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WWII On This Day: January 18

What happened on January 18 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.

1942
A Japanese Type 95 light tank knocked out during the Muar fighting in January 1942. The archive attribution supports the operation and month rather than this event's exact hour.
A Japanese Type 95 light tank knocked out during the Muar fighting in January 1942. The archive attribution supports the operation and month rather than this event's exact hour. Australian War Memorial 011298 · Public domain Source
The Fall of the Southern Empires

The Muar Position Is Turned

Japanese forces crossed the Muar River and pressed into western Johor while Commonwealth units fought around Bakri and the roads leading south. Australian 2-pounder crews destroyed Type 95 tanks at close range, and infantry repeatedly fought to keep the withdrawal route open. The danger was no longer simply the strength of the Japanese force in front. Road junctions behind the forward units were being threatened, and wounded men, guns and transport had to use the same narrow routes. Once the position began to close around them, surviving units had to…

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1943
Troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts meet near Workers' Settlement No. 5 on 18 January 1943, the day the land corridor was opened.
Troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts meet near Workers' Settlement No. 5 on 18 January 1943, the day the land corridor was opened. RIA Novosti archive #602484 / Dmitriy Kozlov · CC BY-SA 3.0 Source
The Siege of Leningrad

The two fronts meet and open a corridor

Units of the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts linked near the workers' settlements south of Lake Ladoga on 18 January, opening a narrow land corridor to the city. German positions still bordered the corridor closely and artillery could reach the new transport route, so the breakthrough changed Leningrad's supply problem without ending the siege.

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Modern operational map of Operation Iskra showing the converging attacks of the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts in January 1943.
Modern operational map of Operation Iskra showing the converging attacks of the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts in January 1943. VT1978 · CC BY-SA 3.0 Source
The Siege of Leningrad

A railway is ordered through the new corridor

The State Defence Committee ordered immediate construction of a railway through the newly captured corridor. Railway troops built more than thirty kilometres of track, stations, communications and bridges, including a crossing over the Neva.

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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

The tank armies pass through central Poland

Soviet mobile columns advanced beyond the Pilica and approached Łódź while German corps remnants attempted to escape west. The tank armies were averaging roughly 25 to 30 miles a day, with infantry armies following at a slower but still exceptional pace.

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