Feb 1st
The Soviet Army continues its offensive throughout February but with diminishing success as German resistance stiffens with the arrival of reinforcements. Further efforts to break through to Leningrad and Sevastopol are futile, but some success is achieved in other sectors. Soviet forces in the Crimea are reinforced.
On Ambon Island, the Japanese capture 10 Australian soldiers and bayonet them to death. The Japanese commander says the POWs would be "a drag" on his advance. This is witnessed by two Australian soldiers hiding in the jungle; they will later escape and get back to allied territory to report this. A growing number of similar incidents have been reported in various actions, but there is reluctance among the staff to believe that the Japanese will act like this. However as more reports are confirmed, the belief is gaining ground, and the troops are already aware of the stories.
Task Force Eight ( Halsey), formed around the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, raids the Marshall Islands concentrating on Kwajalein and Wotje, with the heavy cruiser USS Chester bombarding Maleolap Atoll.
At Kwajalein, SBD Dauntlesses and TBD Devastators from USS Enterprise sink a transport and damage the light cruiser HIJMS Katori, submarine HIJMS I-23, a minelayer, an auxiliary netlayer, an auxiliary submarine chaser, a submarine depot ship, an oiler, a tanker, and an army cargo ship; in the bombing of shore installations, Rear Admiral Sukiyoshi (Commander Sixth Base Force) dies in combat when an SBD scores a direct hit on his headquarters.
Off Wotje, gunfire from heavy cruisers USS Northampton and USS Salt Lake City sink a gunboat while the destroyer USS Dunlap shells and sinks an auxiliary submarine chaser.
Japanese retaliatory air attacks by six Mitsubishi G3M of the Chitose Kokutai on TF 8 results in damage to USS Enterprise (near-miss of a crashing land attack plane) and heavy cruiser USS Chester (by bomb dropped by carrier fighter).
Three SBDs are shot down over Roi Island by Mitsuibishi A5M Claude fighters and one “Claude” is shot down by a SBD gunner
TF 17 ( Fletcher), formed around aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, raids the Gilbert Islands targeting enemy installations on Jaluit, Makin, and Mili.
Aircraft from USS Yorktown cause less damage than the attacks on the Marshall Islands, due to a scarcity of targets at the objective; nevertheless, SBDs bomb and strafe a gunboat at Makin and destroy two Kawanishi H6K at anchor, while SBDs bomb and strafe a cargo ship at Jaluit.
TF 11 (Brown), formed around aircraft carrier USS Lexington supports the operations from the vicinity of Christmas Island in the Line Islands.
The carrier USS Ticonderoga arrives at Pearl Harbor to join the use carrier force in the Pacific. At the moment the USN is deploying three single-carrier task forces to cause the maximum disruption; Nimitz is considering adding the Ticonderoga to one TF in the hope the Japanese might respond as if against a single carrier (he does not have enough escorts to form a fourth independent task force in any case). In the next few months it is hoped to have six fleet carriers in the Pacific, forming three Task Forces. He is also expecting more Wildcat fighters so the fighter complement of the airgroups can be increased, and the first Corsair squadrons are expected for lasn-based operations in a few weeks.
A serious setback to British intelligence in the Battle of the Atlantic has taken place. The U-boats in the Atlantic have adopted a new cipher, Triton, linking them directly to Admiral Dönitz's headquarters in Paris. Triton has an additional rotor to the three used in the normal Hydra cipher. Bletchley Park's Bombe, the decpihering machine developed by the mathematician Alan Turing for cracking the codes, only has three rotors and hence cannot tackle Triton. The change is not because the Germans know that the British are reading Enigma but is due to Dönitz's wish to exert tighter control over the operations if his wolf packs so that they will sink more ships. Also, the ciphers used by the U-boats training in the Baltic (Tetis) and in coastal waters (Hydra) remain unchanged.
The Admiralty's submarine tracking room can still monitor each newly-commissioned U-boat and those entering and leaving the Bay of Biscay and Norwegian waters. The inability to read Triton means that the Admiralty no longer knows the intentions of the U-boats operating in the Atlantic. It will be more difficult to route convoys to evade the packs. Fortunately the supply of escort carriers and conversions means it is rare now for a convoy to sail without air protection, but it is still anticipated that having to fight them through will mean greater losses.
The Japanese carrier striking force (Akagi, Kaga and Zuikaku) leave Truk to attempt to intercept the US carrier force raiding the Marshall Islands. The pursuit is abandoned the next day.
Feb 2nd
HQ of the USAAF’s 49th Pursuit Group (Interceptor), with its three subordinate squadrons, arrives at Melbourne, Victoria, from the U.S. with P-40s. The aircraft are in crates and must be assembled and the vast majority of the pilots do not have the skills to survive in combat and must undergo combat training. The first squadron will not fly their first mission until March.
The Japanese launch their first air raid on Port Moresby in New Guinea, in preparation for a planned amphibious assault.
The RAF in Malaya present a report which points out the surprising weakness in Japanese air power since the early battles in December. While the RAF has been resupplied with aircraft, the Japanese air force seems to be growing steadily weaker. This is surprising, as with its sources of aircraft much closer, the staff had expected the opposite. What they do not know is the terribly low aircraft production in Japan. In the period Dec-March they will only build some 700 fighters and bombers. To put this into perspective, Australia's normal production is 60 Sparrowhawk and 40 Beaufighters a month, and with the current scare has raised this (albeit temporarily) by 50%. In addition, the British were supplying Russia with some 120 Hurricanes a month which have been diverted. these two minor sources alone are over half again the Japanese production. The RAF are convinced that the shortage in Malaya is because they are building up somewhere else, their best guess being in the DEI, although there is also a possibility they are planning action in Burma or to the east. They simply cannot believe that the Japanese aircraft production is so low.
The Japanese begin a combined, concentrated attack against Australian troops at Laha Airdrome on Ambon Island using infantry, dive-bombers, fighter planes, warships and artillery; the Japanese capture the airfield by mid-morning. Later in the day, the surviving Australians at Laha approached the Japanese with surrender negotiations.
