Air Operations, Bismarcks

• 18 XIII Bomber Command B-24s and 34 42nd Medium Bomb Group B-25s attack the VunaKanau airfield at Rabaul. 2 B-25s and 4 347th Fighter Group P-38s attack Rabaul's Tobbera airfield.
• 347th Fighter Group P-38s down 5 A6M Zeros over Tobera airfield at 1015 hours. VMF-222 F4Us down 2 A6M Zeros near Rabaul at 1020 hours. VF-17 F4Us down 7 Zeros over Cape Gazelle between 1050 and 1110 hours.
• VMF-216, in F4Us, makes its combat debut over Rabaul after guarding Torokina Field on Bougainville for a month.

Air Operations, Carolines

• US carrier aircraft from Task Force 58 continue to mount powerful attacks against the Truk Atoll. There is virtually no aerial opposition. 24 merchant ships amounting to 200,000 tons are sunk, as are 1 Japanese light cruiser and 1 destroyer. When Task Force 58 retires in the afternoon, US Navy losses stand at 17 aircraft and 26 pilots and crewmen lost in combat.
• The Japanese Naval base at Truk is considered to be neutralized, and the Pacific War high command soon decides to bypass it.
• More than anything, the Truk Raid of February 17–18, 1944, triggers the immediate collapse of Japanese resistance over Rabaul. Most of the 300 plus Japanese aircraft destroyed in the air or on the ground at Truk were to have gone on to Rabaul, and they cannot be replaced. Also, the strikes prove the vulnerability of the Truk base to carrier strikes, and so the Japanese aircraft already based at Rabaul are ordered to withdraw, because they are the most-immediately available to defend the great Japanese fleet anchorage from further depradations by US Navy carrier aircraft.

Air Operations, CBI

• More than 40 490th Medium Bomb Squadron B-25s and 10 Air Force A-36 and P-51 fighter-bombers attack the town area at Ye-u, several bridges, a radio station, supply dumps, Japanese Army ground troops, and artillery batteries.

• 4 341st Medium Bomb Group B-25s attack shipping in Bakli Bay, Hainan, as well as an ammunition dump and a rail bridge in nearby areas of French Indochina.

Air Operations, Europe

• In the Amiens Prison Raid 19 Mosquitoes, led by Grp-Capt Percy C. Pickard, breach the walls and temporarily free 250(285?) members of the French Resistance, but 87 are killed. 4 planes are lost.
• There is a night raid on London by 200(187?) aircraft as part of a new wave of bombing that will be called the 'Little Blitz'. 139 tons of bombs are dropped on target causing considerable damage and numerous casualties. The raiders copy RAF Pathfinder tactics.

Air Operations, Marshalls

• Following a final pre-invasion bombardment by surface warships and aircraft from Task Group 53.6 escort carriers, US Marines and some US Army troops land at Eniwetok Atoll’s Engebi Island, which is largely overrun within hours.
• 15th Fighter Group P-40 fighter-bombers attack the Jaluit and Mille Atolls.

Bismarck Archipelago

Allied destroyers open up on the Japanese bases at Rabaul in New Britain and Kavieng in New Ireland.

Burma

In the Chinese 22nd Div sector Japanese units retire several miles to avoid being surrounded.

Caroline Islands

Task Force 58 fulfils its mission to the letter, completing the destruction of the Japanese base at Truk. During the operation, begun the previous day, about 200,000 tons of enemy shipping have been destroyed. As an exception to its ususal practice, Radio Tokyo admits the serious blow suffered by Japan.

US Carrier-based aircraft sink the Japanese destroyer Fumizuki and the submarine chaser No. 29 during the day's operations.

Eastern Front

In the north Popov's forces take the important town of Staraya-Russa south of Lake Ilmen and Novgorod. Kiril Meretskov's forces take Shimsk. In the southern sector the 3rd and 4th Ukraine Fronts under Malinovsky and Tolbukhin have almost completely annihilated the German 8th Army.

South of Lake Ilmen the X Corps of the 16th Army relinquishes Staraya Russa, the town falling to the 1st Shock Army.

With the bulk of Group Stemmerman either destroyed as it marched toward III Panzer Corps, or free, the 57th and 88th Infantry Divisions disengage and link up with the main line. After nearly a month of bloody fighting the battle for Korsun has ended. The Germans have managed to save 30,000 of the 56,000 encircled but lost huge amounts of equipment. For the III Panzer Corps the battle is not over though, it having to extricate its panzer divisions from theri exposed positions.

The Stavka reorganizes its front command in the Central Sector. The Belorussian Front is disbanded and the new 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts are created. Kurochkin's 2nd Belorussian Front (47th, 70th, 61st and 6th Air Armies) deployed between Rokossovsky's 1st Belorussian (3rd, 11th, 48th and 65th Armies plus 16th Air Army) and Vatutin's 1st Ukrainian Ftonts, covering the northern edge of the Pripet marshes.

Italy

The Germans commit 26th Pzr and 29th Pzrgrnd Divs, their main tank reserve, to the attack at Anzio. The focus of the action is the 'Flyover' on the Anzio-Campoleone road and although some gains are made the strong Allied artillery holds off and blunts the attacks. Kesselring and von Mackensen realize that the Allied beachhead cannot be wiped out. Both sides begin regrouping along the 'Gustav' Line. Offshore, the cruiser Penelope, damaged on February 17 by a torpedo attack, is hit again and sinks.

There are further attacks by Indian and New Zealand troops in the hills north of the Cassino monastery and over the Rapido against Cassino town. Some gains are made but cannot be held in face of fire from dominating German positions.

Marshalls

Beginning at dawn, the guns of the American warships and those sited on the islets surrounding Engebi open up on that island, and at 8:42a.m. 2 battalions of the 22nd Marine Regt land. The Japanese only put up any organized reisstance at the south end of the island which is captured by the Marines in the first afternoon. During the night Japanese counterattacks are driven off.

Meanwhile other American units begin the occupation and mopping up of the smaller islets.

Mediterranean

U-410 sinks the British light cruiser Penelope 35 miles west of Naples with the loss of 417 on board. 206 survivors are picked by the British LSTs LST-165 and LST-430.

New Guinea

There are some local encounters between the Americans and Japanese who have infiltrated into the Saidor area.

United States, Home Front

Pres Roosevelt vetoes the Bankhead Bill which had proposed to end food subsidies. His veto is upheld by the House.

Images from February 18, 1944

Here, Mosquitos of No. 487 Squadron RNZAF clear the target at low level as the first 500-lb bombs to be dropped detonate near the south wall of the prison at Amiens.

Dropping Bombs at Amiens

Amiens Jail, France on 18 February 1944. Shown here is the 12 foot wide breach in the south side of the prison’s outer wall, through which 258 prisoners escaped.

Prison Damage in Amiens

Wilhelm Fahrmbacher next to Erwin Rommel in Saint-Nazaire on the Roof of a German U-boat Bunker, 18 February 1944

Waves of amtracs, each one crammed with Marines uncertain of what they will find when they hit the beach, churn in for the assault of Engebi on 18 February 1944. They are hoping to find an enemy dazed by the preparatory artillery fire

Assault of Engebi

Oblt. Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer (121 Kills), Staffelkapitän 12./NJG 1, showing your kills on the rudder of his Bf-110G-4, 'G9+EF'. In the night of 15.02.1944, between 22:58h and 23:33h, he shot down three 'Lancasters', St. Trond, Belgium, 18 February 1944.

Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer Showing His Kills