Air Operations, Bismarcks

12 V Bomber Command B-24s attack shipping at Kavieng. 35 XIII Bomber Command B-25s attack the Lakunai airfield at Rabaul.

Air Operations, East Indies

18 V Bomber Command B-24s attack the Laha airfield on Ceram.

Air Operations, Europe

On this day Operation ARGUMENT begins. The US strategic air force mounts a series of heavy attacks against German aircraft factories. Brunswick, Leipzig and Regensburg are among the targets. In the operations on the 20th, 940 bombers and 700 fighters are sent on attacks and 21 bombers are lost. Operations on the 25th are less successful, with 65 of a force of 800 bombers being lost. The series of attacks becomes known as 'Big Week'. The losses on the 25th are not typical of the present US operations and the continuing high German losses in the fighting are beginning to tell in the strength and quality of their forces.

A total of 3,800 sorties with powerful fighter escort drop 10,000 tons of bombs in an attempt ot knock out major fighter assembly and component plants in Germany and Austria. The Americans claim 517 German fighters are shot down.

• 598 aircraft are sent to Stuttgart. Included in this total are 460 Lancasters, 126 Halifaxes and 12 Mosquitos. The North Sea sweep and the Munich diversion successfully draw the German fighters up 2 hours before the main bomber force flies inland.
• 7 Lancasters and 2 Halifaxes are lost. 4 more Lancasters and 1 Halifax are lost when they crash upon returning to England.
• 156 aircraft fly a large training exercise across the North Sea as a preliminary feint, 24 Mosquitos attack airfields in Holland, 7 Mosquitos make a diversionary raid on Munich, there are 7 Serrate patrols, and 28 Stirlings and 6 Wellingtons lay mines off French ports.
• 1 Wellington is lost.

• 276 1st Bomb Division B-17s attack the Leipzig/Mockau Airdrome and several briefed aircraft-industry plants, and 64 1st Bomb Division B-17s attack Oschersleben and other targets of opportunity.
• 7 B-17s are lost
• 163 2nd Bomb Division B-24s attack several aircraft-industry factories around Brunswick and Gotha, as briefed, but 81 other B-24s are obliged for various reasons to attack several wide-ranging targets of opportunity.
• 8 B-24s are lost
• Severe cloud cover renders the planned 3rd Bomb Division attacks something of a shambles, but 296 B-17s attack the Tutow Airdrome and several wide-ranging targets of opportunity.
• 6 B-17s are lost, 1 interned in Sweden
• Support for the bombers is suppled by 935 USAAF fighters whose pilots down 59 Luftwaffe fighters and 2 Ju-88 attack aircraft over Germany and Belgium between 1230 and 1520 hours.
• 4 USAAF fighters are lost with their pilots

• 35 IX Bomber Command B-26s attack the Haamstede Airdrome, but approximately 100 other B-26s dispatched against several airdromes are foced to abort in the face of bad weather.

• XII Bomber Command B-25s attack assembly areas and dumps north of the Anzio beachhead.
• XII Bomber Command B-26s attack troop concentrations along roads around Vallalta.
• XII Air Support Command A-20s attack troop concentrations and numerous motor vehicles.
• XII Air Support Command A-36s and P-40s attack two towns, troops, trucks, tanks, and a factory.

• 105 15th Air Force B-24s support Allied ground forces in the Anzio beachhead.

Air Operations, Marshalls

• Preceded by strafing attacks mounted by Task Group 53.6 F6Fs, US ground forces continue to advance against firm opposition on Eniwetok Island. Other Task Group 53.6 aircraft and the main body of Task Force 58 attack targets elsewhere in the Eniwetok Atoll, and Fleet Carrier Air Group 10 (USS Enterprise) mounts strong attacks against the Jaluit Atoll, which is to be bypassed.
• 9 41st Medium Bomb Group B-25s attack the airfield on Wotje. 15th Fighter Group P-40 fighter-bombers attack the airfield on Mille and ships in the lagoon.

Air Operations, New Guinea

38 V Bomber Command B-24s attack targets in the Alexishafen-Hansa Bay area.

Allied Planning

The commander of the Southeast Asia Command (SEAC), Adm Lord Louis Mountbatten, offers an option for future offensive operations. SEAC forces will capture a port in China and move to Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies once Germany has been defeated and additional forces are made available from the ETO. This offensive will begin no earlier than October of 1944. Gen Joseph Stilwell, The SEAC deputy commander, offers a different option. Discounting any offensive into the Dutch East Indies, Stilwell advocates an offensive to capture a Chinese port with the resources at hand rather than waiting for support from another theater.

Battle of the Atlantic

U-413 sinks the British destroyer Warwick 15 miles off Cornwall with the loss of 67 of her crew. There are 93 survivors.

Eastern Front

Popov's 2nd Baltic Front sends 22nd Army on a new attack toward Kholm which is quickly successful.

Green Islands

New Zealand contingents crush the last resistance of the Japanese garrison on the islands which are located opposite New Ireland.

Italy

Allied forces have driven a wedge into the middle of the German line at Anzio and have inflicted heavy losses, but the German are already preparing another offensive. The German 1st Parachute Div under Gen Richard Heidrich begins to replace the 90th Panzergrenadiere in the Monte Cassino sector. The German 71st Inf Div is also withdrawn from the front to be deployed in a sector of the Aurunci mountains to the north of the 94th Div.

Marshalls

Aircraft form Adm John W. Reeves' TG 58.1 attack targets on Jaluit Atoll. The fighting on Eniwetok continues with the American forces gaining the upper hand. A landing is being prepared on Japtan and Parry, this last one of the three biggest islands in the atoll. Parry, close to Eniwetok, is shelled.

A group of aircraft carriers commanded by Rear-Adm J. W. Reeves take part in the bombardment of Japanese positions on Jaluit atoll.

Mediterranean

• British patrol aircraft catch a nest of German U-boats in the Strait of Gibraltar, sinking 3 and damaging several others.
• The US tank landing ship LST-348 is sunk by U-410 about 40 miles south of Naples.

Norway, Resistance

The ferry Hydro carrying a stock of heavy water on the first stage of the journey from the Ryukan hydroelectric plant to laboratories in Germany is sunk in Lake Tinnsjö and the cargo lost in an attack by resistance fighters let by Norwegian Lt Knut Kaukelid acting on instructions from the British and Norwegian governments. The ferry was carrying rail tank cars from the Norsk Hydro facility at Vermork. The material was being shipped to Germany. Haukelid planted explosives with a time charge set to go off when the ferry reached the deepest part of the lake, making i impossible to recover most of the heavy-water containers. Of the people on board, 26 drowned and 27 rescued. Heavy water is used in atomic research.

Pacific

• The Japanese submarine chaser No. 48 is sunk by US Army aircraft off New Ireland.
• The US submarine Pogy (SS-266) sinks the Japanese cable layer Nanyo Maru (3610t) about 100 miles east of Formosa and the merchant cargo ship Taijin Maru (5154t) northeast of Formosa.

Images from February 20, 1944

Damage at 10 Downing Street

Firing on Enemy Positions

B-24J Liberator Dropping Bombs on Gotha

Examining a Red Cross Banner

Degrelle, Gille and Hitler

Photographic-Reconnaissance Aerial Over Stuttgart