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January 23rd, 1939 (MONDAY)

ITALY: HRH Maria Francesca Anna Romana Princess Royal of Savoy marries HRH Louis Charles Marie Léopold Robert Prince de Bourbon de Parme in the Paolina Chapel, Royal Palace of the Quirinale, Rome.

CHILE: A large earthquake strikes the country between the cities of Chillán and Concepción

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January 23rd, 1940 (TUESDAY)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: SS Varild sunk by U-18.
 

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January 23rd, 1941 (THURSDAY)

GERMANY: Operation Berlino. Scharnhorst departs Kiel with Gneisenau under the command of Admiral Günther Lütjens. (Navy News)

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January 23rd, 1942 (FRIDAY)

YUGOSLAVIA: Novi Sad: Hungarian soldiers drive 292 Serbs and 550 Jews onto the frozen Danube river. All 842 are drowned when the ice is then shelled.

U.S.S.R.: Thrusting strongly southwest from Valdal Hills, northwest of Moscow, the Soviet Army reach Cholm, the German center of resistance near the boundary of the Center and Northern Army Groups, and encircle it. To the southeast, Rzhev, another German center of resistance, is at risk of being encircled.  (Jack McKillop & Jeff Chrisman)

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Four Swordfish of 830 Naval Air Squadron based on Malta torpedo and sink a heavily escorted Italian storeship bound for Tripoli, Libya.

LIBYA: Axis troops take Antelat and Saunnu despite the opposition of 13 Corps, British Eighth Army. One of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's assets is his field codebreaker unit, under Hauptman Alfred Seebohm. This outfit performs traffic analysis and has broken most British field codes. From these intercepts, Rommel knows that the British are desperately short of gasoline (petrol). 
The diplomatic dispatches from the US military attaché in Cairo, Bonner Fellers (hence these dispatches jokingly referred to by Rommel, in English, as the "little fellers") are read as either a result of the Italian SIM (Army Intelligence) stealing the US diplomatic "Black Code" from the embassy at the Vatican in September 1941 or that the cipher cryptanalyst branch of the OKW known as the "Chiffrierabteilung" (aka OKW/Chi) broke the same code. Neither Germans nor Italians told their ally that they had broke the code. (Mike Yaklich & Russel Folsom)(171)
 

BURMA: AVG pilot A.B. Christman is lost in action against the Japanese. (Chuck Baisden)

John Newkirk of the AVG becomes an ace. (Skip Guidry)

Japanese aircraft begin a period of intensified attacks on the Rangoon area in effort to destroy Allied aircraft in Burma. Pilots of the 1st and 2d Fighter Squadrons, American Volunteer Group (AVG, aka, “The Flying Tigers”) shoot down five Nakajima Ki-27, Army Type 97 Fighters (to be given the Allied Code Name “Nate”), over Rangoon at 1030 hours local, and five Kawasaki Ki-32 Army Type 98 Light Bombers (to be given the Allied Code Name “Mary”) and seven Ki-27 fighters over Rangoon at 1230 hours. 

MALAYA: Rear guards from the Segamat and Muar fronts complete a withdrawal through Yong Peng at midnight, 23/24 January; West Force then comes under command of the Indian 3 Corps, which is to defend central Johore State and thereby protect Singapore naval base until  reinforcements arrive. The Japanese are to be kept north of the line Batu Pahat-Ayer Hitam-Kluang-Jemaluang, if possible. Fighting continues in the Batu Pahat area, and the road from there to Ayer Hitam is closed. The Japanese intensify air attacks. 
     Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, General Officer Commanding Malaya Command, orders the implementation of the plan for the withdrawal of British and Commonwealth troops to Singapore Island. 
 

BORNEO: Japanese forces land at Balikpapan.

NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: Japanese Invasion forces move south in two convoys, one through Makassar Strait to Balikpapan on Borneo and the other through Molucca Passage to Kendari on Celebes Island. Unopposed landings are made at both places, but the convoy off Balikpapan is attacked by Dutch planes. On Sumatra, RAF reinforcements from the Middle East begin arriving at Palembang, where one of the two airdromes is attacked for the first time by enemy planes. 
      During the night of 23/24 January soldiers and officers of the Japanese Sasebo Combined Special Naval Landing Force went ashore north of Kendari, Celebes Island. Several hours later, they reached their main objective-the Kendari Airdrome which they captured. 

Destroyers USS Parrott, John D. Ford, Pope and Paul Jones entered Balikpapan Bay where, lying at anchor, were 16 Japanese transports and three 750 ton torpedo boats, guarded by a destroyer squadron. The foursome fired several patterns of torpedoes and had the satisfaction of seeing four enemy transports and one torpedo boat sink as the Japanese destroyers searched aimlessly in the strait for non-existent submarines.
 

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Manila: Japan sets up a puppet government, in which three-quarters of the pre-war senate agree to serve.

On Bataan, the Philippine Division, on the II Corps western flank, withstands increasingly heavy pressure. After nightfall, the II Corps begins a withdrawal to the final defence line. In the I Corps area, the Japanese maintain heavy pressure against the Mauban main line of resistance and frustrate further attempts to reduce the roadblock on West Road. In the Service Command Area, a Japanese amphibious force heading for Cobweb Point, having lost its way during the night, arrives at two points on the southwestern coast, both well south of the objective. About a third land at Longoskawayan Point; the rest land at Quinauan Point. Brigadier General A.C. McBride, responsible for defence of the southern tip of Bataan except for the naval reservation near Mariveles, sends Philippine Constabulary elements to Quinauan Point, but they make little headway. Commander Francis J. Bridget, commanding the naval reservation, dispatches sailors and marines to Longoskawayan Point; these, reinforced by personnel of U.S. 301st Chemical Company and a howitzer from the Constabulary, clear Pucot Hill, but the Japanese return after nightfall. 
 

AUSTRALIA: Australian Prime Minister John Curtin cables British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stating, “After all the assurances we have been given, the evacuation of Singapore would be regarded here and elsewhere as an inexcusable betrayal.” 
    USN destroyer USS Edsall (DD-219) is damaged by an explosion of its own depth charges during an attack on a submarine contact in Howard Channel, Clarence Strait, one of the approaches to Darwin, Northern Territory. 

BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: The Japanese 55th Regimental Group, numbering about 5300 troops, lands at Rabaul on New Britain Island while the Maizuru Special Naval Landing Force lands at Kavieng on New Ireland Island. The small Australian garrison at Rabaul numbers 76 officers and 1314 other ranks. Two officers and 26 men are killed today, about 130 men of the 2/22nd Battalion are massacred at Tol, south of Rabaul, in February 1942, about 400 escape to Australia and New Guinea and the remaining 800 become POWs. At Kavieg, six men of the 1st Independent Company are killed and the rest are captured. 

One of those Australians captured was Private W. Cook (NX56978) 2/10 Field Ambulance, in a group of seven others. (Daniel Ross)

     Five RAAF Catalinas attempt to attack a Japanese convoy off Wantom Island which lies a few kilometres north of Rabaul. The mission is aborted due to darkness and poor visibility. 

PHOENIX ISLANDS: The USAAF’s Hawaiian Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses of Task Group 8.9 return from Nandi in the Fiji Islands to Canton Island in the Phoenix Islands. 

SOLOMON ISLANDS:  Elements of the Japanese Fourth Fleet invade Kieta on Bougainville Island without opposition. 
 

PACIFIC OCEAN: The oiler USS Neches (AO-5) is torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine HIJMS I-72, 136 miles (219 kilometres) west-southwest of Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, in position, 21.01N, 160.06W. The loss of the oiler supporting Task Force Eleven (TF 11) (Vice Admiral Wilson Brown Jr.) forces cancellation of the projected raid on Wake Island. 

U.S.A.: TF 6814 departs New York for New Zealand and then to New Caledonia. This unit with other additions will become the Americal Division. Gen. Hodge in 1943 will designate this as "Organization Day".

New Caledonia was a Free French French colony. With the Japanese war machine rolling, the French asked on 15 December 1941 for military assistance on (protection). Troops from the British Empire (NZ and Aust.) were committed in North Africa. deGaulle had been discussing the possibility of allowing Allied airfield construction prior to Pearl Harbor.

TF 6814 was built around 2 regiments, 132nd and 182nd. These had been declared surplus when the federalized NG 26th and 33rd Divisions had been reorganized into triangular divisions.

The 164th Regiment was later added and thus the units were in place for the creation of the Americal Division. Ameri(cans in New) Cal(edonia) gives you the name.

The Americal saw combat on Guadalcanal, Bougainville in the Solomons, Leyte in the Philippines and was stationed in Japan from 8 September --> November 3 1945 in the Kanagawa, Yamanashi and Nagano Prefectures near Yokohama, Yokosuka and Tokyo.

The Roberts Commission, whose work had begun on 18 December 1941, concludes its investigation to "ascertain and report the facts relating to the attack made by the Japanese armed forces upon the Territory of Hawaii on December 7, 1941..." The exhibits gathered amount to 2,173 printed pages. 
     Major General Joseph W. Stilwell, in Washington, accepts the China assignment and takes over part of the staff previously selected by Lieutenant General Hugh A. Drum. 
     The USAAF’s Flying Training Command is established under the Chief of Air Corps and given jurisdiction over the Southeast Gulf Coast and West Coast Flying Training Centers which had been established on 8 July 40. 
     The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) begins to televise a series of training programs for air raid wardens in the New York City area, the start of educational television broadcasting in the U.S. 
 

The Douglas XB-19 is transferred to Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio as a safety precaution.

Japanese Americans in the military on the mainland are segregated out of their units. (Gene Hanson)

The final Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-3 trainer is delivered to the US Navy.

At 1340, SS Leiesten in Convoy ON-56 was hit by two torpedoes from U-82 about 400 miles ESE of Cape Race. The explosions killed the chief engineer and four men on watch below, as well as injuring several others. The master ordered the second mate to take the injured into a lifeboat, while he himself remained on board with eleven others in an effort to save the ship, but the U-boat appeared and started shelling the vessel. The men jumped overboard and managed to get onto a raft, but the British messboy hesitated too long and was killed on board by the shelling. After 32 hours, all 29 survivors were picked up by the Greek SS Agios Georgios and taken to Halifax on 30 January.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: The unarmed U.S. collier SS Venore is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-66 about 20 miles (32 kilometres) southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in position 35.50N, 75.20W. 

SS Thirlby sunk by U-109 at 43.20N, 66.15W - Grid BA 9956.

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January 23rd, 1943 (SATURDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: The country now has the fullest employment in its history. Nearly 17.5 million men and women are in civilian jobs. Latest unemployment figures from the ministry of labour have dropped below 100,000, less than a tenth of the inter-war figures  when there was never fewer than a million unemployed. And  the number is still falling.

The figures include 6,769,000 women, an increase of two million on the number working before the war. This includes three million married women. Several hundred thousand more are in part-time work. There are 4.7 million men and women in the armed forces, almost equalled by the 4.3 million in the munitions industries.

London: Though Hitler's tanks have rolled over Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals, seven states have somehow managed to stay out of the fighting war. Yet they are playing a vital role in the deadly struggle between the Allies and the Axis powers.

Switzerland, with its leaky frontier with Germany, is a hive of espionage activity. British agents with top-level contacts in the armed forces, and even in German intelligence, were able to warn Stalin of Hitler's invasion plans. The Russians have built up a major espionage operation in Lucerne; the American Allen Dulles has made Geneva his HQ. The Swiss warned potential invaders in 1939 that at the first sign of attack they would blow up Alpine tunnels.

The Portugese capital, Lisbon, is another centre for Allied and Axis spies, who are chiefly concerned with shipping movements. British and German agents have an understanding not to use the same cafes. In neighbouring Spain, General Franco was tempted to take his country into the war in 1940, when he though that Hitler would win; since then the wily Caudillo has thought differently, and Spain has become a regular part of the escape route for Allied aircrews and PoWs.

Admiral Canaris and his Abwehr undercover agents have tried in vain to use Eire as a back-door into Britain. In the middle of Mussolini's capital the neutral Vatican is being used by anti-Nazi Germans as a contact point with the Allies. Sweden's neutrality is bought by allowing German military trains to cross over to Finland - and by secretly selling ball-bearings to Britain and Germany.

Turkey, strategically placed on the borders of the USSR and the German-occupied Balkans, is another neutral nation humming with the activities of agents and double-agents.

GERMANY: Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sail for Norway again with Prinz Eugen but are detected one more time by British planes and therefore return to the Baltic. (Navy News)

U.S.S.R.: Soviet forces capture Armavir, an important rail junction in the Caucasus oilfields.

Stalingrad: The last resistance in Stalingrad is crumbling. The Sixth Army has been split into two pockets north and south of the city. The last German airfield in the Stalingrad pocket, at Gumrak, fell two days ago to Soviet tanks, which crushed long lines of wounded as they lay on stretchers waiting to be evacuated.

The last men to get out left in a Heinkel H-111 bomber. There were 19 of them and seven bags of mail, the last letters from doomed men to their families. Now, the only way in which the defenders can be supplied is by parachute.

With defeat inevitable, some Germans are surrendering or saving their last bullets for themselves. General von Hartmann, the commander of the 71st Infantry Division, stood upright on a railway embankment and fired his carbine at the advancing Russians until he was mown down by a machine-gun. Paulus, realising the futility of prolonging his men's agony, has told Hitler: "Fuhrer defence senseless. Collapse inevitable." And asked for permission to surrender. Hitler's reply reads: "Surrender is forbidden; Sixth Army will hold their positions to the last man and the last round and by their heroic endurance will make an unforgettable contribution to the establishment of a defensive front and the salvation of the Western world."

"My hands are done for, and have been ever since the beginning of December. The little finger of my left hand is missing and - what's even worse - the three middle fingers of my right one are frozen. I can only hold my mug with my thumb and little finger. I'm pretty helpless; only when a man has lost any fingers does he see how much he needs then for the smallest jobs. The best thing I can do with the little finger is to shoot with it.

My hands are finished." Anonymous German soldier.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Sailing vessel Alexandria sunk by U-431 between Cyprus and Haifa.

NORTH AFRICA: The 8th Army enters Tripoli, Libya. 

Tripoli: An hour before dawn today, a lone scout car of the 11th Hussars drove gingerly through the deserted suburbs of Tripoli and into the city centre itself - to find no sign of Axis troops. At first light a Valentine tank called Dorothy - after the driver's sweetheart in Liverpool - rumbled into the main square with seven Gordon Highlanders clinging to it. Tripoli was in British hands.

Three columns had been poised all night outside the city walls for this moment. Highlanders of the 51st Division had approached from the east along the heavily-mined and booby-trapped coastal road, where every bridge and culvert had been demolished.

Another force had approached from the west; but the most spectacular approach was made by the 7th Armoured Division which had waited on the mountain overlooking Tripoli and charged towards  the south of the city.

A delighted Montgomery, who had even predicted the date of Tripoli's fall, accepted surrender from the city's bemedalled mayor, his battledress and beret contrasting markedly with the Italian's full dress uniform. "I have nothing but praise for the men of the Eighth Army," he told his assembled war correspondents.

FRENCH MOROCCO: Casablanca: In nine days of talks at Casablanca, in Morocco, Mr. Churchill and President Roosevelt have settled their war campaign plans for the year. It was the fourth wartime meeting between the two leaders. The US president told a press conference today that they had agreed on "unconditional surrender" by the Axis powers. There would be no deals; the enemy would be disarmed and those responsible for atrocities would be put on trial.

The official communiqué speaks of "war plans and enterprises to be undertaken against German, Italy and Japan with the view to drawing the utmost advantage from the favourable turn of events at the close of 1942." No hint was given of where the next blow will fall, but it is believed that the Allies have decided on an invasion of Italy this year. Tribute is paid to "the enormous weight of the war which Russia is successfully bearing"; the "prime object" of the western Allies is "to draw as much weight as possible off the Russian armies by engaging the enemy as heavily as possible at the best selected points". But Stalin's desire for a second front in north-western Europe will have to wait until 1944.

NEW GUINEA: Port Moresby: The Papuan campaign has ended. After three weeks of bloody fighting in the pestilential swamps of the New Guinea coast, the Allies have reoccupied Sanananda, eliminating the final enemy pockets on Papua.

The advance on Sanananda began immediately Buna fell, but progress was blocked by mangrove swamps. The Allies used two fresh American battalions to establish road blocks. On 12 January the 18th Australian Brigade was the used to press the encircled enemy, but came under unexpected pressure when its tanks were put out of action. In a disheartening day in which little ground was gained, 100 men were lost.

Next day the Japanese began withdrawing from their forward positions, and barges were taking them away. It was learned later that the Japanese had no rice left and were dying of starvation. The Japanese commander was ordered to move his forces from Sanananda to the Kumusi or Mambare river mouths and thence to Lae and Salamaua.

Victory has come to the Allies in Papua, but the cost has been high. Australian dead total 2,165, and 3,533 have been wounded. American losses are 671 killed and 2,172 wounded. As against this loss the Allies have won an area vital to the development of airfields and port facilities to support the advance against Rabaul. The Japanese commitment to Papua was about 20,000 of whom 13,000 are estimated to have been killed.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: GUADALCANAL: an attack by an estimated 100 Japanese occurs about 2:30 am from the "Gifu". Later that morning the 2nd Btn 35th Infantry formed skirmish lines and moved in. Captured were 40 mg; 200 rifles; and an estimated 431 Japanese soldiers dead. The stronghold has finally fallen after a month of isolation.

An edition of "The Guadalcanal Herald and Examiner" is published. 

CANADA: USN submarine chaser SC 709 foundered off Louisbourg, Nova Scotia. Local fishermen effected a daring rescue under extremely adverse conditions. Stranded on a shoal and pounded by 12-foot seas, SC 709 quickly became weighed down by ice and began listing to starboard. Canadian naval authorities in Louisbourg judged it to be too risky to attempt a rescue. The sailors aboard SC 709 could be seen from the shore from time to time as they tried to move about on the wave-swept deck. Mr. Yvon Chiasson, who was a crewman aboard a local fishing schooner, along with several local men, decided to try to reach them in two dories. These they had to drag across the shore ice until they reached open water. Then, they rowed into the teeth of the storm until they reached the wreck. The rescuers were able to remove eight of the sailors that were in the worst shape as the seas raged around them. Winds were blowing at 40 knots and the temperature had fallen to -20C. The American seamen were frostbitten and hypothermic by the time the rescuers reached them. "Those boys were in very poor condition, very poor indeed" Mr. Chiasson recalled. "The navy had no boat that could get close enough. When you're out there in the cold, with the water splashing all over and freezing on you, you're not going to last long." Fishing vessels, who followed Mr. Chiasson's route, saved the rest of the crew soon after. Mr. Chiasson's efforts were recognized in 2000 when he received the Silver Life-Saving Medal from the United States Navy at a ceremony held at Cleveland, Ohio. Rideau Hall has declined to honor Mr. Chiasson with the Canadian Life Saving Medal.

U.S.A.: The aircraft carrier USS Chapin Bay (CVE-63) is laid down.

Destroyer escorts USS Eisele and Tisdale laid down.

Submarine USS Lapon commissioned.

Destroyer USS Sigsbee commissioned.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: US Liberty ship SS Benjamin Smith had sailed from Marshall without escort on a noninvasive course, because the escort vessel’s orders had been misforwarded and so the escort arrived a day late. At 0300, the ship was hit by a torpedo from U-175 between #1 and #2 holds, but did not severely damage the ship. The radio antenna was shorted and the engines were secured as the ship took a starboard list. Within five minutes the Benjamin Smith righted herself after the water equalized in the holds and the engines were restarted. The master tried to get away steering a zigzag pattern with a speed of six knots. 20 minutes after the first hit a second torpedo struck the starboard side about ten feet aft of the engine room. The ship was then abandoned by the complement of eight officers, 35 men and 23 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in and nine 20mm guns) in three lifeboats and a raft. Shortly after they got away a third torpedo struck the port side amidships, causing her to sink quickly by the stern about 50 miles off Cape Palmas, Liberia. The Germans questioned the survivors on the raft and directed them to the nearest land after receiving the appropriate answers. He also asked for the master, but they told him that he was not on the raft. At dawn then men on the raft were transferred to the boats and the motorized lifeboat towed the other two into Sassandra, French Ivory Coast on the 24 January. They were later taken to Accra and were repatriated by plane via Belem, Brazil, arriving in USA on 3 March.

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January 23rd, 1944 (SUNDAY)

ITALY: 50,000 men are now ashore at Anzio. A German air attacks sinks the British destroyer HMS JANUS at 41 26N, 12 38E and damages her sister ship, HMS JERVIS. An air-launched torpedo sets off the magazine of JANUS and she blows up with heavy loss of life. There are 162 casualties. (Alex Gordon)(108)

Pte George Allen Mitchell (b.1911), London Scottish, took two gun posts alone and led two further assaults before being killed - by a soldier who had surrendered. (Victoria Cross)

U.S.A.: Minesweeper USS Swerve commissioned.

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January 23rd, 1945 (TUESDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Destroyers HMCS Sioux and Algonquin arrived Clyde with Convoy RA-63.

FRANCE: Strasbourg: The French First Army has halted the German offensive, North Wind, at the last bridge before Strasbourg. General Eisenhower was willing to give up the city, liberated on 23 November, in order to allow the US Seventh Army to withdraw, but General de Gaulle threatened to remove his forces from the Allied command if Strasbourg was sacrificed. Eisenhower gave way, but said that the French must defend the city. 

NETHERLANDS: NETHERLANDS: L/Cpl Henry Eric Harden (b.1912), Royal Army Medical Corps, went, under fire, to aid three men. He rescued one, but was killed on a third trip. (Victoria Cross)

GERMANY: Berlin: Hitler belatedly agrees to a major new shipbuilding programme and orders the extension of the slave-labour system in the northern dockyards.

Berlin: Count Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, the leader of the "Kreisau Circle" resistance movement, is executed. (Tim Lanzendörfer)

Berlin: Hitler appoints Himmler, who has no experience of operational command, C-in-C Army Group Vistula.

The Second Division of the Russian Liberation Army is formed under General Zverev. It will fight with the German army and is composed of former Soviet Prisoners of War.

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