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Koneff Wins a Grip – 2-3
Meal Time for the Russians on the Banks of the Danube (photo) – 3
Pipeline in Arabia Again Put Up to U.S. (Sulzberger) – 3
Hodges’ Men Gain (Daniel) – 4-5
Siegfried Captives Know of Russians (Currivan) – 5
1,300 U.S. Bombers Pound Reich; Blast Rail Routes to Both Fronts – 6
High Nazi Official Shot for Neglect – 6
Manila’s Business District Burned by Trapped Enemy (Parrott) – 7-8
Internees Rescued from Bilibid Fires – 8
War News Summarized – 8
Foe in China Wins Wolfram Center – 9
Nelson, Refitted in Philadelphia, Back at Sea More Heavily Armed (Hurd) – 9
Nazis at Road’s End (Baldwin) – 10
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the Fighting in Various War Zones – 11-12
New Plane Has Propeller in Rear, Seems to Be Speeding Backward – 13
‘The Ascender’: New Curtiss Fighter Plane in Flight (photo) – 13

http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/1/07.htm

February 7th, 1945 (WEDNESDAY)

GERMANY:
U-4706 commissioned.

U-3038 launched.

SOUTH AFRICA: The following UP report was released to the newswires - Capetown, South Africa - The British liner Orcades, the largest and finest ship of the Orient line, was sunk near here October 12, 1942, the Navy revealed today. More than 1000 survivors were rescued by the Polish liner Narwik, and approximately 40 lives were lost. En route to England with a passenger load of soldiers and several hundred civilians, many of who were women and children, the Orcades was hit by six torpedoes. The Narwik steamed up in the darkness to pick up survivors while covering the submarine - which surfaced several miles away - with its stern gun. [The Orcades was actually sunk on 10 October 1942 by U-172 (Emmermann)].

BURMA: Flt Sgt Stanley James Woodbridge (b.1921), RAFVR, was beheaded. he was one of six airmen caught after crashing; the Japanese tortured and beheaded his comrades, then tortured him further to try to learn radio secrets. They failed. (George Cross)

PACIFIC OCEAN: 2nd Lt. Louis Curdes, USAAF, 4th FS (Commando), 3rd FG (Commando), shoots down a Japanese Dinah, while flying a P-51D thirty miles SW of Formosa. This feat makes him one of three aces to have shot down enemy aircraft of three Axis powers. (Stuart Kohn)

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: General Douglas MacArthur enters Manila, Luzon. (Drew Halevy)

NEWFOUNDLAND: Corvette HMCS Merrittonia departed St John’s to escort Convoy ON-283.

U.S.A.: The motion picture “Ministry of Fear” opens at the Paramount Theater in New York City. Directed by Fritz Lang, this spy drama based on a Graham Greene novel stars Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds and Dan Duryea.

Submarine USS Carbonero commissioned.

The German maps get kind of spotty from this point on. We will get more western front situation maps in a few days. The most recent western front map is from about a week ago, but I'll post it anyway just because I like these maps. Here is the sector of US 1st and 9th Armies battering away at German 15th and 5th Panzer Armies. It doesn't look that much different than the maps that were posted back at the end of November when 1st Army's big push petered out. The biggest difference is that the Germans no longer have any reserves behind the front, and are desperate to pull whatever they can out of the line to send to the east. One other thing; looking at the concentrated combat power of both 1st and 9th Armies, a greater concentration than anywhere else on the front, makes me wonder why Ike let Monty keep command of the 9th. Both armies should be answerable to the same chain of command. But that's coalition warfare, I guess.

In the East today, the only thing noteworthy on the one map available is the situation around Elbing and the mouth of the Vistula River, where Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front has driven a wedge between German 2nd and 4th Armies. You can see the names of German Corps and Division HQs that have fought together in the East for four years, but now these are little more than blue marks on a map. The formations are spent. You will also notice the German warship in the Bay of Danzig. The Kriegsmarine will have it's final hour serving as floating artillery platforms to provide naval gunfire support to German troops in the Baltic. Mostly provided by heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and pocket battleship Admiral Scheer, they will eventually wear out their gun barrels and lie up in port for lack of fuel.

Interesting article on the refit if HMS Nelson in the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Nothing else confirms the ascendancy of the United States and decline of the British Empire. The Royal Navy, pride of Britain and for centuries the symbol of her military power, has to rely on an American naval yard to refit one of their ships. And Nelson was not the only British ship to be serviced; this was a fairly routine happening during the war.