31 January - 6 February 1942

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31 January 1942

Baltics : 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.

Leningrad : 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.

Eastern Front : Soviet partisans were active in disrupting German movement; on January 31 a German report noted that in the Yelnya—Dorogobuzh area ‘the partisan movement is gaining the upper hand’. Not only were ambushes and attacks a daily occurrence, but a partisan field hospital was said to have been set up near Yelnya.

Atlantic Ocean : 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. After the war 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 torpedoed and 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, German submarine U-109 torpedoed and sank British tanker Tacoma Star 200 kilometers east of Virginia, United States. At 2212 hours, German submarine U-82 attacked Allied troop convoy NA-2 in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean , torpedoed and sank Royal Navy destroyer HMS Belmont, killing all 138 aboard. At 2331 hours, U-105 attacked Allied convoy SL-98 500 miles southwest of Ireland, torpedoed and sank Royal Navy sloop HMS Culver with 2 torpedoes which detonated the magazine; 126 were killed, 12 survived.

Burma : 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.

Dutch East Indies : Japanese troops captured Batugong and Passo on Ambon, Dutch East Indies.

Indian Ocean : Japanese submarine I-64 sank Indian merchant ship Jalapalaka 63 miles southeast of Madras, India with the deck gun; 13 were killed, 54 survived.

Malaya : Indian sappers destroyed the main causeway linking Singapore and British Malaya at 0815 hours. Shortly after, Japanese troops captured Johor Bharu, Johor, Malaya. Entire iskland and city of Singapore has been isolated from land , air and sea and apanese 25th Army under command of General Yamashita is preparing to strike final blow to “City of Lion” Malayan Command defending the Singapore island is numerically superior than Japanese but of 85.000 military servicemen in the island only 35.000 are actual combat troops , rest are logistics , base area support and administrative personnel. Entire Johore Strait shore looking to north towards Malaya is naked and defenceless due to neglect and indecision of Malayan Commander General Percival and Singapore governor Sir Thomas Shelton. The heavy guns fortified in cobncentrate to defend Singapore naval base are all looking to wrong way towards the sea and Japanese have total air superiorty. Japanese air raids on Singapore are causing heavy damage , panic and demoralisation. General Archibald Wavell , new ABDA Commander in Far East recommends evacuation of Singapore but it is rejected by London

Hawaii , Pacific Ocean : American carrier USS Lexington was ordered to sail south to cover the return of carriers USS Enterprise and USS Yorktown from their Marshall and Gilbert Islands raid. To that end, she set sail for Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii with Task Force 11.

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1 February 1942

Vyazma-Bryansk Front , Russia : Soviet Army began attacking towards Vyazma.

Norway : Vidkun Quisling formed his government in Norway.

Luzon , Philippines : PT boats and P-40 aircraft repulsed the Japanese landing attempt on southwest Bataan at the Philippine Islands.

UK : 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.

Atlantic Ocean : British trop transport Llangibby Castle carrying 1.000 British military peronnel to Middle Eaast was intercepted and torpedoed by German submarine U-402 off Portugal. Badly damaged and 26 killed aboard , Llangibby Castle managed to reach Porteguese harbour Horta in Azores for repairs. Then U-402 torpedoed and sunk Royal Navy ASW trawler HMS Rosemonde then both U-402 and newly arrived German submarine U-581 positioned off Horta , neutral Portugal waters , to finish Llangibby Castle off.

Ambon , Dutch East Indies : Dutch forces at Passo, Ambon, Dutch East Indies surrendered. Ten Australian prisoners captured by Japanese were beheaded by their captors

Malaya Japanese troops reached Johore Strait , pausing for the following few days to prepare for a landing on Singapore 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.” At the same time Malaya Command frantically trying to evacuate high priorty or valuable military persıonnel or wounded from Singapore via small ships and a few aircraft

Marshal , Gilbert Islands , Pacific Ocean : 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.
The United States launched its first air offensive against the Marshall Islands as SBD and TBD aircraft from carriers USS Yorktown and USS Enterprise struck Japanese bases in the island group. 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, submarine depot ship Yasukuni Maru, minelayer Tokiwa, and several others. Vice Admiral Mitsumi Shimizu was wounded aboard Katori. USS Chester sustained damage from a Japanese dive bomber during the attack; 8 were killed, 21 were wounded. On top of that a Japanese Kate torpedo bomber aircraft from Kwajalein Atoll counter attacked , torpedoed and damaged American aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.

Mediterranean Sea : Italian cargo ship Absirtea was torpedoed and sunk by Royal Navy submarine HMS Thunderbolt in Adriatic Sea.

Iceland : Allied convoys to Russia , PQ-9 and PQ-10 departed Reykjavík, Iceland together.

Atlantic Ocean : German Navy U-Boat arm switched four rotor Triton (for Allied codebreakers “Shark”) Enigma wireless encryption upgrade , that halted Allied codebreaking operations of German U-Boat radio communications , causing an intelligence blackout for ten months.

At the same time, British cyphers carrying most of the Allied communications about the North Atlantic convoys were broken by German Naval Intelligence. In the signals war, the naval advantage swung suddenly and decisively away from Britain. But two more of Germany’s Enigma cyphers were broken that February by British code breakers in Blketchley Park, ‘ GGG ’, the German Secret Service messages between Berlin and stations in the Gibraltar area, and ‘Orange II ’, the messages between Berlin and the SS formations fighting as an integral part of the German Army on the Eastern Front.

For those SS combat troops, as for all German units facing the Russians, or behind the Russian lines, February 1942 saw a considerable increase in partisan activity. ‘Since we have no continuous forward line,’ a German Army report noted on February 1, ‘traffic of every kind from the Soviet side and back again is possible, and extensive use is being made of such crossings. New partisan bands have infiltrated. Russian parachutists are being dropped and are taking over leadership.’ In February 1942 the Second Leningrad Partisan Brigade received by parachute drop a Boston printing press, on which it was able to print its own paper, the People’s Avenger.

Russia : In German-occupied Russia, the last surviving thirty-eight Jews and Gypsies in Loknya had been murdered, followed three days later by all the hundred Jews in Rakov, near Minsk.

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Would cover that in a day or two with the newspaper reports here:

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Sorry , did not know.

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No need to apologize. Just a reminder to look out for the newspaper article Feb. 2.

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02 February 1942

Dutch East Indies : On Ambon, Dutch East Indies, Australian troops fell back to Amahusu while Japanese troops attacked various pockets of resistance.

Japanese minesweeper W-9 struck a Dutch naval mine and sank in the Bay of Ambon, Dutch East Indies.

Japanese warships began to patrol in waters near Java, Duth East Indies paving way for the invasion fleet. Ahead of the warships were Japanese bombers, which attacked Surabaya, Java and other military targets. Meanwhile, cruiser USS Houston, cruiser USS Marblehead, and 7 Dutch and American destroyers departed Surabaya to intercept a detected Japanese troop convoy sailing toward Java.

Washington , USA : US President Franklin Roosevelt officially named Joseph Stilwell as the Chief of Staff to Chiang Kaishek.

New Britain , South West Pacific : Major General Tomitaro Horii ordered Lieutenant Colonel Masao Kuwada of Japanese 3rd Battalion to pursue Australian troops who had previously fled into the jungles of southern Gazelle Peninsula on New Britain; Kuwada delegated the task to Lieutenant Tadaichi Noda. After sundown, six Japanese flying boats were launched from Rabaul to attack Port Moresby in British Territory of Papua; they would arrive over the Seven Mile airfield on the next date.

Malaya : US B-17 bombers, based in the Dutch East Indies, attacked airfields in Kuantan and Kuala Lumpur in Malaya.

Japanese bombers attacked naval facilities at Singapore, forcing Allied warships to withdraw for the Dutch East Indies.

Philippines : US submarine USS Seadragon attacked a Japanese supply convoy north of Lingayen Gulf, Luzon, Philippine Islands , torpedoed and sank Japanese transport Tamagawa Maru.

An assault was mounted by US troops, supported by tanks, against the Japanese beachheads at Quinauan Point, Bataan, Luzon, Philippine Islands; it achieved little. To the north, on the Orion-Bagac defensive line, a US-Filipino attack wiped out a small pocket of trapped Japanese attackers.

Rzhev-Vyazma Front , Russia : Soviet 3rd Shock Army launched an attack on the German troops trapped in Kholm, Russia.

Atlantic Ocean : German submarine U-751 torpedoed and damaged Dutch tanker Corilla off Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada at 0746 hours; Corilla was able to return to Halifax for repairs. To the south, German submarine U-103 torpedoed and sank US tanker W. L. Steed 100 kilometers east of Virginia, United States, killing 34 of 38 aboard.

On the far side of the Atlantic Ocean, near Pico Island of the Azores islands, damaged British troop transport Llangibby Castle sailed away from Horta , Porteguise Azores escorted by three Royal Navy destroyers. German submarines U-581 and U401 approached to sink her but both U-Boat captains botched the attack, fired their torpedoes too far and missed. Royal Navy destroyer HMS Westcott saw the missing torpedoes , located , depth charged , forced the U-Boat she targeted to surface badly damaged and then rammed and sank German submarine U-581 ; 6 were killed, 37 of the survivors were captured by British. U-401 also badly damaged by depth charge counter attack of Royal Navy escort destroyers HMS Exmoor and HMS Croome and retreated from the area. Llangibby Castle safely reached Gibraltar and continued her journey to Egypt with 1.000 troops aboard.

UK : Two British Trawlers under Admiralty Control were bombed and sunk off the River Humber estuary, north-eastern England, United Kingdom. The 356-ton British trawler Cape Spartel was commanded by T/Lt. John Richard Grundy, RNR and the 324-ton Cloughton Wyke (Pennant No. 4446) were both sunk during an attack by German bombers. The skipper of Cloughton Wyke, Charles Seymour Larter, RNR survived the attack although wounded, he survived the war and was commander of HMS Hildina (FY 451) a Trawler/minesweeper. Both Trawlers were armed with a 12-pounder anti-aircraft gun at the time of the attack. John Grundy also survived and went on to command three different minesweepers.

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03 February 1942

Rzhev-Vyazma Front , Russia : German 9th Army forces under command of General Walther Model counterattacked toward Vyazma, encircling several Soviet divisions.

Libya : In Libya, British 1st Armoured Division evacuated Mechili while Indian 4th Division evacuated Derna.

Mediterranean Sea : Italian cargo ship Napoli was torpedoed and sunk by Royal Navy submarine HMS Umbra off Kuriat , Tunisia.

Atlantic Ocean : German submarine U-103 torpedoed and sank Panamanian freighter San Gil 25 kilometers off Virginia, United States, killing 2 of 40 aboard

Swedish ore carrier Amekaaland was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-106 off Eastern Seaboard of US.

Java , Dutch East Indies : Japanese naval land attack planes bombed ABDA operating base at Surabaya.

British cargo liner Norah Moller evacuating civilians and militarty personnel from Singapore was bombed and sunk by Japanese aircraft off Java

Straits of Malacca , Dutch East Indies : British cargo ships Katong and Loch Ranza both were hit and sunk by Japanese bombers in Malacca Strait while evacuating civilians and military persoınnel from Singapore.

Philippines : US submarine USS Trout delivered 3,500 rounds of 3 inch anti-aircraft ammunition to Corregidor, Philippine Islands. Upon departure, the submarine evacuated 20 tons of Philippine gold and silver.

Washington , USA : Henry Stimson appeared before the Foreign Relations Committee of the House of Representatives of the US Congress and successfully convinced the congressmen to approve a $500,000,000 loan for the Chinese. This was done as a favor for Chiang Kaishek, who was considering to accept an American request for him to launch an offensive into northern Burma.

Ambon , Dutch East Indies : The last of the Australian Gull Force on Ambon, Dutch East Indies surrendered the town of Kudamati to the Japanese. Of 800 Australians captured at Ambon , 600 would be killed by Japanese in a few days by decapitation or bayoneting

New Britain , South West Pacific : Lieutenant Tadaichi Noda led a group of Japanese troops to the Tol plantation on the southern coast of the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain and captured 180 Australian troops hiding there; the Australians were given hot meals, the first they had for several days; the prisoners, however, did not realize that most of them would only have days to live. Hours later, after sundown, Australian Catalina aircraft flew over Rabaul, New Britain and were engaged by Japanese A5M4 fighters; all aircraft on both sides survived this first dogfight over Rabaul since Japanese conquest.

Papua New Guinea : Six Japanese flying boats from Rabaul, New Britain bombed the Seven Mile airfield near Port Moresby, British Territory of Papua at 0300 hours, killing 1 Australian Army sergeant; the damage done to the airfield was minor.

Burma : Under Japanese 15th Army outflanking from north , Burmese 2nd Infantry Brigade and a part of the Indian 17th Division withdrew from Martaban, Burma toward the Bilin River.

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04 February 1942

Cairo , Egypt : British forces seized the Egyptian royal palace in Cairo to force the abdication of the 22-year old King Farouk who was sympathetic to the Axis Powers.

In North Africa, the German army had continued to drive the British back towards Egypt: ‘We have got Cyrenaica back’, Rommel wrote to his wife on February 4. ‘It went like greased lightning.’ While 8th Army is retreating towards Gazala Line , Mediterranean ad Middle East Commander in Chief General Claude Auchinleck rejected advice of his Chief of Staff General Eric Dorman Smith that 8th Army commander General Neil Ritchie is not quickwitted or imaginative (Dorman-Smith made judgement after meeting several frontline commanders) but Auchinleck stubbornly refused to relieve and replace Ritchie since he is from his own staff and replacing him after replacing General Cunningham in November would cause “demoralisartion” (as if outright defeat did not !)

Eastern Front : We prepared an ambush in the village of Bereski,’ the eighteen-year-old Vyacheslav Balakin noted in his partisan diary on February 4. ‘We shot down three Germans in cold blood. I wounded one. One was captured alive. I captured a cigarette lighter, a gold ring, a fountain pen, two pipes, tobacco, a comb. Morale is “Gut”.’ Five days later, Balakin’s partisan group ‘shot a traitor’. Later that day, Balakin wrote: ‘I went to do the same to his wife. We are sorry that she leaves three children behind. But war is war!!! Towards traitors, any humane consideration is misplaced.’ In the evening, a German ‘punitive expedition’ reached Balakin’s region. His group escaped, but two Russian peasants were killed.

Near Kiev, German Army Operational Situation Report USSR no. 164 noted on February 4, sixty Russians were shot, several of them partisans. Five days later, the Germans launched Operation Malaria against Soviet partisans operating in the Osipovichi area. In the rear areas, German units which had to combat partisan activity had their own wry jingle: ‘Russians in front, Russians behind, And in between There’s shooting.’

Atlantic Ocean : German submarine U-103 torpedoed and sank US tanker India Arrow 50 kilometers east of Delaware, United States, killing 26 of 38 aboard. German submarine U-751 torpedoed and sank British cargo ship Silveray off Newfoundland.

Singapore : Believing that reinforcements were on their way, the British Authorities in Singapore turned down a Japanese demand for the unconditional surrender.

Dutch East Indies : The American-Dutch fleet which departed Surabaya, Java, Dutch East Indies on the previous day was detected by the Japanese aircraft at 0949 hours in the Bali Sea. The Japanese aircraft, originally flying to bomb Surabaya, attacked the fleet instead, hitting US cruiser USS Marblehead with 2 bombs (killing 15), US cruiser USS Houston with 1 bomb (killing 48), and Dutch destroyer HNLMS De Ruyter (7 killed); 4 Japanese aircraft were shot down by AA fire and lost during the attack. The Allied fleet abandoned its original plans to intercept a Japanese invasion convoy due to the damage suffered.

US submarine USS Sculpin torpedoed and damaged Japanese destroyer Sukukaze at mouth of Staring Bay near Kendari, Celebes, Dutch East Indies, causing damaging to the destroyer and killing 9 of her crew.

Dutch cargo ship Van Lavansberge was torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine I-55 in Java Sea.

Philippines : US submarine USS Seadragon evacuated 21 military personnel, 23 torpedoes, spare submarine parts, and radio equipment from Corregidor, Philippine Islands.

US tanks once again attacked the Japanese beachheads at Quinauan Point, Bataan, Luzon, Philippine Islands, nearly successfully in wiping out several positions.

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05 February 1942

Brisabane , Australia : 120 P-40 fighters arrived at Brisbane, Australia from the United States. The US Army Far East Air Force was redesignated 5th Air Force; the personnel and aircraft continued to move south to the Dutch East Indies and Australia.

Atlantic Ocean : German submarine U-103 torpedoed and sank US tanker China Arrow at 1808 hours (all 37 aboard survived) 20 kilometers southeast of Cape May, New Jersey, United States. German submarine U-136 torpedoed and sank Royal Navy corvette HMS Arbutus (Lieutenant A. L. W. Warren) in the North Atlantic 330 miles west of Ireland at 2236 hours; 43 were killed, 47 survived.
Canadian cargo ship Montrolite was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-109 off Newfoundland. British cargo ship Stanbank was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-103 off New Jersey United States.

Norwegian Sea : Soviet submarine Shch-421 sank German cargo ship Konsul Schulte in the Porsanger Fjord off Honningsvaag, Norway.

North Sea : British cargo ship Corland was bombed and sunk by Luftwaffe JU-88 bombers

Libya : Afrikakorps captured Derna and Tmimi, Libya.

Brest , France : 60 British RAF Bomber Command aircraft attacked German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at Brest, France, causing little damage.

Occupied Yugoslavia : A British SOE mission, Operation Disclaim, was parachuted near Sarajevo to link up with recently dislodged partisan forces.

Russia : In the southern Russian city of Dnepropetrovsk, in the four weeks up to February 6, a SS Operational Situation Report USSR, compiled in Berlin, noted that ‘17 habitual criminals, 103 Communist officials, 16 partisans and about 350 Jews were shot by order of the Summary Court’. In addition, four hundred inmates of the Igren mental hospital were ‘disposed of’: a total of 1,206 people.

Baltics ans Poland : From Lithuania, the head of the Gestapo, SS Colonel Karl Jaeger, reported to Berlin that, in the previous seven months, his special units had killed 138,272 Jews, of whom 34,464 were children. They had also killed, according to Jaeger’s precise statistics, 1,064 Russian Communists, 56 Soviet Partisans, 44 Poles, 28 Russian prisoners-of-war, five Gypsies and one Armenian. Murders took place every day; driven on February 6 from their homes in the Polish town of Sierpc, five hundred Jews were shot down and killed during a march to the nearby town of Mlawa. That February, in Warsaw, 4,618 Jews died of starvation. From the village of Sompolno, a thousand Jews were taken to Chelmno and gassed.

Sumbawa and Bali , Dutch South East Indies : Japanese aircraft attacked Allied shipping off Sumbawa Island and Bali Island in the Dutch East Indies; several P-40 Warhawk fighters of the USAAF 20th Provisional Pursuit Squadron were destroyed at Bali.

Philippinnes : 17 radio intelligence personnel were evacuated from the US Navy Station CAST facility at Corregidor island, Philippine Islands.

Singapore : Japanese troops attacked the Pulau Ubin island to the northeast of Singapore, drawing British troops to move to that region; the actual attack would come from the northwest three days later. Out at sea, 15.400 ton passenger liner Empress of Asia, with reinforcement for Singapore aboard and fallen behind from fellow BM12 convoy members, was attacked and sunk by 9 Japanese aircraft; although the loss of life was small (16 killed), all the weapons and equipment aboard her were lost; 1,804 survivors were rescued by Australian sloop HMAS Yarra.

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06 February 1942

Atlantic Ocean : German submarine U-107 torpedoed and sank US freighter Major Wheeler off the east coast of the United States, killing the entire crew of 35. Off Bermuda, German submarine U-106 sank British cargo ship Opawa.
Northeast of the Azores islands, German submarine U-109 torpedoed and sank Panamanian cargo ship Halcyon. In exchange though , German submarine U-82 attempted to attack convoy OS-18 off Azores , but she was detected by British convoy escorts and U-82 was then pursued and sunk with all hands by depth charges from Royal Navy destroyer HMS Rochester and corvette HMS Tamarisk

Libya : Panzer Army Afrika advance halted before Gazala Line west of Tobruk where 8th Army retreated to and settled in.

Burma : General Archibald Wavell ABDA Commander , still angry at the loss of Moulmein, Burma, ordered 2nd Burma Brigade to “take back all you have lost”. It was too late-the Japanese were already bringing more troops (33rd “White Tigers” Division and the Headquarters of 15th Army) across the frontier. Lieutenant-General Hutton insisted on abandoning Moulmein and taking up new positions on the Salween which would be reinforced by the newly committed 46th Indian Brigade who had been brought down from the Shah States.

Berlin : Germans published new guidelines for the conduct of anti-guerrilla warfare, in which it was spelled out that the war against irregulars (Himmler having earlier ordered that the word “Partisan” was to be replaced with “Bandit” in all correspondence) was to be fought regardless of any conventional legality or morality, “without limitations even against women and children”

In an attempt to centralize and accelerate the German war effort, on February 6 , German Minister for Armaments and War Production, Fritz Todt, took the chair in Berlin at the first meeting of a committee to co-ordinate all ministries involved in armaments design, manufacture and distribution. On the following day he flew to Rastenburg, to tell Hitler what had been decided; a fifty-five per cent increase in German arms production. On February 8 Todt left Rastenburg to fly back to Berlin. His plane crashed on take-off, and he was killed. Hitler was much shaken by the death of the man who had served him, and Germany, so well; whose Todt Organization utilized hundreds of thousands of slave labourers. That week, Todt was succeeded by Hitler’s architect, the thirty-six-year-old Albert Speer. He too showed no scruples in exploiting the labour of Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Danes, Belgians, Poles and a dozen other captive peoples. In Todt’s memory, the battery of naval guns, inaugurated by Grand Admirals Raeder and Dönitz on the Channel coast at Haringzelles on February 10, and protected by massive concrete towers, was given the name ‘Battery Todt’.

Dutch East Indies : Six Japanese troop transports, escorted by cruiser Nagara, 11 destroyers, and 2 minesweepers, departed Kendari, Celebes, Dutch East Indies for Makassar on the western coast of the island.

Rome , Italy : Hermann Göring departed Rome, Italy. Galeazzo Ciano noted in his diary that during this visit, Göring was seen wearing expensive jewelry and furs.

Philippines : Japanese artillery shelled Corregidor from Cavite at Luzon, Philippine Islands. Meanwhile, Filipino troops continued to assert pressure on the nearly-eliminated Japanese beachheads at Quinauan Point, Bataan, Luzon.

Singapore : Japanese artillery and aerial bombardment continued against various military and port facilities at Singapore.

Washington , USA : First Combined Chiefs of Staff meeting started in Washington.

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