1945 World War II: Various:

Stalin to Churchill:

I received your message of January 6, 1945 on the evening of January 7 . . . . It is most important that we should be able to take advantage of our supremacy over the Germans in artillery and in the air. This demands clear flying weather and an absence of low mists, which hinder aimed artillery fire. We are preparing an offensive, but the weather is at present unfavorable. Nevertheless, taking into account the position of our Allies on the Western Front, G.H.Q. of the Supreme Command has decided to accelerate the completion of our preparation, and, regardless of the weather, to commence large-scale operations against the Germans along the whole central front not later than the second part of January. You may rest assured that we shall do everything possible to render assistance to the glorious forces of our Allies.

Hungary: Arrow Cross terror squads attack Swedish "protective houses" in Budapest.

William Joyce—aka Lord Haw-Haw—reports total German victory in the Ardennes.

World War II: Monty holds a press conference:

On this day, British Gen. Bernard Montgomery gives a press conference in which he all but claims complete credit for saving the Allied cause in the Battle of the Bulge. He was almost removed from his command because of the resulting American outcry.

On December 16, 1944, the Germans attempted to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge (so-called because the Germans, in pushing through the American defensive line, created a "bulge" around the area of the Ardennes forest) was the largest battle fought on the Western front. The German assault came in early morning at the weakest part of the Allied line, an 80-mile stretch of poorly protected, hilly forest that the Allies believed was too difficult to traverse, and therefore an unlikely location for a German offensive. Between the vulnerability of the thin, isolated American units and the thick fog that prevented Allied air cover from discovering German movement, the Germans were able to push the Americans into retreat.

Fresh from commanding the 21st Army group during the Normandy invasion, and having suffered an awful defeat in September as his troops attempted to cross the Rhine, Montgomery took temporary command of the northern shoulder of American and British troops in the Ardennes. He immediately fell into a familiar pattern, failing to act spontaneously for fear of not being sufficiently prepared. Montgomery was afraid to move before the German army had fully exhausted itself, finally making what American commanders saw as only a belated counterattack against the enemy. As the weather improved, American air cover raided German targets on the ground, which proved the turning point in the Allied victory. Monty eventually cut across northern Germany all the way to the Baltic and accepted the German surrender in May.

Montgomery had already earned the ire of many American officers because of his cautiousness in the field, arrogance off the field, and willingness to disparage his American counterparts. The last straw was Montgomery's whitewashing of the Battle of the Bulge facts to assembled reporters in his battlefield headquarters—he made his performance in the Ardennes sound not only more heroic but decisive, which necessarily underplayed the Americans' performance. Since the loss of American life in the battle was tremendous and the surrender of 7,500 members of the 106th Infantry humiliating, Gen. Omar Bradley complained loudly to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who passed the complaints on to Churchill. On January 18, Churchill addressed Parliament and announced in no uncertain terms that the "Bulge" was an American battle—and an American victory. (History.com)

1953 Cold War: Truman announces U.S. has developed hydrogen bomb:

In his final State of the Union address before Congress, President Harry S. Truman tells the world that that the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb.

It was just three years earlier on January 31, 1950, that Truman publicly announced that had directed the Atomic Energy Commission to proceed with the development of the hydrogen bomb. Truman's directive came in responds to evidence of an atomic explosion occurring within USSR in 1949. (History.com)

1959 Cold War: United States recognizes new Cuban government: Just six days after the fall of the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in Cuba, U.S. officials recognize the new provisional government of the island nation. Despite fears that Fidel Castro, whose rebel army helped to overthrow Batista, might have communist leanings, the U.S. government believed that it could work with the new regime and protect American interests in Cuba. [For further information, click here.]

1979 Far East: Vietnamese forces capture the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government. (AP)

1989 Death: Emperor Hirohito:

Showa Tenno Hirohito, the 124th Japanese monarch in an imperial line dating back to 660 B.C., dies after serving six decades as the emperor of Japan. He was the longest serving monarch in Japanese history.

Made regent in 1921, Hirohito was enthroned as emperor in 1928, two years after the death of his father, Emperor Taisho. During his first two decades as emperor, Hirohito presided over one of the most turbulent eras in his nation's history. From rapid military expansion beginning in 1931 to the crushing defeat of Japan in 1945, Hirohito stood above the Japanese people as an absolute monarch whose powers were sharply limited in practice. After U.S. atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was he who argued for his country's surrender, explaining to the Japanese people in his first-ever radio address that the "unendurable must be endured." Under U.S. occupation and postwar reconstruction, Hirohito was formally stripped of his powers and forced to renounce his alleged div (History.com)inity, but he remained his country's official figurehead until his death in 1989. He was succeeded as emperor by his only son, Akihito.

1994 Albert Speer's daughter: Hilde Schramm, a prominent European political figure who has distinguished herself by helping victims of anti-Semitism and Nazi atrocities, is awarded the Moses Mendelssohn Award. Note: Schramm is active in German politics, has served as vice president of the Berlin city council, and is a leader of the Green Party in Berlin.

 


 







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