The Germans launched Operation Northwind (Unternehmen Nordwind), their last major offensive in the West.
The offensive in the Ardennes was designed to support Wacht am Rhine in Belgium.
It's worth noting that the Western Allies, here and there, were outright in Germany by this time. Germany's final offensive was itself launched on French territory the Germans had annexed.
Operation Ichi-Go concluded as a massive success for the Japanese Imperial Army, with huge sections of China having been taken.
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Filipino general and guerilla leader Vicente Lim, age 56, a prisoner of war of the Japanese, was murdered along with 50 companions by the Japanese.
Lim had served in the Filipino army as a teenage ammo carrier during the Philippine Insurrection. In 1910 he became the first Filipino to enter the United States Military Academy. He served with the Philippine Scouts after graduating in 1914 and retired from the U.S. Army in 1936 so that he could join the new Philippine Army, where he became its senior officer. He clashed with MacArthur in that role as he felt the building of the Philippine Army was occurring to rapidly for a quality force. He became a guerilla leader with the fall of the country and was captured in 1944 when an attempt was being made to evacuate him from the islands.
The Soviet backed provisional government of Hungary declared war on Germany.
A Soviet backed provisional government was declared in Poland, with the claim contested by the Polish government in exile in London.
A misdirected RAF Mosquito raid on Oslo killed 78 Norwegian civilians, and 28 Germans.
The Grumman F8F Bearcat entered service. Be that as it may, it came too late in the war to see combat in the Second World War, with its introduction into that coming during the French Indochina War.
The 100th Bomb Group lost 12 aircraft and 109 men during a mission to Hamburg, Germany. The mission was their lost one with heavy losses.
While it would have been more appropriate to enter it in an item for yesterday, The Saturday Evening Post made New Years Eve its them with a Rockwell illustration of a young sleeping woman in bed and photographs of Willie Gillis, Rockwell's average GI, on the wall behind her in different positions, with Gillis' eyes eagerly looking at her. The illustration is nearly salacious.
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