31 Jan in WW2 History | World War II Database

31 Jan 1921

USS Arizona arrived at Callao, Peru.
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31 Jan 1929

London was commissioned into service.
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31 Jan 1933

The newly appointed German Chancellor Adolf Hitler made a half-sincere attempt to negotiate with the Center Party to form a majority in the Reichstag. As intended, the negotiation failed, which gave Hitler the grounds to demand a re-election in the Reichstag. The re-election was approved by Reichstag President and fellow Nazi Party member Hermann Göring, and was scheduled to take place on 5 Mar 1933.
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Photos dated 31 Jan 1933

31 Jan 1939

German SS leader Reinhard Heydrich ordered that Jews can only be released from protective custody if they present documents for emigration, and that Jews who were being committed to a concentration camp a second time would be committed to concentration camps for life.
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31 Jan 1940

German submarine U-13 torpedoed and sank Norwegian steamer Start about halfway between Stavanger, Norway and Aberdeen, Scotland, killing the entire crew of 16. Start was carrying coal from Sunderland, northern England.
German submarine U-21 fired two torpedoes at Danish ship Vidar, but both malfunctioned. A third torpedoed, however, struck Vidar 25 miles east of Aberdeen, Scotland, killing 16 and rendering her dead in the water. Danish steamer Disko rescued 18 survivors while surviving a hit from another malfunctioning torpedo from U-21. Vidar would remain afloat until the next day.
Soviet forces gathered in the Summa sector in the Karelian Isthmus now grew to the size of 12 divisions and 400 heavy artillery pieces.
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Desperately short of aircraft, the British made a secret approach to Italy (not yet in the war) to buy fighters. The deal was later vetoed by Germany.
Sir John Simon of Britain announced that food subsidies were running at £1,000,000 per week.
Photos dated 31 Jan 1940

31 Jan 1941

In Oslo, Reichsführer-SS Himmler accepted the oath of the first group of Norwegian enlistees in the Waffen-SS.
Free French forces from Chad, French Equatorial Africa attacked the Italian forces at Kufra, Libya, supported by T Patrol of the British Long Range Desert Group.
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Indian 4th Division flanked and then captured Agordat, Eritrea, Italian East Africa. 1,000 Italian troops and 43 field guns were captured.
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Italian torpedo boat Francesco Stocco hit a mine, broke in two, and sank off Fiume, Italy (now Rijeka, Croatia).
Italian submarine Dandolo sank British tanker Pizarro 350 miles southwest of Ireland after dark with torpedoes; 23 killed and 6 survived.
German armed merchant cruiser Atlantis stopped British ship Speybank with gunfire and captured the ship. Speybank would soon set sail for Bordeaux, France where she would be converted into an auxiliary minelayer named Schiff 53/Doggerbank and serve in the German Navy.
Destroyer USS Edison (DD-439) was commissioned with Lieutenant Commander A. C. Murdaugh in command.

31 Jan 1942

American carrier Lexington ordered to sail south to cover the return of carriers Enterprise and Yorktown from their Marshall and Gilbert Islands raid.
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German SS Einsatzgruppe A reported a tally of 229,052 Jews killed in the Baltic States and in Byelorussia, while Estonia was reported to be free of Jews. Extermination activities had paused in Lithuania, it reported, but would soon be picked up again.
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More than 200,000 Russians had died in Leningrad this month from starvation, disease and illness. Reports began to circulate of cannibalism amongst the besieged population.
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The German support ship Spreewald, disguised as British Royal Mail steamer Brittany, was carrying 200 British seamen captured from sunken merchantmen when German submarine U-333 found her. Believing she was indeed a British ship, Spreewald was torpedoed and sunk off Bordeaux, France. Only 24 crewmen and 58 POWs were rescued. The U-boat captain, Peter Cremer, was exonerated by a Royal Navy inquiry because he identified the ship as the Royal Mail steamer, Brittany, which was precisely what the Spreewald's captain had disguised his ship to resemble.
German submarine U-107 sank British tanker San Arcadio 425 miles southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, United States at 0445 hours; 41 were killed, 9 survived. To the south, U-109 sank British tanker Tacoma Star 200 kilometers east of Virginia, United States. Out to sea, U-333 sank German freighter Spreewald by mistake (Spreewald was under disguise as British Royal Mail transport Brittany); 41 German crew members and 31 British prisoners of war were killed, 25 German crew members and 55 British prisoners of war survived. At 2212 hours, U-82 attacked Allied troop convoy NA-2 in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and sank British destroyer HMS Belmont, killing all 138 aboard. At 2331 hours, U-105 attacked Allied convoy SL-98 500 miles southwest of Ireland, sinking British Sloop HMS Culver with 2 torpedoes which detonated the magazine; 126 were killed, 12 survived.
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Japanese 55th Infantry Division captured the town of Moulmein, Burma one day after the nearby airfield was captured; Burmese 2nd Infantry Brigade (Brigadier Roger Ekin) retreated across the Salween River during the night after having lost 617 men (mostly missing); Archibald Wavell however, unaware of the true situation, was appalled and angry to hear of the ease with which the Japanese had driven Burmese 2nd Infantry Brigade from the town. On the same day, Slim issued a report summarizing the air situation in Burma, noting the Allies had 35 aircraft in the area to defend against about 150 Japanese aircraft; while a few more Allied aircraft were en route for Burma, by mid-Mar 1942 there would be 400 operational Japanese aircraft in this theater of war.
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Japanese troops captured Batugong and Passo on Ambon, Dutch East Indies.
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Indian sappers destroyed the main causeway linking Singapore and British Malaya at 0815 hours. Shortly after, Japanese troops captured Johore Bharu, Malaya.
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Japanese submarine I-64 sank Indian merchant ship Jalapalaka 63 miles southeast of Madras, India with the deck gun; 13 were killed, 54 survived.
Commander Yahachi Tanabe became the commanding officer of I-68.
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USS Finback was commissioned into service, Lieutenant Commander Jesse L. Hull in command.
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Destroyer Yukikaze escorted the Japanese invasion force for Ambon, Dutch East Indies.
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Photos dated 31 Jan 1942

31 Jan 1943

The Milice was created in Vichy France under Joseph Darnand to counter the Resistance. This organization became another force of the German occupation, reaching a strength of over 20,000 by the Allied invasion in 1944.
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The British RAF Bomber Command used the H2S radar system for the first time operationally.
Out of food and ammunition, the southern half of the German 6.Armee in Stalingrad, Russia surrendered. The final radio message coming out of this pocket was made at 1945 hours, which closed with the Morse abbreviation "CL", short for "Clear (I am closing my station)".
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A transport with 2,834 Polish Jews from Pruzany arrived in Auschwitz Concentration Camp; it included 230 children under four and 520 children between four and ten. 313 men and 180 women were registered in the camp; the remaining 2,341, including all 750 children, were gassed.
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US Marine Corps aircraft from Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands sank Japanese transport Toa Maru between Vella Lavella and Kolombangara.
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Tatsuta Maru departed Yokohama, Japan and arrived at Yokosuka, Japan later on the same day.
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USS Tunny detected a Japanese freighter off Takao, Taiwan at about 2230 hours. She fired two torpedoes, both of which missed the target, and survived a counterattack with two depth charges.
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Repair ship Akashi completed the repair work for seaplane tender Sanyo, destroyers Arashi and Suzukaze, and light cruiser Nagara at Truk, Caroline Islands.
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Light cruiser Voroshilov bombarded German troop positions near Novorossiysk, Ukraine.
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Photos dated 31 Jan 1943

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31 Jan 1944

Americans landed on Kwajalein and Majuro atolls in the Marshall Islands.
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US 34th Division crossed the Rapido River in Italy.
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The Royal Navy's Second Escort Group (Captain F. J. Walker) sank the German submarine U-592.
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Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru arrived at Rabaul, New Britain and departed later on the same day.
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Fleet aircraft carrier USS Franklin was commissioned into service with Captain James M. Shoemaker in command.
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USS Finback sank a fishing trawler with gunfire in the East China Sea.
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Photos dated 31 Jan 1944

31 Jan 1945

Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front established two bridgeheads over the Oder River near Küstrin, Germany (now Kostrzyn, Poland).
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The Duke of Gloucester became the Governor-General of Australia, an appointment designed to ensure that Australia did not become a dependency of the United States.
American submarine chaser PC-1129 intercepted Japanese Shinyo special attack boats in the Philippine Islands, but she was in turn rammed by one of the boats and was sunk.
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USS Wake Island completed her repairs at Ulithi, Caroline Islands.
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USS Sennet arrived at Saipan, Mariana Islands, ending her first war patrol.
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31 Jan 1947

South Dakota was decommissioned from service.
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Photos dated 31 Jan 1947

31 Jan 1949

Omar Bradley was promoted to the permanent rank of general.
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31 Jan 1952

USS Ticonderoga was recommissioned for the voyage from Bremerton, Washington, United States to New York Naval Shipyard, New York, United States. Captain Paul Wesley Watson was named her commanding officer.
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31 Jan 1966