The Battle of Sunda Strait ended in Japanese victory. The Allies lost 1 heavy cruiser, 1 light cruiser and 1 destroyer while the Japanese lost 1 minelayer and 4 troopships sunk or grounded.
Near Christmas Island, the fuel tanker USS Pecos was bombed and sunk by Aichi D3A dive bombers, while the American destroyer USS Edsall was bombed and damaged by Japanese aircraft and then shelled and sunk by the battleships Hiei and Kirishima.
The Dutch steamship Roseboom was torpedoed and sunk west of Sumatra by the Japanese submarine I-159.
Died:George S. Rentz, 59, United States Navy chaplain (killed in action); Cornelius Vanderbilt III, 68, American military officer, inventor, engineer and yachtsman
KNILM Douglas DC-3 shootdown: A Douglas DC-3 airliner was shot down over Australia by Japanese warplanes, resulting in the deaths of four passengers and the loss of diamonds worth an estimated A£ 150,000–300,000. The diamonds were presumably looted from the crash site but their fate remains a mystery.
The American gunboat Asheville was sunk south of Java by the Japanese destroyers Arashi and Nowaki.
The Japanese conducted Operation K, a reconnaissance of Pearl Harbor and disruption of repair and salvage operations there. Two Kawanishi H8K flying boats were dispatched but failed to see much due to heavy clouds and only did negligible bombing damage.
The Sook Ching massacre ended in Singapore. Official Japanese statistics show fewer than 5,000 killed while the Singaporean Chinese community claims the numbers to be around 100,000.
The British sloop Yarra was sunk in the Indian Ocean by Japanese cruisers.
A controversial political cartoon by Philip Zec appeared in the Daily Mirror, depicting a merchant seaman clinging to the remains of a ship in rough seas with the caption, "The price of petrol has been increased by one penny – Official." Winston Churchill interpreted the cartoon as "defeatist" and considered taking action to ban the Daily Mirror from publication.[9]
The British light cruiser Naiad was torpedoed and sunk south of Crete by German submarine U-565.
Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas by decree reiterated his powers to declare war or a state of national emergency, clearing the way for the seizure of subjects and property of Axis countries.[20]
Brothers Anthony and William Esposito were executed by electric chair five minutes apart at Sing Sing for the January 14, 1941 slaying of a police officer and a holdup victim, which had led to a sensational trial in which they feigned insanity. Both brothers were in such fragile health that they had to be brought into the death chamber in wheelchairs because they had refused all food for the past 10 months that was not fed them forcibly.[21]
The American cargo ship Texan was torpedoed, shelled and sunk by German submarine U-126.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a proposal to all 48 state governors that speed limits throughout the nation be reduced to 40 miles per hour (64 km/h) to conserve rubber.[23]
German submarine U-133 sank off the Greek island of Salamis after striking a naval mine.
German submarines U-177 and U-260 were commissioned.
Died:René Bull, 69, British illustrator and photographer
Nazi occupying forces and local collaborationists committed the First Dünamünde Action in the Biķernieki forest near Riga, massacring about 1,900 people.
German submarine U-503 was depth charged and sunk off Newfoundland by a Lockheed Hudson.
The British destroyer Vortigern was torpedoed and sunk off Cromer by the German E-boat S-104.
When reporters met the train of General Douglas MacArthur north of Adelaide, Australia, he declared: "The President of the United States ordered me to break through the Japanese lines and proceed from Corregidor to Australia for the purpose, as I understand it, of organizing the American offensive against Japan, a primary object of which is the relief of the Philippines. I came through and I shall return."[28]
The British destroyer Heythrop was torpedoed northeast of Bardia by German submarine U-652. She was towed by the destroyer Eridge towards Tobruk but foundered five hours later.[29]
The last British cavalry charge in history occurred when about 60 Sikh sowars of the Burma Frontier Force attacked Japanese infantry at Taungoo. Most were killed.[30][31]
German submarines U-442 and U-517 were commissioned.
Second Battle of Sirte, the escorting warships of a British convoy to Malta held off a much more powerful Regia Marina (Italian Navy) squadron.
Allied forces abandoned the Magwe airfield in Burma, 100 miles (160 km) east of Akyab.[33]
Cripps' mission: The British government sent Stafford Cripps to India to disclose the British constitutional proposals for a postwar India. Britain promised self-government for India after the war in exchange for their co-operation in the war effort.[33]
The BBC began transmitting news bulletins in Morse Code for the benefit of resistance fighters in occupied Europe.[34]
The Manzanar Japanese-American internment camp first opened.[35]
The Nazis began the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz concentration camp with the transport of 1,000 single women from Slovakia via Poprad transit camp.[27] This was also the first deportation of Slovak Jews; of the 57,000 deported in 1942 only a few hundred survived the Holocaust.
The Germans launched Operation Bamberg, an anti-partisan operation in occupied Belarus.
Bombing of Lübeck: The port city of Lübeck was the first German city attacked in substantial numbers by the Royal Air Force. The night attack caused a firestorm that caused severe damage to the historic centre and led to the retaliatory Baedeker raids on historic British cities.
The British conducted the St Nazaire Raid on the heavily defended Normandie dry dock at Saint-Nazaire in German-occupied France. All British objectives were achieved although 169 were killed and 215 taken prisoner. The destroyer HMS Campelltown was expended as a floating bomb.
The Panamanian cargo ship Howick Hall of convoy PQ 13 was bombed and sunk in the Barents Sea by Junkers Ju 88 aircraft.
German destroyer Z26 was shelled and sunk in the Barents Sea by British cruiser Trinidad and destroyer Eclipse.
The Hukbalahap Rebellion began when former Hukbalahap soldiers rebelled against the Philippine government. The rebellion would not end until 1954.
Following a coup d'état, the Free Republic of Nias was proclaimed by a group of freed Nazi German prisoners in the Indonesian island of Nias. The republic existed for less than a month until the island was fully occupied by Japanese troops.
^Sturma, Michael (2011). Surface and Destroy: The Submarine Gun War in the Pacific. Kentucky University Press. p. 91. ISBN978-0-8131-2999-0.
^Williford, Glen (2010). Racing the Sunrise: The Reinforcement of America's Pacific Outposts, 1941–1942. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN978-1-61251-256-3.
^Kuniholm, Bruce Robellet (1980). The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East: Great Power Conflict and. Princeton University Press. p. 145. ISBN978-1-4008-5575-9.
^ abcdMercer, Derrik, ed. (1989). Chronicle of the 20th Century. London: Chronicle Communications Ltd. pp. 563–564. ISBN978-0-582-03919-3.
^Horner, David. "General MacArthur's War: The South and Southwest Pacific campaigns 1942–45." The Pacific War Companion: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima. Ed. Daniel Marston. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2005. p. 124. ISBN978-1-84603-212-7.
^"Manzanar, California". Japanese American Veterans Association. Retrieved February 1, 2016.
^Tucker, Spencer C. (2010). A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, LLC. p. 1958. ISBN978-1-85109-672-5.