January 1942

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The following events occurred in January 1942:

January 1, 1942 (Thursday)

January 2, 1942 (Friday)

January 3, 1942 (Saturday)

January 4, 1942 (Sunday)

January 5, 1942 (Monday)

January 6, 1942 (Tuesday)

  • U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the State of the Union Address to Congress. "In fulfilling my duty to report upon the State of the Union, I am proud to say to you that the spirit of the American people was never higher than it is today—the Union was never more closely knit together—this country was never more deeply determined to face the solemn tasks before it", the president began. "The response of the American people has been instantaneous, and it will be sustained until our security is assured ... We have not been stunned. We have not been terrified or confused. This very reassembling of the Seventy-seventh Congress today is proof of that; for the mood of quiet, grim resolution which here prevails bodes ill for those who conspired and collaborated to murder world peace. That mood is stronger than any mere desire for revenge. It expresses the will of the American people to make very certain that the world will never so suffer again."[11]
  • Japanese troops landed at Brunei Bay in British Borneo.[12]
  • Australia declared war on Bulgaria.[10]
  • Died: Henri de Baillet-Latour, 65, Belgian aristocrat and the third president of the International Olympic Committee

January 7, 1942 (Wednesday)

  • The Battle of Moscow ended in strategic Soviet victory.
  • Joseph Stalin ordered a general offensive along the entire front, over his generals' recommendations that he concentrate his forces.[13]
  • The Battle of Bataan began.
  • U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt presented Congress with the biggest budget ever seen up to that time. It called for the expenditure of $77 billion over the next 18 months, $56 billion of which was for the war effort.[14] The plan called for the production of 125,000 aircraft, 75,000 tanks, 35,000 guns and 8 million tons of shipping by the end of 1943.[15]
  • Born: Vasily Alekseyev, weightlifter, in Pokrovo-Shishkino, Ryazan Oblast, USSR (d. 2011)

January 8, 1942 (Thursday)

January 9, 1942 (Friday)

January 10, 1942 (Saturday)

January 11, 1942 (Sunday)

January 12, 1942 (Monday)

January 13, 1942 (Tuesday)

January 14, 1942 (Wednesday)

January 15, 1942 (Thursday)

January 16, 1942 (Friday)

January 17, 1942 (Saturday)

January 18, 1942 (Sunday)

January 19, 1942 (Monday)

January 20, 1942 (Tuesday)

January 21, 1942 (Wednesday)

January 22, 1942 (Thursday)

January 23, 1942 (Friday)

January 24, 1942 (Saturday)

  • The Battle of Balikpapan ended in a Japanese victory on land but a tactical Allied victory at sea.
  • German forces relieved an encirclement of the garrison at Sukhinichi.[37]
  • Peru broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy and Japan.[10]
  • The British cargo ship Empire Wildebeeste was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by German submarine U-596.
  • The American submarine USS S-26 was accidentally rammed and sunk in the Gulf of Panama by the submarine chaser USS Sturdy. 46 men were lost.
  • A committee assigned by President Roosevelt on December 18, 1941 to investigate the Pearl Harbor attack issued its report, putting the blame on Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short for failing to coordinate their defenses appropriately or taking measures reasonably required in the light of the warnings they had been given. Both men would receive death threats as a result of the report.[38]
  • German submarines U-218, U-440 and U-514 were commissioned.

January 25, 1942 (Sunday)

January 26, 1942 (Monday)

January 27, 1942 (Tuesday)

January 28, 1942 (Wednesday)

January 29, 1942 (Thursday)

January 30, 1942 (Friday)

  • The Battle of Ambon began on the island of Ambon in the Dutch East Indies.
  • Rommel retook Benghazi by noon.[3] Just as he entered the city, he received a message from Benito Mussolini suggesting that he should launch an offensive to take Benghazi. Rommel sent back a curt response: "Benghazi already taken." 1,000 men of the 4th Indian Division were still trapped in the city and surrendered when it fell.[46]
  • Adolf Hitler made a speech in the Berlin Sportpalast on the ninth anniversary of the Nazis coming to power. He declared, "We are fully aware that this war can end only either in the extermination of the Teutonic peoples or in the disappearance of Jewry from Europe." Hitler predicted that "the outcome of this war will be the annihilation of Jewry."[47]
  • The United States Coast and Geodetic Survey ship Pathfinder was beached at Corregidor after taking indirect damage from Japanese bombing.
  • Qantas Short Empire shootdown: A Short Empire flying boat airliner was shot down by Japanese aircraft off the coast of West Timor. 13 of the 18 passengers and crew were killed.
  • The Irish government claimed that its neutrality was being violated by the American troop presence in Northern Ireland. An official statement declared that the United States had recognized a "Quisling government" in Northern Ireland by sending troops there and that the British were making a new attempt to force Ireland into the war on the side of the Allies.[48]
  • In the United States, the Emergency Price Control Act made the Office of Price Administration an independent agency.
  • German submarine U-461 was commissioned.
  • Born: Marty Balin, singer, songwriter and member of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, in Cincinnati (d. 2018)
  • Died: Frederick W. A. G. Haultain, 84, English-born Canadian lawyer, politician and judge

January 31, 1942 (Saturday)

References