UNITED KINGDOM: The first Avro Anson Mk XII (NL 153) makes its maiden flight. (22)
Also the prototype Bristol Buckmaster three-seat advanced trainer, (TJ 714) makes its maiden flight. (22)
NORTH SEA: U-1060 (Type VIIF) Not a combat vessel but a torpedo transport (operating mainly to the Norwegian bases) is sunk in the North Sea south of Bronnøysund, at position 65.24N, 12.00E by rockets and depth charges from aircraft of the British carrier HMS Implacable, a British Halifax T aircraft (Sqdn 502) and from a Czechoslovakian Liberator aircraft (Sqdn 311/H). 12 dead, 43 survivors. (Alex Gordon)
NETHERLANDS: The Canadian attacks
in the Beveland continues. Inland, Bergen-op-Zoom is captured.
A sharp German counterattack is mounted near Venlo, against the British
2nd Army Sector and British troops capture Tilburg.
GERMANY:
U-3015 launched.
U-2539 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
HUNGARY: Uzhrorod, is captured by units of the Soviet 4th Ukraine Front.
LATVIA: A renewed Soviet attacks begins.
ITALY: As winter sets in the Allied advance bogs down.
There is one sing they do not - by order - play on the British Forces Broadcasting Service in Italy. The German Lili Marlene remains top of the Eighth Army hit parade, with Glenn Miller running a close second. The frowned-upon song (sung to the tune of Lili Marlene) is based on the alleged, and since denied, remark by a British MP, Lady (Nancy) Astor, and runs:
We are the D-Day dodgers,
out in Italy.
- always on the vino,
always on the spree;
Eighth Army scroungers
and their tanks.
We live in Rome among the Yanks.
We are the D-Day dodgers,
In Sunny Italy.
Sunny Italy it is not. Once again the Eighth Army is faced with a winter which has allied itself with the Germans, while west of the Apennines the US Fifth Army today called off its latest offensive. Despite huge casualty lists - more than 20,000 men have been killed, wounded or taken prisoner since Cassino - the Allied armies here have had little share in the world headlines since the Anzio landings, and are feeling forgotten.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Buri Airfield is captured by the US 7th Division on Leyte. Admiral Shermans task group of US TF 38 strikes Japanese shipping around Luzon, Philippine Islands. Strikes are also sent against Luzon Island. The battleship, USS California is damaged by the Japanese.
PACIFIC OCEAN:
0400 hours: USS Burrfish (SS-312) sinks a cargo ship at 29-08 N, 128-45 E.
0400 hours: USS Bergall (SS-320) sinks an armed tanker at 07-17 N, 116-45 E. (Skip Guidry)
CANADA: Frigate HMCS Fort Erie commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.:
Destroyer USS Henderson laid down Seattle, Washington.
Destroyer minelayer USS Tolman commissioned.
Destroyer USS Duncan launched.
Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-319 was commissioned at New York with LTJG Sterling M. Anderson, USCG, as her first commanding officer. She departed New York on 11 December 1944 for the Southwest Pacific where she operated at Finschhafen, Auguson, etc., during the war. (Dave Shirlaw)