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WWII On This Day: February 9

What happened on February 9 during World War II? This date brings together 4 events from 1941 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1941
A Matilda II infantry tank of 7th Royal Tank Regiment in the Western Desert during Operation Compass, 19 December 1940.
Capt Geoffrey Keating / No. 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit · Imperial War Museums, E 1416 · Public domain
Operation Compass

Compass ends after a 500-mile advance

The British official history records a campaign advance of about 500 miles by a force that never exceeded roughly two divisions, one of them armoured. Its accounting gives about 130,000 Italian prisoners, 180 medium tanks, more than 200 light tanks and 845 field guns or larger pieces captured or destroyed. British losses were 500 killed, 1,373 wounded and 55 missing. The mobile formations now required repair and replacement, and British strategic priorities were shifting toward Greece. German forces were also beginning to move into Libya, setting the conditions for the…

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1945
Churchill tanks of 107th Regiment RAC moving through the Reichswald battle area on 9 February 1945.
Churchill tanks of 107th Regiment RAC moving through the Reichswald battle area on 9 February 1945. Sgt John Silverside, No. 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit · IWM B 14422 · public domain UK Government work Source
The Rhineland Battles

Mud and road congestion slow the advance

A thaw and continued rain softened the Reichswald tracks as the attack moved beyond its first objectives. Tanks and recovery vehicles were forced onto a small number of routes already carrying infantry, artillery, engineers and supply columns, while craters and mines created repeated traffic blocks. German resistance used those bottlenecks. Anti-tank guns, mines and local counter-attacks could delay whole columns because bypassing a blocked road often meant leaving firm ground. The pace of the operation now depended on clearing and maintaining routes as much as on breaking individual defensive positions.

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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

The final approach

The 60th Infantry advanced toward Hasenfeld while the 311th cleared wooded ground along the reservoir. At 18:00 the 1st Battalion, 309th Infantry passed through and moved toward the dam in darkness. Engineer teams reached the structure around midnight and searched for demolition charges while German small-arms fire continued.

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U.S. Fifteenth Air Force B-24 bombers flying over a smoking oil refinery at Ploiești, Romania, on 31 May 1944.
Richard R. Ganczak / USAAF · Library of Congress cph.3b43591 · Public domain (US)
The Oil Campaign

Bomber Command attacks the Pölitz fuel works

RAF Bomber Command attacked the hydrogenation works at Pölitz, near Stettin, on the night of 9–10 February 1945. The plant was one of the large producers of synthetic fuel, including aviation petrol. Contemporary RAF operational reporting records Lancaster forces attacking in successive waves and crews observing fires and explosions. Winter cloud, darkness and the position of the plant made the bombing problem different from the daylight strikes launched in May. Heavy British bomber loads and night navigation extended pressure on facilities that might otherwise exploit bad weather to recover. Pölitz…

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