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• 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. ww2dbase [The French Resistance | TH]
• The British RAF Bomber Command used the H2S radar system for the first time operationally. ww2dbase [TH]
• US Marine Corps aircraft from Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands sank Japanese transport Toa Maru between Vella Lavella and Kolombangara. ww2dbase [Guadalcanal Campaign | CPC]

• USS Ancon departed Oran, French Algeria. ww2dbase [Ancon | Oran | CPC]

• The US 2nd Marine Regiment and 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment boarded ship to leave Guadalcanal. Some of the men were so debilitated by malaria they had to be carried on board. Observers noted that they looked like young men grown old "with their skins cracked and furrowed and wrinkled." The 2nd Marine Regiment, heading to Wellington, New Zealand for the first time, left behind on the island 263 dead. ww2dbase [Guadalcanal Campaign | Guadalcanal | AC]

• Repair ship Akashi completed the repair work for seaplane tender Sanyo, destroyers Arashi and Suzukaze, and light cruiser Nagara at Truk, Caroline Islands. ww2dbase [Akashi | Truk | CPC]

• Tatsuta Maru departed Yokohama, Japan and arrived at Yokosuka, Japan later on the same day. ww2dbase [Tatsuta Maru | Yokohama, Kanagawa | CPC]

• Destroyer USS Shaw departed Nouméa, New Caledonia bound for Suva, Fiji. ww2dbase [Shaw | Dunbea Bay, Nouméa | DS]

• 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. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Auschwitz Concentration Camp | Oswiecim | CPC]

• 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)". Shortly after, 110 German transport aircraft take off for the northern pocket with supplies; more than 90 of the aircraft found the illuminated triangular drop zone and released their loads. ww2dbase [Battle of Stalingrad | Stalingrad | TH, CPC]
• Light cruiser Voroshilov bombarded German troop positions near Novorossiysk, Russia. ww2dbase [Voroshilov | Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai | CPC]

• 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. ww2dbase [Tunny | CPC]

31 Jan 1943 Interactive Map