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WWII On This Day: January 14

What happened on January 14 during World War II? This date brings together 3 events from 1942, 1944 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1942
Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival and the British surrender party walking to the Ford Motor Factory in Singapore on 15 February 1942.
British official photographer / Imperial War Museums HU 2781 · UK Government public domain · Source
The Fall of the Southern Empires

The Ambush at Gemencheh

Near Gemencheh Bridge on 14 January, troops of the 2/30th Australian Battalion ambushed a Japanese column moving along the road toward Gemas. The attack inflicted heavy losses before the Australians withdrew toward the main defensive position. The action demonstrated that Japanese mobility was not invulnerability. A column canalised on a road could be caught and damaged by prepared infantry. What the ambush could not do was restore the positions already lost farther north or prevent Japanese formations from renewing pressure along other approaches. Its place in the campaign is therefore…

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1944
Modern operational map of the Leningrad–Novgorod offensive, showing the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts from 14 to 31 January 1944.
Modern operational map of the Leningrad–Novgorod offensive, showing the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts from 14 to 31 January 1944. VT1978 · CC BY-SA 3.0 Source
The Siege of Leningrad

The final offensive opens

Second Shock Army opened the offensive from the Oranienbaum bridgehead on 14 January; Forty-second Army joined from the Pulkovo sector on 15 January. Volkhov Front attacked on the Novgorod axis at the same time, forcing Eighteenth Army to defend several connected sectors while Soviet forces sought to break the siege line from west and east.

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1945
Soviet armour advancing across Poland, January 1945.
Soviet armour in Poland, January 1945 · RIA Novosti archive · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Photograph pending verification
The Vistula–Oder Offensive

Zhukov's front attacks

1st Belorussian Front attacked from Magnuszew and Puławy toward Kutno, Łódź and the German rear south of Warsaw. The bridgehead defences were expected to be stronger than at Baranów, but Soviet infantry reached the German artillery positions and both defending corps lost much of their strength on the first day.

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