January 12th, 1945 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Reuter - News Chronicle
To-day Admiral of the Fleet Lord Keyes, whose son, Lt-Col Geoffrey Keyes, was killed in a raid on Rommel's headquarters in North Africa in 1941, said:
"I shall always regret that I never had the opportunity to thank Rommel for his generous behaviour to my son. Rommel paid my son a great honour. He went to kill Rommel and, although he failed in his mission, he killed four of the German Commander's staff officers.
"Rommel not only gave orders that my son be laid before the altar of an Italian church with the four officers, but also paid public tribute to his leadership and bravery, and accorded him a full military funeral."
FRANCE: In the U.S. Seventh Army's VI Corps area, the Germans have shifted from aggressive offensive to stubborn defensive in the Bitche salient. Efforts of the 45th Infantry Division to regain ground lost on yesterday are only partly successful. The 14th Armored Division attacks to relieve the 315th Infantry Regiment, 79th Infantry Division, in Hatten and Rittershoffen; Combat Command A clears part of Rittershoffen. The situation in the Gambsheim bridgehead is unchanged.
BELGIUM: In the U.S. First Army VII Corps area, the 2d Armored Division attacks in the vicinity of the junction of the Manhay-Houffalize and Laroche-Salmchâteau roads: Combat Command A takes Chabrehez, continues about a mile (1,6 kilometers) south in the Bois de Belhez, and reduces a strongpoint east of Bois de St Jean; Combat Command B captures Les Tailles and Petite Tailles. On the 3d Armored Division right, the 83d Armored Reconnaissance Battalion drives south through Task Force Hogan (Combat Command R) at Regne, crosses the Langlir River, and clears Bois de Cedrogne east of the Manhay-Houffalize road and blocks the road there running west from Mont le Ban. Task Force Hogan moves to Bihain and clears the high ground southwest of the town. The 83d Infantry Division completes the capture of Petite Langlir and Langlir and gains a bridgehead south of the Langlir-Ronce River. In the XVIII (Airborne) Corps' 106th Infantry Division sector, a bridgehead is established across the Amblève River south of Stavelot.
In the U.S. Third Army's VIII Corps area, the Germans continue withdrawing. The 87th Infantry Division takes Tonny, Amberloup, Lavacherie, Orreux, Fosset, Sprimont, and a road junction northeast of Sprimont. The 17th Airborne Division recaptures Flamierge. Flamizoulle is found to be heavily mined. Renuamont, Hubermont, and villages to southwest are held by light, delaying forces. The 101st Airborne Division will launch an attack to the north and northeast of Bastogne. In preparation for the attack the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment attacks at 1405 hours and seizes a segment of the Foy-Margaret road 500 yards (457 meters) in front of its Main Line of Resistance. The attack secures the Line of Departure to be used by the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment as it attacks through the 501st tomorrow. The 501st takes 42 casualties during the attack, mostly from artillery and mortar fire. In the III Corps area, Combat Command A of the 6th Armored Division captures Wardin and adva nces to within a few hundred yards of Bras. (Jay Stone and Jack McKillop)
LUXEMBOURG: In the U.S. Third Army's III Corps area, the 357th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division, mops up Sonlez and continues to the high ground southeast of Bras, Belgium; the 359th Infantry Regiment repels attacks on the crossroads northeast of Doncols.
GERMANY:
Twenty seven-year-old Gertrud Seele, a nurse and social worker, was born in Berlin and served for a time in the Nazi Labor Corps. She was arrested last year for helping Jews to escape Nazi persecution, and for "defeatist statements designed to undermine the morale of the people." She was tried before the People's Court in Potsdam and executed in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, today.
During the night of 12/13 January, RAF Bomber Command sends 20 Mosquitos to attack several targets: ten bomb the Carolinengluck benzine oil refinery at Bochum, eight bomb the Forsetzung benzine oil refinery at Rechlinghausen and one bombs Dortmund.
In other missions, 32 Halifaxes are sent to lay mines: 16 mine Kiel Harbor with the loss of one aircraft, and eight lay mines off Flensburg with the loss of three aircraft.
U-2355, U-2356, U-3021, U-3520, U-4702 commissioned.
ARCTIC OCEAN: In the Barents Sea, German submarine U-956 torpedoes and sinks the Soviet destroyer Dejatelnyj [ex USS Herndon (DD-198) and HMS Churchill (I 45)] about 54 nautical miles (100 kilometers) east of Murmansk, U.S.S.R. The destroyer is escorting Convoy KB-1 (Kola Inlet to the White Sea).
Norway: U-427 attacked heavy cruiser HMS Norfolk off Egersund (Norway) with five torpedoes, but all missed.
FINLAND: Minelayer Louhi hits a mine off Hanko and sinks with loss of 10 men.
General A. Erich Heinrichs is appointed to the post of the Commander in Chief of the Defence Forces.
EASTERN FRONT: A major Soviet attack begins. The Red Army today unleashed its major winter offensive, hurling 163 divisions at the German positions in Poland and East Prussia, and is sweeping forward with massed tanks under a massive artillery bombardment and clouds of warplanes against 30 German divisions. The Germans are fighting from well-prepared defensive positions, but they are outnumbered by five tanks to one.
Hitler refused to believe intelligence reports of a massive Russian build-up, and rejected calls from General Guderian, now chief of the general staff, to transfer troops from the Ardennes offensive or call off attacks near Budapest. Yet today's attack by General Konev's First Ukrainian Front in southern Poland is only the first round of Russia's winter offensive.
From Memel, on the Baltic, to Warsaw, some 300 miles further south, the Red Army is poised to attack, with Warsaw the prime target for Marshal Zhukov's First Byelorussian Front when it joins the fray. The Russian commanders have their eyes on the industrial cities of Upper Silesia, but if they can cross the Vistula the German border will be less than 60 miles away. Russia has stockpiled supplies to sustain a broad advance.
At 0400 on January 12th, 1945 the attack began from the Baranow bridgehead [the 'Vistula-Oder operation'] with Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev's formidable "1st Ukrainian Front" hammering the skeletal frontline positions of 48.Panzerkorps, commanded by General der Panzertruppe Maximillian Reichsfreiherr von Edelsheim, with an unrelenting barrage for some 6 hours. By the time the cannon-fire let up, and the wary but confident Russian "frontovik" footsloggers moved forward into the main line of battle riding on and accompanied by T-34/85's, Su-100's and JSII's attached to special 'breakthrough' units, a heavy windswept snowfall had risen up to obfuscate the terrain details of the cratered battlefield from both attacker and defender alike. Nevertheless, the determined Soviet spearheads quickly advanced beyond the devastated trenches and weapons pits of the "hauptkampflinie" [HKL] (main line of resistance) of the German 48.Panzerkorps, leaving a swath of dead, destroyed, and dazed German defenders in their wake. 48.Panzerkorps consists of the 68th, 168th and 304th Infenterie-Divisions.
Genobst.Josef Harpe's Heeresgruppe 'A' reserve, deployed with 4.Panzerarmee to the north and west of the tottering 48.Pz. Kps.position, included reforming elements of the battered 16th and 17th.Panzer Divisions, which were almost immediately engaged and bypassed by the onrush of Soviet armor and tank-borne infantry. At the main breach German defenses virtually ceased to exist - simply pulverized beneath the onslaught; with the two 'anchor' formations; the 68th, and 168. Infanterie Divisions losing cohesion, and in full rout.
Despite it's designation as a "Panzerkorps", Edelsheim's command had no integral Panzer units, and could boast only some 30 or so assault guns without petrol attached to the infantry units in static defensive positions, along with some 12 "schwere" or heavy tank-destroyers, the lumbering and mechanically unreliable "Elefants" of the 614th Army Heavy Panzerjaeger Battalion, recently arrived from the Italian front, to give his lines any sort of backbone. What strength did exist was parcelled carefully among the (static) infantry echelons, and supported by divisional artillery batteries, some 300 barrels strong, strung out over a front of nearly a hundred kilometres; which, though strategically placed, were severely limited in ammunition.
In a mere matter of hours, the Baranow-Sandomierz bridgehead had exploded wide open, allowing Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front to bypass hastily staged and ineffective local German counterthrusts on it's way west. (Russ Folsom)
ITALY: Weather severely curtails operations, but fighters and fighter-bombers of the USAAF Twelfth Air Force's XXII Tactical Air Command score successfully against communications targets in western and central Po Valley, claiming over 50 rail cuts and destruction or damage of over 100 vehicles.
GREECE: Athens: Maj-Gen Ronald Scobie, the British GOC in Greece, today faced four rebel leaders at a conference table and laid down his terms for a truce in the Greek civil war. And the indications are that the left-wing ELAS (National Liberation Army) will accept a form of armistice and agree to exchange prisoners.
Minesweeper HMS Regulus (J 327) is mined during clearance operations off Sista Island near Corfu and loses her propellers. She is taken in tow, but capsizes an hour later. (Alex Gordon)(108)
INDIA: In the Northern Combat Area Command (NCAC) area, a U.S.- Chinese convoy starts along the Ledo Road from Ledo, India.
BURMA: In the Allied Land Forces South East Asia (ALFSEA) Indian 15 Corps area, the 3d Commando Brigade conducts an amphibious assault on the Arakan coast at Myebon after an air and naval bombardment and establishes a firm beachhead, which the Japanese without success soon attempts to destroy. The Allied position now threatens the Japanese line of retreat. (Dave Shirlaw & Jack McKillop)
Sixteen USAAF Tenth Air Force fighter-bombers support ground forces in the battle sectors at Si-U and at Lawa on the Irrawaddy River; over 70 fighter-bombers hit troops, supplies, vehicles, and general Japanese movement at Namsa-lap, Longmao, Hsa-ihkao, Mangpu, Pangnim, and near Lashio, Hsipaw, and Hsenwi. .
Six USAAF Fourteenth Air Force B-25 Mitchells again damage a bridge at Wan Mai-Lo.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: In the U.S. Sixth Army's XIV Corps area on Luzon, the 40th Infantry Division's 185th Infantry Regiment takes Port Sual, the west terminus of the Army Beachhead Line, without a fight and continues west toward Alaminos. The 37th Infantry Division is consolidating on the Army Beachhead Line; elements move into Bayamhang and Urhiztondo without opposition. In the I Corps area, the 6th Infantry Division (less Regiment Combat Team 63) is ordered to conduct a holding action along the line Malisiqui-Catablan-Torres until the situation in the 43d Infantry Division sector improves and is moving forward toward that line. Regiment Combat Team 158, released from army reserve to the corps late in day, moves elements to Rabon and Bani and patrols to Damortis. Corps attaches Regiment Combat Team 158 to the 43d Infantry Division; to further strengthen the division, commits Regiment Combat Team 63 (—) of the 6th Infantry Division to right of Regiment Combat Team 158 to close the gap between the 158th and 172d Regiments. Regiment Combat Team's 158 and 63 are to secure the Damortis-Rosario road. Elements of the 43d Infantry Division take Hill 560 and are attacking toward Hills 318 and 200.
On Mindoro, the entire 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, assembles at Pinamalayan for a drive on Calapan, where the Japanese force is now concentrated. Guerrilla patrol reaches Wawa, on the north coast near Abra de Ilog.
USAAF Far East Air Forces B-24 Liberators bomb the San Jose del Monte area and bivouac areas on northern Luzon; other B-24s hit Legaspi, and Batangas Airfields on Luzon, and Matina Airfield on Mindanao Island while B-25 Mitchells bomb Fabrica warehouses on Negros Island.
NEW GUINEA: The Japanese Operation KONGO, employing suicide torpedoes [Kaitens], continues; submarine HIJMS I 47 launches kaitens that damage a U.S. freighter at Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea; there are no casualties among the merchant sailors or the 27-man Armed Guard.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: On Bougainville, troops of the Australian 47th Battalion, 29th Brigade, 3rd Division, that crossed the Adele River yesterday, continue on and seize the mouth of the Hupai River and a log crossing across the river about 800 yards(732 meters) inland.
VOLCANO ISLANDS: Twenty eight USAAF Seventh Air Force Guam-based B-24 Liberators bomb airfields on Iwo Jima. During the night of 12/13 January, the island is hit by four B-24 snooper strikes.
PACIFIC: Aircraft carrier TF 38, under the command of Vice Admiral John S. McCain, hits Japanese shipping, airfields, and other shore installations in the South China Sea and in southeastern French Indochina. Among the sunken vessels is the Ch 43 (442T). This subchaser, with the help of Ch 15 and W18, sank the submarine U.S.S. Wahoo (SS-238) in La Perouse Strait on 11 October 1943. (Chris Sauder)
The US submarine Swordfish (SS-193), commanded by Keats E. Montross, is sunk by Japanese ASW forces near Okinawa. All hands are lost. (Joe Sauder)
Japanese Operation KONGO, employing suicide torpedoes [Kaitens], continues; efforts by submarines HIJMS I 53 at Kossol Roads, Palau Islands, Caroline Islands; I 56 at Manus, in the Admiralty Islands, Bismarck Archipelago; and by I 58 at Apra Harbor, Guam, Mariana Islands, are unsuccessful.
In the East China Sea off the west coast of Luzon, Philippine Islands, Japanese kamikazes damage destroyer escorts USS Richard W. Suesens (DE-342) and Gilligan (DE-508); attack transport USS Zeilin (APA-3); and tank landing ship USS LST-700, ; suicide pilots target U.S. merchant ships, damaging five freighters. On one ship, 129 of the 506 Army troops aboard are killed.
MARCUS ISLAND: Three USAAF Seventh Air Force B-24 Liberators, on armed reconnaissance from Saipan, bomb the island. The island is located in the North Pacific about 768 nautical miles (1 422 kilometers) west-northwest of Wake Island and is used as a refueling point for Japanese aircraft en route to the Central Pacific.
CANADA: A Japanese Fu-Go balloon releases a 15 kilogram (33 pound) bomb and two flares or incendiaries near Minton, Saskatchewan, at 1630 hours. One flare or incendiary exploded; the other and the bomb do not. The balloon then rose and disappeared. Minton is located about 86 miles (138 kilometers) south of Regina and 11 miles (18 kilometers) north of the Canadian-U.S. border.