31 January 1939

PALESTINE: Jerusalem: The Jewish Elective Assembly names six members to go to a forthcoming London conference. They include Isaac Herzog, later the founder of the state of Israel. The article....

CANADA: Ottawa: The Canadian parliament debates whether to admit European refugees. The article....

UNITED KINGDOM: The Barlow Report on the "Distribution of Industrial Population" is published, recommending the building of new towns.

GERMANY: Admiral Raeder visits the commerce raider 'Atlantis' in dock at Kiel, and presents the captain with his operational orders. (Alex Gordon)

FINLAND: The Finnish Prime Minister Risto Ryti travels to Stockholm and presents the Swedish government a request for 30 000 men with equipment.

GIBRALTAR: U.S. passenger liner SS Washington is detained for several hours at Gibraltar by British authorities, but is allowed to proceed the same day; the freighter SS Jomar is also detained there.

ITALY: A secret British military mission orders 300 Caproni Re2000 fighters. (German intervention in April effectively vetoes the deal and British attempts to obtain the fighters through a Portuguese intermediary fail with the Italian declaration of war on 10 June.)

GERMANY: After consultations with army and army group staffs the Army High Command has now prepared the first operational plans for the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The deployment plan for the forces is also ready.

POLAND: Confiscation of private property by the occupying Germans is made policy by a decree initiated today.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Minesweeper HMS Huntley transporting supplies for the Eighth Army suffers air attacks by German bombers and is sunk by torpedoes, bombs and gunfire. There are 18 casualties but 56 of the crew survive. (Alex Gordon)(108)

ERITREA: After three days of heavy fighting, the Italian Army withdraws to the Keren Plateau. At this point, Amadeo, the Duke of Aosta and Governor General of Italian East Africa, in command at Addis Ababa, has only 67 aircraft available for combat in all East Africa. Fuel and supplies are at an all time low, and infantry could only be moved on foot.

Submarine HMS Uther laid down.

Destroyer HMS Vigilant laid down.

Destroyer HMS Champlin laid down.

GERMANY: Berlin: SS General Franz Stahlecker, the commander of the Einsatzgruppe in the Baltic states, reports that he has killed 229,052 Jews.

U-217 commissioned.

U-951 laid down.

U-443 launched.

U.S.S.R.: Moscow: The Red Army's counter-offensive is grinding on against fierce German opposition. A critical battle is being fought for Rzhev, as the Russians thrust south towards Vyazma in an attempt to trap the German Army Group South.

Similar battles are being fought further south as General Zhukov aims for Bryansk to sweep up behind Vyazma and Marshal Timoshenko fights towards Izyum in an attempt to recapture Kharkov.

In yet another Soviet attack General Vlasov has struck across the Volkhov river towards Leningrad. Despite atrocious weather Stalin is relentless in his demands for attack, believing that the Germans will break.

IRAQ: The U.S. Military Mission to USSR, which is to advise and assist Russians on lend-lease matters, arrives at Basra; the group subsequently proceeds to Tehran, Iran, where headquarters is established.

INDIA: New Delhi: The fall of Moulmein in Burma, today threaten the major port of Rangoon which handles arms and supplies flowing along the Burma Road to Chiang Kai-shek's armies in China. The Japanese assigned the task to their 15th Army which on 8 December entered Bangkok, in Thailand, and set about the task of seizing British airfield in southern Burma in preparation for air attacks on Rangoon.

One airfield fell to Japan, and Rangoon itself was attacked continually from 23 December. Allied fighter squadrons - British and American - forced the Japanese to carry put their bombing missions by night. Moulmein fell when the defenders were ordered to withdraw in river boats.

The Moulmein garrison withdraws across the Salween River to Martaban. The 48th Brigade of the Indian 19th Division arrives in Rangoon and is held in reserve. Another brief lull ensues in ground action as the Japanese prepare for further attacks, infiltrating across the Salween and bombing and shelling Martaban.

MALAYA: Allied defence forces complete their withdrawal to Singapore Island at 0800 hours and blows the causeway. There are 85,000 men from 38 battalions, 13 British, six Australian, 17 Indian, and two Malay, on the island; The Japanese are attacking with less than 40,000 men. For defence purposes, Singapore is divided into three sectors. The Indian 3 Corps, under command of Lieutenant General Sir Lewis Macclesfield Heath, consisting of the Indian 11th and British 18th Divisions and corps troops, is responsible for the North Area. The South Area, which includes Singapore town, is the responsibility of Major General F. Keith Simmons, commander of Singapore Fortress troops, who has under his command in addition to fixed defences, the 1st and 2d Malayan Brigades and Strait Settlements Volunteer Force. The West Area, under command of Lieutenant General Henry Bennett, General Officer Commanding Australian Imperial Force Malaya, is manned by Australians and the Indian 44th Brigade, with attachments. Activity from this time until the Japanese invasion is confined to artillery exchanges, air attacks, and patrolling. The chief targets for Japanese aircraft are the docks and Kalang Airdrome.

SINGAPORE: Now that the remaining British and Imperial troops have withdrawn across the causeway to Singapore all eyes are on this island.

In the past 20 years the naval base at Singapore has been the epicentre of British military power in the Far East. But the errors that pre-war planners made in believing that Singapore could only be attacked from the sea, have come home to roost now that Malaya is in Japanese hands. The great guns which were supposed to have made Singapore impregnable all face south to the open sea - but the Japanese are approaching from the north with only a narrow strait separating them from the island.

The question now is: should Singapore be held or abandoned to its fate? General Wavell recently appointed overall Allied commander in the region, has advised that the island cannot be defended for any length of time. However, Churchill has ordered that Singapore be held at all costs: not only would surrender betray the local people but, if Singapore falls, there is no hope for the Dutch East Indies.

A triumphant Japanese army, buoyed by the success of its Malayan campaign, is poised to deliver the final blow to this "City of the Lion". A crushing defeat in Johore State forced Lieutenant-General Percival to withdraw all his forces from the coastal strip across the narrow strait from the beleaguered island. A British rearguard crossed into Singapore this morning after a gap was blown in the causeway linking the island with the mainland. British and Indian Army forces outnumber the invaders, but they are handicapped by Japanese supremacy in the air and in the sea.

None the less General Wavell, the overall Allied commander is under strong political pressure to stand firm - from not only Churchill but also the Australian prime minister, John Curtin, who says that the evacuation of Singapore would be an "inexcusable betrayal."

NETHERLANDS East Indies: Moluccas: On Ambon Island 20,000 Japanese troops attack Laha late in the afternoon; they are repulsed by an outnumbered platoon of Australians on the northeast of the airfield. Eventually the Japanese do overcome the Australian garrison defending Amboina.

BORNEO: The Japanese continue their conquest of Borneo; they occupy the town of Ngabang, and a battalion size unit with ca. 400 men lands in Adang Bay (Teluk Adang) without opposition before daybreak..

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: On Bataan, the Japanese begin an attack on II Corps in the evening after air and artillery preparation but are halted by corps fire. A Japanese regiment concealed in the bridgehead across the Pilar River begins withdrawing under cover of darkness. The I Corps continues the battle against enemy pockets in sectors of 1st and 11th Divisions, Philippine Army; the pockets are now cut off from supply. In the South Sector, operations against the enemy beachhead at Quinauan Point continue with little change in positions. Japanese reinforcements are ordered to the area. The U.S. 192d Tank Battalion (less one company) is sent to the west coast to help reduce the Quinauan Point beachhead.

NEW ZEALAND: New Zealand continues to dig in for war by introducing air-raid shelter regulations, and inviting women to join the Emergency Precaution Service as fire-watchers. All men must register for the Emergency Defence Corps.

PACIFIC: The destroyer USS Helm (DD-388) evacuates civilian radio operators and weather observers from Howland and Baker Islands; she is bombed by a Japanese reconnaissance flying boat off Baker, but is not damaged.

The United States Pacific fleet severely attacked Japanese positions in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands, destroying numerous Japanese ships, planes, and, shore establishments.

TERRITORY OF HAWAII: Task Force Eleven (TF 11) (Vice Admiral Wilson Brown Jr.), formed around the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2), departs Pearl Harbor to cover the retirement of TF 8 (Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr.) and TF 17 (Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher) from the Marshall and Gilbert Islands.

Minesweeper HMCS Caraquet laid down North Vancouver, British Columbia.

Minesweeper HMCS Winnipeg laid down Port Arthur, Ontario.

Corvette HMCS New Westminster commissioned.

U.S.A.: In preparation for a bombing raid on Japan, Captain Donald B. Duncan, USN, flies to Norfolk, Virginia to make arrangements with Captain Marc A. Mitscher, USN, skipper of the USS Hornet (CV-8), to prepare to have three B-25 Mitchell medium bombers hoisted aboard on the next day for trial takeoffs. (107)

Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, in a memo to General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff U.S. Army, estimates his needs for China assignment and requests that his staff and any forces that may join it be called a task force. The War Department subsequently approves designation of Stilwell's forces as U.S. Task Force in China.
Major General Ira C Eaker is designated Commanding General, Bomber Command, U.S. Army Forces in British Isles (USAFBI) and ordered to proceed to the UK.

The last pre-war automobiles produced by Chrysler, Plymouth, and Studebaker roll off the assembly lines today.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: While escorting Canadian troop convoy NA2 from St, John's, Newfoundland, RN destroyer Belmont is torpedoed by U-81 and sinks with the loss of her entire ship's company of Halifax, Nova Scotia at 42 02N, 57 18W. USS Satterlee (DD-190), was commissioned as HMS Belmont (H-46) on 8 Oct. 1940, as part of the bases-for-destroyers deal. (Ron Babuka and Alex Gordon)(108)

Banff class escort sloop HMS CULVER (ex USCGC MENDOTA) is torpedoed and sunk while escorting convoy SL.98, ex-USCG cutter CULVER is sunk by U-105 southwest of Ireland at 48 43N, 20 14W. (Ric Pelvin and Jack McKillop and Alex Gordon (108) )

At 2331, U-125 fired a salvo of four torpedoes at the convoy SL-98 and observed two hits and a large explosion. Schuch thought that he had hit an ammunition freighter, but in fact it was the HMS Culver (Y 87) (Cdr Gordon-Duff) that had blown up with the loss of the commander, seven officers and 118 ratings.

Two British merchant tankers are torpedoed and sunk by German submarines: the first by U-107 about 590 miles southeast of New York City and the second by U-109 about 320 miles southeast of Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Motor tanker San Arcadio sunk by U-107 at 38.10N, 63.50W - Grid CB 5478

German blockade-runner MS Spreewald accidentally sunk by U-333 at 45N, 25W - Grid BE 7142. Spreewald was disguised as the Norwegian ship Elg and was in the area ahead of schedule by mistake.

UNITED KINGDOM: London: RAF bombers last night used a new navigation device on operations. Called H2S, but already known by the crews as "Home Sweet Home", it is an airborne downward-looking radio-location system. The image of the terrain which the aircraft is overflying is reproduced on a cathode-ray tube, which the navigator can compare with his map. Unlike Gee it is not range-dependent. Aircraft of the newly-formed No. 8 (Pathfinder) Group used H2S in an attack on Hamburg, chosen because the nearby coast and river Elbe would show up well.

VICHY FRANCE: With the three colours of the tricouleur as a backdrop, French leaders met in a hot-springs hotel here today and pledged themselves to help in the fight against Gaullists, Jews, Freemasons and communists - anyone, in fact, who opposes collaboration with Germany.

The newly-founded Milice Français [French Militia] and its general secretary, Joseph Darnand, was meeting members of the Vichy government, notably Pierre Laval, the head of the government, his junior minister Admiral Platon, Abel Bonnard, the minister of education, and Paul Marion, the junior minister for information.

After the meeting had sung the anthem of the Milice, Le chant des cohortes, Darnand and Laval outlined the duties of the future militiamen: to support, by propaganda, the actions of the government, and to help in the fight agains the black market and in the maintaining of order. The law creating the Milice was passed yesterday by the Vichy head of state, Marshal Petain. The Milice will be run by the head of the government, assisted by the general secretary, who will be in effective control. Darnand, a man completely loyal to the marshal, Nazism and collaboration, thus becomes a key strongman in the Vichy regime.

GERMANY: Berlin: The first de Havilland Mosquitoes to reach Berlin, today bombed at a time designed to wreck a parade addresses by Reichsmarschall Göring. The aircraft of No. 105 Squadron were successful. Later on in the afternoon a second gathering addressed by Göbbels was attacked by the Mosquitoes of No.139 Squadron. (22)

Stalingrad: Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered to a Russian lieutenant in Stalingrad this evening. Yesterday, knowing that no German field marshal had ever surrendered, Hitler had promoted him to the highest rank in the army. Then the Fuhrer sent one last signal: "Each day the fortress of Stalingrad can continue to hold out is of importance."

The implication was obvious: the new field marshal should die rather than surrender. But Paulus had no more fight left in him. Exhausted, his face twitching, he retreated to the Univermag, the department store in the city's Red Square. The Russians captured the square and learnt from a prisoner that Paulus was in the building, which was being pounded by guns and mortars. A German officer waved a white flag at the Russians preparing to rush the store, and Lieutenant Fedor Yelchenko dashed across the square.

The young Russian found Paulus lying, fully dressed, on his camp bed in the cellar: "Well, that finishes it," said the lieutenant, Paulus nodded. Yelchenko sent for a car which took Paulus to Rokossovsky's headquarters. Paulus determined to put an end to his own struggle, but unwilling to sign a formal capitulation, has, in fact, only surrendered himself and his headquarters staff. Sector commanders are left to make their own arrangements, but as the news of his surrender spreads so the fighting fades away in the southern pocket.

The Germans continue to resist from strongpoints in the northern pocket. Here General Strecker, the commander of the XI Corps, is holding out round the tractor works and the Red October ordnance works where so much of the cruel hand-to-hand fighting which has been such a feature of this battle has raged. Hitler has radioed to him: "I expect the northern pocket of Stalingrad to hold out to the finish. Every day, every hour, thus gained decisively benefits the remainder of the front.

Such exhortations mean little to the hollow-eyed, freezing, disease-ridden men fighting to survive in the rubble of Stalingrad. Strecker can hardly hold out for more than a couple of days, and then he and his men will join the columns of prisoners trudging across the icy steppe to captivity.

Stalingrad: The defeat of the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad has two immediate strategic effects: colossal losses have been inflicted on the German army, and seven Soviet armies have been released to move against the German forces in the Caucasus. Important as these strategic effects are, the impact on the morale of the Wehrmacht is even more important. The Fuhrer's Aryan supermen have been humiliated by the Russian soldiers whom they despised as Untermenschen [subhumans]. German generals have been out-thought, their men outfought, and the legend of the Blitzkrieg shattered.

Stalingrad: The human and material losses of the German army and Luftwaffe at Stalingrad are quite staggering. According to the Russians, 120,000 Germans have been killed and 91,000 taken prisoner, including no less than 24 generals. The Romanian Third and Fourth Armies and the Italian Eighth Army have also been destroyed.

The losses in guns and tanks are enormous, enough to equip 80 divisions. The Russians destroyed or captured 3,500 self-propelled guns and tanks, over 12,000 guns and mortars and 75,000 vehicles.

The Luftwaffe has lost 489 transport aircraft in its attempt to supply the trapped army, and 744 bombers and fighters during the battle. Another 542 aircraft, mostly damaged were captured by the Russians. The Luftwaffe suffered especially from the loss of instructors flying the transports. It is doubtful if either the army or air force will ever fully recover from Stalingrad.

ITALY: General Vittorio Ambrosio succeeds Marshal Ugo Cavallero, whom Mussolini"> Mussolini has sacked, as chief of staff of the Italian army.

U-376 left Bergen, Norway her 6th patrol, but the next day at 0057 lost the third watch officer when he was washed overboard. U-376 then headed back to Bergen, took aboard a replacement and departed for patrol the same day. [Obersteuermann Heinz Richter].

U-519 reported missing in the Bay of Biscay. There is no explanation for its loss. 50 dead (all hands lost).

UNITED KINGDOM: London and south-east England have been hit by the Luftwaffe for the first time for months in a series of night raids, codenamed Operation Steinbock [Ibex], which began on 21-22 January. The usefulness of this "Little Blitz" to Germany's propaganda machine - as an antidote to constant RAF assaults on the Reich - is worth the cost; up to eight aircraft lost in a single raid. On the first raid 447 sorties were flown (the planes included the He177 heavy bombers), during which only 32 tons of bombs were dropped for the loss of nine planes.

The total number of bombers involved is thus fewer than the 600 claimed by Germany (an RAF assessment is 200), but the raids seem to confirm intelligence reports that the Germans are still building aircraft at a rate which makes good their losses. If confirmed, such a situation would cast doubt on the belief of Sir Arthur Harris that strategic bombing alone will end the war. This claim is also under fire after the heavy losses which the RAF has suffered (as well as inflicted) in the raids on Berlin.

Escort carrier HMS Trouncer commissioned.

Minesweeping trawler HMS Pine torpedoed and sunk by a German motor torpedo boat in the English Channel.

Frigates HMS Cam and Holmes commissioned.

ITALY: Anzio: Swift German reaction to the Anzio landings is threatening to turn the tables completely on the huge Allied army which landed here nine days ago. The element of surprise has gone. Instead ofthe dash to Rome, activity has been limited to cautious attacks with heavy Allied casualties. Field Marshal Kesselring has now pulled reserves from all over Italy to ring the beach-head.

US Rangers waded four miles in darkness along a half-dry irrigation canal to attack the village of Cisterna, but were detected at the last moment and came under withering tank fire. Only six men survived. The British 24 Guards Brigade met stiff resistance on the night of 29-30 January at the small hamlet of Carroceto, where the 29th Panzergrenadier Regiment was dug in and waiting; and the Sherwood Foresters have suffered huge casualties in an assault on Campoleone.

This was Operation FLINTLOCK. Kwajalein Atoll is invaded by both Army and Marine forces. U.S. Marines seized five islands in the northern section of the atoll while U.S. Army troops seize four islands and islets in the southern part of the atoll.

Prior to the scheduled invasion of Majuro Atoll by Army troops, Marine scouts are put ashore and secure the atoll without a fight.

During the night, we moved up to Engebi island and launched a pre-dawn attack. 8 to 10 "Betty" aircraft were caught on the ground and set on fire. One was caught starting to taxi out for take-off but did not make into the air. The airfield was ruined.

Hit Engebi again There was some cloud cover over the island when Lt. Runyon and his wingman Ens Harris arrived. Lt Runyon ducked down through the first hole in the clouds and then Ens. Harris took the next hole. This put Runyon a little ahead of Harris. Harris straffed a building and it exploded right under Runyon and blowing his aircraft up quite a bit and turning him over.. He did recover and made it back OK.

During the day, 40 or 50 bombs with 6 hour delayed fuses were dropped We figured they should have exploded around 2230 hours. The pilots reported no return firing in the afternoon.

Glen

Glen has given us something that no official history can give us, i.e., the viewpoint of a participant. Now to the book stuff.

Aircraft of Task Group 58.3, USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) with Carrier Air Group Seventeen (CVG-17), USS Cowpens (CVL-25) with Light Carrier Air Group Twenty Two (CVLG-22) and USS Monterey (CVL-26) with CVLG-30, attack targets in Eniwetok Atoll, especially Engebi Airfield on Eniwetok Island. All 15 , Navy Type 1 Attack Bombers, Allied Code Name "Betty," on the airfield are destroyed. The carrier aircraft also fly 400 sorties against Roi, Namur and Kwajalein Islands, which will be invaded tomorrow, and against Wotje Atoll.

An F6F Hellcat pilot of Fighting Squadron Twelve (VF-12) in USS Saratoga (CV-3) shoots down a Mitsubishi A6M, Navy Type 0 Carrier Fighter, Allied Code Name "Zeke," near Taroa Airfield on Maloelap at 1130. During the night of 30/31 January, B-24s of the Seventh Air Force's VII Bomber Command begin continuous small attacks on Kwajalein Atoll. At 2000 hours, the escort carriers of Task Unit 53.1.6 (the Northern Attack Force Carrier Unit) are released from convoy escort duties and prepare for pre-landing and ground support missions tomorrow. The Task Units involved in the invasion are:

Marine Scout- or Dive-Bombing Squadron One Hundred Fifty One (VMSB-151) with 18 SBDs

Attacks by land-based aircraft from Tarawa and Makin, in the Gilbert Islands, had heavily damaged Japanese airfields, and most of the remaining aircraft were destroyed or put out of action by carrier raids earlier this month. Then, for three days before the landings, US battleships blasted the islands on each side of Kwajalein atoll.

Three assault groups struck today, and by 9.30am Majoru was secured without the loss of a single man. Tricky approaches through gaps in the coral reefs made the landings more difficult at Roi and Namur Islands where the 4th Marine Division attacked. The Japanese combined fleet at Truk lacking carrier pilots, could only look on helplessly. On Kwajalein some 3,000 Japanese had survived the preliminary bombardment. They made attempts to push the invaders back into the ocean, but soon found themselves hopelessly outnumbered.

Escort carrier USS Bismark Sea laid down.

Destroyer escorts USS Dufilho and Douglas A Munro laid down.

Destroyer USS Douglas H Fox laid down.

Escort carrier USS Sargent Bay launched.

Destroyer USS Robinson commissioned.

Aircraft carrier USS Franklin commissioned.

Destroyer minelayer USS Thomas E Fraser laid down.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-592 Sunk at 1000hrs on in the North Atlantic south-west of Ireland, in position 50. 20N, 17.29W, by depth charges from the British sloops HMS Starling, Wild Goose and Magpie. 49 dead (all hands lost). (Alex Gordon)

FRANCE: The US Army today shot dead Private Eddie Slovik for desertion. It was the first such execution since the American Civil War 80 years ago. Slovik, aged 24, a sub-literate petty criminal, failed to join his unit in Normandy and latched on to a Canadian corps instead. When he finally caught up with his own unit, he deserted for a second time.

Slovik was executed on January 31st in the courtyard of a villa in the town of Ste-Marie-aux-Mines, deep in the Vosges Mountains in Alsace. There were severe manpower problems and also problems with desertion and self-inflicted wounds in the theater at the time and Eisenhower probably thought that Slovik's execution would help remedy these. D'Este writes that the execution was publicized in the 28th Infantry Division but not in other units in the ETO. I was in Alsace at the time and never heard a word about Slovik until I read Huie's book. I doubt that many other soldiers knew of the event. No one will ever know what Eisenhower was thinking about when he approved Slovik's execution. Shortly after this he commuted the sentences of two other soldiers who had been convicted of desertion. (William J. Stone)

U.S.S.R.: Moscow: The first congress of the Russian Orthodox Church since the Revolution opens, with prayers for Stalin and victory.

Moscow: General Zhukov has crossed the German frontier, thrust 12 miles deep into Pomerania and captured Driesen, 95 miles from Berlin. His men stand on the bank of the Oder river. The new advance has cut the railway line from Berlin to Danzig, and poses a threat to Frankfurt an der Oder, just 45 miles east of Berlin.

The imminence of danger to the capital of Germany has been admitted by Dr. Ley, the Labour Front leader. Writing in Der Angriff, he pledges in a pale echo of Churchill's words: "We shall fight before Berlin, inside Berlin and behind Berlin." German hopes rest to some degree on the defence of the fortified towns which have been bypassed by the Red Army. Poznan, some miles behind the front on the Warsaw to Berlin road, is one of these towns and, with 60,000 troops behind its concrete defences, is resisting fiercely. The front-line troops are supported by the Volkssturm and cadets from an officers' training school who are used in defence while regular units mount counter-attacks, sometimes several battalions strong, with Panzer elements.

Elsewhere, the Red Army's advance continues. Marshal Rokossovsky has now cut off three German armies in East Prussia. When he captured Tannenburg, the scene of the crushing German victory over the Czar's army in the last war, he discovered that the Germans had removed the sarcophagus of the victor, von Hindenburg, and blown up the monument commemorating his victory. Von Hindenburg won his victory as czarist officers advancing into East Prussia were trying to decide which horses to ride into Berlin. It is doubtful if even he could have saved Berlin in this war.

Danzig: The German "Strength Through Joy" liner Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed by the Russian submarine S-13 off the Hela peninsula last night. Crowded with refugees and wounded from East Prussia, the liner sank swiftly in the freezing seas and it is feared that some 7,000 people died, the greatest sea tragedy yet recorded. The refugees had struggled to get on board the doomed liner. As she cast off small boats appeared and women held up their children crying: "Take us with you. Save the children." The liner drifted while the ship's crew put out nets and the refugees scrambled aboard. Few survived.

The S-13 is one of the Baltic submarines now active following the uncorking of the Baltic after Finland's departure from the war. Commanded by Captain Third Class Sasha Marinescu, she is based at the Finnish port of Turku. The tragic irony of this disaster is that Marinescu might not have been in position to intercept the Wilhelm Gustloff if he had not put to sea to escape the secret police after a heavy drinking bout.

BURMA: Myitkyina: The Burma Road from India to China has re-opened, bringing supplies to Chiang Kei-shek's Nationalist armies. The road - which Chiang has named the "Stilwell Road" - runs via Ledo, Myitkyina and Bhamo. The first convoy, carrying 75mm and 105mm guns, has crossed the Chinese border and been greeted with fireworks. "During the years that China stood alone the Japanese militarists told their people that if the Burma Road were closed our courage would collapse," Chiang said. "Now comes this caravan, roaring into China over an area which they thought just yesterday to hold in everlasting peace."

Lt. George Arthur Knowland (b.1922), Royal Norfolk Regt., held up 300 Japanese with a Bren gun, standing firm for 12 hours before being fatally hit. (Victoria Cross)

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Luzon: General MacArthur's US forces are closing fast on all sides on Manila since landing at Lingayen on Luzon three weeks ago. Clark Field, a key airbase 50 miles north of the Philippines capital, was recaptured today by XIV Corps. South of the city US paratroops of the 11th Airborne Division landed at Nasagbu, on the west coast, taking the Japanese defence forces by surprise.

The fierce seven-day battle for Clark Field's cave and tunnel complex ended with survivors of the 30,000-man Kembu Group retreating further into the Zambales Mountains. General Yamashita, the Japanese Philippines C-in-C is fighting similar delaying actions in the north-east with his 150,000-man Shobu Group, hoping to prevent Luzon from becoming the launching pad for an attack on Japan.

BONIN ISLANDS: USAAF Seventh Air Force B-24s begin the task of softening up Iwo Jima's defenses.

U.S.A.: Hanford, Washington: The first weapon-grade plutonium is ready for shipment.