CBI - China: Day 123 of 154 of the Japanese Invasion of Manchuria.
1933 — , January 18
CBI - China: Day 18 of 142 of the 1st Battle of Hebei.
1937 — , January 18
Spain: Day 186 of 985 of the Spanish Civil War.
1938 — , January 18
Spain: Day 551 of 985 of the Spanish Civil War.
CBI - China: Day 196 of 2,987 of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War.
Day 41 of 54 of the Battle of Nanking.
Day 37 of 50 of the Rape of Nanking.
1939 — , January 18
Spain: Day 916 of 985 of the Spanish Civil War.
CBI - China: Day 561 of 2,987 of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War.
1940 — , January 18
Finland: Day 50 of 105 of the Russo-Finnish War.
CBI - China: Day 926 of 2,987 of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War.
Day 65 of 381 of the Battle of South Guangxi.
1941 — , January 18
ETO - UK: Day 135 of 258 of the Blitz.
MTO - North Africa: Day 41 of 63 of the UK's Operation COMPASS, their campaign in North Africa against the Italians in Egypt and Libya.
East Africa: Day 223 of 537 of Italy's East African campaign in the lands south of Egypt.
CBI - China: Day 1,292 of 2,987 of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War.
CBI - Thailand: Day 110 of 221 of the Franco-Thai War (Vichy France vs Thailand).
1942 — , January 18
Netherlands: Nazis arrest clandestine news publisher Frans Goedhart, who escapes en route to a concentration camp and continues his subversive, covert work.
Spotlight...
Clandestine Dutch news publisher Frans Goedhart
Frans Goedhart was co-publisher of "Het Parool," an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper, first published on August 11, 1941, as a resistance paper during the German occupation of The Netherlands (1940-1945). The name means "The Password" or "The Motto."
The paper was preceded by a stenciled newsletter which was started in May of 1940. In 1944, the paper, albeit illegal and vehemently persecuted, reached a circulation of approximately 100,000 and was distributed by the Dutch resistance.
Numerous staff were apprehended and killed by the Germans and their Dutch henchman.
Atlantic: Day 5 of 169 of Germany's Second "Happy Time," during which U-boats sink 609 Allied ships with little risk.
The Standard Oil tanker ALLAN JACKSON, transporting oil from Colombia to New York, is torpedoed by a U-boat 70 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The ship is split in two, spilling 7.5 million gallons of oil and killing 22 of the crew of 35.
Russian Front - North: Day 133 of 872 of the Siege of Leningrad. Soviets cut the main German supply route near Lake Ilmen, forcing the Luftwaffe to begin flying in supplies.
Russian Front - North: Day 10 of 29 of the Battle of Toropets, Russia. A failed attempt to break the siege at Leningrad.
Russian Front - Center: Day 11 of 103 of the Battle of Vyazma, Russia.
Russian Front - Center: Day 11 of 103 of the Battle of Sychevsk, Russia.
Russian Front - South: Day 81 of 248 of the Siege of Sevastopol, Crimean Peninsula. All further German attacks against the Crimean fortress of Sevastopol are stopped for the winter. The Soviets launch an offensive across the river Donets (south of Kharkov) in an attempt to cut off all German forces north of the Sea of Azov. The Germans recapture Feodosiya which seals off the Soviet bridgehead at Kerch.
CBI - Burma: Day 36 of 164 of Japan's Invasion of Burma.
CBI - China: Day 1,657 of 2,987 of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War.
Day 26 of 99 of the 3rd Battle of Changsha.
CBI - Malaya: Day 42 of 55 of the Battle of British Malaya.
PTO - Borneo: Day 34 of 107 of the Battle of Borneo.
PTO - Hawaii: US Hawaiian Air Force has another unsuccessful attack on enemy submarines near the Hawaiian Islands.
PTO - Philippines: Day 42 of 152 of the 1st Battle of the Philippines.
1943 — , January 18
USA: Intended to conserve wrapping paper, sliced bread is banned across America. Amid public outcry, the ban will be lifted in fifty days (March 8) after being proved ineffective.
Spotlight...
Pre-sliced and packaged for convenience, sliced bread was first sold in 1928 and was advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped." This led to the popular phrase, "the greatest thing since sliced bread."
Poland: The first act of Jewish resistance arises in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland, opposing efforts to transport the remaining Ghetto population to the extermination camp at Treblinka. Although the poorly armed and supplied resistance will be crushed, it will be the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II.
Spotlight...
Photo from a report to Heinrich Himmler from May 1943, one of the best-known pictures of World War II
The original German caption with the photo reads: "Forcibly pulled out of dug-outs."
In 1940, German occupational authorities began to concentrate Poland's population of over three million Jews into a number of extremely crowded ghettos located in large Polish cities. The largest of these, the Warsaw Ghetto, concentrated approximately 300,000 - 400,000 people into a densely packed central area of Warsaw. Thousands of Jews died due to rampant disease and starvation even before the mass deportations from the Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp began.
When the deportations first began, members of the Jewish resistance movement met and decided not to fight the SS directives, believing that the Jews were being sent to labor camps and not to their deaths.
By the end of 1942, Ghetto inhabitants learned that the deportations were part of an extermination process. Many of the remaining Jews then decided to revolt and to resist to the last man, knowing that the Germans would likely murder them all.
Support from outside the Ghetto was limited, but Polish Resistance units from the mainstream Home Army and the communist Polish Workers' Party's militia People's Guard attacked German units near the Ghetto walls and attempted to smuggle weapons, ammunition, supplies, and instructions into the Ghetto. Polish resistance provided the insurgents with a limited number of badly needed weapons and ammunition from its meager stocks.
Ultimately, the efforts of the Jewish resistance fighters proved insufficient against the German occupation system.
Russian Front - North: Day 498 of 872 of the Siege of Leningrad.
Russian Front - North: Day 7 of 19 of USSR's Operation ISKRA (Operation SPARK) on the southern shore of Lake Ladoga, north of Leningrad. This Soviet victory will help ease the siege at Leningrad a little bit more.
Russian Front - North: Day 259 of 658 of the Siege of the Kholm Pocket, USSR lays siege to the Kholm Pocket but the Germans hold out for a about a year and a half.
Russian Front - South: Day 150 of 165 of the Battle of Stalingrad, bloodiest battle in human history.
Russian Front - South: Day 38 of 69 of the USSR's Operation LITTLE SATURN. A successful drive into the Northern Caucasus and the Donets Basin pushing the Axis troops out. The Soviet advance continues capturing Cherkessk. They are now less than 250 miles southeast of Rostov.
MTO - Libya: RAF and US Air Forces provide air support.
MTO - Tunisia: Day 63 of 178 of the Battle of Tunisia. The Germans counter-attack gaining ground against the Free French, but then are repulsed by British troops. RAF and US Air Forces provide Allied air support.
CBI - Burma: Day 29 of 104 of the 1st Battle of Arakan. US 10th Air Force provides air support.
CBI - China: Day 2,022 of 2,987 of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War.
PTO - Alaska: Day 226 of 435 of the Battle of Kiska, Aleutian Islands.
PTO - Malaya: Day 334 of 357 of the Battle of Timor Island, a long guerrilla war ending in Japanese victory.
PTO - New Guinea: Day 61 of 66 of the Battle of Buna-Gona. Australian troops capture Cape Killerton and Wye Point. 5th Air Force provides air support.
PTO - Solomon Islands: Day 165 of 187 of the Battle of Guadalcanal. US 13th Air Force provides air support.
1944 — , January 18
Russian Front - North: Day 863 of 872 of the Siege of Leningrad.
Russian Front - North: Day 624 of 658 of the Siege of the Kholm Pocket. USSR lays siege to the Kholm Pocket but the Germans hold out for a about a year and a half.
Russian Front - North: Day 5 of 48 of the Battle toward the Narva River, Estonia. This drive helps lift the Leningrad siege and liberate Narva.
Russian Front - North: Day 5 of 17 of the Battle of Krasnoye Selo-Ropsha, Russia (Operation JANUARY THUNDER). This victory will push the German line west of Leningrad back far enough to reopen the Moscow-Leningrad railroad.
Russian Front - North: Day 5 of 33 of the Battle of Luga, Russia. Taking this town west of Leningrad will open the door toward Estonia.
Russian Front - Center: German troops repel several repeated Soviet attacks in the area of Vitebsk, Russia.
Russian Front - South: Day 26 of 113 of the USSR's Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive in southwestern Ukraine.
MTO - Yugoslavia: US 12th Air Force P-40s hit trains, wharves and vessels at Ploca and Metkovic.
MTO - Italy: Day 2 of 123 of the Battle of Monte Cassino. RAF and US Air Forces provides air support for the Allied ground troops.
CBI - Burma: Day 20 of 99 of the 2nd Battle of Arakan.
CBI - Burma: US 10th Air Force hits several targeted areas.
CBI - China: Day 2,387 of 2,987 of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War.
CBI - Indochina: US 14th Air Force attacks several areas.
PTO - Marshall Islands: US 7th Air Force attacks targets on three islands.
PTO - New Guinea: Day 122 of 219 of the Battle of Shaggy Ridge. 5th Air Force provides air support.
PTO - New Guinea: Day 119 of 162 of the Battle of the Huon Peninsula. 5th Air Force provides air support.
PTO - New Guinea: Day 35 of 597 of the Battle of New Britain. US 13th Air Force provides air support.
PTO - Solomon Islands: Day 79 of 295 of the Battle of the Bougainville Islands. US 13th Air Force provides air support.
1945 — , January 18
UK: British Empire casualties as of November 1944 are announced as 282,162 killed, 80,580 missing, 386,374 wounded and 294,438 captured.
ETO - France: Day 171 of 284 of the Battle of Brittany.
ETO - France: Day 126 of 236 of the Siege of Dunkirk.
ETO - Belgium: Day 34 of 41 of the Battle of the Bulge. US 9th Air Force provides air support.
ETO - Belgium: Day 19 of 26 of Operation NORDWIND, the last major German offensive of World War II on the Western Front.
ETO - Germany: Day 122 of 145 of the Battle of Hürtgen Forest.
ETO - Germany: US 8th Air Force B-17s attack at Kaiserslautern.
Russian Front - Finland: Day 126 of 223 of the Lapland War. Finland and Russia have joined forces to kick the Germans out of Finland's most northern province.
Russian Front - Center: Day 96 of 206 of the Battle of the Courland Pocket in Latvia.
Russian Front - Center: Day 89 of 99 of the Siege of Memel, a border town of Lithuania and East Prussia.
Russian Front - Center: Day 7 of 23 of the Battle along the Vistula and Oder Rivers in central Poland and eastern Germany. German troops evacuate Kracow, Poland.
Russian Front - Center: Day 5 of 21 of the Battle of Warsaw, Poland. Nazis evacuate 66,000 inmates from Auschwitz back into Germany.
Russian Front - South: Day 82 of 108 of the Battle of Budapest, Hungary. A German offensive begins from Lake Balaton, with the aim of lifting the Soviet's siege of Budapest.
MTO - Italy: US and Royal Air Forces provides air support for the Allied ground units.
CBI: US 14th Air Force B-25s attack targets in China, Hong Kong and French Indochina.
CBI - Burma: Day 293 of 302 of the Chinese Salween Offensive. US 10th Air Force provides air support.
CBI - China: Day 2,753 of 2,987 of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War.
PTO - Japan: US 7th Air Force B-24s bomb the airfields on Iwo Jima.
PTO - New Guinea: Day 388 of 597 of the Battle of New Britain.
PTO - New Guinea: Day 272 of 481 of the Battle of Western New Guinea.
PTO - Philippines: Day 91 of 299 of the 2nd Battle of the Philippines, aka the Liberation of the Philippines or the Philippines Campaign.
PTO - Philippines: Day 35 of 244 of the Battle of Luzon. 5th Air Force provides air support.
Day-By-Day listings for January 18 were last modified on Thursday, January 28, 2016
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