time. January 21 – WWII: Pan Am Flight 1104 – Pan American Airways Martin M-130 flying boat crashes about southwest of Ukiah, California. All 10 passengers and 9 crew aboard are killed, including Admiral Robert H. English (at this time COMSUBPAC). January 22 WWII: Battle of Buna–Gona: American and Australian forces secure control of the territory of Papua. The Holocaust: Round up of Marseille begins – Over 4,000 Jews are detained in Nazi-occupied Marseille as part of "Action Tiger", before being transported to extermination camps in Poland. January 23 WWII: British forces capture Tripoli from the Italians. American critic and commentator Alexander Woollcott suffers an eventually fatal heart attack, during a regular broadcast of the CBS Radio round-table program People's Platform. January 27 – WWII: 50 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany: Wilhelmshaven is the target. January 29 WWII: Operation Gallop: Russian forces of the Southwestern Front under General Nikolai Vatutin begin an offensive in the Donbas and break through the weak-defended German lines to the west of Voroshilovgrad. Nazi German police arrest alleged necrophiliac and serial killer Bruno Lüdke. The United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve (MCWR) is created. January 29–30 – WWII: Battle of Rennell Island – The Imperial Japanese Navy resists the United States Navy's attempt to interrupt the withdrawal of Japanese forces from Guadalcanal, in the last major naval battle of the Guadalcanal Campaign. January 29–31 – WWII: Battle of Wau – Australian forces, with United States support, resist a Japanese advance in the New Guinea campaign. January 30 – WWII: German General Friedrich Paulus is promoted to the rank of Field Marshal and instructed to fight to the death in Stalingrad, while Karl Dönitz is promoted to Commander in Chief of the German Navy, replacing Erich Raeder. February February 2 – WWII: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end, with the surrender of the German 6th Army. February 3 – WWII: The Four Chaplains of the U.S. Army are among those drowned when their ship, , is struck by a German torpedo in the North Atlantic. February 5 – Lt. General Frank M. Andrews is selected to command the U.S. armies in Europe, while General Dwight D. Eisenhower is assigned command in North Africa. Andrews will serve only 3 months, before dying in an airplane crash. February 6 – WWII: RCN corvette HMCS Louisburg is bombed and sunk