On this day during W.W. 2

Jan 23 1940 Brition and France said their ships would not honor the Pan-American neutrality zone and would attack any German vessel operating in hemispheric waters.

1941 British forces advanced to the Biskia railhead in Eritrea.

1942 Japan invaded New Britian, New Ireland, Dutch borneo, and the Soloman Islands, brining the war to less than 1000 miles from north east Australia. Landings were at Rabaul, Kavieng, and Balikpapan. New Guinea was dangerously exposed.    Australia requested emergency military assistance from the U.S. and Britian.    In a major breakthrough the Russians advanced along a 250-mile wide front between Smolensk and lake Ilmen.

1943 British forces entered Tripoli to recieve the surrender of the city and the Province.    Russian troops recaptured Armavir, a key rail junction in the Maikop oil fields. Advance elements moved into Voronezh. Syalingrad’s Gumrak airfield fell to the Russian, cutting the 6th Army’s last linkto the outside. The Germans now had only 495 operational tanks left on the entire Russian front. Since the invasion the Germans had lost 7,800. In two weeks of fighting on the Don front, Zxis losses included 50,000 dead.    All Japanese resistance ended on Guadalcanal’s Mount Austen.

1944 The Anzio beachhead was consolidated as German resistance was almost negligible, but Field Marshal Kesselring correctly determined that " the danger of a large scale expansion of the beachhead was no longer imminent." The imminent threat to the Allies came from the Luftwaffe which attacked the new positions. German planes also attacked two British hospital ships off the coast of Anzio, sinking the St David and damagingLeinster. The attacks were made at dusk with the ships fully lighted and identified.    Moscow announced that heavy rains had halted the offensive around Vitebsk where a German force was virtually encircled.

1945 St-Vith was taken by the U.S.7th Armored Division.    German forces regained controll of Berg on the Rhine in a powerful armor infantry counterattack.    Red Army troops advanced to the Oder River 24 miles west of Breslau. Several Czechoslocak towns and villages fell to the Russians

1936 The first battle of Temien in Ethiopia ended in a stalemate, but the Rthiopians stopped the first major Italian offensive since the initial invasion. The 4 day battle ended with 1,100 Italians and 8,000 Ethiopian dead and wounded.

1937 The Hirota cabinet fell in Japan, with the Army bickering over policy and creating factions incapable of compromise.

Jan 24 1940 With recurrent reports of an imminent invasion by Germany, Chamberlain reassured Belgium of Britain’s pledge to assist the Belgians if they were attacked.

1942 A special court of inquiry, headed by Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts, submitted its report on the attack of Pearl Harbor. It placed the major blame on rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, the Navy and Army commanders, for neglecting to heed warnings of an imminent attack, for not consulting each other on necessary precautions, and for taking only minimum and inadequate defensive measures.    Japanese ships en route to the oil center of Balikpapan, Borneo, for a landing were intercepted by 4 U.S. Destroyers. In the ensuing battle of Makassar Strait, 4 of the Japanese transports were sunk with heavy casualties. It was the first major naval engagement of the Pacific war.    Balikpapan was secured by the Japanese. (Capture of the Borneo oil field center was critical for the Japanese who eventually produced 70,000 barrel a day from there, or 90% of their total petroleum consumption.)    Australian forces evacuated Lae and Salamaua in New Guinea.    Peru severed diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy, and Japan.    Soviet troops smashed through German positions in the Ukraine. Barvenkova was recaptured.

1944 U.S. troops on Anzio were halted to await reinforcements.    The Germans formed stiff lines of resistance on the main Italian front. Hitler ordered the Gustav Line to be held at all costs. The 34th Division moved to establish a new bridgehead across the Rapido.    Russian forces occupied Pushkin and Pavlovsk.

1945 The American airbase at Suichuan in China was abandoned.    Russian forces resumed their offensive in Latvia.

1932 In a calculated show of strength, Japan increased its naval force in Shanghai waters to an aircraft carrier, four cruisers, and seven destroyers.

1937 Bulgaria and Yugoslavia signed a treaty of perpetual friendship, seemingly putting an end to the enmity which had marked relations between the two states.

1939 Goring directed Reinhard Heydrich of the SS to accelerate the emigration and evacuation of Jews from Germany as a solution to the Jewish problem.

Jan 25 1942 Thailand declared war on yhe U.S. and Britian. Its forces immediatly joined in the invasion of Burma.    South Africa and New Zealand declared war on Thailand.    Uruguay severed diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy, and Japan.    Japanese forces landed at Lae in New Guinea.    A Japanese submarine shelled Midway Island.    British forces attempted a counterattack on Msus in Libya which had just been overrun by Rommel’s forces. The British 1st Armored Division was routed as the Germans captured 96 tanks,12 aircraft,38 guns, and 190 trucks.

1943 Voronezh was totally reoccupied by the Russians, who took 52,000 prisoners.    British Eighth Army units pressed westward from Tripoli to drive the Axis forces into Tunisia.

1944 An Allied raid on Rabaul resulted in heavy Japanese losses, including the destruction of 83 planes.    Three Battalions of the 36th Division pushed across the Rapido.    Red Army troops captured the rail junction of Krasnogvardeisk southwest of Leningrad.

1945 Tokyo directed its China Expeditionary force to discontinue offensive operations in the interior and to concentrate its efforts in defending the coast and north China.    U.S. B 29s dropped 366 mines in the approaches to Singapore. Other aircraft mined the waters off Saigon, Camranh Bay, and Penang. It was the largest mining operation of the war.
1939 Ribbentrop visited Warsaw to induce Poland to join the anti-comintern pact. The Poles, though wavering in their attitude toward France, were unwilling to be drawn into an alliance with Germany. Events quickly overtook the Berlin proposals. ( namely Hitlers decision to invade Poland)

Jan 26 1940 The U.S. permitted its 1911 commerical traety with Japan to lapse. Hull informed Tokyo future trade between the two countries would be conducted on a day to day basis

1941 Matsuoka repeated Japan’s determination to impose a “new order” in Asia

1942 Rabaul on the Island of New Britian fell to the Japanese, giving them a major strategically located air and naval base.    The defenders on Luzon fell back to their final defensive line on Bataan.    Japanese reinforcements landed in eastern Malaya, at Endau, 90 miles north of Singapore.    The first contingent of American forces to reach Europe arrived in Northern Ireland. Headquarters for the U.S. armed forces in Britian was established in London.

1943 The Stalingrad pocket was reduced substantially as Russian forces split it in half.    French troops began moving forward in the Ousseltia Valley of Tunisia.

1944 Moscow published its report on the Katyn massacre, blaming the Germans.    An Allied assault on Regabil failed.    Liberia declared war on Germany and Japan.    Argentina broke off diplomatic relations with Germany and Japan.

1945 Russian troops reached the Auschwitz concentration camp, freeing 2,819 inmates. Red Army units reached a point 120 miles from Berlin.    East Prussia was sealed off as Red Army units reached the Gulf of Danzig northeast of Elbing.    U.S. 37th Division troops reached the edge of ClarkField on Luzon.    13 V-2 rockets hit London

1934 Germany and Poland signed a 10 year nonaggression pact.

1939 France stated that if it were threatened militarily, Britian’s armed forces would be at the disposal of the French authorities.

JAN 27 1941 Ambassador Grew advised Washington of reports ciculating in Tokyo of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor being planned by the Japanese military in case of “trouble” with the U.S. Grew wrote that “the attack would involve the use of all the Japanese military facilities. My colleague (a member of the U.S. embasy and the source of the reports) said that he was prompted to pass this on because it had come to him from many sources, although the plan seemed fantastic”.    Matsuoka told a budget committee of the Japanese Diet that Japan must “dominate” the western Pacific if it were to achive its goals.

1942 The British began their retreat to Singapore across the causeway from Johore Baharu.    The U.S. Submarine Seawolf arrived at Corregidor, delivering ammunition and evacuating all available pilots.    Soviet forces captured the Rail center of Lozovaya on the Donets front.    Free France agreed to open French possessions in the Pacific as Allied military bases.

1943 The Rail line from Leningrad to Moscow was cleared, permitting delivery of supplies to the only partially recovered population of Leningrad. Moscow announced the capture of 86,000 Axis troops, mostly Hungarians, on the Voronezh front near Alekeyevka.    U.S. bombers conducted their first all-American raid on Germany, hitting the port facilities at Wilhelmshaven.    Axis troops fought a determined rear-guard action near Zwara in Libya.

1944 Moscow announced the relief of Leningrad.    The U.S. military issued a report on atrocities committed by the Japanese on U.S. and Filipino military personnel after the fall of Bataan in 1942.    Fighting was heavy all along the Italian front. Allied pressures were countered by unexpectedly strong German resistance.

1945 The Masurian Lakes region of East Prussia was overrun, Tighting the Red Army encirclement of Konigsberg. Poznan and Torun in Poland were surrounded.    U.S. Third Army units reached the border between Germant and Luxembourg.    Two Japanese cargo ships were sunk far up the Yangtze River after striking mines laid by U.S. 14th Air Force B-24s operating out of India.    The U.S. invasion force for Iwo Jima left Hawaii.

1937 Nationalists and Communists reached agreement in China to combine their forces in fighting the Japanese. Overall authority went to Chiang Kai-shek and the Nanking government.

Jan 29 1940 Moscow informed the Swedish government that Russia was willing to conclude a settlement eith Finland.

1941 American and British military staff planners began conferring in Washington on a common strategy in the event the U.S. entered the war. General Metaxas, the Greek dictator died. Metaxas had rallied his country against the Italians. His death deprived Greece of a powerfull leader in a time of crisis.

1942 Britian, Russa, and Iran concluded a treaty of alliance. Iranian indeoendence was to be respected, and the 2 powers agreed to eithdraw their troops 6 months after the war ended.  Ecuador severed diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy, and Japan.    Despite British military setbacks, Churchill was given his most overwhelming vote of confidence in the house of commons 464 to 1.    U.S. troops began arriving in the Fiji Islands.

1943 Kropotkin on the Baku-Rostov rail line fell to the Russians.

1944 U.S. Eighth Air Force radar- equipped bombers conducted their heaviest raid to date. More than 800 planes attacked Frankfurt killing 736.    German bombers raided Britian. Losses on this and a raid of the 21st were 57 aircraft, cutting sharply into availble Luftaffe resorces.    The rail line between Moscow and Leningrad was cleared of all Germans. To the south, a massive Red Army force opened up an offensive aimed at eliminating the GermanEighth Army in the Ukraine.    U.S. naval planes began nine consecutive days of raids in the Marshal Islands to knock out Japanese air power and shipping

1945 Russian forces crossed into Pomerania in Germany, capturing Schonlanke and Woldenberg, 95 miles from Berlin.    Chinese protecting the Stiwel Road 80 miles from Lashio were attacked by the Japanese, but it was the last effort to block the key overland route into China.    U.S. Army units were landed northwest of Subic Bay near San Antonio on Luzon. They were deployed eastward to cut off the Japanese on the Bataan Peninsula

1932 Japanese Army and Navy units bombed and virtually destoyed Chapei

1938 Vienna formally protested intensified Nazi activities in Austria to Berlin

Tanks for filling in when I miss a day or adding some thing like the leap year. I had a global A+3.99 and it took us a while to beat back the Axis and then we said lets set up a small board, it will go fast,      well it didnt (just the Europe G 40 ) and we called it a draw, it was taking longer than the A+3.99

Jan 30 1941 Derna in Libya was occupied by the advancing British Army columns, which then began pushing toward Benghazi.    Germany warned that ships of any nation carrying aid to Britian would be torpedoed.

1942 Britishforces were driven from the mainland of Malaya and withdrew to Singapore after destroying the connecting causeway.    A bitter fight developed for the control of Moulmein in Burma. Japanese forces seized the city’s airport.    Japanese forces invaded Amboina Island in the Dutch East Indies which controlled the southern approaches to the Molucca passage. Allied air and naval units had already pulled out under the pressure of air attacks.    Hitler spoke menacingly of ridding Europe of all Jews in a Berlinspeech making the ninth anniversary of Nazi rule in Germany.    The Irish Republic protested the arrival of U.S. troops in Northern Ireland as a violation of its neutrality.

1943 Soviet forces reoccupied the oil center of Maikop. German Army Group A was cut off as the Russians captured the rail center of Tikhoretsk. German Army Group Don was no longer an effective force. The Staligrad pocket was narrowed to a 300 yard perimeter.    Counterattacking German troops overran the faid pass in Tunisia.    The R.A.F. launched its first daylight attack of the war on Berlin. Mosquitos bombed the German capital in the midst of ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of Hitler’s accession to power.    R.A.F.bombers began using H2S in a raid on Hamburg. The device was a simple radar set which displayed a rough picture of the ground below. It served primarily as an all weather bombing aid but also used for navigational purposes. The early models were notoriously unreliable.    The U.S. cruiser Chicago was sunk off the Solomans after being hit by an airborne torpedo.

1944 U.S. Rangers in the Anzio beachhead were ambushed and two Battalions were almost entirly eliminated in a drive to capture Cisterna.    Future action by the Luftwaffe in Italy was sharply limited when U.S. 15th Air Force planes attacked German air facilities in the Po valley.    The Chinese 22nd Division established complete control over the Taro plain in Berma.

1945 Hitler marked the 12th anniversary of his accession to power in a speech still filled with defiance. It was his last radio broadcast. Russian forces reached a point 70 miles from Berlin.

1933 Hitler was named chancellor of Germany. Hindenburg believed the appointment would end the diviseness which had plagued the country

1934 Hitler repeated German demans for arms equality " no threat and no force will ever move the German people to abandon those rights which cannot be denied to a sovereign nation"

1937 Hitler demanded a retun of all former German colonies, repudiated the war guilt clause of the Versailles treaty, and ended reparations payments for the management of the Reichsbank and the German railways. He declared that “peace is our dearest treasure” and offered to guarantee the neutrality of Belgium and the Netherlands.

1039 In a speech widely regarded as conciliatory, Hitler said “Germany has no territorial claims on England and France, except the return of her colonies”.    Hitler privately assured Mussolini of German support if any country interfered with Italy’s projected conquest of Albania.

Jan 31 1941 Churchill asked Turkey to grant permission to to station 10 R.A.F. squadrons on Turkish territory. ( Ankara eventually refused, saying it would break neutrality and join the Allies only if attacked by the Germans)

1942 Japanese aircraft began a steady series of raids on Singapore’s Kalang air base and dock facilities.    Moulmeim was evacuated by the British who were forced back over the Salween River.

1943 Paulus, promoted to field marshal the day before,surrendered at Stalingrad. When told of the surrender, Hitler said “Paulus did an about face on the threshold of immortality”.    British troops cleared Zwara in Libya and pressed toward the Tunisian frontier.    Indecisive but heavy fighting continued in Tunisia as the Allies attempted to retake the Faid Pass.    Donitz replaced Rarder as commander in Chief of the German Navy.

1944 U.S. forces invaded Kwajalein and other Islands in the Marshalls. Casualties were extremely light. The Islands were the first of Japan’s pre-war territories to fall.    Australia formed a commission to investigate Japanese war crimes

1945 The U.S. XVIII Corps advanced through the Bucholz Forest into German Territory at Neuhof.    The 25,000-ton German transport Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed and sunk while evacuating soldiers and civilians from East Prussia. Only 900 of the 6,ooo aboard survived.    In a further move to isolate Japanese units onLuzon, the U.S. 11th Airborne landed at the south entrance to Manila Bay.    French and U.S. forces reached the outskirts of Colmar.    A small force of Germans continued to fight in the western part of Budapest.    The U.S. 6th Army began its final drive toward Manila.    China was sliced in half as the Japanese captured Kukong, the last Chinese strongpoint on the Hankow railroad.

1932 A cease-fire and means to settle the fighting were arranged by the British and U.S. consuls in Shanghai, but the agreements quickly evaporated.

Feb 1 1940 In a conciliatory speech, Foreign Minister Haciro Arita said Japan was "anxious to see the development of China’s trade with other powers and would welcome foreign investments in China as long as they are of a purely economic chariter.    Russian forces launched another attack to break Finnish defenses on the Karelian Isthmus.

1941 The U.S. Navy created the Atlantic Fleet, to be commanded by rear Admiral Ernest J. King. Its work,essentially, would be convoy escort.      Italian forces in Albania launched a series of counterattacks against Greek positions along the entire front.    Agordat in Eritrea was captured by British forces who continued their advance to the Red Sea in pusuit of the retreating Italian forces.

U.S. warships attacked Japanese air and naval bases in the Gilbert and Marshal islands. The force of two Carriers, five Cruisers and ten Destroyers was the largest to go on the offensive. The American ships and planes inflicted severe damage. It was the first air attack of the war against Japanese positions.    In Libya British forces pulled back to a Gazala-Bir Hacheim defense line    Vidkun Quisling was proclaimed minister president of Norway. The appointment was made by the Reich commissar for the occupied country, Josef Terboven. Quisling proclaimed “Hitler’s victory is Norway’s victory.” A month later, when he failed utterly to win support, Quisling said "There’s no use appealing to the Norwegian people’s intelligence. In Norway it has become necessary to impose the new order by force.

1943 Svatovo, southwest of Kharkov, fell to the Russians, cutting the rail line fromKharkov to the Donets Basin    Allied area commanderes met in New Delhi and decided to launch a major campaign to retake all of Burma beginning in Nov. The ultimate objective was to clear the way into China which would be used as a base for direct action against Japan.

1944 The Gestapo chief in Poland was assassinated.    Kwajalein operations continued with virtually no Japanese resistance as U.S. Marines secuered all their initial objectives.    The U.S. 3rd Division in the Anzio beachhead abandoned efforts to take Cisterna and began preparing for German counterattacks. British efforts to expand the Garigliano bridgeheads continued in the face of determined German resistance.

1945 The U.S. 7th Army halted irs offensive actions, establishing defensive positions generally along the Moder River in northern Alsace.    Berlin was subjected to heavy Allied bombing, which continued on an almost round-the -clock basis.    The communications center of Torun on the Vistula in Poland was surrendered to the Red Army. Soviet armor units pressed to within 43 miles of Berlin on the Oder River.    U.S.forces advancedrapidly in their southward drive to recapture Manila.

Feb 2 1942 Major General Joseph W.Stilwell was named chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek and instruced "to increase the effectiveness of United States assistance to the Chinese Government for the prosecution of war and to assist in improving the combat efficency of the Chinese Army.    Feodosia on the black Sea was reoccupied by the Russians.    British forces  were ordered to hold Tobruk as a supply center for future offensive operations by the 8th Army.

1943 All resistance at Stalingrad ended. About 147,200 Germans were killed in the extended and abortive campaign for the city, and another 91,000 surrendered, including 24 Generals. Only 34,000 men ever made it out on the airlift. A thousand Luftwaffe crewmen and 488 transport planes were lost in the resupply and evacuation effort.    The first group of Japanese troops was evacuated from Gaudlcanal.

1944 Russian forces crossed the Estonian border and captured Vanakula. The Ukranian front saw the Russians advancing on a 60 mile wide front west of the Dnieper.    Stalin agreed to permit American planes to use six Russian baseswhile involved in shuttle bombing operations.

1945 Roosevelt and Churchill met on Malta before proceeding to Yalta in the Crimea for conferences with Stalin. It was Churchill’s last and again unsuccessful attempt to win American support for a push into the Balkans.    The U.S. 1st Infantry and 82nd Airborne divisions assaulted the Siegfried line, breaching the West Wall and taking Udenbreth and Neuhof.    All combat operations ended on Leyte.

Feb 3 1941The German pocket battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst maneuvered through the Skagerrak and broke into the North Sea.    The battle of Keren began in Eritrea as the Italians consolidated their defense positions.    British forces pressed their Libyan offensive. In the battle of Beda Fomm, the Italian 10th Army was completely destroyed, and Benghazi was encircled.

1942 German troops in Libya fought their way back into Derna.    Japanese aircraft attacked Port Moresby and the Dutch naval base at Surabaya on Java.    Chiang Kai-shek and the British agreed on the deployment of Chinese troops in the defense of Burma.

1943 Berlin acknowledged the end of the fighting at Stalingrad, saying that" the sacrifices of the Army, bulwark of a historical European misson, were not in vain."Germany began a three day period of national mourning. Soviet forces advanced on all fronts in Russia

1944 U.S. warships shelled Paramushiru Island in northern Japan, the first Allied attack on the Japanese homeland.    Ten German divisions of the 8th Army were encircled by the Russians south of Korsun. Attempts to relieve the units forced the Germans to curtail offensive actions elsewhere.    German troops launched a counteroffensive at Anzio, directed against Campoleone salient which was held by the British 1st Division.

1945 U.S. 1st Calvalry Division units reached the northeast suburbs of Manila.    French forces liberated Colmar.    The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division turned back sharp German counterattacks along the Siegfried Line.    Japanese troops occupied Namyung in northern Kwangtung Province, China.

Feb 5 1940 Britian and France decided to send military aid to Finland

1942 4th The Japanese demanded the unconditional surrender of the British forces at Singapore.    Allied and Axis forces halted their fighting along a line between Gazzla and Mechili, regrouping and planning for the next round of action.
5th British reinforcements and supplies began arriving in Singapore. Air attacks, however, interfered with the effort. The Empress of the sea was sunk before reaching Singapore.

1943 Mussolini assumed controll of the Italian ministry of foreign affairs, ousting his son in law Ciano. It thus gave him, as Rome announced, "the entire burden for the conduct of political and military operations in this delicate phase of the conflict.

1944 4th Japan launched a major offensive in Burma on the Arakan front in an effort to force the British back to India.    Kwajalein was declaired secure. Japanese losses were 4,938 killed and 206 captured. U.S. casualties were 142 killed.    U.S. troops were forced back at Cassino. British forces yielded ground at Anzio.    Moscow announced the Gulf of Finland and the Novgorod-Leningrad railway were totallt secure.    China launched an attackin the Hukawng valley, in northern Burma.    Air and naval resupply efforts for the Allied forces at Anzio were further restricted by fresh German attacks.    Allied troops along the Cassino front and the Anzio pocket were forced to pull back in the face of heavy German counterattacks.    Five German divisions were trapped near Nikopol when the Russians captured Apostolovo,the rail junction which served as an outlet to the west.    British forces began pulling back on the Arakan front after being threatened by Japanese movements to drive a wedge between them.

4th A Regiment of the U.S. 9th Infantry Division reached the first of the dams on the Roer River in Germany.    The first full convoy from Ledo reached Kunming, China.    U.S. 8th Army units began their push into Manila from the south. 
5th  Soviet troops under Zhukov reached the Oder River at Kustrin, only 50 miles from Berlin.    Moroccan and U.S. forces linked up at Rouffach, cutting the Colmar pocket in two.    Australian forces landed on New Britian.    American forces drove into Manila from the north.

1932 Japan extended its military occupation of Manchuria, including those areas dominated by the soviet Union.    Latvia and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact.

1935 Italy began mobilizing its reserves, calling up troops to place two divisions on a war footing. Shortly thereafter, units began sailing for Ethiopia.

Feb 6 1941 Erwin Rommel was named to command two German divisions, thge Afrika Korps, to help rescue the Italians in North Africa. It was a token force which grew into a legend.    British ans Australian forces swept into Benghazi.

1942 Britian and the U.S. established the combined Chiefs of staff, the highest level of Allied joint command, "to insure complete coordination of the war effort of Great Britian and the United States, including the production and distibution of war supplies, and to provide for full British and American collaboration eith the United Nations,    Borneo’s oil facilities at Samarinda were captured by the Japanese.

1943 The noose around the German Army Group A was further tightened as the Red Army reached the Sea of Azov at Yeysk. Russian forces advanced to within 5 miles of Rostov.

1945 The Vosges Mountians were secured as organized German resistance ended. All roads leading out of the region were blocked by Allied troops.    German defenses stiffened as the U.S. 3rd Army continued its assult on the Siegfried Line, but the fortifications were penetrated and Habscheid fell.    Most of Manila was cleared north of Pasig River. Four thousand Americans were released from Manila prisons.

Feb 7 1942 Roosevelt approved a congressional resolution authorizing up to $ 500 million in financial aid to China.    Japanese forces began a diversionary landing on the extreme eastern end of Singapore. The British commander, Lieutenant General A.E. Percival, declared the island would not surrender.    Defending troops launched a counterattack on Luzon. Japanese forces were forced to withdraw from the southwest coast

1943 Moscow announced that the Red Army had established complete controll over the south bank of the Don River. Azov was recaptured. The main highway between Orel and Kursk was cut.    Japanese destroyers began their final attempt to evacuate forces from Guadalcanal.

1944 German troops attacked Anzio in their biggest counterattack yet, accompanied by heavy air and artillery support.    Russian troops reached the outskirts of Nikopol.    The first German Schnorkel submarines began operating in the North Atlantic.    A British force was encircled on the Arakan front.

1945 The Germans blew up the floodgates of the schwammenauel Dam in an effort to halt the Allied advance.    The Belgian government resigned.    Japanese troops captured the Allied air base at Kanchow in China

1939 Ribbentrop outlined German policy as an effort to regain lost colonies and to fight communism. He said, "Towards the Soviets, we will remain adamant. We will never come to an understanding with Bolshevist Russia.

Feb 8 1941 The first of the German forces for north Africa, the 5th Panzer Regiment, left Naples by sea transport.    The British intercepted the Japanese merchant ship Yamafuji at the entrance to the Persian Gulf and confiscated all the mail it was carring. Protests were filed with the British.

1942 The main attack on Singapore was launched after dark as three Japanese Divisions crossed the narrow waters between Johore and the Island on small landing craft. A bridgehead was established without difficulty, and the Japanese set out for Tengah airfield, their immediate major objective.    Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma ordered a general pullback for all Japanese forces on the Bataan front. The Japanese were exhausted at this point and badly needed fresh troops before a final drive could be started.

1943 Kursk, held by the Germans since Nov. 11 1941 was reoccupied by Soviet troops. It had served as a key German base.    Finland, though the U.S., offered to negotiate an end to its war with Russia.    Major General Orde Windgate’s first Chindit group, made up of the 77th Indian Brigade, set off from Imphal to conduct irregular warfare behind Japanese lines in Burma. Supplied by air drops, the British, Indian and Ghurka troops trekked through the impossible junglr to cut Japanese communications    Japanese rear-gaurd units were evacuated from Guadalcanal. A total of 10,652 men were removed from the Island in a week, a remarkable feat in view of the American air and naval presence in the area.

1944 A six ton bomb, heavest used in the war to date, was dropped by an R.A.F. bomber on the Gnome-et-Rhone factory at Limoges, France.    The Germans trapped at Nikopol refused to surrender to the Red Army troops who pressed their encirclement to win total control of the important manganese center.

1945 The British XXX Corps launched an offensive to clear the erea between the Meuse and Rhine rivers, opening the battle of the Reichswald.    The Colmar pocket was reduced to four villages west of the Rhine.    Paraguay declared war on Germany and Japan.    British civilian casualties from the start of the war through this date were 57,468 killed and 79,178 injured.

Feb 9 1941 British warships attavked targets on the northern Italian mainland. Force H, operating out of Gibraltar, steamed into the Gulf of Genoa and bombarded factories and port facilities in the city of Genoa, hit the oil refinery at Leghorn, and Ark Royal aircraft mined La Spezia. The British force returned to Gibraltar without suffering damage of any kind.    El Agheila was occupied by the British, who had now penetrated about 500 miles into Libya. The advance was halted at this point as LOndon decided to pull out many of the units and send them to Greece.    In a radio broadcast to the United States, Churchill pleaded for arms support: " Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job."

1942 Tengah airfield on Singapore fell to the Japanese. Its capture permitted the quick resupply of the invading force and,if there was any remaining doubt on the outcome, sealed the fall of Singapore. Percival ordered all defenes be concentrated in the southern sector of the island,around the city of Singapore.    Japanese forces suffered heavy casualties in Luzon.    Chiang Kai-shek began a visit to India. He conferred with British officials and urged Indian nationalists leaders, particulary Jawaharlal Nehru to lay aside political differences and join in the military effort against Japan.    Roosevelt called on Vichy French government to reaffirm its position of neutrality. He noted reports of supplies being sent from France to Axis forces in North Africa.

1943 All organized Japanese resistance on Guadalcanal ended. The Americans were completely unaware of the pullout and were surprised when they realized late in the afternoon that no Japanese were left.    Belgorod was recapyured by the Russians, cutting the rail line to Kharkov.

1944 Allied forces at Anzio suffered more setbacks despite heavy naval and air support to keep the Germans from driving the Allies into the sea.    Roosevelt requested Chiang’s permission to send a U.S. military mission to the Chinese Communist base area and headquarters in Shensi Province.

1945 British and Canadian forces cracked the Siegfried line and reached the Rhine. U.S.87th Division units reached the north end of Schwammenauel Dam and seized the control house.    The Colmar was closed, with the German Nineteenth Army eliminated as a fighting force. It had lost about 25’000 men in the Alsace fighting. Allied forces now held the west bank of the Rhine from Strasbourg to the Swiss border.    Intense fighting continued in and around Manilia. U.S. units on the outer defenses of Nichols Field encountered intense opposition.    Ramree Island off the coast of Burma was secured by British Commonwealth forces.

Feb 10 1940 Germany and the Soviet Union concluded an expanding trade treaty involving increases in materials to be exchanged. By the time Germany invaded Russia, Moscow had delivered 1.5 million tons of grain, a million tons of mineral oil, and vast amounts of chrome and manganese. Germany procastinated during the 16 months the treaty remained in effect but did provide substantial amounts of raw materials and military goods, including the heavy Cruiser Lutzow.

1941 Britian broke off diplomatic relations with Rumania because of its territory was “being used by Germany as a military base in furtherance of her plans for prosecuting the war. These measures are bring taken without a word of disent from the Rumanian government.” About 680,000 German troops were soon to be stationed in Rumania.    British forces under the command of Lieutenant Sir Alan Cunningham began advancing into Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia from Kenya. A force made up of the South African 1st Division and two African divisions struck out for the Indian Ocean port of Kismayu

1942 The 82,423 ton liner Normandie which had been taken over by the U.S., burned and turned over on its side in New York, the apparent result of a welder’s carelessness. Berlin implied it was the result of Axis sabotage.    Wavell visited Singapore and ordered the Island to be held at all costs. All remaining R.A.F. personnel, however, were ordered evacuated.    French-Canadian M.P. Pierre Gauthier spoke out against a Canadian $ 1 Billion grant to Britian, saying “so-called patriots” supporting such aid would throw this country into the arms of the United States sooner than we expect.

1943 Russian troops advancing toward Kharkov took Chuguev and Volchansk.

1944 The pro-Allied Italian government was given administrstive control over Southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia.    Hungary’s ambassador in Lisbon was instructed to inform the Western Allies that Budapest wished to surrrender unconditionally, but not to the Russians.    The Japanese abandoned Truk as a major naval base.    Australian forces completed their occupation of the Huon Peninsula on New Guinea.    Russian bombers attempted to bomb the Tirpitz in Kaafiord, Norway. 15 aircraft started out on the raid, but only 4 found the battleship. A one-ton bomb scored a near miss, but Tirpitz escaped major damage.

1945 A Soviet Sub sank the German transport General von Steuben in the Baltic. Of the 3,000 injured soldiers and civilian evacuees from East Prussia aboard, 300 survived.    A severe earthquake rocked Tokyo, followed almost immediately by a devistating raid by 90 B-29 bombers.    Germans flooded the Roer River valley, which was to frustrate the U.S. 9th Army’s planned offensive toward Dusseldorf. German forces were able to concentrate on defending positions between the Rhine and Meuse.    The East Prussian Port of Elbing was taken by the Russians.

1936 Italian forces launched a 200,000 man attack against Amba Aradam in Northern Ethiopia where defending forces had concentrated their greatest strenth, 60,000 men. Rome described the attack as the Italian “battle of annihilation.”    A law was enacted making the Gestapo a supreme Reich Agency, giving Heinrich Himmler, chief of the SS and the Gestapo, absolute control over German internal security.

1939 Poland declared it would not permit German road or Rail transit across the corridor.    Japanese forces occupied French-occupied Hainan Island in the South China Sea, giving them a base for Southern and Chinese operations.