31 Dec in WW2 History | World War II Database

31 Dec 1880

George Marshall was born.
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31 Dec 1918

American transport West Caruth was launched at 0800 hours, sponsored by Betty Howard, daughter of the company vice president of Southwestern Shipbuilding, William Howard.
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31 Dec 1930

Mineichi Koga was named the commanding officer of cruiser Aoba.
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31 Dec 1931

Mineichi Koga was named the commanding officer of battleship Ise.
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Chen Mingshu was stepped down from his role as the acting head of the Legislative Yuan of China.
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Japanese troops reached the Taling River en route toward Jinzhou, Liaoning Province, China.
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Photos dated 31 Dec 1931

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31 Dec 1932

Mineichi Koga was promoted to the rank of rear admiral.
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31 Dec 1934

Werner Mölders completed basic flying training at the Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule in Cottbus, Germany.
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The US War Department authorised the creation of a General Headquarters for the Army Air Corps, to be effective from 1 Mar 1935. Brigadier-General Frank M. Andrews was to head this new organisation at Langley Field, Virginia, with three tactical wings based at Langley, Barksdale (Louisiana) and March (California) Fields. The US Army's aviation branch thereby gained increased influence at planning levels as Andrews became a member of the General Staff.

31 Dec 1936

Mineichi Koga was promoted to the rank of vice admiral.
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The US 1st Marine Brigade completed its three-month amphibious and field landing exercise in and near Potomac, Maryland, United States.

31 Dec 1937

Douglas MacArthur retired from the US Army, but remained Philippine President Manuel Quezon's advisor as a civilian.
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Filipp Golikov was promoted to the rank of corps commander.
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31 Dec 1938

The Supreme Court of the USSR ruled that cases brought under Article 58 of the Kirov Law had to demonstrate the intent to commit counter-revolutionary or terrorist crime. This ruling went some way into restricting the activities of various kangaroo courts which had been using the law as virtual unrestricted power to kill anyone who came into their hands. During the course of 1939 a number of public trials were held of State Security officials, accused of fabricating evidence and perverting the course of justice.

31 Dec 1939

Finnish 9th Division secured the village of Suomussalmi after four days of heavy fighting, capturing 625 rifles, 33 light machine guns, 19 medium and heavy machine guns, 2 anti-aircraft machine guns, 12 anti-tank guns, 27 field and anti-aircraft guns, 26 tanks, 2 armored cars, 350 horses, 181 trucks, 11 tractors, 26 field kitchens, 800,000 rounds of 7.62mm rifle ammunition, 9,000 artillery shells, a field hospital, and a bakery. Elsewhere, Finnish scouts found troops of the Soviet 44th Division stationary along a 30-kilometer stretch of the Raate Road, including a large concentration of dug-in tanks and artillery. Finnish Army Colonel Siilasvuo received the intelligence and decided to prepare a strike at this concentration.
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German submarine U-32 sank Norwegian ship Luna at 0947 hours with one torpedo.
Boris Shaposhnikov was awarded his first Order of Lenin.
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31 Dec 1940

Allied merchant shipping sunk by German submarines world-wide in the year of 1940 was 567 ships, totaling 2,771,483 gross tons. 24 German submarines were lost in the same time period.
Mikio Furusho passed away.
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Greek submarine Katsonis sank Italian tanker Quinto with the deck gun off Vlorë, Albania.
RAF bombers attacked Vlorë, Albania.
RAF bombers attacked Rotterdam and Ijmuiden, the Netherlands.
RAF bombers attacked the bridge over the Rhine River at Emmerich, Germany and Köln, Germany.
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British destroyer HMS Dainty stopped Italian schooners Tiberio and Maria Giovanni between Bardia and Tobruk, Libya and forced them to sail to Sollum, Egypt for capture.
German submarine U-38 sank Swedish ship Valparaiso 200 miles south of Iceland at 2312 hours; 35 survivors drown in the freezing water.
German submarine U-65 damaged British tanker British Zeal with two torpedoes 200 miles off Dakar, French West Africa. The crew abandoned the ship, but after U-65 departed the scene, the crew reboarded and successfully maneuvered the damaged ship to Freetown, British West Africa.
Captain Lindemann returned to Bismarck from his Christmas leave and assumed command of the battleship.
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HMS Edinburgh arrived at Scapa Flow, Scotland, United Kingdom.
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Photos dated 31 Dec 1940

31 Dec 1941

At 0947 hours, German submarine U-32 sank neutral Norwegian transport SS Luna, which was returning from London, England, United Kingdom with rubber hoses and zinc plates, with a torpedo. Survivors were rescued by Norwegian steamer Colombia and taken to Kopervik, Norway.
Germans halted their attacks on Sevastopol, Ukraine for the winter.
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Admiral Chester Nimitz assumed command of the US Navy Pacific Fleet; the ceremony was performed on board submarine Grayling at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii.
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Japanese submarines shell Hawaiian Islands of Kauai, Maui, and Hawaii.
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American passenger ship Ruth Alexander, en route from Manila, Philippine Islands to Balikpapan, Borneo was bombed and damaged by Japanese flying boat in the Makassar Strait.
Franklin Roosevelt notified Chiang Kaishek that he had obtained agreement from the governments of Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands for the establishment of a China Theatre of War with the Generalissimo as the Supreme Allied Commander.
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Japanese Lingayen Force captured Sibul Springs, Luzon, Philippine Islands, breaching part of the final defensive line north of Manila.
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British 155th Field Regiment of the Lanarkshire Yeomanry stopped a Japanese attack at Kampar, British Malaya; further south on the western coast, the Japanese landed behind the Allied lines. On the east coast, the Indian 9th Division fell back to the south side of the Kuantan River. Far to the south, at Singapore, British and Dutch transports took on civilians for evacuation to South Africa. Finally, off the Chinese coast, 56 Japanese troop transports departed the island of Taiwan, escorted by 3 cruisers and 16 destroyers, for an amphibious operations in British Malaya.
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At the Arcadia Conference in Washington DC, United States, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt agreed on a "Germany First" strategy.
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Japanese troops reached the outskirts of Changsha, Hunan Province, China.
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Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru arrived at Roi, Marshall Islands.
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I-68 departed Kwajalein, Marshall Islands.
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HMS Indomitable arrived at Cape Town, South Africa en route to the Far East.
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US Navy Task Force 11 with USS Saratoga departed Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii for patrol.
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American carrier USS Yorktown became the flagship of Rear Admiral Frank Fletcher's newly-formed Task Force 17.
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USS Pollack fired two torpedoes at a Japanese destroyer off Honshu, Japan; both torpedoes missed.
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USS Astoria departed Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii.
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Photos dated 31 Dec 1941

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31 Dec 1942

Battle of the Barents Sea took place between the British Royal Navy and the German Kriegsmarine.
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Japanese Emperor Showa allowed his troops to evacuate Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
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A furious Hitler ordered the scrapping of the German Navy's battle fleet after Royal Navy destroyers drove off the mighty Lützow and Admiral Hipper from attacking a convoy in the Barents Sea. Hitler said his battleships were useless "like so much old iron". Admiral Raeder, commander of the Kreigsmarine, resigned and was replaced by Admiral Donitz, commander of the submarine force.
The Special Services vessel HMS Fidelity was torpedoed in the Atlantic, killing 280 crew, 51 commandos, and 50 survivors from a sunken cargo ship that they had picked up earlier.
The Red Cross was reported to be spending £375,000 each month on food parcels for Allied prisoners of war.
Captain Robert Sherbrooke aboard HMS Onslow fought off four attacks on a convoy he was protecting in the Barents Sea. Despite superior odds and heavy damage in which Sherbrooke was badly wounded and temporarily blinded, he got the convoy through to Ruissia. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.
Tatsuta Maru departed Balikpapan, Dutch Borneo.
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Essex was commissioned into service.
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Kalinin was commissioned into service.
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USS Pollack departed Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii for her fifth war patrol.
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31 Dec 1943

General Montgomery left his beloved British 8th Army in Italy to take up his role in the planning of the summer invasion of Europe in which he would command all land forces.
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Soviet troops again recaptured Zhytomyr, Ukraine.
As of today, Auschwitz Concentration Camp had a population of 85,298 prisoners (55,785 men and 29,513 women). In the month of Dec 1943, 5,748 male and 8,931 female registered prisoners died at Auschwitz; these numbers did not include those killed in gas chambers immediately after arriving without being registered.
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Robert Johnson shot down two German Fw 190D aircraft over Savenay, France.
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Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru arrived at Palau.
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USS Cassin Young was commissioned into service under the command of Commander E. T. Schrieber.
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Arbiter was commissioned into service.
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31 Dec 1944

The British Home Guard was officially disbanded.
Hungary switched sides and declared war on Germany.
One B-17 Flying Fortress bomber of USAAF 8th Air Force attacked Helgoland, Germany.
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German V-2 rocket hit near the intersection of Stroud Green Road and Stapledon Hall Road in Crouch Hill, London, England, United Kingdom at 2340 hours, killing 15 and seriously injuring 34. 15 homes were destroyed by this attack. This rocket was the 382nd, and the last, rocket to hit England in 1944.
US troops re-captured Rochefort, Belgium, while the US Third Army began an offensive from Bastogne.
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German troops launched Operation Sylvester/Operation Nordwind, attacking south near Strasbourg, France.
Otto Skorzeny arrived at Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Germany. He received care for his wounded left eye from Hitler's personal doctor Stumpfecker. Later in the day, he reported to Hitler regarding his commando mission during the Ardennes Offensive. As he departed, Wilhelm Keitel invited him to remain to join the rest of the German leaders for the New Year's celebration, but Skorzeny declined, opting to re-join his men in Cologne, Germany instead.
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Theodor Osterkamp retired from the German Luftwaffe with the rank of Generalleutnant (equivalent to Air Vice Marshal in the British RAF).
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Japanese troops evacuated Akyab (now Sittwe), Burma.
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Cruiser Köln was damaged by Allied aerial attacks.
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Light carrier Ryuho departed Moji, Japan with convoy HI-87 with 58 Ohka weapons on board.
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Photos dated 31 Dec 1944

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31 Dec 1945

US Marine Corps end-of-year report noted that there were about 46,000 Marines stationed in Northern China at this time.
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