January 23
1943: Panzerarmee Afrika evacuates Tripoli in Libya.
1945: The Kriegsmarine begins the evacuation by sea of hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees from East Prussia and the Danzig area, the Red Army having cut all land communications with the rest of the Reich.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/january.html

1942: Japanese capture Rabaul, New Guinea - Rabaul possessed a number of airfields and one of the best natural harbours in the south-west Pacific. Its capture gave Japan a base from which to launch air attacks towards New Guinea and north-eastern Australia as well as a strong south-eastern corner to its defensive perimeter in the Pacific.
1944: 7th Division defeat Japanese at Shaggy Ridge, New Guinea - Australian troops cut the main Japanese routes through the Finisterre ranges with the capture of Shaggy Ridge, north west of Lae, after days of heavy fighting. source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1960 - Bathyscaph Trieste descends to deepest part of the ocean, Marianas Trench
1968 - USS Pueblo seized by North Korean forces in Sea of Japan
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesjan.htm

1995: Ottawa Ontario - Defence Minister David Collenette disbands the Canadian Airborne Regiment; after some of its soldiers were found to be involved in the death of a Somali boy during a UN mission, and revelations of illegal hazing rituals.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_...mth=Jan&day=23

1943 - World War II: Australian and American forces finally defeat the Japanese army in Papua. This turning point in the Pacific War marks the beginning of the end of Japanese aggression.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_23

1941: The British 4th Armoured Brigade reaches Mechili, but cannot attack as its garrison is stronger than first thought and so has to bring the rest of the 7th Armoured Division up.
1942: Japanese troops make landings at Rabaul on New Britain and at Kavieng on New Ireland. They also make a simultaneous landing on Bougainville Island in the Solomons. In the Dutch East Indies, the Japanese land at Kendari in Celebes. Australia appeals to Britain and the US for immediate reinforcements. General Cavallero, C in C, Italian High Command and Field Marshall Albert Kesselring, German C in C, South, fly to Rommel's advanced HQ. The Italians want Rommel to stop his offensive and withdraw to his start line, but Rommel rejects this demand. The Italians therefore refuse to allow their troops to advance any further east, but undeterred, Rommel presses on with just the Afrika Korps.
1943: The Eighth Army triumphantly enters Tripoli. The Vice-Governor of Libya and prefect of Tripolitania offer a formal surrender. The last German airfield in the Stalingrad pocket falls.
1944: A Royal Navy destroyer, Janus is lost as the fighting rages around the Anzio beachhead.
1945: The 5th Guards Tank Army enters Elbing on Baltic and Koniev reaches the river Oder in Silesia. The Kriegsmarine begins the evacuation by sea of hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees from East Prussia and the Danzig area, the Red Army having cut all land communications with the rest of Germany.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

January 24

1942: German troops of Heeresgruppe Mitte recapture Suchinitshe near Kaluga.
1943: The offensive by the Soviet Trans-Caucasian Front toward the Kuban bridgehead is stopped at Novorossiisk and Krasnodar.
1945: German forces evacuate Slovakia. The Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front (Konev) captures Oppeln and Gleiwitz in Upper Silesia. Heinrich Himmler is appointed C-in-C of the newly formed Heeresgruppe Weichsel (Vistula).
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/january.html

1781: Patriot commanders Lieutenant Colonel “Light Horse” Henry Lee and Brigadier General Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion of the South Carolina militia combine forces and conduct a raid on Georgetown, South Carolina, which is defended by 200 British soldiers. Marion won fame and the “Swamp Fox” moniker for his ability to strike and then quickly retreat into the South Carolina swamps without a trace. His military strategy is considered an 18th-century example of guerilla warfare and served as partial inspiration for the film The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson.
1915: German naval forces under Admiral Franz von Hipper, encouraged by the success of a surprise attack on the British coastal towns of Hartlepool and Scarborough the previous month, set off toward Britain once again, only to be intercepted by a squadron of British cruisers led by Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty on the morning of January 24, 1915, near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea.
1943: German Gen. Friedrich von Paulus, commander in chief of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, urgently requests permission from Adolf Hitler to surrender his position there, but Hitler refuses. The Battle of Stalingrad began in the summer of 1942, as German forces assaulted the city, a major industrial center and a prized strategic coup. But despite repeated attempts and having pushed the Soviets almost to the Volga River in mid-October and encircling Stalingrad, the 6th Army, under Paulus, and part of the 4th Panzer Army could not break past the adamantine defense of the Soviet 62nd Army. By January 24, the Soviets had overrun Paulus' last airfield. His position was untenable and surrender was the only hope for survival. Hitler wouldn't hear of it: "The 6th Army will hold its positions to the last man and the last round."
1966: In the largest search-and-destroy operation to date--Operation Masher/White Wing/Thang Phong II--the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), South Vietnamese, and Korean forces sweep through Binh Dinh Province in the central lowlands along the coast. The purpose of the operation was to drive the North Vietnamese out of the province and destroy enemy supply areas. In late January, it became the first large unit operation conducted across corps boundaries when the cavalrymen linked up with Double Eagle, a U.S. Marine Corps operation intended to destroy the North Vietnamese 325A Division. Altogether, there were reported enemy casualties of 2,389 by the time the operation ended.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih.do?

1967: First contact at Bien Hoa, South Vietnam - Fighting at Bien Hoa involved a series of contacts between units of the 1st Australian Task Force and communist forces in the area of the Bien Hoa - Long Binh complex near Saigon. Australian and American units sought to dominate the area and prevent enemy rocket attacks on nearby military bases and installations.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1972 - Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been in hiding since 1944, when U.S. forces liberated the island during World War II.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_24

1941: General Cunningham's 'Southern Force' invades Italian Somaliland from Garissa and Bura in Kenya.
1942: Four US destroyers and some submarines attack a Japanese convoy in the Macassar Strait between Borneo and Celebes, sinking 1 destroyer and four transports, while only suffering damage to one of their destroyers. This action delays the impending Japanese invasion of Java. Japanese troops land at Balikpapan in Dutch Borneo. More reinforcements arrive at Singapore to boost its defenses as the British 18th Division is landed. General Cunningham's 'Southern Force' invades Italian Somaliland from Garissa and Bura in Kenya.
1943: Fighting in Papua is officially reported as over. Russians take Starobelskiy, near the Donets River in the eastern Ukraine, more than 250 miles to the West of Stalingrad.
1944: Chinese forces make further advances in the Hukawng Valley. Hitler orders that German troops in Italy hold the ‘Gustav Line’ at all costs. The French attack to the North of Cassino. Allied patrols from Anzio beachhead are halted but the Germans.
1945: The Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm carrier planes destroy the Japanese oil refinery near Palembang, on Sumatra. U.S. troops capture Clark Field, the main Japanese airbase on Luzon.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

1942 - Battle of Makassar Strait, destroyer attack on Japanese convoy in first surface action in the Pacific during World War II
1991 - Helos from USS Leftwich and USS Nicholas recapture first Kuwaiti territory from Iraqis
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesjan.htm

January 25

1941: The British 8th Army recaptures Tobruk in Cyrenaica.
1943: At Stalingrad, the Red Army succeeds in splitting the remnants of 6.Armee into a northern and a southern pocket. German forces evacuate Armavir and Voronesh. President Roosevelt and Prime Miniter Churchill end the Caablanca Conference with their announcement of the demand for the unconditional surrender of Germany and Italy.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/january.html

1963 - 1st Seabee Technical Assistance Team arrives in Vietnam
1968 - Operation Windsong I in Mekong Delta, Vietnam
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesjan.htm

1942: Japanese land at Lae - Japanese forces sought to capture Lae in order to build a forward air base for the defence of Rabaul and for attacks on northern Australia and New Guinea.
1942: Full mobilisation ordered in Australia - The threat of a Japanese invasion and the proximity of Japanese forces to Australia demanded an increased commitment from the Government and public.1952: Last day of HMAS Sydney's service in the Korean war - HMAS Sydney had served in Korean waters since August 1951. The carrier had operated Firefly and Sea Fury aircraft (both types can be seen in the Memorial's Aircraft Hall).
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1942 - World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.
1945 - World War II: Battle of the Bulge ends.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_25

1942: German troops capture Msus, which threatens the 4th Indian Divisions position at Benghazi. Lieutenant General Ritchie, orders the 4th Indian Division to withdraw to a line running from Derna to Mechili, but this order is countermanded by General Auchinleck who wanted the 8th Army to counter-attack. However, the 8th Army was to widely dispersed and Rommels forces were advancing too quickly.
1944: Australian advances in New Guinea are announced, with the Japanese cleared from the ‘Shaggy Line’. Night-fighter ace, Major Prinz zu SaynWittgenstein who claimed 83 victories is killed.
1945: Zhukov cuts off the Fortress city of Posen which holds 66,000 Germans and continues his 50-mile a day advance.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

January 26

1942: The first US troops begin arriving in North Africa.
1945: The Red Army captures Kattowitz in Upper Silesia.
source:
http://www.feldgrau.com/january.html

1945: Beginning of Sandakan death march, Borneo - Sandakan prisoner of war camp had been established by the Japanese in July 1942. Following Australian landings at Tarakan in May 1945 the prisoners were marched inland to Ranau. Many died of malnutrition, exhaustion, disease and ill-treatment and the survivors were shot when they reached their destination. Only six out of 2,500 Australians survived.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1911 - 1st hydroaeroplane flight is witnessed by naval aviator
1913 - The body of John Paul Jones is laid in its final resting place in the Chapel of Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD
1949 - USS Norton Sound, first guided-missile ship, launches first guided missile, Loon.
1960 - USS John S. McCain rescues the entire 41-man crew of the sinking Japanese freighter, Shinwa Maru, in the East China Sea.
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesjan.htm

1565: - The Battle of Talikota, fought between the Vijayanagara Empire and the Islamic sultanates of the Deccan, leads to the subjugation, and eventual destruction of the last Hindu kingdom in India, and the consolidation of Islamic rule over much of the Indian subcontinent
1788 - The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sails into Sydney Harbour to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on the continent. Commemorated as Australia Day.
1863 - American Civil War: General Ambrose Burnside is relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac after the disastrous Fredericksburg campaign. He was replaced by Joseph Hooker.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_26

January 27

1944: The Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front launches an offensive against Luzk and Rovno.
1945: German forces evacuate the vital coal mining and industrial district of Upper Silesia, a heavy loss for the remaining German war effort.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/january.html

1941: Fighting at Derna, Libya, begins - Following the capture of Tobruk two brigades of the 6th Australian Division under Major General Iven Mackay pursued the Italians westwards and encountered an Italian rear guard at Derna.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/jan.htm

1942 - USS Gudgeon is first US sub to sink enemy submarine in action, Japanese I-173.
1945 - Commissioning of USS Higbee (DD-806), first U.S. Navy ship named after women member of U.S. Navy.
1967 - Fire in Command Module at Cape Kennedy during simulation countdown. Lunar Module Pilot LCDR Roger B. Chaffee and two other crew members died.
1973 - Paris Peace Accords signed, ending U.S. participation in the Vietnam War
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesjan.htm

1944 - World War II: The two-year Siege of Leningrad is lifted.
1945 - World War II: The Red Army arrives at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_27

January 28

1941: In Cyrenaica, the Afrikakorps recaptures Benghazi.
1944: In the Ukraine, the Red Army succeeds in encircling several German divisions in the area of Tcherkassy.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/january.html

1991: RAN Clearance Diving Team departs Perth for Kuwait - As part of Australia's commitment to the Gulf War a Royal Australian Navy Clearance Diving Team was dispatched to the Gulf for explosive ordnance demolition tasks.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/jan.htm

1778 - Second New Providence Expedition raised the flag with thirteen stripes over Fort Nassau.
1960 - Navy demonstrates value of moon communication relay, used in fleet broadcasts.
1962 - USS Cook (APD-130) rescues 25 survivors from after section of Panamanian tanker, SS Stanvac Sumatra, which broke in two in the South China Sea
1986 - Space shuttle Challenger explodes killing CDR Michael Smith, USN, and 6 other astronauts
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesjan.htm

1846 - Battle of Aliwal, India won by British troops commanded by Sir Harry Smith.
1909 - United States troops leave Cuba with the exception of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base after being there since the Spanish-American War.
1915 - An act of the U.S. Congress creates the United States Coast Guard.
1918 - Finnish Civil War: Rebels seized control of the capital, Helsinki, and members of the Senate of Finland go underground.
1980 - USCGC Blackthorn (WLB-391) collides with the tanker Capricorn while leaving Tampa Florida and capsizes killing 23 Coast Guard crewmembers.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_28

1885: Khartoum Sudan - Frederick Charles Denison 1846-1896 reaches Khartoum with his Canadian Nile Voyageurs too late to rescue General Charles Gordon, who had been killed; 16 Canadians lost their lives in this, Canada's first overseas military expedition.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_...mth=Jan&day=28

January 29

1941: In Washington, US and British military leaders begin secret staff talks regarding coordination of a common war policy against Germany.
1944: 800 bombers of the US 8th Air Force launch heavy attacks against Frankfurt am Main and Ludwigshafen.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/january.html

1941: Italians evacuate Derna, Libya - The Italians having been defeated at Derna by units of the 6th Australian Division continued their westward retreat across North Africa in the face of an Allied advance.
1943: Battle of Wau, New Guinea, begins - The Japanese recognised that Allied possession of Wau posed a significant threat to important Japanese bases at Lae and nearby Salamaua and sought to take the town. They were defeated after weeks of heavy fighting.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/jan.htm

1856: London England - Alexander Dunn 1833-1868 awarded Victoria Cross for gallantry at the charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimea in 1854; first Canadian; awarded by Queen Victoria, the VC is Britain's highest military honour
1973: Saigon Vietnam - Canadian Ambassador to South Vietnam Michel Gauvin 1919- leads first 130 members of projected Canadian complement of 230 in ICCS on arrival at Saigon.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_...mth=Jan&day=29

1914 - U.S. Marines land in Haiti to protect U.S. consulate
1943 - Beginning of 2 day battle of Rennell Island after which U.S. transports reached Guadalcanal
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesjan.htm

1916 - World War I: Paris is first bombed by German zeppelins.
1943 - The first day of the Battle of Rennell Island, U.S. cruiser Chicago is torpedoed and heavily damaged by Japanese bombers.
1944 - USS Missouri the last battleship commissioned by the US Navy is launched.
1944 - World War II: The Battle of Cisterna takes place in central Italy.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_29

1777: Facing a surprise British counterassault in the bitter cold and with a snowstorm approaching, American commander Major General William Heath and his army of 6,000 abandon their siege on Fort Independence, in Bronx County, New York, on this day in 1777.
1915: in the Argonne region of France, German lieutenant Erwin Rommel leads his company in the daring capture of four French block-houses, the structures used on the front to house artillery positions.
source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do

January 30

1941: THe British 8th Army (Wavell) captures Derna in Egypt from the Italians.
1945: In its relentless drive for Berlin, the Red Army reaches the Oder river at Küstrin and establishes several bridgeheads. On the twelfth anniversary of his coming to power Hitler, in his last speech to the country, calls for fanatical resistance by soldiers and civilians and predicts that "...in this struggle for survival it will not be inner Asia that will conquer, but the people that has defended Europe for centuries against the onslaughts from the East, the German nation..." Also on this date, the Wilhelm Gustloff, an ex-Kraft Durch Freude ship (Strength Through Joy) in the service of the German Kriegsmarine, is sunk in the Baltic Sea by a Soviet sub with the loss of over 9,343 lives - the largest single naval disaster in history (The Goya, another German ship similar to the Gustloff, would be sunk on April 16th, 1945, taking with it another 6,000 lives, making these two ships the worst naval disasters of all time.)
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/january.html

1942: Japanese attack Ambon, Netherlands East Indies. - Australia's 'Gull Force' along with some 2,600 Netherlands East Indies troops fought in defence of Ambon but were unable to defeat the Japanese invasion of the island.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/jan.htm

1862 - Launching of first turreted warship, USS Monitor
1968 - Tet Offensive begins in Vietnam
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesjan.htm

1911 - The destroyer USS Terry (DD-25) makes the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of James McCurdy 10 miles from Havana, Cuba.
1911 - The Canadian Naval Service becomes the Royal Canadian Navy.
1944 - World War II: United States troops land on Majuro.
1945 - World War II: Raid at Cabanatuan: 126 American Rangers and Filipino resistance liberate 500 prisoners from the Cabanatuan POW camp.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_30

1991: US Marines killed at Al Khafji - Iraqi troops have seized control of a town inside the Saudi Arabian border after a fierce battle in which both sides suffered casualties. The Allies destroyed at least 24 Iraqi tanks in the fight for control of Al Khafji. Twelve American marines lost their lives - the first Allied casualties on land since Desert Storm began 14 days ago.
source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/d...00/2506001.stm

1971: Operation Dewey Canyon II begins as the initial phase of Lam Son 719, the South Vietnamese invasion of Laos that would commence on February 8. The purpose of the South Vietnamese operation was to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail, advance to Tchepone in Laos, and destroy the North Vietnamese supply dumps in the area.
source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do

January 31
1943: At Stalingrad, the exhausted troops of 6.Armee in the southern pocket of the Kessel, with newly promoted Field Marshal von Paulus, have spent their last rounds and surrender to the Red Army.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/january.html

1917, Germany announces the renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic as German torpedo-armed submarines prepare to attack any and all ships, including civilian passenger carriers, said to be sighted in war-zone waters.
1968, as part of the Tet Offensive, a squad of Viet Cong guerillas attacks the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. The soldiers seized the embassy and held it for six hours until an assault force of U.S. paratroopers landed by helicopter on the building's roof and routed the Viet Cong.
source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do

1942: British forces withdraw to Singapore - Having been driven from the Malayan peninsula, Allied forces retreated to what was believed to be the impregnable fortress of Singapore.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/jan.htm

1944 - American amphibious landing on Kwajalein, Marshall Islands
1961 - Lieutenant Commander Samuel Lee Gravely, Jr. becomes first African-American to command a combat ship, USS Falgout
1981 - Era of Enlisted Naval Aviators ends when last pilot retired
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesjan.htm

1918 - A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish night leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives, and damage to another five British warships.
1944 - World War II: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.
1944 - World War II: During Anzio campaign 1st Ranger Battalion (Darby's Rangers) was destroyed behind enemy lines in a heavily outnumbered encounter at Battle of Cisterna, Italy.
1945 - US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed, the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_31

February 1

1942: In the East, the Red army begins an offensive toward Vjasma.
1943: German troops of Heeresgruppe Mitte (von Kluge) evacuate Demjansk.
1945: In its drive toward the Oder, the Soviet 1st Belorussian Front (Zhukov) reaches the river NW of Küstrin. Since the beginning of the Soviet offensive in East Prussia that started on Jan 20, the Kriegsmarine has evacuated by sea 140,000 cvilian refugees and 18,000 wounded soldiers.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/february.html

1964: U.S. and South Vietnamese naval forces initiate Operation Plan (Oplan) 34A, which calls for raids by South Vietnamese commandos, operating under American orders, against North Vietnamese coastal and island installations.
source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-h...rticle&id=1646

1943: Last Australian forces sail for home from the Middle East - Japan's entry into the war forced the Australian Government to decline British requests to concentrate on the war in North Africa and Europe. Australia began to 'look to America' for support and concentrated the bulk of her forces against the Japanese.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/feb.htm

1941 - United States Fleet reorganized, reviving Atlantic and Pacific Fleets
1942 - USS Enterprise and Yorktown make first WW II air strike, Japanese Marshall Islands
1955 - Operation Deep Freeze, a research task force, established in Antarctic
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesfeb.htm

1968 - Canada's three military services of Canada, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force, are unified into the Canadian Forces.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_1