World War II calendar
What happened on January 15 during World War II? This date brings together 4 events from 1942, 1943 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.
German formations attacked the exposed Soviet lodgment around Feodosiya and forced the Crimean Front east. By the night of 18 January Soviet forces had fallen back toward the Parpach positions. The Soviet presence on the Kerch Peninsula survived, so Eleventh Army still faced two separated operational problems: the Crimean Front in the east and the fortress at Sevastopol in the west.
Continue in Sevastopol and the Crimea →
ABDACOM became operational under General Archibald Wavell on 15 January. The new command was expected to coordinate American, British, Dutch and Australian forces from Burma through the East Indies while Malaya, Borneo and the Philippines were already under sustained attack. The order created a supreme commander, not an instant combined force. Ships still carried national communications and doctrine, aircraft depended on separate maintenance and supply systems, and the theatre was so large that reinforcement of one sector could expose another. Wavell’s headquarters began by deciding which losses could still be…
Continue in The Fall of the Southern Empires →
Early in 1943 the weakness of the main rice crop became increasingly apparent. Provincial expectations of self-sufficiency gave way to concern as available grain entered markets at rapidly rising prices. Households did not experience the increase equally. Cultivators with stocks could sell into the rising market, while labourers, fishermen, artisans and other groups who bought most of their food saw wages lose purchasing power against rice. This divergence between food ownership and market access became central to later interpretations of the famine. The Famine Inquiry Commission emphasised shortage and policy…
Continue in The Bengal Famine →
The German reserves committed against the breakthroughs arrived by separate routes and struggled to form a new defensive line ahead of the Soviet columns. 47th Army broke north of Warsaw toward Modlin, while Konev's armies drove the remnants of XXIV Panzer Corps away from Kielce. German orders attempted to form counterattack groups, but units arriving from different directions were already being overtaken by the Soviet advance.
Continue in The Vistula–Oder Offensive →
