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• Chuck Yeager flew his 61st and final mission over Europe. ww2dbase [Charles Yeager | CPC]
• German report noted that the total number of prisoners in concentration camps was 714,211; there were about 40,000 guards at the camps. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | CPC]

• 36 US Navy F4U fighters and several New Zealand fighters took off from Green Islands east of Australian Papua and attacked the Toboi wharf area of Rabaul, New Britain and the nearby floatplane anchorage. 7 aircraft were lost to poor weather en route back to Green Islands. ww2dbase [New Guinea-Papua Campaign, Phase 3 | Rabaul, New Britain | CPC]

• Libelle was renamed Jagd. ww2dbase [F1 | CPC]
• Adolf Hitler ordered Panzerkorps Grossdeutschland to move from East Prussia, Germany to Poland to counter the Soviet Vistula-Oder Offensive. This counterattack would be repulsed by the Soviet 1st Byelorussian Front. ww2dbase [Vistula-Oder Offensive | Ostpreußen | CPC]
• Roza Shanina reached Eydtkuhnen, Ostpreußen (East Prussia), Germany (now Chernyshevskoye, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia). ww2dbase [Roza Shanina | Eydtkuhnen, Ostpreußen | CPC]
• Adolf Hitler departed the Adlerhorst headquarters in Wetterau, Germany, returning to Berlin. ww2dbase [Adolf Hitler | Berlin | CPC]

• USS Whale arrived at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii, ending her tenth war patrol. ww2dbase [Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Ford Island Naval Air Station | Whale | Pearl Harbor, Oahu | CPC]

• Allied aircraft attacked Japanese shipping in Hong Kong. ww2dbase [CPC]

• USS Sunfish departed Majuro, Marshall Islands for her tenth war patrol. ww2dbase [Sunfish (Gato-class) | Majuro | CPC]

• USS Ticonderoga launched Air Group 80 aircraft for strikes on Taiwan, hitting Kaneka Soda Company chemical plant (mis-identified as a magnesium plant) in Tainan, among other targets. In a separate strike by Air Group 80, Air Group Commander Albert Vorse led 8 Hellcat fighters and 13 Helldiver bombers on a strike against shipping in the harbors of Takao-Toshien (Kaohsiung) on Formosa (Taiwan). Vorse led the fighters in a masthead attack on the destroyer Hatakaze making her way along the coast. Vorse scored a bomb hit against the ship's hull at the waterline but Hatakaze anti-aircraft fire shot away the outboard third of Vorse's starboard wing. The remaining fighters pressed home their attack and the Hatakaze exploded in a sheet of flame before sinking immediately. Barely able to control his plane after losing a large section of one wing, Vorse recovered at just 200 feet above the water. Fighting his plane to keep it in the air, Vorse flew along the wave tops at high speed toward the US fleet. Upon reaching the American destroyer screen, Vorse executed a very dangerous high-speed water landing. Within a few minutes, he was picked up by the destroyer USS Caperton with no injuries. For his actions this day, Albert Vorse was awarded the Navy Cross. Vorse's plane was the only aircraft lost by Air Group 80 this day. ww2dbase [Albert O. Vorse, Jr. | Ticonderoga | Raid into the South China Sea | DS, CPC]

• Destroyer USS Shaw departed Lingayen Gulf, Luzon bound for San Pedro Bay, Leyte Gulf, Leyte. ww2dbase [Shaw | Lingayen Gulf, Luzon | DS]

• USS Yorktown (Essex-class) launched raids on Formosa (Taiwan) and Canton (Guangzhou) in China. ww2dbase [Raid into the South China Sea | Yorktown (Essex-class) | DS]
• The Inrin Temporary Prisoners of War Camp in central Taiwan was closed. ww2dbase [CPC]

• German V-2 rocket hit Rainham, London, England, United Kingdom at about 2345, killing 14 and seriously injuring 4. ww2dbase [Vergeltungswaffe 2 | V-Weapons Campaign | London, England | CPC]

• USS Iowa arrived at San Francisco, California, United States. ww2dbase [Iowa | San Francisco, California | CPC]
• Captain Douglass Johnson relieved Captain Gavin as commanding officer of USS Ranger at San Diego, California. ww2dbase [Ranger | San Diego, California | DS]

15 Jan 1945 Interactive Map