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12/01/1944 Domestically, government officials say there's insufficient evidence to court martial Navy and Army commanders during the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Allies' two-week northern drive is making little headway 25 miles west of the Rhine and has cost 50,000 American and British casualties. The southern drive has invaded the Saarland and reached the Rhine, but the U. S. 3rd, 7th and French 1st armies are wet, weary and slowing down.
Elsewhere, the Germans evacuate Jewish slave laborers from Auschwitz and Birkenau in southern Poland because a Red Army offensive might overrun the death camps.
12/02/1944 American destroyers bombard Ormoc and Palompon, Imperial army supply bases on Leyte.
Gen. Jacob Devers, commander of Allied forces in Alsace, makes a strategic blunder.
Devers has a chance to destroy the German 19th Army near Colmar with a full-fledged attack by his U. S. 7th and French 1st Armies. Instead, he orders a half-hearted assault by the under strength French 1st, which the Germans will easily defeat, giving them time to fortify an Alsatian bridgehead west of the Rhine, the last large chunk of France occupied by the Nazis.
The Germans confound the British 2nd Army by dynamiting a Rhine dike near Arnhem, Holland. The resulting flood forces a hasty British retreat.
Patton's 95th "Victory" Infantry begins a house-by-house battle in the steel town of Saarlauten. Further south, Patton's 26th "Yankee" Infantry bridges the river at Saar-Union.
12/03/1944 Near Leyte, American destroyers Cooper and Japanese destroyer Kuwa are sunk during a night fight near Ormoc, the Imperial Army's main supply base. Another American destroyer is damaged.
Still another B29 bombing raid on Tokyo area aircraft plant is frustrated by a high speed jet stream that scatters the bombs.
Patton's 95th "Victory" Infantry division seizes a Saar River bridge and storms into Saarlauten, a small industrial city 5 miles north of the Franco-German frontier.
In the Mediterranean, Greek communist guerrillas stage an uprising in Athens that is opposed by Greek and British troops and the Royal Navy. The Communists don't know Stalin has guaranteed British pre-eminence in Greece.
Elsewhere, the British 8th Army begins an offensive aimed at Bologna and Ravenna in northern Italy.
12/04/1944 The payoff battle for Leyte looms as U. S. 6th Army commander Walter Krueger issues orders for a three-pronged assault on Ormoc, the Imperial Army's biggest supply base.
The battered U. S. 9th Army staggers to the Roer River, ending its three-week offensive east of Aachen. Nearby, the U. S. 1st Army struggles to clear the Hurtgen forest and reach the Roer. The northern wing of the Allies' autumn offensive has run out of steam.
Elsewhere, RAF bombers kill more than 7,000 civilians during a raid on Heilbronn in southern Germany.
Martial law is declared in Athens as Greek and British troops gradually gain the upper hand over communist ELAS guerrillas.
12/05/1944 Kamikazes damage destroyers Drayton and Mugford near Leyte as Gen. Walter Krueger's 6th Army prepares to launch a three-pronged offensive on the island.
Gen. Alexander Patch's U. S. 7th Army launches an ill-advised offensive along a 50-mile front in Alsace.
Seven American divisions drive toward Germany's Rhineland instead of destroying the German 19th Army in central Alsace. The U. S. 45th "Thunderbird" Infantry leads the way by taking Mertzwiler, 12 miles from the Franco-German frontier.
Patton's 3rd Army establishes a second Saar River bridgehead near Saarlauten, but GIs of the 95th "Victory" division are halted by Germans holding part of the Siegfried Line, a belt of pre-war fortifications.
In Hungary, the 3rd Ukrainian Army reaches Lake Balaton, 60 miles from Austria.
12/06/1944 The Americans and Japanese launch simultaneous offensives on Leyte.
Gen. Walter Krueger's 6th Army begins a three-pronged drive to take Ormoc, the main Japanese supply base. The biggest blow will be struck by the 77th "Statue of Liberty" Infantry division which will make an amphibious landing near Ormoc tomorrow.
The Japanese try to knock out American air power on Leyte with surprise attacks on three airfields. The attacks are a waste of time: Work has stopped on the airfields because of the mud.
In Europe, Patton's 90th "Tough 'Ombres" Infantry seizes a third bridgehead north of the Saar River, this one 5 miles from Saarlauten. The 'Ombres run into strong resistance from Germans holed up in the Siegfried Line.
Other spearheads take Saarguemines, an industrial town, and close in on Saarbrucken, the steelmaking capital of Germany's Saarland.
12/07/1944 A Brilliant maneuver by Gen. Walter Krueger breaks Leyte's seven-week stalemate when the 77th "Statue of Liberty" Infantry lands three miles from the Japanese supply center at Ormoc.
Kamikazes sink or damage five ships of the American invasion force, including destroyer Ward which fired the first American shot of the war at Pearl Harbor. Air Force P-47 fighter-bombers sink or damage three Japanese troop transports bringing reinforcements.
Japanese paratroopers drop on Leyte's Burauen and San Pablo airfields and bayonet sleeping Americans. The air strike begins a three-day battle that will be won by GIs and paratroopers of the 38th "Cyclone" Infantry and 11th "Angels" Airborne divisions.
12/08/1944 Elements of the U. S. 77th "Statue of Liberty" Infantry division spread inland from their beachhead near Ormoc on Leyte's west coast.
The 77th encounters little resistance because the Japanese are battling Americans in the Island's interior. Offshore, another attack by Air Force fighter-bombers sinks three Japanese transports.
Elsewhere, Iwo Jima is shelled by cruisers Chester, Pensacola and Salt Lake City and bombed by B29 Superfortresses and B24 Liberators.
Patton's 35th "Santa Fe" Infantry division establishes three Saar river bridgeheads near Saarguemines, an industrial town on the Franco-German border. Patton's army has crossed the Saar six times during the past week but can't break the German defenses.
12/09/1944 Radio Moscow announces the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian armies are threatening Budapest after crossing the Danube north and south of the city. Hitler order the Hungarian capital to be held at all costs.
The Red Army has overrun two-thirds of Hungary during the past three months and some spearheads are only 50 miles from the Austrian border.
Yugoslavian and Bulgarian communists announce they have entirely liberated Serbia and Macedonia.
12/10/1944 Supported by tanks and naval gunfire, the 77th "Statue of Liberty" Infantry division takes Ormoc, the main Japanese base on Leyte, while other units rout Japanese forces in the island's interior.
Ormoc's capture means the Japanese no longer can reinforce Leyte. Though the Americans have won the battle, another 27,000 Japanese will be "mopped up" by the end of the month. Others will surrender after the war ends next summer. Offshore, kamikazes damage destroyer Hughes.
Hitler arrives at his Western Front bunker at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt to oversee the upcoming Battle of the Bulge. He tells Hitler Youth leaders, "Never since the Napoleonic Wars has an enemy devastated our Fatherland, and we shall decimate this enemy also at the very gates to the Fatherland.
12/11/1944 U. S. 5th Air Force bombers begin the brief campaign to take Mindoro, an island in the central Philippines.
MacArthur wants Mindoro so his forces can build airbases they couldn't construct on muddy Leyte. Planes from Mindoro will protect the January invasion of Luzon, the Philippines' largest and most heavily populated island.
Near Leyte American PT boats sink Japanese destroyers Uzuki and Yuzuki and savage a troop convoy. Two kamikazes sink destroyer Reid in Surigao strait.
In Europe, 1,600 Flying Fortresses and Liberators -- the U. S. 8th Air Force's largest armada, thus far -- blast Frankfurt, Hanau and Giessen.
Domestically, congress approves five-star rank for eight generals and admirals. FDR will nominate Marshall, Eisenhower, MacArthur and Hap Arnold to be Generals of the Army and King, Nimitz and William Leahy to be Fleet Admirals. Halsey will get five stars after the war.
12/12/1944 A convoy carrying part of the U. S. 24th "Victory" Infantry division and 503rd Parachute regiment heads for Mindoro in the central Philippines.
British Empire divisions begin their third drive toward Akyab in northern Burma. Japanese planes based at Akyab have inflicted thousands of casualties during raids on Calcutta and other Indian cities.
Strong German resistance nearly halts the Allied autumn offensive in western Europe.
The weary and bloodied U. S. 1st and 3rd armies make small gains in the Roer River valley and the Saarland, and part of Alexander Patch's 7th Army is stopped in northern Alsace.
Elsewhere, leaders of the rebellious Greek communists ask for a cease-fire after several defeats in Athens and Piraeus.
12/13/1944 A kamikaze badly damages cruiser Nashville, flagship of an invasion force heading toward Mindora in the central Philippines.
The Kamikaze's bomb kills and wounds 323, including dozens of staff officers. A second kamikaze damages destroyer Haraden.
During the past two months, suicide planes have sunk or damaged 39 ships in the Philippines. To prevent the Japanese from learning how much damage kamikazes are inflicting, the Navy isn't announcing kamikaze hits.
Elsewhere, submarine Bergall damages cruiser Myoko near Java.
In Europe, GIs of the 2nd, 78th and 99th Infantry divisions drive toward the Roer River's dams near Hurtgen forest, and German holdouts near Metz surrender to Patton's 3rd Army.
Spearheads of Marshal Rodion Malinovsky's 2nd Ukrainian Army crunch to within 6 miles of Budapest, Hungary.
12/14/1944 Japanese troops butcher 145 American POWs on Palawan island in the southern Philippines.
The Americans are shot, bayoneted, clubbed, buried alive or doused with gasoline and burned alive when their captors see American ships heading for nearby Mindoro. Nine escape, but only three survive to be rescued in February.
Planes from 13 carriers of Task Force 38 sink five ships and destroy 170 Japanese planes in the northern Philippines.
In Europe, three divisions of Patch's 7th Army close in on the industrialized Rhineland.
12/15/1944 An American amphibious force seizes the southern end of Mindoro in the central Philippines.
Mindoro is a key stepping-stone to Luzon, the Philippines' largest and most heavily populated island. GIs and paratroopers drive inland and engineers begin building an airfield.
A terrible ordeal begins for 1,650 American, British and Dutch POWs captured early in the war. An American bomber sinks their prison ship, Oryoku Maru, near Luzon. Angry guards machine gun 200 POWs in the water. The others are picked up, but another 1,000 will die when their rescue ship is bombed in Takao harbor, Formosa. Only 450 will reach Japan.
12/16/1944 The Germans launch their last major offensive on the Western Front. More than 250,000 Germans in 24 divisions, including 10 panzer, attack 80,000 Americans in the Ardennes forest in Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg.
The offensive, ordered personally by Hitler and soon to be known as the Battle of the Bulge, is aimed at Antwerp and forcing the Allied armies into another evacuation.
The German attack confuses and panics some American units, but others put up ferocious resistance.
12/17/1944 Domestically, the Army announces Japanese-Americans who have proven their loyalty may return to their homes beginning January 2.
Eisenhower and Bradley devise a strategy to halt Hitler's offensive.
They decide to battle the Germans in the Ardennes' snow-clogged forests, hold vital crossroads at Bastogne and St. Vith, Belgium, build defensive "shoulders" north and south of the German breakthrough, and prevent the Germans from crossing the Meuse River.
The German 1st SS Panzer division makes a 20-mile advance and isolates two regiments of the rookie U. S. 106th "Golden Lions" Infantry near St. Vith. The SS attack is delayed when 13 bazooka-wielding combat engineers succeed in wrecking a tank on a bridge.
The SS men massacre 85 captured artillery men near Malmedy, Belgium.
English-speaking Germans in American uniforms cause mass confusion by harrying small Allied units, blowing bridges and spreading misinformation. Several will be captured and shot as spies.
12/18/1944 In the Pacific, a typhoon sinks three destroyers of Halsey's Task Force 38 and damages flattops Cabot, Cowpens, Monterey, four escort carriers and a dozen small ships.
In Belgium, Gen. Hasso von Manteuffel's 5th Panzer Army annihilates part of the U. S. 28th "Keystone" Infantry near Bastogne, but the 28th's sacrifice enables 101st "Screaming Eagles" paratroopers and 9th "Phantom" Armored division to save the strategic crossroads.
Germans in the northern Ardennes wreck the 99th "Checkerboard" Infantry but are mangled by the 2nd "Indianhead" division near Elsenborn, Belgium. The 2nd's GIs allow the German tanks to penetrate their lines then destroy them with bazookas and other weapons. Three veteran American divisions reinforce the 2nd, and they form an unbreakable northern shoulder that limits the German offensive.
The German drive in the southern Ardennes is slowed by GIs of the 4th "Ivy" Infantry and the 10th "Tiger" Armored divisions near Echternach, Luxembourg.
12/19/1944 In the Pacific, sub Redfin sinks new 27,000-ton carrier Unryu in the China Sea. The Japanese decide to stop sending supplies and reinforcements to Leyte.
The German offensive in the Ardennes gets a name: the Battle of the Bulge.
With Americans dug in north and south of the breakthrough, the Germans are corralled into a bulging, 50-mile-wide salient between Monschau, Germany, and Echternach, Luxembourg.
The Germans continue advancing and scoring successes, and they win a big one when 7,000 encircled men of the U. S. 106th "Golden Lions" Infantry division surrender near the German-Belgian frontier. A Wehrmacht spearhead also is nearing Bastogne, a vital road hub in central Ardennes.
Eisenhower meets with his top commanders in Verdun, France, and orders Patton to counterattack the southern side of the Bulge.
12/20/1944 Stalled by a powerful buildup north of the Bulge, the Germans switch their main thrust to the central Ardennes.
Von Manteuffel's 5th Panzer Army attacks hodge-podge American force defending vital crossroads at St. Vith and Bastogne, Belgium.
At St. Vith, the U. S. 7th and 9th Armored divisions, remnants of the 28th and 106th Infantry, artillerymen and combat engineers are holding out against Germans who outnumber them 10-to-1. By day's end, the Germans have bypassed St. Vith's horseshoe-shaped defense line.
The battle for Bastogne, a small market town 25 miles southwest of St. Vith, begins with Americans thwarting a 5th Panzer attack. Bastogne is being held by 18,000 men: paratroopers of the 101st "Screaming Eagles"; tankers of the 9th and 10th Armored;, a pair of all-black units, the 333rd and 969th Field Artillery battalions; black quartermasters and a unit of stragglers called "Team SNAFU' (Situation Normal All Fouled Up).
12/21/1944 Kamikazes sink two tank landing ships and damage a destroyer near Mindoro in the central Philippines.
The Germans score another victory in the Bulge when the 5th Panzer Army takes St. Vith, a key road junction in eastern Belgium.
The mixed-bag American garrison -- which slowed the German offensive for five days -- escapes and joins the U. S. 1st Army's powerful concentration in the northern Ardennes. The Germans fumble their breakthrough by creating an enormous traffic jam in St. Vith.
In the central Ardennes, three panzer divisions bypass Bastogne, where paratroopers of 101st Airborne and supporting units have established a 16-mile perimeter. Von Manteuffel's spearhead storms toward the Meuse River.
Three divisions of Patton's 3rd Army -- the 26th "Yankee," 80th "Blue Ridge" and 4th Armored -- make one of the war's storied movements as the race 70 miles on icy roads in a heavy snowstorm so they can attack the southern side of the Bulge tomorrow.
12/22/1944 Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, commander of the encircled defenders of Bastogne, delights the American public with his contemptuous reply to a German surrender demand: "Nuts!"
The ultimatum is a bluff by Gen. Heinrich von Luttwitz, commander of an armored spearhead that has pushed beyond Bastogne in the central Ardennes. Luttwitz, who has insufficient forces to take the key road center, hopes the Americans can be duped into surrendering so he can open a supply route to his panzers.
The German messenger doesn't understand "Nuts," so Col. Joseph Harper of the 101st Airborne division explains: "In plain English it the same as go to hell!"
12/23/1944 A week-long spell of bad weather ends, and 1,200 Allied planes begin harrying the Germans in the Bulge.
Transport planes and gliders ease the shell and supply shortage of the encircled defenders of Bastogne and the garrison continues to repel German assaults.
Air attacks savage a German 5th Panzer spearhead as it approaches the Meuse River near Dinant, Belgium. The Meuse is eastern Belgium's historic defense line.
Patton's counterattack in the southern Ardennes pushes to within 12 miles of Bastogne but is slowed by dogged Germans and thick minefields.
12/24/1944 The 2nd Panzer division makes the deepest penetration of the German offensive in the Ardennes, nearly reaching the Meuse River before running out of fuel. The Bulge is 60 miles deep, but that's only half way to Antwerp, the Wehrmacht's goal.
12/25/1944 On Leyte, GIs of the 77th "Statue of Liberty" Infantry take Palompon, last Japanese supply center on the island.
Paratroopers of the 101st "Screaming Eagles" Airborne division smash several German attacks at Bastogne.
The Wehrmacht's main thrust is splintered by the 502nd Parachute Regiment. During the fight, the 502nd's commander asks where the Germans are. He's told: "If you look out your window, you'll be looking right down the muzzle of a 88 (a German Gun)."
Nearby, Patton's counteroffensive south of Bastogne again is slowed by hard-fighting Germans.
In the northern Ardennes, the surrounded 1st SS Panzer division -- perpetrators of the Malmedy Massacre -- abandon their out-of-fuel tanks and vehicles and retreat. During the past nine days, 3,200 of the division's 4,000 men have been killed, wounded or captured.
In Paris, it was announced Sunday that Maj. Glenn Miller, director of the United States Air Force Band and a former orchestra leader, is missing on a flight from England to Paris. Miller, one of the outstanding orchestra leaders of the United States, left England December 15 as a passenger aboard a plane. No trace of the plane has been found since.
12/26/1944 Eight Japanese warships shell American bases on Mindoro in the central Philippines.
PT-233 sinks the destroyer Kiyoshimo and American planes rout the rest.
The tide turns in the Battle of the Bulge.
The U. S. 2nd "Hell on Wheels" Armored division smashes a German spearhead and Patton's 4th Armored breaks through to beleaguered Bastogne.
The biggest victory is by the "Wheels," the Army's largest and most powerful division. With help from fighter-bombers it knocks out 100 out-of-fuel armored vehicles of the 2nd Panzer near Celle, Belgium, a few miles from the Meuse River.
Panzer survivors flee on foot and the Allies re-establish a continuous battle front.
At Bastogne, a 4th Armored tank battalion led by Lt. Col. Creighton Abrams caps Patton's four-day counterattack on the Bulge by carving a 300-yard-wide corridor through which supply trucks and ambulances reach the besieged garrison.
12/27/1944 In the Pacific, a Navy task force that includes cruisers Chester, Pensacola and Salt Lake City bombards Iwo Jima for the third time this month.
The Germans give ground in the Ardennes as Patton's 3rd Army widens its rescue corridor into Bastogne.
Patton's drive is led by 4th and 9th Armored and 80th "Blue Ridge" Infantry divisions, which push the Germans away from the supply road to Bastogne that 4th Armored opened yesterday.
British tanks retake Celles, Belgium, highwater mark of the German offensive. The American 2nd "Hell on Wheels" Armored and 84th "Railsplitter" Infantry divisions overrun pockets of Germans nearby.
Intelligence warns Eisenhower the Germans are readying another offensive south of the Bulge. German tanks have been spotted crossing the Rhine into Alsace south of Strasbourg.
The Soviets' 2nd and 3rd Ukranian Armies complete their encirclement of Budapest, trapping five German and Hungarian divisions.
12/28/1944 Eisenhower and a reluctant British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery agree to launch a counteroffensive against the Germans in the Bulge.
Montgomery, commander of forces holding the Bulge's northern shoulder, believes that the Germans have inflicted a disastrous defeat on the Americans and that the Allies should rest and reorganize for a couple of months. Ike orders an immediate counter stroke to flatten the Bulge and smash German units west of the Rhine. Ike's offensive is tentatively scheduled for January 3.
Two half-hearted German attacks on the Bulge's northern shoulder are defeated by the U. S. 1st "Big Red One" Infantry and 3rd "Spearhead" Armored divisions.
In Hungary, the Red Army continues driving toward Austria along a 90-mile front.
12/29/1944 Fighting abates in the Bulge as both sides regroup. Patton's 3rd Army opens a second supply artery into the battered crossroads town of Bastogne.
Fighting begins in Budapest after the Germans murder two Soviet emissaries approaching their lines with a surrender demand. Five German and Hungarian divisions are surrounded in the city. The attacking 3rd Ukrainian Army breaks into the west side of the Hungarian capital which Hitler has ordered held at all costs.
12/30/1944 Patton' reinforced 3rd Army and Von Manteuffel's 5th Panzer Army launch simultaneous attacks near Bastogne.
Patton's drive is led by the 11th "Thunderbolt" Armored and 87th "Golden Acorn" Infantry. Their target is the cross-roads at Houffalize, Belgium, 10 miles north of Bastogne. They run into fierce resistance, make small gains and suffer severe casualties.
The German attack is spearheaded by elite 1st SS Panzer division, which tries to cut the supply line into Bastogne. The attack is defeated by U. S. 35th "Santa Fe" Infantry division.
Eisenhower considers replacing Montgomery after the British field marshal revives his proposal to invade Germany with a "single thrust," an idea that failed dismally three months ago.
12/31/1944 In the Pacific, Admiral Spruance issues the plan for conquering Iwo Jima, an air and naval base 660 miles south of Japan. The assault will begin February 19.
The Germans launch another offensive on the Western Front, this one in Alsace, France's easternmost province.
The brunt of the attack falls on Gen. Alexander Patch's U. S. 7th Army. Hitler has devised a two-pronged drive that he hopes will trap seven American divisions and retake Strasbourg, capital of Alsace. Eisenhower orders 7th Army to retreat to avoid encirclement.
On the Eastern Front, Hungary's Communist-dominated government declares war on Germany, and Poland's Communist-controlled Committee of National Liberation declares itself the provisional government of Poland.
A low-level attack by RAF bombers destroys part of the Gestapo's headquarters in Oslo, Norway.
