1941: RAF reconnaissance planes report that the Italians are beginning to evacuate Benghazi in a withdrawal towards El Agheila. The 7th Armoured Division is given immediate instructions to advance from Mechili across the desert in order to cut off the Italians escape route.

1941: The United Service Organization (U.S.O.) is formed to cater to armed forces and defense industries.

1942: Hahas Pasha forms a new Egyptian Cabinet, becomes the Military Governor and dissolves Parliament the next day. The Afrikakorps recaptures Derna in Libya.

1942: The British refuse to surrender at Singapore, heavy bombardment by Japanese continues for 4 days.

1943: Red Army troops achieve a landing near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

1944: The Germans start their offensive to relieve the Korsun pocket.

1944: Chinese advances in Hukawng Valley, continue while the Japanese offensive on Arakan front gains strength in order to push the British back into India.

1944: US forces take Kwajalein Island in Marshall's, losing 486 killed and 1,495 wounded, but inflicting 8,386 casualties on the Japanese.

1945: The U.S. First Army takes the first of seven Ruhr dams. Belgium is now reported as completely free of German troops.

1945: A Summit Conference between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt opens at Yalta in Crimea, to discuss plans for the treatment of postwar Germany, its division into zones of occupation, reparations and the future Polish western border.

1945: U.S. troops storm into Manila.

This Day in WWI

1915: Germany decrees British waters as part of the war zone; all ships to be sunk without warning.

1923: French troops take the territories of Offenburg, Appenweier and Buhl in the Ruhr as a part of the agreement ending World War I.

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