1 Feb in WW2 History | World War II Database

1 Feb 1908

Mamoru Shinozaki was born.
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Kilkis was commissioned into service.
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1 Feb 1915

Queen Elizabeth was commissioned into service.
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1 Feb 1916

Malaya was commissioned into service.
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1 Feb 1920

The South African air arm was created out of a squadron (1. The Suid Afrikaanse Lugmag) that had been attached to the Royal Flying Corps during the Great War.

1 Feb 1923

The Italian Fascist Party established the paramilitary Blackshirt legions.

1 Feb 1924

The United Kingdom officially recognized the Soviet Union.

1 Feb 1927

Franklin Roosevelt founded the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation in the United States to further the research of poliomyelitis and for the care of poliomyelitis patients.
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1 Feb 1929

Wilhelm Keitel was promoted to the rank of Oberstleutnant.
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1 Feb 1931

Hugo Sperrle was promoted to the rank of Oberstleutnant.
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1 Feb 1932

Japanese carrier Hosho and the Japanese Navy Destroyer Division 3 arrived off Shanghai, China to support the battles in the city. Also on this day, the United Kingdom and the United States demanded Japan to cease the fighting in Shanghai.
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Light carrier Hosho arrived off the mouth of the Yangtze River in China.
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1 Feb 1934

Werner Mölders was promoted to the rank of Oberfähnrich.
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Ernst Röhm suggested to the Reich Defence Council that his SA should take over all defence duties and that the German Army be relegated to the task of training his men.

1 Feb 1939

Georg von Bismarck was promoted to the rank of Oberst.
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Lieutenant Commander Wilhelm Fröhlich took command of U-36.
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Granatiere was commissioned into service.
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1 Feb 1940

Soviet artillery pieces fired 300,000 shells in the Summa sector of the Karelian Isthmus on this date at the start of a new Soviet offensive against the Finnish forces.
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German submarine U-13 torpedoed and sank Swedish steamer Fram in the Aberdour Bay, Scotland at 0143 hours. 9 were killed and 14 were rescued by destroyer HMS Khartoum and armed trawler HMS Viking Deeps.
German submarine U-59 torpedoed and sank British coaler Ellen M. 20 miles east of Southwold, Suffolk, England, killing the entire crew of 9.
SS-Reichsführer Himmler ordered inspections of potential sites for a planned concentration camp. Among those inspected was the camp at Oswiecim, Poland, known in German as Auschwitz.
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In Britain, the Admiralty took over the responsibility for the building and repair of merchant shipping and concluded an arrangement to buy old cargo ships from the United States.
In Russia the noted stage director, Vsevolod Meyerhold, having been tortured into confessing that he was the leader of an anti-soviet Trotskyite, was convicted in camera, and was executed on the following day.
The keel of refrigerated cargo ship Telemachus was laid down.
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1 Feb 1941

Indian 4th Division capture Agordat, Eritrea, Italian East Africa while Indian 5th Division captured Metemma, Abyssinia. 2nd Lieutenant Premindra Singh Bhagat of the Royal Bombay Sappers and Miners won the first Victoria Cross for the British Indian Army in WW2 for a "...continuous feat of sheer cold courage" clearing 15 minefields and 55 miles of roads in 48 hours.
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German submarine U-48 sank Greek ship Nicolas Angelos with a torpedo and shots from the deck gun south of Iceland at 2215 hours. The crew was took to the lifeboat, which was never found.
The US Marine Corps brigades stationed on the east and west coasts of the United States were reorganized as the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisoins, respectively. To the south on the island of Cuba, the US Marine Corps 4th Defense Battalion arrived at Guantanamo Bay from Parris Island, South Carolina, United States.
At Maug Island in the Mariana Islands, Orion received one Japanese-built E8N float plane, purchased from Japan earlier that year, from German ship Munsterland.
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1 Feb 1942

The United States launched its first air offensive against the Marshall Islands as aircraft from US carriers USS Yorktown and USS Enterprise struck Japanese bases in the island group. US cruisers USS Northampton, USS Chester, and USS Salt Lake City also bombarded atolls in the Marshall Islands, sinking gunboat Toyotsu Maru and transport Bordeaux Maru and damaging cruiser Katori, submarine I-23, minelayer Tokiwa, and several others. USS Chester sustained damage from a Japanese dive bomber during the attack; 8 were killed, 21 were wounded.
Soviet Army began attacking towards Vyazma.
Vidkun Quisling formed his government in Norway.
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PT boats and P-40 aircraft repulsed the Japanese landing attempt on southwest Bataan at the Philippine Islands.
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Japanese troops reached Singapore, pausing for the following few days to prepare for a landing on the island. Meanwhile, General Arthur Percival announced that "the battle of Malaya has come to an end and the battle of Singapore has started.... Today we stand beleaguered in our island fortress. Our task is to hold this fortress until help can come."
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The British formed the RAF Regiment to defend airfields as the British Army could not provide such services. This regiment would eventually grow to the size of 50,000 men.
The United States Marine Corps redesigned Air Detachment, Marine Barracks, Parris Island in South Carolina, United States to the Marine Corps Air Station, Parris Island.
Dutch forces at Passo, Ambon, Dutch East Indies surrendered.
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The United States launched its first air offensive against the Gilbert Islands as aircraft from US carriers USS Yorktown and USS Enterprise struck Japanese bases in the island group.
Akagi departed Truk, Caroline Islands in an attempt to catch the enemy carrier force that attacked the Marshall Islands.
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Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru departed Truk.
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Cruiser Köln began four months of repairs and refits in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
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Mitragliero was commissioned into service.
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USS Lexington supported the air offensive against Marshall and Gilbert Islands indirectly by operation in the vicinity of Christmas Island.
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USS Grampus arrived at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, US Territory of Hawaii.
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1 Feb 1943

Japanese troops began to be evacuated from Guadalcanal by destroyers commanded by Rear Admiral Shintaro.
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As of this month, 1,622,000 prisoners of war and 4,121,000 foreigners were now serving as forced laborers in Germany.
Trapped in the ruins of a department store in Stalingrad, Russia, Paulus surrendered along with 16 of his generals; Paulus became the first German field marshal to surrender to an enemy force. The battle for the city had cost the Germans 110,000 dead and 107,000 taken prisoner. The Soviets had lost an estimated 250,000 men and 250,000 civilians.
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Germans fell back from Demjansk, Russia.
At Auschwitz Concentration Camp, SS personnel selected 20 Jewish prisoners who were already working at the crematorium in Auschwitz I and readied them for work in the soon-to-be-ready new crematoriums in Birkenau.
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The Fletcher-class destroyer USS De Haven was sunk by Japanese aircraft off Savo Island, Solomon Islands.
Joseph Stilwell departed Chongqing, China for India.
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The keel of CV-14, originally destined to be USS Hancock, was laid down at Newport News, Virginia, United States.
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Cruiser Köln departed for the Baltic Sea.
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USS Tunny entered waters off China.
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Destroyer Yukikaze evacuated troops from Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands.
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Repair ship Akashi completed the repair work for destroyer Oyashio and began repair transport Nankai Maru at Truk, Caroline Islands.
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Photos dated 1 Feb 1943

1 Feb 1944

The British Air Headquarters Air Defences Eastern Mediterranean was renamed the Air Headquarters Eastern Mediterranean; Richard Saul remained its commanding officer despite the name change.
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Franz Kutschera passed away.
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A new satellite camp of Auschwitz III (Monowitz), located at the Guenthergrube in Ledziny, Poland opened. This new satellite camp would house 300 prisoners for coal mining for the German industrial firm I. G. Farben.
The United States Marine Corps established a new 4th Marine Regiment at Tassafaronga, Guadalcanal (the original 4th Marine having been lost at Corregidor in the Philippine Islands in 1942) drawing its manpower from the deactivated Raider battalions.
Graph was decommissioned from service.
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Photos dated 1 Feb 1944

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1 Feb 1945

Dobri Bozhilov passed away.
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Bogdan Filov passed away.
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US First Army captured Remscheid in Germany, east of Düsseldorf. On the same day, US Seventh Army reached the Moder River and the Siegfried Line.
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Küstrin, Germany, surrounded by Soviet troops, was declared a Fortress City.
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British fighter ace Robert Roland Stanford Tuck, shot down and captured on 28 Jan 1942, escaped from his prisoner of war camp, subsequently making his way through the Russian lines to the British Embassy in Moscow and then home.
The Taiwan District Army was formed within the Japanese Tenth Area Army with the former commanding officer General Rikichi Ando of the former Taiwan Army at its head.
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USS Sea Cat departed Guam, Mariana Islands for her second war patrol.
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USS Segundo arrived in the East China Sea.
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Warspite was decommissioned from service.
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Light carrier Hosho arrived at Tokuyama, Japan, refueled, and departed to conduct a training exercise as a target vessel.
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Photos dated 1 Feb 1945