1944

Events

January

• January 2 - WWII:
• * Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command French Army B, part of the Sixth United States Army Group in North Africa.
• * Landing at Saidor: 13,000 US and Australian troops land on Papua New Guinea in an attempt to cut off a Japanese retreat.
• January 8 - WWII: Philippine Commonwealth troops enter the province of Ilocos Sur in northern Luzon and attack Japanese forces.
• January 11
• * United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a Second Bill of Rights for social and economic security, in his State of the Union address.
• * The Nazi German administration expands Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp into the larger standalone Konzentrationslager Plaszow bei Krakau in occupied Poland.
• January 12 - WWII: Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle begin a 2-day conference in Marrakesh.
• January 14 - WWII: Soviet troops start the offensive at Leningrad and Novgorod.
• January 15
• * WWII: The 27th Polish Home Army Infantry Division is re-created, marking the start of Operation Tempest by the Polish Home Army, a resistance force.
• * 1944 San Juan earthquake: An earthquake hits San Juan, Argentina, killing an estimated 10,000 people, in the worst natural disaster in Argentina's history.
• * The Battle of Monte Cassino begins in Italy. British forces cross the Garigliano River. U.S. Fifth Army troops, commanded by Lieutenant-General Mark W. Clark, arrive at the Garigliano, to begin their attack against the Gustav Line south of Rome. The French Expeditionary Corps, under command of General Alphonse Juin, moves into the mountains north of Monte Cassino.
• * The Soviet Union ceases production of the Mosin–Nagant 1891/30 sniper rifle.
• January 17 - WWII: The Battle of Korsun–Cherkassy begins in the Soviet Ukraine.
• January 20 - WWII:
• * The Royal Air Force drops 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin.
• * The United States 36th Infantry Division in Italy attempts to cross the Rapido River.
• January 22 - WWII: Operation Shingle: The Allies begin the assault on Anzio, Italy. The U.S. 45th Infantry Division stand their ground at Anzio against violent assaults for four months.
• January 25 - A total solar eclipse is visible in Pacific Ocean, South America, Atlantic Ocean and Africa, the 48th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 130.
• January 27 - WWII:
• * The two-year Siege of Leningrad is lifted.
• * Light cruiser is sunk by a Henschel Hs 293 guided missile from a German aircraft off Anzio, western Italy, with the loss of 46 men.
• January 29 - WWII: Koniuchy massacre - A unit of Soviet partisans accompanied by Jewish partisans kills at least 38 civilians in the village of Koniuchy in Nazi occupied Lithuania.
• January 30 - WWII:
• * The Battle of Cisterna opens as United States Army Rangers attempt to break out of the Anzio beachhead.
• * United States troops invade Majuro, Marshall Islands.
• January 31 - WWII: Battle of Kwajalein: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.

  February

• The Zadran tribe rises up against the Afghan government, starting the Afghan tribal revolts of 1944–1947.
• February 2 - The first issue of Human Events is published in Washington, D.C.
• February 3 - WWII: United States 4th Marine Division with the help of the 7th Infantry Division capture the Marshall Islands.
• February 7 - WWII: At Anzio, German forces launch a counteroffensive.
• February 8 - WWII:
• * 2,765 drown when American submarine torpedoes Japanese troop transport Lima Maru.
• * 2,670 drown when British submarine torpedoes German-captured carrying Italian prisoners of war.
• February 14 - WWII: An anti-Japanese revolt breaks out on Java.
• February 15 - WWII: Battle of Monte Cassino - The monastery atop Monte Cassino is destroyed by Allied bombing.
• February 17 - WWII: Pacific War - The Battle of Eniwetok begins when U.S. forces invade the atoll in the Marshall Islands.
• February 18 - WWII: British light cruiser is torpedoed and sunk by U-410 in the Mediterranean; 417 of her crew, including the captain, go down with the ship; 206 survive.
• February 20 - WWII:
• * The "Big Week" begins, with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers.
• * The United States takes Eniwetok Atoll.
• * Norwegian heavy water sabotage: The Norwegian resistance sinks train ferry SF Hydro which is carrying a shipment of heavy water from the Vemork plant to Germany along Tinnsjå in Telemark.
• February 22 - WWII: The United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe is organized from the Eighth Air Force's strategic planning staff, subsuming strategic planning for all US Army Air Forces in Europe and Africa.
• February 23 - WWII:
• * Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush : Forced deportation of Chechens and Ingush people from North Caucasus to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia by the Soviet authorities begins.
• * The Battle of Eniwetok concludes when U.S. forces secure the last islands in the Eniwetok Atoll.
• February 24 - WWII: American submarine torpedoes Japanese transports and ; 7,998 drown.
• February 26
• * Kurt Gerron begins shooting the Nazi propaganda film Theresienstadt in Theresienstadt concentration camp. He and many others who are featured in it are transferred to Auschwitz and gassed upon the film's completion.
• * Sue S. Dauser becomes the first woman appointed to the substantive rank of captain, in the United States Navy Nurse Corps.
• February 29 - WWII: Pacific War - The Admiralty Islands campaign opens when U.S. forces land on Los Negros Island in the Admiralty Islands.

  March

• March - Austrian-born economist Friedrich Hayek publishes his book The Road to Serfdom in London.
• March 1 - WWII: American submarine torpedoes Japanese merchant cruiser ; 2,495 drown.
• March 2 - The 16th Academy Awards Ceremony is held, the first Oscar ceremony held at a large public venue, Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz, wins the Award for Best Picture.
• March 3
• * WWII: The Order of Nakhimov and the Order of Ushakov are instituted in the USSR.
• * Italy: in one of the deadliest railway disasters in history, over 500 clandestine passengers die of carbon monoxide poisoning when a steam freight train stops in a railway tunnel near Balvano, Basilicata, Southern Italy
• March 4 - Louis Buchalter, the leader of 1930s crime syndicate Murder, Inc., is executed at Sing Sing, in Ossining, New York, along with Emanuel Weiss and Louis Capone.
• March 6 - WWII: Soviet Army planes attack Narva, Estonia, destroying over 95% of the town.
• March 9 - WWII: Soviet Army planes attack Tallinn, Estonia, killing 757 and leaving 25,000 homeless.
• March 10
• * In Britain, the prohibition on married women working as teachers is lifted.
• * Resistance leader Joop Westerweel is arrested while returning to the Netherlands, having escorted a group of Jewish children to safety in Spain.
• March 12 - WWII: The Political Committee of National Liberation is created in Greece.
• March 15
• * WWII: Battle of Monte Cassino: Allied aircraft bomb the monastery, and an assault is staged.
• * WWII: The National Council of the French Resistance approves the Resistance programme.
• * The Soviet Union introduces a new anthem, replacing The Internationale.
• March 18
• *The last eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy kills 26, and causes thousands to flee their homes.
• *WWII: The Nazis execute almost 400 prisoners, Soviet citizens and anti-fascist Romanians at Rîbnița.
• March 19
• * WWII: Operation Margarethe: German forces occupy Hungary.
• * The secular oratorio A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett is premiered at the Adelphi Theatre in London.
• March 20 – WWII:
• * Landing on Emirau: 4,000 United States Marines land on Emirau Island in the Bismarck Archipelago to develop an airbase, as part of Operation Cartwheel.
• * British Royal Air Force Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade's bomber is hit over Germany, and he has to bail out without a parachute from a height of over. Tree branches interrupt his fall and he lands safely on deep snow.
• March 23 - WWII: Members of the Italian Resistance attack Nazis marching in Via Rasella, killing 33.
• March 24 - WWII:
• * Ardeatine massacre: In Rome, 335 Italians are killed, including 75 Jews and over 200 members of the Italian Resistance from various groups.
• * In Markowa, Poland, German police kill Józef and Wiktoria Ulm, their 6 children and 8 Jews they were hiding.
• * The "Great Escape": 76 Royal Air Force prisoners of war escape by tunnel "Harry" from Stalag Luft III in Silesia this night. Only 3 men return to the UK; of those recaptured, 50 are summarily executed soon afterwards, in the Stalag Luft III murders.
• March 27 - In Sweden, Ruben Rausing patents Erik Wallenberg's method of packaging milk in paper, origin of the international company Tetra Pak.

  April

• April 1 - The Swiss city of Schaffhausen is accidentally bombed by the United States causing serious damage to the city and killing or wounding more than 100 people.
• April 2 - WWII: Ascq massacre: Members of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend shoot 85 civilians suspected of blowing up their train on its approach to the Gare d'Ascq in France.
• April 4 WWII:
• *Allied bombardment of Bucharest, Romania begins. The United States Air Force and British Royal Air Force, with approximately 3,640 bombers of different types, accompanied by about 1,830 fighters bomb Romania for the following 4½ months. As collateral damage, 5,524 inhabitants are killed, 3,373 injured, and 47,974 left homeless.
• *An Allied photoreconnaissance aircraft of 60 Squadron SAAF photographs part of Auschwitz concentration camp.
• April 10
• *The Holocaust: Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler escape from Auschwitz concentration camp; on April 25-27 they prepare the Vrba–Wetzler report, one of the earliest and most detailed descriptions of the extermination of Jews in the camp.
• * WWII: As part of the Odessa Offensive, the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front liberated the city of Odessa in Southern Ukraine.
• April 14
• * Bombay Explosion: Freighter SS Fort Stikine, carrying a mixed cargo of ammunition, cotton bales and gold, explodes in harbour at Bombay, sinking surrounding ships and killing around 800 people.
• * WWII: As part of the Japanese-supported Axis forces led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, fighting for India's liberation from British rule, Col. Shaukat Ali Malik of the Bahadur Group of the Indian National Army enters Moirang in modern-day Manipur in northeastern India and raises the flag of the Azri Hukumat e-Azad Hind for the first time on Indian soil. This is considered to be one of the first times in British Indian history where an army of liberation raises the national flag on Indian mainland.
• April 15 - Italian fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile is assassinated in Florence by Bruno Fanciullacci, a member of the partisan Gruppi di Azione Patriottica.
• April 16 - WWII: Allied forces start bombing Belgrade, killing about 1,100 people. This bombing falls on the Orthodox Christian Easter.
• April 19 - WWII:
• * The Japanese launch the Operation Ichi-Go offensive in central and south China.
• * Semaine rouge: American and British planes bomb the city of Rouen.
• April 20
• * Members of the Slovene Home Guard swear an oath to Hitler on his birthday at Bežigrad Stadium.
• April 22 - WWII: Battle of Hollandia: American forces disembark at Tanahmerah Bay and at Yos Sudarso Bay, near Hollandia. The landings are undertaken simultaneously with the amphibious invasion of Aitape to the east.
• April 25
• * The Holocaust: SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann opens "blood for goods" negotiations with Joel Brand, to offer the release of thousands of Jews from eastern Europe to the Hungarian Aid and Rescue Committee, in exchange for supplies for the German Eastern Front.
• * The United Negro College Fund is incorporated in the United States.
• April 26 - WWII:
• *German General Kreipe is kidnapped on Crete, Greece.
• * American submarine torpedoes Japanese cargo carrier ; 2,649 drown.
• April 28 - WWII: Allied convoy T4, forming part of amphibious Exercise Tiger in Start Bay, off the Devon coast of England, is attacked by E-boats, resulting in the deaths of 749 American servicemen from LSTs.