Operation Spring Awakening was launched by the Germans. It would be their last major offensive. An Eastern Front offensive, oil reserves were the target.
King Michael of Romania installed Petru Groza as Prime Minister of Romania due to Soviet pressure.
The Soviets began to arrest or kill anyone associated with the Polish Government In Exile or the Polish Home Army.
The famous tank battle in Cologne between a German Panther and a M26 named Eagle 7 took place. It's one of the best known American v. German tank battles of World War Two, and ironically took place in a large urban environment.
The battle was, unusually, completely filmed.
The crew of Eagle 7, after the battle.
"The crew of an M26 Pershing tank, nicknamed "Eagle 7," of the 3rd Armored Division pose for a photo after their famous victorious tank duel against a German Panther tank in Cologne, Germany, March 1945. Commander - Sgt. Robert M. Earley of Fountain, Minn Gunner - Cpl. Clarence E. Smoyer of Lehighton, Pa Loader - Pvt. John S. Deriggi of Scranton, Pa Driver - T/5 William D. McVey of Jackson, Mich Assistant Driver - Pvt. Homer L. Davis of Morehead, Ky.
The Chinese 1st Army took Lashio, Burma.
"The crew of the Ninth U.S. Army Sherman tank who escaped injury though their vehicle was hit by four German 88 shells in action during the capture of Hottorf, near Erkelenz, Germany. L to R: Tec 5 John Helbo, driver, South Plainfield, N.J.; Tec 5 William B. Paff, cannoneer, Morrisville, Pa.; Sgt. Matteo Fortino, tank commander, Bronx, New York; Pfc. Leo V. Digangi, gunner, Jackson Heights, Long Island, N.Y.; and Pfc. Steve Raguseo, assistant driver. 6 March, 1945."
The British Indian 17th Division took Tahlaing and the Thabuktong airfield.
A midnight curfew on bars, nightclubs and all other places of entertainment went into effect in the US in order to save coal.
USAAF Gen. Millard Fillmore Harmon Jr. and Brig. Gen. James Roy Andersen disappeared in an aircraft over the Pacific.
"With the gun crew riding on top, a tank destroyer chassis tows a huge Seventh Army 8-inch rifle through a French town, on the way to the front. 26 February, 1945. Monnenheim, France. 575th Field Artillery Battalion, 35th Field Artillery Group."
"Crosses are erected over Protestant and Catholic graves, the Star of David over those of the Jewish faith, in this U.S. military cemetery somewhere in the European Theater of Operations. 26 February, 1945. Foy, Belgium. Photographer: T/5 Billy Newhouse."
The USS Bismark Sea was sunk by kamikazes off of Iwo Jima.
The Battle of Baguio began in the Philippines.
" While the town of Portz, Germany, burns in the background, 10th Armored Division jeeps of the 3rd Army advance on Saarburg, Germany. 21 February, 1945. 10th Armored Division. Photographer: T/5 L. G. Crabtree, 166th Signal Photo Co."
The British 17th Indian Division begins a breakout at Myaungu. The British take Myitson.
The Yalta Conference started in Yalta, in the Crimea, under the unfortunate circumstance of the Red Army only being 40 miles from Berlin. It was, of course, halted.
The postwar order and the war with Japan were the topics. It would be one of the most consequential conferences of the 20th Century.
Even in the photograph above it's easy to tell that Franklin Roosevelt was not well. The truth is, he was on death's door, and knew it. Those around him knew it too. At least one of those around him were far more friendly to a Communist world view than was known, except to the Soviets themselves.
Manila was being closed in on by the US Army from two directions.
The Battle of Pokoku and Irrawaddy River operations began in Burma.
The USS Barbel was sunk by Japanese aircraft off Palawan.
The USAAF raids Iwo Jima for a second day with B-24s and B-29s.
The Malta Conference ended. Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to withdraw two divisions from Greece and three from Italy to commit them to northwest Europe.
They left for Yalta.
The Vistula–Oder Offensive ended in Soviet victory with a voluntary halt of the Red Army. Curiously, the Red Army was only 43 miles from Berlin, and the city was undefended.
The liberation of Auschwitz was mentioned for the first time, in Pravda, which failed to note that the inmates were mostly Jewish.
German politician Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was hung for his role in the July 20 plot.
Catholic Priest Fr Alfred Delp was executed as well.
Adoration of God is the road that leads man to himself.
Fr. Alfred Delp,
Soviet POWs made a mass escape from the Mauthausen concentration camp.
"Snow-caped infantrymen the 60th Inf. Regt., 9th Inf. Div., U.S. First Army, move towards Dedenborn, Germany, as Nazis retreat during heavy fighting on this sector. 2 February, 1945.
Lt. Jack L. Knight, a cavalryman of the Mars Task Force performed the actions which resulted in his being awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor while in combat at LoiKang, Burma.
He led his cavalry troop against heavy concentrations of enemy mortar, artillery, and small arms fire. After taking the troop's objective and while making preparations for a defense, he discovered a nest of Japanese pillboxes and foxholes to the right front. Preceding his men by at least 10 feet, he immediately led an attack. Single-handedly he knocked out 2 enemy pillboxes and killed the occupants of several foxholes. While attempting to knock out a third pillbox, he was struck and blinded by an enemy grenade. Although unable to see, he rallied his platoon and continued forward in the assault on the remaining pillboxes. Before the task was completed he fell mortally wounded. 1st Lt. Knight's gallantry and intrepidity were responsible for the successful elimination of most of the Japanese positions and served as an inspiration to officers and men of his troop.
"Reading his first mail since moving into frontline position is Sgt. John W. Carter of Gastonia, N.C., Battery C, 616th F.A. Bn., 10th Mtn. Div. 31 January, 1945. Cutigliano area, Italy.
Battery B, 616th Field Artillery Battalion, 10th Mountain Division.
The Red Army closed to within fifty miles of Berlin.
The Battle for Kapelsche Veer ended in a victory for the Canadian Army.
The Waffen SS murdered over 160 Polish POWs at Podgaje. The Polish troops were members of the Communist Polish People's Army.
The Battle of Hill 170 ended in a victory for the British and Indian Armies.
Destroyed Japanese tank on Luzon, January 31, 1945.
The 11th Airborne was landed, by sea, near Nasugbu without opposition.
The execution of Pvt. Eddie Slovik, about which there's been much handwringing, was carried out. He had been convicted of desertion and is the only US soldier to be executed for the same since the Civil War. Desertion was becoming a problem in the U.S. Army, contrary to the way we'd like to remember the war (draft dodging was as well), and he was made an example of.
Female Red Army sniper Roza Shanina died of wounds sustained from artillery fire the prior day. She is reported to have killed 50 Axis soldiers during her service. She was 20 years of age.
While not really well depicted in film, artillery was the great killer of the Second World War, not rifle fire or close combat. This was so much the case that for a long period of time after the war artillery came to be seen as the predominant conventional combat arm, with this really only changing after the US began to appreciate the lessons of the Vietnam War which showed a shift back to close combat wounds.
The Germans killed Italian generals Giuseppe Andreoli, Emanuele Balbo Bertone, Ugo Ferrero, Carlo Spatocco, Alberto Trionfi, Alessandro Vaccaneo in Kuźnica Żelichowska.
The 8th Air Force conducted raids over the Ruhr.
The first supplies to cross the Ledo Road enter China.
The Red Army liberated Auschwitz and the full horror of the German murderous oppression came into very sharp focus.
The Red Army also took Memel.
It was within 100 miles of Berlin.
The US 3d Army crossed the Our and took Oberhausen.
Charles Maurras, editor of Action Francaise, was sentenced to life imprisonment for collaboration. He was released shortly before his death in 1952, but remained very far right in his views.
The Ledo Road was cleared in Burma.
"Men of C and E Cos., 6th Ranger Bn., are shown advancing toward the Japanese prisoner of war camp at Cabanatuan, Luzon, P.I. 27 January, 1945. 6th Ranger Battalion." The story of the behind the lines raid has been committed to a book and movie, The Great Raid. This Ranger Battalion was unique in that it was not an all volunteer Ranger unit from the onset, but rather started off partially as a pack mortar battalion.
"Members of the 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Division, march into Butgenbach, Belgium. 25 January, 1945. 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. Photographer: Pfc. Fred Linden, 165th Signal Photo Co."
While other dates are also used, this is generally regarded as the end of the Battle of the Bulge. The 3d Army was across the Clerf and advancing.
German advances in the Ardennes had been completely eliminated by this date.
The US sustained, 19,000 kia, 47,500 wia and 23,000 mia. The British suffered 200 killed and 1200 other casualties. The Germans sustained 100,000 total losses.
Volksturm in East Prussia, January 20, 1945. By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R98401 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5368820
The Red Army reached the Baltic north of Elbing, cutting off Army Group North. The greatest mass evacuation in human history begins with the Germans removing 1.5M to 2M people from the region with 40 large passenger ships and other vessels.
Hitler relieved General Reinhart and appointed General Rendulic to what was renamed Army Group North.
The Germans blue up the Wolf's Lair.
This is a good place to interject a couple of things, which I was pondering on how to interject.
Starting with the evacuation of East Prussia, it was a monumental human tragedy. One the Germans brought on themselves, but tragic nonetheless. The character of the fighting at this point began to radically change as the Germans fought on their own ground. That was in due in part to the character of the Red Army's troops, which we will get to below. German troops of all types fought tooth and nail at this point, and not simply because they were servants of a monstrous dictatorship that didn't care if they lived or died. They were fighting to give time to their families to get out of the way of the Red Army.
The Red Army was an armed mob and quite frankly crap. That's a really controversial opinion, but its hte case. The Imperial Russian Army had been crap, the Red Army was also crap, and the current Russian Army is crap. It was tactically bereft of the most part and simply relied upon having a lot of men to get killed, and it didn't care if they lived or died.
That can be said about the Germans as well, but the Soviets had a lot more troops to get killed.
A very early edition of the excellent podcast We Have Ways addresses this (I think its Episode 13, Our Russian Allies). In truth, the myth that has come down of the Soviets doing more to win the war than the Western Allies is simply wrong. The difference between the two is that the Western Allies used technology and intelligence and didn't spend the lives of its mean. Most in uniform in the Western armies weren't even combat troops. Most in the Red Army were cannon fodder. As that episode explains, had the feared post war war between the West and the USSR actually broke out, the Western Allies would have defeated the Soviet Union.
One of the characteristics of the troops of the Red Army mob was that by this point it was a murderous band of rapist. There's no two ways about. They raped thousands of women, and often killed them immediately thereafter, leaving their ravished bodies by the side of the road. The modern Russian Army has never really gotten over this, and remains criminal in its behavior.
This leaves us with an awkward situation in regard to the late war fighting. There was really nothing admiral about the Red Army at all, save for a few exceptional leaders and a few exceptional pieces of equipment. As much as people hate to admit it, but for Western support during the war, the Soviets would have brokered a peace with the Germans in 1943.
It can, perhaps, be said that the Soviet's soldier capacity for enduring horrific conditions was admirable, although in no small part that helped turn them into a mob. Most of the men in the Red Army had grown up in deprivation and brutality and were therefore somewhat acclimated to suffering making them unique as combatants. The Soviet failure to control their men once past the borders of the Soviet Union, however, is unforgivable. Often missed, they weren't just mass rapist in Germany, but also at least in Hungary.
The other difficult portion of this is that late war German resistance to the Soviets was at this point such that its almost hard not to regard it as heroic. A person doesn't however, as the Germans had brought this disaster upon themselves and acted like monsters inside the USSR. At this point in many places they fought to the death for the German people, but upon reflection if they'd fought the onset of fascism in the 1930s none of this would have ever occurred.
The British land on Chedube Island south of Ramree in Burma.
The 37th Infantry Division occupies a large portion of Clark Field in the Philippines.
Grand Rapids Michigan became the first city in the United States to fluoridate their water.
Trump nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a wackadoodle, has suggested that Donald Trump will push to remove fluoride from drinking water. Nuts have always thought fluoride was bad, even though its revolutionary effect on dental health is well demonstrated. Trump tends to support whatever floats through his head, so we'll see.
"Troops of the 7th Armored Division on the lookout for snipers in the littered streets of St. Vith, Luxembourg. 23 January, 1945. Company G, 23rd Armored Infantry Battalion, 7th Armored Division."
Photographer: T/5 Hugh F. McHugh, 165th Signal Photo Co.
The last major German stronghold in the Ardennes, St. Vith, fell to the US 4th Army.
German lawyer and nobleman Helmuth James Graf von Moltke was executed for his membership in hte Kreisau Circle. He was 37.
Cavalrymen of the 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps approaching Allenstein, Prussia, now Olsztyn, Poland. January 22, 1945. A least a few of these horses appear to be panjes, Russian peasant ponies. Allenstein dates back to 1334, when it was founded as a military outpost by the Teutonic Knights. It rebelled against those knights in 1454 and joined the Kingdom of Poland. Nicholas Copernicus, famous scientist and Catholic Deacon, lived there from 1516 to 1521. It became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1772 during the First Partition of Poland. Given this, in reality, the post World War Two result simply returned it to what it had originally been, Polish.
The Red Army took Insterburg, Allenstein and Deutsch Eylau in Prussia as well as Gneizo.
The British Army took St. Joost and other towns near Sittard. The US 1st Army attacked all along the front between Houffalize and St. Vith.
Kriegsmarine torpedo boats attacked a convoy north of Dunkirk while other torpedo penetrated into the Thames Estuary.
The British IV Corps took Htilin in Bruma and the Battle of Hill 170 began. The British also took Tilin.
M4 Sherman of the 19th King George's Own Lancers, Burma, 22 January 1945
The Royal Air Force destroyed a liquid oxygen factory in Alblasserdam in a Spitfire raid. The oxygen was used for rockets.
The 1st Corps engaged the Japanese in heavy fighting near Carmen and Rosario on Luzon.
The Red Army captured Gumbinnen, crossed the Warthen and approached Poznań. They also took Tannenberg, the site of a major German victory in World War One, where the Germans had begun demolishing key structures of the Tannenberg Memorial and where they also disinterred the remains of Paul von Hindenburg and his wife ahead of the Red Army's advance.
The U.S. Army took Titiz in the Ardennes.
"Reinforcements for front line duty move through Apach, France. 21 January, 1945. 94th Infantry Division."
The U-1199 was sunk by the Royal Navy off of Sicily.
The British landed on the northern tip of Ramree, Burma.
