Remembering History by day WW2

[Bodston]

Wednesday 21 January 1942

The Soviet Army High Command announced:
On January 20 our forces drove back German troops farther westward. The enemy took heavy losses. Our forces have occupied the city of Mozhaisk. We have taken prisoners.

[Owen]

Operation Shingle
Operation Shingle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

During the early morning hours of 22 January 1944, troops of the Fifth Army swarmed ashore on a fifteen-mile stretch of Italian beach near the prewar resort towns of Anzio and Nettuno.
http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/anzio/72-19.htm

[Peter Clare]

January 22, 1941
British and Australians take Tobruk

On this day, British and Commonwealth forces enter the port at Tobruk, in Libya, and tens of thousands of Italian occupiers are taken prisoner.
Italy declared war on Great Britain in June 1940. At that time, Gen. Rodolfo Graziani had almost 10 times the number of men in Libya than the British forces in Egypt under Gen. Archibald Wavell, who was commissioned to protect the North African approaches to the Suez Canal. A vast western desert stretched between the antagonists, who sat for months without confrontation. During that time, Italian forces passed into Egypt-but by that point Britain had reinforced its own numbers and decided to make a first strike. On December 9, Maj. Gen. Richard Nugent O'Connor launched a westward offensive from Mersa Matruh, in Egypt. Thirty thousand Brits warred against 80,000 Italians-but the British had the advantage of 275 tanks to the Italians' 120. Within three days, 40,000 Italian prisoners were taken. The battle marked the beginning of the end of the Italian occupation of North Africa.
General O'Connor then began a sweep of Italian positions in Libya. Under his direction in early January 1941, the British 7th Royal Tank Regiment drove westward from Bardia, which it had just taken from the Italians, with the intention of isolating Tobruk until the 6th Australian Division could aid in an assault. The attack on the coastal fortress of Tobruk was finally launched on the 21st and it fell the next day, yielding 30,000 Italian prisoners, 236 guns, and 87 tanks. The 7th Royal Tank Regiment was a remarkable unit, winning a quick series of battles in Libya despite a paucity of resources.

[Bodston]

Wednesday 22 January 1941

Tobruk has Fallen
Cairo; The British Reuters News Agency announced:
Australian and British troops have stormed the inner defensive perimeter of Tobruk and entered the city. The entire fortified network is now in British hands.

[Bodston]

Thursday 22 January 1942

Rome; The Italian High Command announced:
Since yesterday fighting has been going on in Cyrenaica between enemy troops and Italian-German armoured forces who have gone on the offensive.

Secret report of the German SS Secret Service on internal affairs, No 253 of 22 January 1942 (extract):
II. German affairs: Many observations indicate that the letters and reports from German soldiers have played a great role in the events before, during and after the collection of winter and woolen clothing. Many soldiers have shown no inhibitions about reporting to people back home hair-raising tales about the hardships the troops are having to endure, the cold, bad food and clothing etc.

[Bodston]

Saturday 22 January 1944

Winston Churchill to Joseph Stalin
Personal and Most Secret - We have launched the big attack against the German armies defending Rome which I told you about in Tehran. The weather conditions seem favourable. I hope to have some good news for you before long.

[Peter Clare]

January 23, 1941
Lindbergh to Congress: Negotiate with Hitler

On this day, Charles A. Lindbergh, a national hero since his nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic, testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Lend-Lease policy-and suggests that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Hitler.
Lindbergh was born in 1902 in Detroit. His father was a member of the House of Representatives. Lindbergh's interest in aviation led him to flying school in Lincoln, Nebraska, and later brought him work running stunt-flying tours and as an airmail pilot. While regularly flying a route from St. Louis to Chicago, he decided to try to become the first pilot to fly alone nonstop from New York to Paris. He obtained the necessary financial backing from a group of businessmen, and on May 21, 1927, after a flight that lasted slightly over 33 hours, Lindbergh landed his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, in Paris. He won worldwide fame along with his $25,000 prize.
In March 1932, Lindbergh made headlines again, but this time because of the kidnapping of his two-year-old son. The baby was later found dead, and the man convicted of the crime, Bruno Hauptmann, was executed. To flee unwanted publicity, Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow, daughter of U.S. ambassador Dwight Morrow, moved to Europe. During the mid-1930s, Lindbergh became familiar with German advances in aviation and warned his U.S. counterparts of Germany's growing air superiority. But Lindbergh also became enamored of much of the German national "revitalization" he encountered, and allowed himself to be decorated by Hitler's government, which drew tremendous criticism back home.
Upon Lindbergh's return to the States, he agitated for neutrality with Germany, and testified before Congress in opposition to the Lend-Lease policy, which offered cash and military aid to countries friendly to the United States in their war effort against the Axis powers. His public denunciation of "the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt Administration" as instigators of American intervention in the war, as well as comments that smacked of anti-Semitism, lost him the support of other isolationists. When, in 1941, President Roosevelt denounced Lindbergh publicly, the aviator resigned from the Air Corps Reserve. He eventually contributed to the war effort, though, flying 50 combat missions over the Pacific. His participation in the war, along with his promotion to brigadier general of the Air Force Reserve in 1954 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a popular Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Spirit of St. Louis,, and a movie based on his exploits all worked to redeem him in the public's eyes.

[Peter Clare]

HMS JANUS (January 23, 1944)
After taking part in the Anzio landings, the destroyer Janus (Lt. Cdr. W. Morrison) was hit by an arial torpedo from a German bomber and sank off Nettuno with the loss of seven officers and 155 ratings. HMS Jervis rescued five officers and seventy-seven ratings.

[Bodston]

Thursday 23 January 1941

The Operations in Eritrea
Cairo; The British Exchange News Agency reported:
British motorised troops have advanced approximately 42 miles into the interior of Eritrea in their sharp pursuit of the retreating enemy. Supplies of fuel and provisions are getting through and making it possible to continue motorised operations.

[Bodston]

Friday 23 January 1942

Singapore; The American United Press News Agency reported:
Japanese reports that the Japanese are just outside Singapore and have occupied the rail line coming out of the city have proved to be false.