Thomas James, Merchant Marine, 44 Master
Siaga, Antonio, Merchant Marine, 43 Steward
Tiriolo, Joseph Paul, Merchant Marine, 23 Quartermaster
Ground crew servicing Hurricane Mark I “N2611” from 208 Squadron on a landing ground in Libya. The plane went missing on this day in 1941.Flying Officer Laurence Trevor Benson: killed; aircraft crashed, Hurricane N2611, 208 Squadron, 29 January 1941.
Source: RG Poulussen
On this day in 1945, Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas rescue 552 Allied prisoners from the Japanese POW camp at Cabanatuan.
@captain-walker said in On this day during W.W. 2:
On this day in 1945, Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas rescue 552 Allied prisoners from the Japanese POW camp at Cabanatuan.
An event re-enacted (with a fair bit of artistic licence, though some of the actual POWs were featured in the sequence) at the beginning of the 1945 John Wayne film Back to Bataan.
that incident featured tactical use of unarmed aircraft and the infamous Japanese knee mortar, both to great effect.
30 January, 1943 Stalingrad
In the course of the day, the city center was entirely invested by Soviet tropps. The Central Station, the Party buildings, all the emblematic locations were taken back.
In the night that followed, 64th Army’s 38th Motorized Rifle Brigade blocked the Umivermag department store, in the basement of which were located 6th Army’s headquarters and the Commander in Chief. That same night Hitler made Paulus a Field Marshal, with the clear intent that he commited suicide. But now General Shmidt, the army’s Chief of Staff who was always the first to forbid any surrender, suddenly changed his mind and asked General Roske (in charge of all German units in this sector) to call for negotiations with the Soviets.
