World War II Timeline: January 11, 1944-January 27, 1944
The Allies began bold attacks on Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe and on German positions in Italy in January 1944. Read the following World War II timeline to discover more wartime events in early 1944.
World War II Timeline: January 11-January 27
January 11: Operation Pointblank, a direct Allied attack on the Luftwaffe, kicks off with a series of bombing raids against German aeronautic facilities.
January 14: The Allies bomb the Axis-aligned Bulgarian capital of Sofia.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt warns Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek that the United States will withhold lend-lease assistance if the Chinese do not send additional troops to the front. Chiang will reply by demanding a $1 billion loan in exchange for continued collaboration.
January 17: The British government denies an unfounded accusation in the Soviet media that it is negotiating peace with the Nazis.
Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower taps General Omar Bradley to lead the U.S. First Army.
January 22: The Allies mount a massive surprise attack on German positions in south-central Italy, landing a 37,000-man force on the coast at Anzio.
January 24: Following Adolf Hitler's orders to hold it to the death, German forces harden their positions along the Gustav Line.
January 26: In a report detailing their "investigation" of the Katyn massacre, Soviet authorities issue a denial and blame the Germans. However, Katyn will prove to be one atrocity not attributable to the Nazis.
January 27: After 872 days, the siege of Leningrad finally ends. Close to a million Soviets died, mostly from starvation and bombings.
Winston Churchill directs the British bomber command to prioritize the support of partisan guerrillas in occupied Europe, along with the destruction of the Axis war machine.
The U.S. government publishes a report detailing the horrors of the Bataan death march.
World War II Headlines
The Manhattan Project dominated World War II history in early 1944. For details, see the headlines below.
U.S. brigadier general Leslie Groves leads the Manhattan Project: U.S. brigadier general Leslie Groves named the Manhattan Project and was a driving force behind the creation of the first atomic bomb. He chose the sites for research and materials production and put physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in charge of the scientific laboratory. Groves was intelligent and highly organized, and although his arrogance offended some scientists, he worked well with Oppenheimer. Groves maintained high security at the Los Alamos, New Mexico, facility, having mail censored, long-distance calls monitored, travel restricted to within 100 miles, and contact with those on the outside limited.
American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer directs Los Alamos team assigned to the Manhattan Project: The presence of brilliant American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer attracted scientists from all over the world to the remote New Mexican desert to work on the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer directed the scientific team headquartered at Los Alamos. Although he suffered from periods of depression, he personally helped resolve or control conflicts that inevitably rose among the diverse international group. He, like most Los Alamos scientists, was dedicated to ending war for all time. After atomic bombs were used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer was appalled at the civilian deaths. Following the war, as chief advisor of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, he lobbied for the international control of atomic energy.
Leó Szilárd, who fled
Nazi Germany in 1933 and worked at Columbia University in New York
City, conceived the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction. With
Enrico Fermi, an Italian also at Columbia, he developed the first
nuclear reactor in 1939. Albert Einstein, the world's most famous
scientist, shared Szilárd's concern about German nuclear research, and
on August 2, 1939, Einstein sent President Roosevelt a letter warning
about the danger of a German atomic bomb. Consequently, Roosevelt
established a committee of scientists to determine the feasibility of
an American nuclear weapon. Initial work
proceeded at a leisurely pace. After Pearl Harbor, however, Roosevelt
gave this project top priority. Eventually, $2 billion would be spent
turning theory into reality. Roosevelt assigned the task to the Army
Corps of Engineers. From September 1942, the project's commanding
officer was Brigadier General Leslie Groves, whose practical know-how
and determination were crucial. Research had
hitherto concentrated on achieving fission with the scarce uranium
isotope U-235. But Ernest Lawrence made the significant discovery in
1942 that the more abundant U-238 could be converted into plutonium,
which could also be made to undergo fission. The name "Manhattan
Project" derived from the Manhattan Engineer District, which initially
managed the weapon's development. The project's facilities eventually
spread across the country. There were four major locations: the
basement of the University of Chicago's football stadium, where, with
their reactor pile, Fermi and Arthur Compton produced the first uranium
chain reaction; Hanford, Washington, where plutonium-producing reactors
and chemical-separation plants operated; Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where a
gaseous diffusion plant separated uranium-235 from uranium-238; and Los
Alamos, New Mexico, where physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer headed a
laboratory dedicated to designing and constructing atomic bombs.
Although the 125,000 people involved in the project knew it was vital
war work, very few knew its purpose. Britain, where
neutrons had been discovered, was allowed to share the research. It was
in Britain that refugee scientists discovered the critical knowledge
that not nearly as much fissionable material was needed as originally
thought. Barred from this knowledge, the Soviet Union turned to
espionage for information. After Roosevelt's
death, Truman was told of the atomic bomb. With German defeat imminent,
he sought advice on how to use it against Japan. Truman, General
Marshall, and Secretary of War Henry Stimson came to agree on a plan
under which one atomic bomb would be dropped on a city to shock Japan
into surrender. If that did not do it, a second one would be dropped to
give the impression that the U.S. had a large supply. If Japan did not
surrender, all bombs becoming available thereafter would be saved for
use in support of the invasion of Kyushu (Operation Olympic), scheduled
for November 1, 1945. |
In January and February 1944, the United States attacked Frankfurt, Nazi Germany, and a Japanese island. Learn more about these and other operations in the next section.
For more timelines and information on World War II events, see:
