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WWII On This Day: December 31

What happened on December 31 during World War II? This date brings together 2 events from 1942 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1942
Heavy seas breaking around HMS Sheffield while she escorts Arctic convoy JW 53 toward Russia in February 1943.
Royal Navy official photographer · Imperial War Museums A 14890 · Public domain
The Arctic Convoys

JW 51B survives the Battle of the Barents Sea

The German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, the pocket battleship Lützow and destroyers attacked the fourteen-ship JW 51B. Captain Robert Sherbrooke's destroyers used smoke, torpedoes and repeated counterattacks to keep the German ships away from the merchants until Rear Admiral Robert Burnett's cruisers Sheffield and Jamaica entered the action. The German force broke off without sinking a merchant ship. The failure enraged Hitler and intensified his demand that the surface fleet be reduced, contributing to Grand Admiral Erich Raeder's resignation the following month. Operationally, JW 51B showed that a close escort…

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1944
Allied landing craft off the Île d'Or at Le Dramont, Camel Beach, during the landing in Provence, August 1944.
Landing craft off the Île d'Or at Le Dramont, Camel sector, August 1944 · Public domain · Source
Operation Dragoon

What the ports were worth

Marseille and Toulon, cleared and working, handled a share of Allied supply into Europe that no combination of Normandy beaches and Cherbourg could match. Estimates commonly put the southern ports at around a third of the total tonnage entering the continent. A rail and pipeline route ran north from Marseille up the Rhône to the armies on the German frontier. The argument Churchill lost in August was settled by the manifests in December.

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