23 December 1941
Rangoon , Burma : 54 Japanese bombers escorted by 24 fighters attacked Rangoon, Burma in the late morning, killing 1,250; of those who became wounded as the result of this raid, 600 died.
Hong Kong : Allied troops in Hong Kong withdrew to the final line, “The Ridge”, at the Stanley Peninsula. A military hospital was established at St Stephen’s College on the peninsula to treat wounded soldiers. On Christmas Day, the wounded Canadians of a platoon which had surrendered were also murdered, as were two doctors and seven nurses—four of them Chinese—who had been attending wounded soldiers at the St Stephen’s College Emergency Hospital. The wounded, more than fifty in all, were then killed in their beds.
Philippines : In the Philippine Islands, as Japanese 48th Division marched south toward Manila, US Army General Douglas MacArthur began withdrawing to Bataan, declaring Manila an open city. On the evening of December 24, General MacArthur had left Manila for the fortified island of Corregidor. Manila, in an attempt to save its inhabitants from being caught in a battlefield, was declared an open city. The Japanese continued, however, to bomb it. US freighter Si Kiang was hit by bombs and sank in Manila harbour. On the same day, USAAF B-17 bombers attacked Japanese ships at Lingayen Gulf and Davao in the Philippine Islands, while P-35 and P-40 fighters strafed landing ships in San Miguel Bay, Luzon, damaging destroyer Nagatsuki. On Mindanao, the 9 US B-17 bombers originally from Australia refueled and took off to attack Japanese ships in Davao Gulf and Lingayen Gulf, damaging Japanese destroyer Kuroshio.
Leningrad , Russia : Trucks brought in 786 tons of food into Leningrad, Russia across the frozen Lake Ladoga; for the second day in a row, enough food was brought in to feed the population.
Sarawak , British Borneo : Japanese troops landed at Kuching, Sarawak.
Washington , USA : Churchill and Roosevelt met at the White House, Washington DC during the First Washington Conference (Arcadia).
In the United States, a White House directive extended the powers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to include counter-espionage throughout the Americas. By the end of the war the FBI would have grown from a strength of 2,280 personnel, in 1941, to 15,000, including 5,000 special agents (in slang, “G-men”).
Wake Island , Pacific Ocean : Before dawn, at 0235 hours, 1,500 troops of the Japanese Maizuru Second Special Naval Landing Force landed on Wake Island and Wilkes Island in the Wake Atoll; from the air, carrier aircraft from Soryu and Hiryu provided support by attacking targets on Wilkes, Peale, and Wake Islands. Given that defeat was now imminent, acting commander of the US Navy Pacific Fleet Vice Admiral William Pye recalled Task Force 14 with USS Saratoga; the force was originally dispatched to reinforce Wake. At 0800, US forces began to surrender. On Wilkes Island, US Marines attempted one final counterattack, killing 100 Japanese troops at the cost of 11 US Marines killed and 5 wounded. Towards midnight 460 men strong US Marine garrison along with 69 US Navy personnel in the island were mostly overwhelmed and Wake officially surrendered by garrison commander Major Deveraux.
Benghazi , Libya : 4th Indian Division and 4th Armored Brigade from 13th Corps , the vanguard of 8th Army , captured Benghazi and rescued more than 300 Allied POWs in hospital or temporary POW cages which Italians did not evacuate and transfer to further east in time. The pursuit of retreating German-Italian Panzer Group slows down after this though since 8th Army fighting since mid November , men tired , machines in dire need of repair and spare parts plus the rear logistical lines all the way to Mersa Matruh and Tobruk were extended too much.
Mediterranean Sea : British troop transport Shuntien (carrying Axis prisoners of war) was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-559 west off Alexandria. More than 800 German and Italians perished in sinking.
German submarine U-79 was located , depth charged and sunk with all hands by Royal Navy destroyers HMS Hotspur and HMS Hasty during an anti submarine patrol off Bardia.
North Sea : Belgian coaster Leopold II struck a mine and sank
Greek cargo ship Rokus Vergottis struck a mine and sunk off Norfolk.
Baltics : In the German-occupied Baltic States, December 24 marked the day of a new order, issued by the German civilian governor, Hinrich Lohse, that gypsies were ‘a double danger’. They were carriers of disease, ‘especially typhus’, and they were ‘unreliable elements who cannot be put to useful work’. They also harmed the German cause by passing on ‘hostile’ news reports. ‘I therefore determine’, Lohse added, ‘that they should be treated in the same way as Jews.’ Soviet prisoners-of-war were also being murdered that winter on an horrific scale. At a prisoner-of-war camp set up by the Germans at Hola, in Poland, 100,000 Soviet soldiers were herded together in an open field and given no food. Desperately, they dug holes in which to try to get shelter from the wind and snow, and ate grass and roots to keep alive. Any nearby villagers who were caught by the Germans throwing food into the field were shot. By the end of December, the prisoners-of-war were dead. A further 7,000 were murdered in nearby Biala Podlaska.