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WWII On This Day: December 23

What happened on December 23 during World War II? This date brings together 5 events from 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1941
39th Street, Rangoon, after Japanese bombing in December 1941; reproduced in a volume published in March 1942. The photograph is not securely dated to either raid day.
39th Street, Rangoon, after Japanese bombing in December 1941; reproduced in a volume published in March 1942. The photograph is not securely dated to either raid day. Bipin Behari Kapur / Rangoon Gazette · Public domain (India) Source
The Fall of Burma

Japanese bombers raid Rangoon and meet the AVG and the RAF

On 23 December 1941 Japanese bombers raided Rangoon, and fighters of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) and No. 67 Squadron RAF rose to meet them. The defenders claimed eight Ki-21 bombers for the loss of three AVG P-40s. On 25 December the Japanese returned with 63 bombers escorted by 25 fighters, and 14 P-40s of the AVG's 3rd Squadron and 15 Brewster Buffalos of 67 Squadron went up against them. The Allies claimed 35 Japanese bombers and fighters shot down on 25 December and lost five P-40s and two pilots.…

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1942
Red Army soldiers carrying a Soviet flag through the ruins of Stalingrad in 1943.
Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R76619 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Battle of Stalingrad

Winter Storm is abandoned and the relief force turns back

By 23 December Fourth Panzer Army had to break off the drive toward Stalingrad. Soviet attacks had checked the spearhead at the Myshkova and the collapse of Axis positions farther west threatened the relief force’s communications and the broader Army Group Don front. LVII Panzer Corps began withdrawing toward Kotelnikovo. Sixth Army had never received the order required for a full evacuation of Stalingrad and remained inside a pocket whose food, fuel and medical situation was worsening daily. The end of Winter Storm removed the last major ground relief attempt.…

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1943
Ruins around the railway station at Melitopol in 1943, documenting the condition of a key lower-Dnieper transport centre after the fighting.
Ruins around the railway station at Melitopol in 1943, documenting the condition of a key lower-Dnieper transport centre after the fighting. Archive photograph · 1943 Source
The Dnieper Crossings

The Dnieper line has been breached across Ukraine

By the late-December boundary used for the campaign, Soviet armies held major bridgeheads west of the Dnieper, Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk were in Soviet hands, and the lower-front battles had carried the line toward the approaches to Crimea. The river had failed to become the stable strategic barrier German planning required. The result opened the next sequence of operations across right-bank Ukraine in 1944. Crimea remained in German hands for several more months, but its land communications had been constricted and the Seventeenth Army had become an increasingly isolated command.

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1944
Men of the 101st Airborne Division moving toward Bastogne on 19 December 1944 as Allied reserves enter the Ardennes battle.
101st Airborne Division on the road between Bastogne and Houffalize, 19 December 1944 · US Army Signal Corps SC 329953 · NARA · Public domain · Source
The Battle of the Bulge

The weather clears

On 23 December the weather improved enough for Allied tactical aviation and transport aircraft to operate over the Ardennes in strength. Ninth Air Force fighters and bombers attacked roads, rail movement, vehicles and supporting positions. The improvement did not suddenly transform a successful German drive into a defeated one. By then Sixth Panzer Army had failed to open the northern route, St Vith had consumed crucial days, Peiper was isolated and the deepest central columns were approaching the limits of their road and fuel system. Air power now acted on…

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The Battle of the Bulge

The airdrop

On 23 December more than two hundred C-47 transports flew supply missions into the Bastogne perimeter, dropping ammunition, food and medical stores. Gliders and later flights brought additional supplies and medical personnel. The drops did not make the garrison independent of a ground corridor. Weather, drop accuracy and the volume that transport aircraft could deliver limited what air supply could sustain. What the first successful missions changed was the immediate ammunition and medical calculation. The defenders no longer had to assume that every shell fired came from a stockpile that…

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