February 20th, 1944 (SUNDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Fulham, London: Mr. Leslie Owen Fox (1904-82), Heavy Rescue Service, tunnelled for hours under burning debris to find a man trapped in a bombed house. (George Cross)
Destroyer HMS Warwick sunk by U-413.
NETHERLANDS: 35 Ninth Air Force B-26 Marauders bomb Haamstede Airfield as a target of opportunity, after about 100 B-26s abort attacks on other airfields because of weather.
GERMANY: The US 8th Air Force begins attacks which become known as "Big Week". 731 B-17s and 272 B-24s are disparched to bomb German fighter aircraft production centers at Tutow, Leipzig, Heiterblick, Abtnaundorf, Bernburg, Brunswick, Wilhelmtor, Neupetritor and Gotha. 15 aircraft are lost.
USAAF Sgt Archibald Mathies, engineer, and Second Lt Walter E Truemper navigator, were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for actions this day. (Anthony Staunton)
It was a planned attack on the German Air Force. The attacks were aimed at airframe and engine manufacturing plants. That was the target. The aim was to force the Luftwaffe to come up and engage with the new American long range fighter capability. The object to kill German fighter pilots and destroy the manufacturing ability. The first aim succeeded the second did not. American fighters were freed from close support of the bombers and instructed to engage and kill all German aircraft in the sky, to follow them down wherever they went and kill them.
In my own case we had a mission to Gotha, Germany where we were under fighter attack for four and one half hours. We lost 13 out of 25 planes in my group. We were credited with 26 German aircraft destroyed. How accurate this was I cannot say (For the Germans. I am sure of our losses). (Hal Turrell)
U-822 launched.
NORWAY: Norwegian resistance successfully sinks a barge carrying heavy water from Ryukan, Norway bound for Germany. Heavy water is necessary for continued experiments by the German nuclear program.ITALY: Twelfth Air Force B-26s hit troop concentrations along roads in the Vallalta area; B-25s hit dumps and assembly areas at the northern edge of the Anzio beachhead, and A-20 Havocs bomb a troop and motor transport concentration southeast of Carroceto; A-36 Apaches and P-40s hit troops, trucks and tanks northeast of Carroceto, bomb the town of Fondi, a factory east of Carroceto, the town of Piedimonte, and hit guns and targets of opportunity along the northern line of the beachhead; an Axis attempt to achieve a breakthrough is decisively defeated in the center of the salient created by a counteroffensive and their efforts end.
Fifteenth Air Force B-24s blast troop concentrations in the Anzio, Italy, beachhead area as the Axis efforts end.
At 1755, U-230 fired one Gnat at landing ships off Anzio and heard a detonation after 13 minutes, 25 seconds. The Gnat probably detonated at the end of its run. At 1851 hours, another torpedo was fired, which sank HMS LST-305.
At 0157, USS LST-348 was torpedoed by U-410 and was sunk at 0221 by a coup de grâce about 40 miles south of Naples. The vessel was participating in the landings in Anzio-Nettuno, Operation Shingle.
BLACK SEA: Soviet Black Sea Fleet submarine TS-2 (ex-S2 Marsuinul) sunk due to torpedo explosion at Poti. Raised Feb 28 and later returned to service.
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: 35 Thirteenth Air Force B-25s, with fighter escort, bomb Lakunai Airfield at Rabaul on New Britain Island. Twelve Fifth Air Force B-24s hit shipping off Kavieng, New Ireland Island.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: Thirteenth Air Force P-39s attack barge traffic, which has greatly increased off southeastern and northwestern Bougainville Island, claiming 20 of the craft sunk.
MARSHALL ISLANDS: Aircraft the USS Enterprise (CV-6), part of Task Group 58.1 (TG 58.1) bomb Japanese installations on Jaluit Atoll. Nine Seventh Air Force B-25s from Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands bomb the airfield at Wotje Atoll while P-40s from Makin Island in the Gilberts strafe and bomb runways and small vessels at Mille Atoll.
NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: 18 Fifth Air Force B-24s bomb the airfield at Laha on Ambon Island.
NEW GUINEA: 38 Fifth Air Force B-24s bomb the Alexishafen-Hansa Bay area.
PACIFIC OCEAN: Two Japanese ships are sunk by the submarine USS Pogy (SS-266).
CANADA: Minesweepers HMCS Fort William, Milltown, Blairmore and Minas departed Halifax for Devonport via Azores.
U.S.A.:
Minesweeper USS Garland launched.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Whilst serving in Captain Walker’s renowned 2nd. Escort Group, sloop HMS Woodpecker is hit by a Zaunkönig fired by U-764 (Leutnant zur See Hanskurt von Bremen) South of Iceland at 48 49N 22 11W . Woodpecker’s stern is blown off but as she remained afloat was taken in tow. She sank in a gale on 27 February at 49 39N 06 08E. There were no casualties.
VandW
class destroyer HMS Warwick is torpedoed and sunk by U-413 (Kapitanleutnant
Gustav Poel) in the English Channel 20 SW of Trevose Head at 50 27N 05 23W. The
torpedo set off an internal explosion, whereupon Warwick sank very quickly with
43 casualties and 93 survivors. (Alex Gordon)(108)
U-683 reported missing in the North Atlantic SW of Ireland.