The Declaration by United Nations was agreed upon during the Arcadia Conference in Washington, D.C. Representatives of 26 Allied nations pledged to employ their "full resources" until victory was won and not to make any separate peace agreements with Axis powers.
The fourth National Football League All-Star Game was held at the Polo Grounds in New York City. The Chicago Bears defeated an all-star team 35–24. The game was originally scheduled to be held in Los Angeles where the first three all-star games were held, but it was moved to New York due to wartime travel restrictions.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the State of the Union Address to Congress. "In fulfilling my duty to report upon the State of the Union, I am proud to say to you that the spirit of the American people was never higher than it is today—the Union was never more closely knit together—this country was never more deeply determined to face the solemn tasks before it", the president began. "The response of the American people has been instantaneous, and it will be sustained until our security is assured ... We have not been stunned. We have not been terrified or confused. This very reassembling of the Seventy-seventh Congress today is proof of that; for the mood of quiet, grim resolution which here prevails bodes ill for those who conspired and collaborated to murder world peace. That mood is stronger than any mere desire for revenge. It expresses the will of the American people to make very certain that the world will never so suffer again."[11]
Japanese troops landed at Brunei Bay in British Borneo.[12]
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt presented Congress with the biggest budget ever seen up to that time. It called for the expenditure of $77 billion over the next 18 months, $56 billion of which was for the war effort.[14] The plan called for the production of 125,000 aircraft, 75,000 tanks, 35,000 guns and 8 million tons of shipping by the end of 1943.[15]
Adolf Hitler had GeneraloberstErich Hoepner sacked for ordering his forces to pull back on the Eastern Front without approval. Hitler not only had Hoepner removed from command but deprived him of his pension and the right to wear his uniform as well.[16]
German submarines U-604 and U-660 were commissioned.
Born:
Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author, in Oxford, England (d. 2018);
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto made a statement to Taketora Ogata that may have been the basis for the apocryphal sleeping giant quote attributed to him when he said, "A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack."[17]
The American cargo ship USAT Liberty was torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-166 and beached on the island of Bali.
The British cargo steamship Cyclops was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Nova Scotia by German submarine U-123. It was the first attack of the Kriegsmarine'sOperation Drumbeat aiming to destroy Allied shipping in the Western Atlantic.
In combat in the Battle of Bataan, 2nd Lt. Alexander R. Nininger was killed as he led his Philippine Scouts unit and attacked Japanese positions. A 1941 graduate of West Point, "Sandy" Nininger would posthumously receive the first Medal of Honor of World War II.
The Roosevelt Administration created a National War Labor Board to prevent strikes and reconcile wages with control over inflation and the war economy.[24]
Joe Louis reported for duty at Camp Upton. A large contingent of reporters turned up to make photographs and newsreel film of the boxing champion in uniform.[20]
Representatives of Allied governments in exile signed the declaration on Punishment for War Crimes in London declaring that one of their principal war aims would be to ensure that those responsible for war crimes would be brought to justice.[25]
In the United States, the Sikorsky R-4 helicopter had its first flight.
Heinkel test pilot Helmut Schenck became the first person to escape from an aircraft using an ejection seat when his control surfaces iced up and became inoperative.
British forces conducted Operation Postmaster on the Spanish island of Fernando Po. Two tugs and the Italian merchant vessel Duchessa d'Aosta were captured and sailed away.
German submarine U-123 surfaced so close to New York Harbor that the rides at Coney Island could be seen silhouetted against the evening sky. Captain Reinhard Hardegen expected the U.S. east coast to be blacked out after more than a month at war and was surprised to see the glow in the sky from Manhattan's millions of lights.[26]
Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb insisted he either be relieved of command or given freedom to direct his forces as he wanted. Hitler chose the former.[13]
President Roosevelt sent a letter to baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis saying that baseball should continue in wartime. "I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going", Roosevelt wrote. "There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before. And that means that they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before."[27]
President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9024, creating the War Production Board.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill became the first head of state to cross the Atlantic Ocean by plane, following the First Washington Conference with President Franklin Roosevelt.
An Axis convoy docked at Tripoli providing Rommel with 55 new panzers, 20 armoured cars, and a large quantity of fuel, food and ammunition. Rommel immediately began planning a new offensive.[3]
Senior Nazi officials met at the Wannsee Conference to agree on the implementation of the Final Solution, whereby Jews in German-occupied territories would be deported to Poland and systematically murdered in extermination camps.
Sonderkommando Blaich: One Heinkel He 111 medium bomber raided the Free French-controlled Fort LamyinFrench Equatorial Africa. The plane bombed the fort unchallenged but then ran low on fuel and had to make an emergency landing, leaving the crew stranded some 120 miles from their airstrip in southern Libya until a Junkers Ju 52 transport aircraft arrived a week later with fuel.
The American submarine USS S-26 was accidentally rammed and sunk in the Gulf of Panama by the submarine chaser USS Sturdy. 46 men were lost.
A committee assigned by President Roosevelt on December 18, 1941 to investigate the Pearl Harbor attack issued its report, putting the blame on Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short for failing to coordinate their defenses appropriately or taking measures reasonably required in the light of the warnings they had been given. Both men would receive death threats as a result of the report.[38]
Hermann Göring visited Italy for high-level talks lasting through February 5.[29]
Japanese submarine I-73 was torpedoed and sunk 240 miles west of Midway Atoll by the USS Gudgeon. This marked the first time in the war that a United States Navy submarine sank an enemy warship.
The British oil tanker Harpa struck a mine and sank in the Singapore Strait with the loss of 39 out of 40 crew.
German and Italian forces recaptured Benghazi.[43]
The ninth Pan-American Conference adjourned after the representatives of 21 countries signed an agreement to sever diplomatic, financial and commercial relations with the Axis powers.[44]
Brazil and Paraguay broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy and Japan.[10]
Rommel retook Benghazi by noon.[3] Just as he entered the city, he received a message from Benito Mussolini suggesting that he should launch an offensive to take Benghazi. Rommel sent back a curt response: "Benghazi already taken." 1,000 men of the 4th Indian Division were still trapped in the city and surrendered when it fell.[46]
Adolf Hitler made a speech in the Berlin Sportpalast on the ninth anniversary of the Nazis coming to power. He declared, "We are fully aware that this war can end only either in the extermination of the Teutonic peoples or in the disappearance of Jewry from Europe." Hitler predicted that "the outcome of this war will be the annihilation of Jewry."[47]
The Irish government claimed that its neutrality was being violated by the American troop presence in Northern Ireland. An official statement declared that the United States had recognized a "Quisling government" in Northern Ireland by sending troops there and that the British were making a new attempt to force Ireland into the war on the side of the Allies.[48]
^ abcdefMitcham, Samuel W. (2008). The Rise of the Wehrmacht: Vol. 1. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Security International. pp. 553–554. ISBN978-0-275-99641-3.
^Lingeman, Richard J. (2002). Sinclair Lewis: Rebel from Main Street. Borealis Books. p. 460. ISBN978-0-87351-541-2.
^Yenne, Bill (2014). The Imperial Japanese Army: The Invincible Years 1941–42. Osprey Publishing. p. 124. ISBN978-1-78200-932-0.
^ abcMercer, Derrik, ed. (1989). Chronicle of the 20th Century. London: Chronicle Communications Ltd. p. 561. ISBN978-0-582-03919-3.
^ abMegargee, Geoffrey P. (2006). War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 140. ISBN978-0-7425-4482-6.
^"56 Billions for War!". Brooklyn Eagle. Brooklyn. January 7, 1942. p. 1.
^Weinberg, Gerhard L. (1995). Germany, Hitler, and World War II: Essays in Modern German and World History. Cambridge University Press. p. 65. ISBN978-0-521-56626-1.
^Mitcham, Samuel W. (2007). Rommel's Desert War: The Life and Death of the Afrika Korps. Mechanicsburg, Penna.: Stackpole Books. ISBN978-0-8117-4152-1.
