January 24th, 1945 (WEDNESDAY)
FRANCE: General Joseph "Uncle Joe" Stilwell takes over command of US Army Ground Forces. (Marc James Small)
GERMANY: Berlin: Guderian meets von Ribbentrop, the foreign minister, and tells him bluntly "the war is lost."
U-3035 is launched.
Silesia: The Red Army captures Gleiwitz.
HUNGARY: Around noon the first Soviet tanks reach Buda coming from Budakeszi in the north.
ARCTIC SEA: U-295 hit a mine and was damaged so badly that she had to return to base.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Calapan is taken by US forces. Organized Japanese resistance on Mindoro Island, Philippines ends.
PACIFIC: In the Volcano Islands, USN Task Group 94.9 (Rear Admiral Oscar C. Badger, consisting of the battleship USS Indiana (BB-58), three heavy cruisers, seven destroyers and a light minelayer and preceded by a barrier patrol of PB4Y Liberators, bombards Iwo Jima, together with USAAF B-24 Liberators escorted by P-38 Lightnings. Northeast of Iwo Jima, destroyers USS Dunlap (DD-384) and USS Fanning (DD-385) sink transport I-Go Yoneyama Maru and auxiliary minesweepers Keinan Maru and No.7 Showa Maru, a small Japanese three-ship convoy that had just arrived that morning. (83)
NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: Sumatra: The Fleet Air Arm delivered a major air strike against the vital Japanese oil refineries at Palembang in Sumatra, launched from four fleet aircraft carriers.
CANADA: The following AP report was released to the newswires - Shallow Lake, Ontario. defence minister general A.G.L. McNaughton said tonight that "today the North Atlantic is, as it hasn't been for months past, alive with German submarines." "We are having ships sunk day by day," said General McNaughton in telling a political rally here why he had not been able to campaign last week as government candidate in the North Grey by-election of February 5. The following AP report was released to the newswires - The probable sinking of a U-boat in the Atlantic, four hundred miles from Britain, was reported by RAF Coastal Command tonight - another sign that submarine packs might be on the prowl. Norwegian reports said the Germans recently stationed one hundred new U-boats at Norwegian ports as far north as Narvik.