Friday, January 23, 1942. The Japanese land on Rabaul, Partisans withdraw in Croatia, Dutch aircraft score, the Afrika Korps advances, the Red Army surrounds.

Soon to be added to the nation's fighting forces will be an all black aviation squadron, whose members now are in training at Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama. Some of the cadets at the Basic and Advanced Flying School for Negro Air Corps Cadets are shown here, January 23, 1942, lined up for review with Major James A. Ellison returning the salute of Mac Ross of Dayton, Ohio, as he inspects the cadets." (Source: AP Photo/U.S. Army Signal Corps)

On this day in 1942, the Battle of Rabaul commenced on New Britain, pursuant to Japanese Operation R.

Australian troops in withdrawal in New Britain.

The Battle of Balikpapan began in eastern Borneo.

Yugoslavian partisans withdrew, ending Operation Southeast Croatia.  Perhaps the most notable thing, however, is that it was 1942 and Yugoslavia clearly wasn't under uncontested Axis control.

The Italian submarine Barbarigo sank the Spanish freighter SS Navemar, thereby seeing an event in which an Axis state sank the ship of a putative Axis ally.  

On the same day the Japanese I-72 sank the USS Neches 120 miles west of Pearl Harbor.  This caused the U.S. Navy Task Force 11 to return to Pearl Harbor, as it could not make Wake Island, which it had been detailed to strike, without refueling, and the Neches was an oiler.

USS Neches.

The MS Nana Maru was sunk by Dutch Martin B-10 bombers and Brewster Buffalo's.

A Martin B-10.

Both aircraft would be regarded as nearly obsolescent by this point in the war, and yet they could still give first-rate service in the hands of capable crews.

Brewster Buffalo.

The Germans sink a British and a Norwegian merchant ship in Operation Drumbeat.

The Afrika Korps continues to rapidly advance in North Africa, which didn't keep these coastal artillerymen from getting clean.

Or this Army bakery from doing its work.

The Luftwaffe raided Tobruk.

British anti-aircraft crews near Tobruk on this day in 1942.

The Red Army surrounds 5,500 German troops in Kholm, USSR.