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WWII On This Day: February 7

What happened on February 7 during World War II? This date brings together 5 events from 1941, 1943 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1941
Italian M13/40 medium tanks captured by British forces at Beda Fomm in February 1941.
Italian M13/40 medium tanks captured by British forces at Beda Fomm in February 1941. Australian armed forces / Australian War Memorial 128415 · public domain Source
Operation Compass

The final breakout fails

The remaining Italian armour made a last attempt to force the roadblock. Anti-tank guns and the surviving British tanks stopped the attack at close range, after which organized resistance collapsed and white flags appeared along the road. About 25,000 prisoners were taken in the Beda Fomm battle area. General Giuseppe Tellera was mortally wounded and General Annibale Bergonzoli, who had escaped Bardia, was captured. The Tenth Army had ceased to exist as an effective field force.

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German Type IXA submarine U-37 in dock at Lorient in 1940 after the French Atlantic ports became U-boat bases.
Mannewitz · Bundesarchiv Bild 101II-MW-1032-11A · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE
The Happy Time and the Wolfpacks

Western Approaches moves to Liverpool

Western Approaches headquarters moved from Plymouth to Liverpool, placing operational control beside Britain's principal Atlantic convoy port and closer to the route north of Ireland. The move reflected where the convoy war was now being fought rather than a change in the existence of the command itself. Admiral Sir Percy Noble took over as Commander-in-Chief on 17 February. The reorganisation did not solve the U-boat problem in one stroke, but it concentrated convoy plotting, naval control and cooperation with the RAF in the headquarters that would direct the Atlantic battle…

1943
The first train from the Soviet mainland reaches Finland Station on 7 February 1943 after completion of the new railway through the Iskra corridor.
The first train from the Soviet mainland reaches Finland Station on 7 February 1943 after completion of the new railway through the Iskra corridor. Russian Ministry of Defence / Mil.ru · CC BY 4.0 Source
The Siege of Leningrad

The first mainland train reaches Finland Station

The first train from the mainland arrived after eighteen days of construction. The exposed railway increased supply capacity dramatically but remained within range of German artillery and required continuous repair.

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1945
Infantrymen of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division rest on a slope in the Hürtgen Forest on 18 November 1944.
U.S. Army Signal Corps / National Archives · 18 November 1944 · Public domain · Source
Aachen and the Hürtgen Forest

American troops enter Schmidt again

The 310th Infantry occupied Hill 493 while the 311th advanced toward Schmidt. Infantry crossed the open ground after German antitank fire stopped the leading tanks and reached the northern houses during the afternoon. House-to-house clearing continued into 8 February. An 82nd Airborne regiment simultaneously crossed the Kall to cut the north-eastern escape route.

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Kleve after the bombing of 7 February 1945. The rubble stopped the tanks that were meant to pass through it.
Kleve after the bombing of 7 February 1945. The rubble stopped the tanks that were meant to pass through it. Imperial War Museums C 4964 · IWM Non-Commercial Licence Source
The Rhineland Battles

Kleve is flattened

More than 750 bombers attacked Kleve and Goch the night before the offensive. Kleve was reported afterwards as almost entirely destroyed, and around a third of its remaining civilian population was killed. Horrocks had been offered a choice between high explosive and incendiaries and chose high explosive. He wrote afterwards that he had never been more unhappy about a decision: the rubble blocked the roads his own tanks needed and slowed the advance through the town by a day.

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