The Luftwaffe executed Operation Bodenplatte, an attempt to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Countries. The operation was a tactical German success but failed in its aim of achieving air superiority.
German radio broadcast a New Year's Day address by Adolf Hitler. The 26-minute speech offered no information on the battlefield situation or any hint that the war was nearing its end, only a declaration that the war would continue until victory was won. The foreign media speculated as to whether the speech was live or pre-recorded, and even whether it was Hitler's voice at all.[2][3]
RAF bombers conducted heavy raids on Nuremberg and Ludwigshafen; in both cities over 2,300 tons of bombs were dropped.[4] Some ninety percent of Nuremberg's old medieval town center was destroyed.[5]
Philippines Campaign: A U.S. bombardment fleet bound for invasion beaches on Luzon left Leyte with a force including six battleships, twelve escort carriers and thirty-nine destroyers.[6]
Died:Bertram Ramsay, 61, British admiral (plane crash near Paris)
The American escort carrier USS Ommaney Bay was severely damaged in the Sulu Sea by a Japanese kamikaze attack. The ship was abandoned and then scuttled by a torpedo from the destroyer USS Burns.
Allied forces captured the Burmese island of Akyab.[8]
The first mission of Operation Cornflakes was carried out, when a mail train to Linz was bombed and then bags containing false, but properly addressed, propaganda letters were dropped at the site of the wreck so they would be picked up and delivered to Germans by the postal service.
Japanese kamikaze attacks against American ships in the Lingayen Gulf region damaged the battleships USS New Mexico and California, two cruisers and four destroyers.[9]
The British destroyer Walpole struck a mine in the North Sea and was rendered a constructive total loss.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the State of the Union message. For the first and only time during his presidency, Roosevelt did not deliver the message as a speech before a joint session of Congress. Rather, he delivered it to Congress as a written message and recited a summary of the speech over the radio.[11] The message concluded: "1945 can and must see the substantial beginning of the organization of world peace. This organization must be the fulfillment of the promise for which men have fought and died in this war. It must be the justification of all the sacrifices that have been made-of all the dreadful misery that this world has endured. We Americans of today, together with our Allies, are making history-and I hope it will be better history than ever has been made before. We pray that we may be worthy of the unlimited opportunities that God has given us."[12]
Died:Herbert Lumsden, 47, British lieutenant general (killed by a kamikaze attack on the bridge of the battleship New Mexico during the bombardment of Luzon); Vladimir Vernadsky, 81, Russian/Ukrainian mineralogist and geochemist
Died:Theodore E. Chandler, 50, American rear admiral (died from wounds sustained in the Japanese kamikaze attack of the previous day); Thomas McGuire, 24, U.S. Army major and posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor (killed in action in the Philippines)
U.S. Technical Sergeant Russell E. Dunham earned the Medal of Honor near Kaysenberg, France when he single-handedly eliminated three German machine gun nests.
The first in a series of American landings at Luzon codenamed Operation Mike was carried out.
German submarine U-679 was depth charged and sunk in the Baltic Sea by the Soviet guard ship MO-124.
Died:Dennis O'Neill, 12, Welsh boy whose death at the hands of his foster parents led to reform of the British foster care system; Jüri Uluots, 54, Prime Minister of Estonia
Died: Pfc. Alex M. Penkala, Jr., Paratrooper assigned to Company E ("Easy Company"), 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. He and his comrade Warren H. "Skip" Muck were killed by German artillery fire on the outskirts of the Belgian Luxembourg town of Foy. They were taking cover in a foxhole from the artillery when a direct hit landed on them. He and his comrades had their story told by historian Stephen Ambrose in his 1992 work Band of Brothers.
U.S. warplanes attacked the Japanese naval base at Cam Ranh Bay and sank 40 ships. They also sank most of the ships in a Japanese convoy from Qui Nhơn, including the cruiser Kashii.[16]
Operation Woodlark: Members of Norwegian Independent Company 1 blew up a railway bridge in Snåsa, Norway. A military troop train unaware of the sabotage derailed and crashed into the river below, killing 70 to 80 people. It remains the most deadly railway accident in the history of Norway.
Died:Wilhelm Franken, 30, and Siegfried Lüdden, 28, German U-boat commanders, killed in a fire aboard the accommodation ship Daressalem in Kiel harbour
British escort carrier HMS Thane was torpedoed in the Irish Sea by German submarine U-1172 and rendered a constructive total loss.
Adolf Hitler held a last meeting with Rundstedt and Walter Model at the Adlerhorst, instructing them to hold the Western Allies at bay for as long as possible. He then boarded a train, never to visit the Western Front again.[19]
Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat and humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg disappeared after being detained by Soviet authorities during the Siege of Budapest to answer charges of being engaged in espionage. Wallenberg is presumed to have died in a Moscow prison cell on July 17, 1947 although conflicting accounts exist.
The Germans ordered the evacuation of the remaining 58,000 inmates of Auschwitz concentration camp ahead of the advancing Soviets.[24] Some were deported by rail while others were forced to march in freezing temperatures.[16]
The fourth inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt took place. In what was officially justified as a wartime austerity measure (but also likely done in consideration of the President's increasingly precarious health) the inauguration was a relatively modest ceremony held on South Portico of the White House. In what would turn out to be the final time the then-longstanding tradition was observed, outgoing Vice President Henry A. Wallace administered the oath of office to his successor Harry S. Truman.
The 3rd Belorussian Front captured Gumbinnen, while the 1st Belorussian Front crossed the Warthen and approached Poznań.[27]
To prevent their desecration by the Soviets, the Germans began demolishing key structures of the Tannenberg Memorial and disinterred the remains of Paul von Hindenburg and his wife ahead of the Red Army's advance.
Hitler ordered that every commanding officer from division level upward was required to notify him of all planned movements so he could override them if he saw fit.[27]
The Przyszowice massacre began in Upper Silesia. Between this day and January 28, soldiers of the Red Army killed between 54 and 69 civilian inhabitants of the Polish village of Przyszowice. The reason for the massacre remains unknown.
American Lt. Audie Murphy earned the Medal of Honor near Holtzwihr, France, when he saved his company from potential encirclement by climbing onto a burning U.S. tank destroyer and single-handedly killing or wounding 50 Germans with its .50 caliber machine gun until its ammunition was exhausted. Despite taking a leg wound Murphy made his way back to his company and organized a counterattack that forced the Germans to withdraw.[29]
British frigate HMS Manners was torpedoed and broken in two in the Irish Sea by German submarine U-1051, which was then sunk in turn by depth charges from Royal Navy frigates.
Action of 28 January 1945: An inconclusive naval engagement was fought between two British light cruisers and three German destroyers near Bergen, Norway.
Died: Shlomo Wiesel father of Elie Wiesel, died on this day during the Holocaust. He was suffering from dysentery and was taken to the crematorium at Buchenwald concentration camp.
While evacuating German civilians, Nazi officials and military personnel from Gdynia, the German military transport ship Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed and sunk by the Soviet submarine S-13. 9,400 people died, making it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history.
On the twelfth anniversary of the Nazis coming to power, a speech by Adolf Hitler was broadcast wearily appealing once again for the German people to keep up a spirit of resistance. It was the last speech Hitler ever made.[32]
The Second Battle of Kesternich began just inside the German border with Belgium.
U.S. and Filipino forces conducted the Raid at Cabanatuan and liberated more than 552 Allied prisoners of war from a camp near Cabanatuan.
In Italy, the Ivanoe Bonomi government issued a decree granting women the right to vote.[33] The Mussolini regime had granted women the right to vote in 1925, but only at local levels.[34]
The German historical film Kolberg premiered in Berlin. The film, telling the story of the Prussian city of Kolberg successfully holding out against a siege by the French during the Napoleonic Wars, was intended as Nazi propaganda to encourage the German population to continue the fight against the Allies.
^"Suffrage Granted to Italian Women". The Milwaukee Journal: 1. January 30, 1945.
^Donati, Sabina (2013). A Political History of National Citizenship and Identity in Italy, 1861–1950. Stanford University Press. p. 170. ISBN978-0-8047-8733-8.
^Leonard, Thomas M. (1977). Day By Day: The Forties. New York: Facts On File, Inc. p. 468. ISBN0-87196-375-2.
