February 17th, 1944 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
Destroyer HMS Wakeful commissioned.
U.S.S.R.: The Korsun pocket is eliminated.
Kiev: The Red Army claims that it wiped out some 52,000 German soldiers last night when the 60,000-strong German force trapped in the Korsun pocket 75 miles south of Kiev tried to break out. While the III Panzer Korps tried to batter its way into the pocket from the outside, the German commander in the pocket, General Wilhelm Stemmermann, plotted the breakout. As dawn broke the Germans neared Lysyanka, thinking they had escaped; then Russian tanks and Cossack cavalry loomed out of the mist. It was a massacre. Despite Russian claims, it is possible that as many as 30,000 got away; but there is not doubt that the Wehrmacht has suffered another costly defeat. The Luftwaffe has also lost 45 Ju52 transports.
BURMA: An unlikely array of Allied troops - clerks, cooks, pay corps orderlies and staff officers - have halted the Japanese offensive, Operation HA-GO, launched earlier this month. Japanese troops cut the lines of the 7th Indian Division to attack the XV Indian Corps from the rear. But they have been stoutly resisted by XV Corps' forward administrative area at Sinzweya, now besieged in the "admin box" and being supplied entirely by air.
Maj. Charles Ferguson Hoey (b.1914), Lincolnshire Regt., advanced under devastating fire and, already fatally wounded, seized a strongpoint. (Victoria Cross)
CAROLINE ISLANDS: Operation Catchpole. US Carrier Forces begin attacks on Truk.
Glen Boren notes in his diary:
When we launched our raid on Truk, Feb. 16 - 17, 1944, we had an 'official observer' that we didn't know about and didn't know about it til the war was over.
Major Greg Boyington, (Pappy) had been shot down and after several hours in his life raft, was picked up by a Japanese submarine and taken to Rabaul. He was held there for a period of time and then flown out in a 'Betty' with five other POWs, two Australians, a P-38 pilot, a PBY pilot and another Corsair pilot. They landed at Truk just as our fleet was making our raid on Feb. 16,1944. It was a rough landing and as the plane came to a stop, they were jerked out of the plane and ran to a shallow pit beside the runway as an F6F came down the runway firing all his 50 cal guns. The Betty blew up in flames as Pappy watched. They watched the show til dark and were led to a building and kept there during the attack the next day so they didn't see too much til they were later led out and put on another plane for the trip to Japan. He said the damage was a sight to see. He spent the rest of the war in Japan. (Glen Boren, aboard the USS Bunker Hill)
PACIFIC OCEAN:
(1) the destroyer USS
Nicholas (DD-449) sinks Japanese submarine HIJMS I-11 northwest of the Marshalls;
(2) the submarine USS Cero (SS-225) sinks Japanese transport Jozan Maru between
Truk and New Ireland in the Bismarck Archipelago;
(3) the submarine USS Sargo
(SS-188), in an attack on a Japanese convoy about 150 miles (241 km) northeast
of the Palau Islands, sinks ammunition ship Nichiro Maru and damages oiler Sata;
(4) the submarine USS Tang (SS-306) attacks a Japanese convoy, sinking army
cargo ship Gyoten Maru and merchant tanker Kuniei Maru about 130 miles (209 km)
west-northwest of Truk, and survives depth-charging by the convoy escorts;
(5) USN SBD Dauntlesses and TBF Avengers bomb Japanese shipping in Keravia Bay, near
Rabaul on New Britain Island, Bismarck Archipelago, sinking minesweeper W.26
(which had been damaged previously, 2 November 1943, and had been beached at
that time to prevent her loss), guardboat No.2 Fuku Maru, and army cargo ship
Iwate Maru;
(6) USAAF B-25 Mitchells attack Japanese ships going to the aid of
convoy attacked north of New Hanover Island in the Bismarck Archipelago the day
before, damaging Kashi Maru and forcing her to be run aground to prevent
sinking;
(7) USAAF P-40s attack Japanese shipping at Jaluit Atoll in
the Marshall Islands, damaging cargo ship Chosen Maru; and
(8) the Japanese
merchant tanker Zuih Maru is damaged by mine downstream from Woosung, China.
The aircraft carrier USS INTREPID is struck by an aerial torpedo on her starboard quarter, 15 feet below her waterline, flooding several compartments and jamming her rudder hard to port. By racing her port screw and idling her starboard engine, Captain Sprague keeps her on course. (Skip Guidry)
CANADA: Destroyer HMCS Algonquin (ex-HMS Valentine) commissioned. Algonquin and her V-class sister Sioux, ex-HMS Vixen, are often incorrectly referred to as Tribal-class destroyers. It has been pointed out that the designation of these two destroyers with Tribal names was deliberate attempt to deceive the enemy. In fact the V-class was the 8th Flotilla of the British Emergency War Program and was significantly different from the pre-war Tribal-class. Marginally shorter than the Tribals, the V-class carried a significantly improved secondary AA armament, which had been one of the major weaknesses of the earlier type. The twin 4.7-inch turrets of the Tribals, which had been highly prized by prewar Canadian naval planners who viewed them as 'mini-cruisers', were abandoned in favor of single-gun mountings. The V-class also carried 100 tons more fuel than the Tribals, which marginally improved the poor endurance of the older destroyers.
Frigate HMCS New Glasgow arrived Halifax from builder Esquimalt, British Columbia.
NEWFOUNDLAND: Frigate HMCS Outremont departed St John's to join EG-6 in Londonderry.
U.S.A.: Minesweeper USS Prowess launched.
Destroyer escort USS Dale W Peterson commissioned.