Gen. MacArthur, Colonel Lloyd Lehbras, his aides, and other high officers, landing on the beach at Aitape, New Guinea, 23 April, 1944.
Hollandia fell to US forces and Tadji airfield is taken. However, resistance was met inland at Sabron and the beachheads were experiencing congestion.
F4U crashing on the USS Guadalcanal, April 23, 1944.
The Amagiri was sunk in the Makassar Strait by a mine.
Mussolini agreed to continue permitting Italian troops to be trained in Germany. The best of them were to be used to form a new National Republican Army.
In Italy, U.S. Army PFC John C. Squires lost his life in an action which resulted in his receiving a posthumous Medal of Honor.
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty. At the start of his company's attack on strongly held enemy positions in and around Spaccasassi Creek, near Padiglione, Italy, on the night of 23-April 24, 1944, Pfc. Squires, platoon messenger, participating in his first offensive action, braved intense artillery, mortar, and antitank gun fire in order to investigate the effects of an antitank mine explosion on the leading platoon. Despite shells which burst close to him, Pfc. Squires made his way 50 yards forward to the advance element, noted the situation, reconnoitered a new route of advance and informed his platoon leader of the casualties sustained and the alternate route. Acting without orders, he rounded up stragglers, organized a group of lost men into a squad and led them forward. When the platoon reached Spaccasassi Creek and established an outpost, Pfc. Squires, knowing that almost all of the noncommissioned officers were casualties, placed 8 men in position of his own volition, disregarding enemy machinegun, machine-pistol, and grenade fire which covered the creek draw. When his platoon had been reduced to 14 men, he brought up reinforcements twice. On each trip he went through barbed wire and across an enemy minefield, under intense artillery and mortar fire. Three times in the early morning the outpost was counterattacked. Each time Pfc. Squires ignored withering enemy automatic fire and grenades which struck all around him, and fired hundreds of rounds of rifle, Browning automatic rifle, and captured German Spandau machinegun ammunition at the enemy, inflicting numerous casualties and materially aiding in repulsing the attacks. Following these fights, he moved 50 yards to the south end of the outpost and engaged 21 German soldiers in individual machinegun duels at point-blank range, forcing all 21 enemy to surrender and capturing 13 more Spandau guns. Learning the function of this weapon by questioning a German officer prisoner, he placed the captured guns in position and instructed other members of his platoon in their operation. The next night when the Germans attacked the outpost again he killed 3 and wounded more Germans with captured potato-masher grenades and fire from his Spandau gun. Pfc. Squires was killed in a subsequent action.
Finnish modified Soviet Il-4 bomber, April 23, 1944.
A communist mutiny on five Greek warships (it's always the sailors) was put down by loyal Greek forces.
Also in Greece, the Pyrgoi Massacre took place in which the SS killed 563 men, women and children, with the aid of local Greek accomplices.
Marion Harris, the first white singer to widely sing and record blues, died in a hotel fire caused by her falling asleep with a lit cigarette. She was 48 years old.
Canadian bootlegger Rocco Perri went for a walk in Hamilton Ontario to clear his head and disappeared. It's widely believed he was fitted with cement shoes and drowned, but there are those who assert he lived into the 1950s in the U.S.
Last prior edition:
1940s, 1944, Afghan tribal revolts of 1944–1947, Afghanistan, Battle of Hollandia, China, Hollandia, New Guinea, Operation Ichi-Go, Operation Persecution, Operation Reckless, World War Two
