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02/01/1944 The U. S. 7th "Bayonet" Infantry makes a textbook-perfect landing on Kwajalein island, the most important of the atoll's 100 islets.
A crushing naval and air bombardment kills half the island's 5,000 defenders. The GIs overrun one-third of the island by nightfall.
At the atoll's northern end, the 4th Marines wipe out the Japanese on Roi and are speedily overwhelming the garrison on Namur.
Anticipating a major German offensive at Anzio, the Allies rush the U. S. 1st Armored and 45th Infantry to the beachhead. Commander John Lucas orders his troops to dig in and prepare for heavy fighting.
Ike and his commanders choose the first week of June for the invasion of Normandy. D-Day's exact date depends on the weather.
02/02/1944 The 4th Marines complete the conquest of Namur in the Kwajalein atoll. Hardly a tree or building is standing on the once beautiful mid-Pacific island. Of the 4,000 Japanese defenders on Namur and nearby Roi, 3,742 have been killed and 99 taken prisoner.
Fighting continues on Kwajalein island as GIs of the 7th Infantry overcome Japanese diehards.
The Allied offensive at Anzio ends as American and British troops prepare for a German onslaught. The brief Allied attack has forced the Germans to postpone their offensive for several days.
In Russia, Gen. Leonid Govorov's army crosses the Russian-Estonian frontier, 80 miles west of Leningrad. The Soviets make it clear Estonia will remain a part of the postwar USSR.
Stalin agrees to provide six air bases for American bombers that will shuttle back and forth from their bases in England and Italy.
02/03/1944 Encouraged by the speedy victory at Kwajalein, Nimitz advances the planned assault on Eniwetok, the Allies final target in the Marshall Islands. Instead of taking Eniwetok in May, it will be invaded this month.
On Kwajalein island, the U. S. 7th Infantry is overrunning the dwindling survivors of Rear Adm. Monzo Akiyama's 5,000-man garrison. Some of Akiyama's men commit hara-kiri. Other GIs and 4th Marine Division units are mopping up small Japanese outposts on the atoll's other islands.
In Italy, the American-Canadian Devil's Brigade reinforces the Anzio beachhead as the Germans attack British positions 15 miles north of the Mediterranean. Blasted by murderous artillery barrage, the British retreat.
At Cassino, the U. S. 34th Infantry pushes into the northern edge of the town but can't dislodge the deeply dug-in Germans.
02/04/1944 Organized Japanese resistance on Kwajalein Island ends as the U. S. 7th Infantry wipes out the last of 5,000 defenders. Only 41 Japanese and 125 Korean laborers survive. The victory has cost the GIs only 177 killed and 1,000 wounded.
A daring counterattack is launched in Burma by Lt. Gen. Tadashi Hanaya, who hopes to trap two British-Indian divisions pushing toward Japanese airfields at Akyab.
In Italy, the U. S. 34th Infantry takes Snake's Head Ridge near Cassino and wiggles to within 1,000 yards of the Benedictine abbey. The Allies mistakenly believe the Germans are using the abbey as an observation post.
Field Marshal von Manstein launches a panzer counterattack to rescue 60,000 men trapped in a 10-by-20-mile pocket near Korsun in Ukraine. The battle will continue for two weeks.
02/05/1944 British Gen. Orde Wingate begins his second invasion of Northern Burma by leading his Chindits toward the big Japanese base at Myitkyina.
GIs of the 34th Infantry reach the walls of the Benedictine abbey overlooking Cassino, but a German counterattack forces them to retreat. Other units of the 34th push into Cassino and begin a bloody house-by-house battle.
German artillery is torturing the Americans and British at Anzio. Every square inch of the beachhead can be hit by the Wehrmacht's big guns. The gunfire forces the Allies to abandon their beachhead airfield.
Gen. Nikolai Vatutin's 1st Ukrainian Army takes Rovno and Lutsk, German supply centers in prewar Poland. The Soviets now are 85 miles inside Poland and only 150 miles from Brest-Litovsk, scene of the Germans' initial invasion of Russia 2 ½ years ago.
02/06/1944 Nimitz visits Kwajalein and gives the go-ahead for air and surface ship assaults on Truk, the air and naval base in the mid-Pacific that is "Japan's Pearl Harbor." Imperial Fleet commander Mineichi Koga anticipates the Truk attacks and orders his battleships, carriers and supporting units to withdraw to Palau in the western Caroline Islands.
Domestically, the House orders an investigation of the Pentagon's construction costs. The War Department's new five-sided headquarters was supposed to cost $35 million; final bills total $73 million.
02/07/1944 The 4th Marine and 27th Army divisions mop up the last Japanese on Kwajalein's 100 islets. Nearly 9,000 Japanese have been killed and 265 taken prisoner. American casualties are fewer than 1,900, including 370 killed.
Domestically, the 27,000-ton carrier Ticonderoga is launched at Newport News, Virginia, the 19th large or medium-size flattop since Pearl Harbor.
The German 14th Army launches an offensive at Anzio, concentrating on the badly cut-up British 1st Infantry division. The British bend but don't break. The U. S. 45th "Thunderbird" Infantry and another British division are being rushed to reinforce the beachhead.
In Russia, Hitler finally allows 60,000 men in the Korsun pocket to attempt a breakout.
Further south, Gen. Rodion Malinovsky's 3rd Ukrainian Army breaks German lines and races toward Nikopol-on-the-Dnieper.
02/08/1944 The German offensive at Anzio derails Allied plans for smashing the Gustav line and capturing Rome.
The Attack has forced Allied field commander Harold Alexander to ease his attacks on the Gustav and rush reinforcements to Anzio.
The withdrawal of a British infantry division ends Alexander's effort to crack the Gustav line near the Mediterranean.
The transfer of the U. S. 1st Armored division to the beachhead ends American attempts to break through at Cassino. Without tanks to exploit a victory, the fighting near Cassino and the nearby Benedictine abbey is pointless. Another attempt to take the abbey is launched by the U. S. 34th and 36th Infantry, but they make little headway and suffer grievously.
In the Ukraine, the Red Army takes Nikopol-on-the-Dnieper, an ancient Cossack citadel. Further north, the Soviets invite the 60,000 surrounded Germans at Korsum to surrender. The commander, Gen. Wilhelm Stemmermann, refuses.
02/09/1944 Yard by yard, the Germans are slowly pushing back American and British forces in the Anzio beachhead.
After some of the bloodiest fighting of the Italian campaign, the Germans overrun British salients at Aprilia and Carroceto, 10 miles north of the coast. But the Germans pay a stiff price as Allied planes and warships -- Notably cruisers Brooklyn and Philadelphia -- batter them.
Luftwaffe transport planes airlift food and ammunition into the Korsun pocket in the central Ukraine as Field Marsha von Manstein's Panzer rescue force tries to drive a wedge into the encircling Soviets.
02/10/1944 In the South Pacific the Japanese navy abandons its naval base at Rabaul. The once-mighty citadel now is a backwater whose 90,000-man garrison will be provisioned by subs and blockade runners.
The Japanese cut the British supply line in north Burma by capturing Ngakyedauk Pass in the Mayu Mountains. Unable to pronounce the pass's name, the British call it Okeydoke, and that's the way it goes into British histories. The British airlift food and ammunition to their isolated 7th British-Indian division.
Fierce fighting continues in the Anzio beachhead as the Germans savage the British 1st Infantry Division near Carroceto, 10 miles north of the Mediterranean.
02/11/1944 The first battle of Cassino ends as the U. S. 34th Infantry division makes its final attack on Monastery Hill and the Benedictine abbey. The assault occurs during a heavy rain and snow storm. It fails. Nearly 20,000 GIs and British Tommies have been killed or wounded during a month-long assault on the Gustav Line and its Cassino linchpin.
At Anzio, a counterattack by American tanks and infantry is repulsed, and President Roosevelt admits the situation is "very tense."
In the Soviet Union, a Wehrmacht panzer rescue column batters to within 10 miles of the 60,000 Germans trapped in the Korsun pocket.
The Navy announces the repaired battleship Oklahoma -- sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor -- has rejoined the fleet.
02/12/1944 In the Pacific, a Japanese air raid on Kwajalein's Roi and Namur islands causes heavy casualties and destroys an immense amount of equipment when a bomb explodes an ammunition dump.
British, Indian and New Zealand units replace the battle-weary 34th and 36th Infantry divisions as Gen. Harold Alexander prepares a second assault on Cassino and its overlooking Benedictine abbey.
The attack's commander, New Zealand Gen. Bernard Freyberg, says the abbey must be destroyed because the Germans have turned it into a fortress. He's Wrong.
Moscow announces formation of a National Union of Polish Patriots that includes all political parties. It's Communist-dominated.
02/13/1944 In northern Burma, the surrounded British-Indian 7th division is ordered to stand fast while other British Empire units rush to its rescue. The 7th's West Yorkshire regiment is infuriated by a Japanese atrocity: 50 wounded Yorkshiremen, doctors and corpsmen of a dressing station have been butchered by Japanese raiders. The 7th exacts revenge by wiping out the perpetrators.
MacArthur issues orders for amphibious landings at Kavieng, New Ireland and Manus in the Admiralty Islands. Both sites are north of Rabaul and will complete its encirclement.
The Soviet advance in northern Russia continues as Gen. Kyril Meretskov's Volkhov Army crosses the Luga River, 80 miles south of Leningrad. The Germans had hoped to organize a new defense line along the Luga; instead, they continue their panicky retreat.
02/14/1944 The Germans and the Allies simultaneously prepare assaults in Italy.
The German 14th Army will launch a new attack at Anzio where the Americans and British have suffered more than 8,000 casualties in the past three weeks. This time, the Germans will concentrate on the U. S. 3rd and 45th infantry divisions and a British unit.
At Cassino, New Zealand and British-Indian divisions will make a second attempt to crack the Gustav Line and roll to Rome.
In Russia, the 60,000 Germans trapped in the Korsun pocket prepare to break the Soviet encirclement. In Northern Russia, the Red Army takes Luga, a riverport and highway crossroads 85 miles south of Leningrad, and heads for Pskov near the Estonian border.
02/15/1944 In the South Pacific, The 3rd New Zealand division takes Nissan in the Green Islands 120 miles east of Rabaul.
The Benedictine Abbey on Monte Cassino, one of Christendom's great shrines, is pulverized by 229 American B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-25 Marauders.
Built by St. Benedict in the year 529, the Abbey is filled with mosaics, frescoes, relics and artifacts. It is destroyed at the request of New Zealand Gen. Bernard Freyberg who mistakenly believes the Germans have been using it as a fortress and observation post.
However, after the raid the German 1st Parachute division burrows into the ruins and repulses an attack by the 4th Indian division
Finland requests an armistice with the Soviet Union now that the Germans have retreated from the Gulf of Finland.
More than 800 RAF bombers blast Berlin.
02/16/1944 Planes from carriers Saratoga, Princeton and Langley shoot down 14 Japanese planes and wreck the airfield on Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. Submarine Skate sinks Japanese cruiser Agano near Truk.
Six German divisions plunge a mile deep into American British beachhead at Anzio. But the German tanks bog down in the mud, and the Allies, helped by warships, inflict horrendous casualties. One of Hitler's favorite regiments, the Lehr, is cut to ribbons.
In Russia, half the 60,000 Germans trapped near Korsun break out and link up with von Manstein's rescue force. They leave behind their tanks and artillery. It's the Russians' second major victory of the year.
A Finnish diplomat journeys to Stockholm to hear the Soviet Union's armistice terms.
02/17/1944 An American air, surface and sub attack devastates the huge Japanese base at Truk.
The eight carriers of Spruance's Task Force 58 destroy 265 Japanese planes during raids on the 17th and 18th. Six Japanese warships and 30 merchant ships are destroyed.
The Americans lose 25 planes and a Japanese torpedo plane damages carrier Intrepid.
Simultaneously, elements of the 4th Marines and the Army's 27th Infantry begin attacking Eniwetok atoll in the Marshall Islands backed by battleships Colorado, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
At Anzio, the Germans come close to breaking through the U. S. 45th Infantry division.
A fluke costs the British a victory at Cassino. A night attack by the 4th Indian division captures Monastery Hill and the Benedictine Abbey, but a German fires three green flares -- the British withdrawal signal -- and causes an unnecessary retreat.
02/18/1944 In the Pacific, a crushing naval and air bombardment massacres the 1,000-man Japanese garrison on Engebi, the most important island of Eniwetok atoll in the Marshals. The 4th Marine division easily overruns the island.
The Germans force the Allies back to their final defense line in the Anzio beachhead. But Allied artillery and naval fire are inflicting a bloody toll, and Kesselring realizes his 14th Army can't overwhelm the beachhead. Offshore, German bombers sink British cruiser Penelope. The second battle of Cassino ends when the Germans repulse assaults by the 2nd New Zealand and 4th British-Indian divisions.
02/19/1944 Captured documents reveal the Japanese have hidden garrisons on Eniwetok atoll in the Marshals.
The 4th Marines and National Guardsmen of the 27th "New York" land on Eniwetok island and hunt down its 800 camouflaged defenders. The GIs and Marines also prepare to assault 1,300 hidden defenders on nearby Parry island.
Nimitz decides his next targets will be Saipan, Tinian and Guam in the Mariana Islands -- Japan's most vital Pacific citadels. Saipan will be invaded first, in mid-June.
At Anzio the beachhead defenders end the four-day battle by repulsing German attacks. Quiet also reigns at Cassino where three days of frontal attacks by New Zealand, Indian and British units have been defeated.
Escort carrier Sitkoh Bay is launched at Vancouver, Washington, the 100th flattop to be completed or sent down the ways since Pearl Harbor.
02/20/1944 Allied bombers from England and Italy begin "Big Week," a series of attacks designed to destroy the Luftwaffe's Fighter Command in advance of the Normandy invasion. Secondary targets are 20 aircraft and ball bearing plants in Germany, Austria and Poland.
U. S. 8th Air Force commander Jimmy Doolittle, an ex-fighter pilot, orders a dramatic change in tactics. Instead of staying close to the bombers, American P38 Lightenings, P47 Thunderbolts and P51 Mustangs will attack German fighters anywhere and everywhere.
The battle opens with an RAF night attack on Leipzig that costs 78 bombers. During daylight, 1,003 American heavies attack 12 aircraft plants in Germany and Poland. The Germans shoot down 25 Americans but lose a disastrous 78 planes.
Norwegian Guerrillas derail Germany's atomic bomb research by sinking a ferry carrying 3,600 gallons of bomb-making heavy water.
02/21/1944 In the Pacific, units of the 4th Marines and Army 27th Infantry wipe out the Japanese garrison on Eniwetok island while a naval bombardment savages 1,300 Japanese holdouts on nearby Parry island.
During the past three months, American victories at Tarawa, Makin, Kwajalein and Eniwetok have pushed the Japanese back 1,000 miles in the central Pacific.
Allied bombers continue "Big Week" with 600 RAF heavies plastering Stuttgart's ball bearing plants and 764 Flying Fortresses and Liberators hammering aircraft plants at Brunswick. The Luftwaffe downs 22 American bombers but loses 35 to American fighters.
The Red Army keeps the Germans on the run in Northern Russia as Gen. Markian Popov's 2nd Baltic Army takes Staraya Russa -- one of Russia's oldest towns -- and Kholm, a highway crossroads.
Soviet Premier Josef Stalin has assured a leading member of the foreign diplomatic corps in Moscow that Russia has no intention of expanding her frontiers into Western Europe after the war. Stalin was said to have ridiculed suspicions that Russia plans to dominate postwar Europe.
02/22/1944 The fourth Marine division ends Japanese resistance on Eniwetok atoll by destroying 1,300 Japanese on Parry Island. During the past six days, more than 3,000 Japanese have been killed on Eniwetok atoll by naval and aerial bombardments and Army-Marine assaults. Only 66 have been captured, 339 Americans died.
Planes and anti-aircraft guns of the American Fifth Fleet destroy a substantial number of Japanese planes as the task force approaches the Mariana Islands in the central Pacific. Some Japanese are shot down by "proximity fused" anti-aircraft shells that explode when miniature radios in their warheads detect nearby planes.
U. S. bombers based in England and Italy continue "Big Week" with attacks on German aircraft plants. Luftwaffe fighters knock down 54 bombers. But P38s, P47s and P51s down 64 Germans.
02/23/1944 Planes from six American carriers commanded by Adm. Marc Mitscher shoot down 168 Japanese planes during attacks on Saipan, Tinian, Guam and Rota in the Mariana Islands.
The raids shock the Japanese General Staff because the Marianas are the linchpin of their central Pacific defense. If they fall, American bombers can reach Japan's home islands.
The British celebrate their first victory in Burma as their encircled 7th British-Indian division defeats Japanese units at Sinzweya, 40 miles south of the Indo-Burmese border.
Bad weather grounds American bombers based in England, but 102 from Italy damage a ball-bearing plant at Steyr, Austria.
Lucian Truscott, one of Patton's favorite generals, replaces the overly cautious Gen. John Lucas as commander of the Allied forces in the Anzio beachhead.
02/24/1944 More than 1,300 American and British bombers resume attacks on factories in Germany, Austria and Poland. Luftwaffe fighters down 44 Americans, but escorting fighters shoot down 53 Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs.
02/25/1944 In the South Pacific, seven American destroyers bombard the now isolated Japanese garrison at Rabaul.
Merrill's Marauders makes its combat debut in Burma's steamy, jungle-covered Hukawng Valley. Though Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill has only 3,000 Marauders, they will play a pivotal role in taking Myitkyina, the most important Japanese base in North Burma, and opening the Ledo supply road to China.
American and British bombers end "Big Week" by wrecking Messerschmitt plants at Regensburg and Augsburg.
The Luftwaffe finally has a successful day: shooting down 64 and losing only 25. The week has been a German disaster.
During Big Week, 10,000 Allied planes have damaged 75 percent of the German aircraft industry and battered the Luftwaffe's Fighter Command. Nearly 400 Allied planes have been destroyed, but the Luftwaffe has lost 258 Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs. The Allies can replace their loses; the Germans, have lost many of their best pilots.
02/26/1944 The Red Army's successful offensive in North Russia begins to run out of steam. During the past six weeks, the Soviets have defeated two German armies, broken the siege of Leningrad and liberated Novgorod and hundreds of towns and villages. Some Russians have crossed into Estonia and others are only a few miles from Latvia.
In London, the Polish government-in-exile bitterly denounces Churchill's assertion that he favors giving eastern Poland to the Soviet Union.
Domestically, the Selective Service System begins reviewing the occupational draft deferments of five million men because the military services aren't getting enough volunteers and draftees.
The 27,000-ton carrier Bennington is launched at Brooklyn, N. Y. Navy Yard, the 21st large or medium-sized flattop to be completed since Pearl Harbor.
02/27/1944 MacArthur begins a military gamble as a convoy carries 1,000 troopers of the U. S. 1st Cavalry to Los Negros in the Admiralty islands, 200 miles north of New Guinea.
MacArthur has ordered the 1st Cav to make a "reconnaissance in force" to see if the Admiralties can be taken by a surprise attack. The prize is Seeadler harbor, the South Pacific's finest anchorage. To support the operation, Allied planes raid Japanese airfields in the Admiralties and at Wewak, New Guinea.
Elsewhere in the Pacific, the submarine Grayback -- which recently destroyed four Japanese ships -- is sunk near Okinawa by a Japanese plane.
In Russia, von Manstein launches a counteroffensive to drive the 1st Ukrainian Army out of recently captured eastern Poland. And the war's largest troop convoy unloads thousands of Americans in Great Britain.
02/28/1944 With MacArthur prowling the front lines, 1,000 troopers of the U. S. 1st Cavalry division establish a surprise beachhead on Los Negros in the Admiralty islands 200 miles north of New Guinea. The Japanese garrison makes only feeble counterattacks.
The Germans' final offensive at Anzio begins with assaults on the U. S. 3rd Infantry and two British divisions.
But a chilly rain turns the beachhead into a mire for German tanks. Low visibility cripples their artillery, and counterattacks by 3rd Infantry GIs shove the Germans back to their start lines.
Finland is offered lenient armistice terms by the Soviet Union: pull back to the 1940 Russo-Finish border, break its alliance with Germany and intern Nazi troops.
One of the Russians' finest generals, the 1st Ukrainian Army's Nikolai Vatutin, is ambushed and mortally wounded by Ukrainian guerrillas.
02/29/1944 No entry this date due to leap year.
