Diary January 31, 1945

War Diary, 01-1945, Diary WW2, Year 1945 / 1 minute of reading

Following the death of Mölders in November 1941, Adolf Galland become ‘General der Jagdflieger’ after 94 victories. He became at the age of 30 the youngest officer to attain General rank in the German armed forces. Galland’s outspoken criticism of the High Command brought him into conflict with Göring, and he was finally relieved by him. But Göring made no objection when Galland put himself in command of elite Me 262 unit ‘Jagdverband 44’, and let it in action during the last months of the war.

Wednesday, January 31, 1945

Home Fronts

USA: 16 war workers’ children killed by fire in nursery at Auburn, Maine.
Germany: Gollob (150 victories) succeeds Galland as General der Jagdflieger.

Russian Front

Zhukov‘s forces invade the province of Brandenburg.

Western Front

Ardennes: Elements of US 1st Army cross German border east of St Vith.

Air War

B-29 Superfortress sink giant floating dock at Singapore.

Sea War

Merchant shipping losses in January 1945: 17 Allied ships with 75,721 tons in the Atlantic, 1 Allied ship with 7,176 tons elsewhere.
101 Japanese ships with 434,648 tons in Pacific.
12 U-boats sunk in the Atlantic, Arctic or Baltic (worldwide total of 11 losses ?; difference by sources), 36 new U-boats operational, 467 U-boats of all types total in service.

About The Author

Kretaner

My name is Norman 'Kretaner' and since my childhood I am interested in history and strategy games. Later, I have learned programming and the development of computer games, and finally with the Internet, also web design. I'm in the fortunate position to combine all my interests with my work and to live on a place of my choice, on Crete. All information, figures, specifications and statistics used here had been compiled from a variety of sources and the large, over decades collected, library of the author about military history, WW2 and weapons.