Air Operations, CBI

• 6 7th Heavy Bomb Group B-24s attack the Mingaladon airfield at Rangoon. 1 B-24 attacks the airfield at Nyaungbinwun. 1 490th Medium Bomb Squadron B-25 and 32 10th Air Force A-36s and P-51s attack the airfield at Myitkyina and strafe a transportation depot and storage facility.

Air Operations, Europe

• 12 Mosquitos are sent to Berlin, 3 to Aachen, 3 to Krefeld, and 3 make Serrate patrols.
• 1 Mosquito is lost on the Berlin raid.

Air Operations, Marshalls

• 5 VII Bomber Command B-24s based at Mullinnix Field, Tarawa attack targets on Kwajalein Island with 2,000-pound bombs an hour before the main landings. 15th Fighter Group P-40s attack a schooner in the Mille Atoll while conducting an armed-reconnaissance mission. Task Group 58.3 carrier aircraft continue to pound targets in the Eniwetok Atoll.
• Employed for the first time in the war are forward-firing aerial rockets, which are employed by 2 VC-7 TBMs against defensive positions on a small island off Kwajalein.

Air Operations, New Guinea

50 V Bomber Command B-24s dispatched against targets in the Admiralty Islands are hindered by bad weather.

Burma

Units of the Chinese 38th Div attack a Japanese strongpoint in the Taihpa Ga area. Engineers begin the construction of a military road in the Hukawng valley to support the proposed offensive against central-northern Burma. But the Japanese too have for some time been concentrating forces for an offensive against India.

Eastern Front

In the north the Soviets force the crossing of the Luga River, take Kingisepp and push on to within one mile of the Estonian border. A little to the south between Luga and Utorgosh the German 18th Army counterattacks and near Peredel they surround 2 Russian divisions and a regiment of partisans.

The 2nd Shock Army captures Kingisepp after a fierce battle with the retreating III Panzer Corps. Spearheads are just a mile from the Estonian border. The 18th Army launches a counterattack from Luga city and Utorgosh with elements of the I Corps but is unable to halt the 59th Army drive into its right wing.

The XLVII Panzer Corps counterattacks around Zvenigorodka toward the isolated XLII and XI Corps. The attack toward the pocket, centered on the village of Korsun=Schevchenkovsky, becomes bogged down in mud, the weather in the Ukraine being unseasonably warm for the time of year. Inside the pocket, Stemmerman begins to pull his forced back to the southwest, giving up the positions on the Dniepr.

Italy

The 135th Regt of the US 34th Div launches an attack on Castellone and Monte Maiola, supported by the artillery of the 168th Regt of the US 34th Div from Heights 56 and 213. Both objectives are reached. The US 3rd Div abandons its efforts to take Cisterna and begins preparing for German counterattacks.

Marshalls

The US carrier operations continue. The land battle for Roi is virtually over but there is still heavy fighting on Namur, and during the night the Japanese resume unsuccessful counterattacks.

After a preliminary barrage comparable to the one that pulverized Roi and Namur, Adm Richmons K. Turner's TF 52 with the usual complement of battleships and escort carriers lands troops from Gen Charles H. Corlett's 7th Inf Div on Kwajalein itself. The landing begins at 9:30a.m. and is carried out in record time. The Japanese resistance is stubborn but the US forces are exceptionally well organized and by nightfall have overrun a third of the island including the western part of the airfield.

A couple of US ships are damaged in the day's operations: the destroyer Anderson (DD-411) by grounding and the destroyer Haggard (DD-555) by an accidental explosion.

Occupied Poland

Underground forces assassinate Gestapo Chief Gen Franz Kutschera.

Pacific

• The US submarine Guradfish (SS-217) sinks the Japanese destroyer Umikaze in the Caroline Islands area.
• The Japanese submarine RO-39 is sunk by the US destroyer Walker (DD-517) in the Marshall Islands area.

United States, Home Front

The Dutch painter Piet Mondrian dies at age 71.

Images from February 1, 1944

MEETING OF THE SUPREME COMMAND, ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, LONDON, 1 FEBRUARY 1944

(Left to right: Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, Commander in Chief, 1st US Army; Admiral Sir Bertram H Ramsay, Allied Naval Commander in Chief, Expeditionary Force; Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur W Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander, Expeditionary Force; General Dwight D Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Expeditionary Force; General Sir Bernard Montgomery, Commander in Chief 21st Army Group; Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Allied Air Commander, Expeditionary Force; and Lieutenant General Walter Bedell-Smith, Chief of Staff to General Eisenhower.)

German POWs in Acquafondata, Italy on 1 February 1944

Italian Children Welcoming US Tank Crew in Canale Moscarello, Italy, 1 February 1944

US Soldiers Rest during a Lull in Battle in Cerro Grosso, Italy, 1 February 1944

US Navy Planes Bombing Japanese Ships off Kwajalein, 1 February 1944

Allied Landing Craft Burning Fiercely off Anzio after Being Hit by German bombers, Anzio, Italy, 1 February 1944

Upon arriving at evacuation hospital in Anzio, these two American nurses, L-R: 2nd Lt. Mary H. Fischer, Strassburg, N.[North] and 2nd Lt. Margaret L. Gallagher, Hibbing, Minn.[Minnesota] take turns digging fox-hole.” Anzio, Italy. 1 February 1944

Nurses Digging a Foxhole

US Marine Signalmen Setting Up a Command Post in the Streets of Roi-Namur, Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, 1 Feb 1944