Action of 1 November 1944: A naval battle was fought in the Kvarner Gulf off Croatia between a Royal Navy destroyer flotilla and a Kriegsmarine force of two corvettes and a destroyer. The result was a British victory as all three German ships were sunk.
Canadian Defence Minister James Ralston resigned his post after Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King rejected Ralston's plea for imposition of the draft for overseas service. The schism within King's cabinet brought about the Conscription Crisis of 1944 which threatened to topple King's government.[1]
The American destroyer Abner Read was sunk in Leyte Gulf by a Japanese kamikaze attack.
The British frigate Whitaker was torpedoed and damaged off Malin Head, Ireland by German submarine U-483 and rendered a constructive total loss.
50,000 of Budapest's Jews were sent on a forced march to Austria. 10,000 would die over the six-day march.[3] Moscow requested permission for their troops to enter Bulgarian territory.[4]
Japanese destroyer Akikaze was torpedoed and sunk west of Cape Bolinao, Philippines by the American submarine Pintado when she intercepted torpedoes intended for the aircraft carrier Jun'yō.
RAF Bomber Command sent 749 aircraft to conduct the last major raid on Bochum. Over 4,000 buildings were destroyed and nearly 1,000 people were killed.[6]
The German garrison at Middelburg surrendered to the Allies.[5]
The Italian government announced the formation of a private army about six divisions strong, to enter into the war on the Allied side.[8]
The provisional government of France struck down all of the country's anti-Semitic laws. Implementation of this measure was difficult when it came to returning Jews to their former occupations and giving them back their homes and confiscated property.[8]
In Liverpool, the largest penicillin factory in the world began production.[8]
The Air battle over Niš occurred over Niš, Serbia between the Air Forces of the United States and the Soviet Union. For an unknown reason, American P-38s attacked Soviet ground troops and then came under attack themselves from Yak fighters of the Soviet Air Force. It is unclear exactly what happened or why, since documents related to the incident apparently remain classified in both countries.[9]
The American submarine Albacore struck a mine and sank off Hokkaido.
Joseph Goebbels announced the V-2 rocket campaign for the first time. Winston Churchill followed suit and finally announced that England had been under rocket attack, providing the people of London with an explanation for all the mysterious explosions of recent weeks.[10][11]
Over 10,000 Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tatars, and some White Russians rally in Ghulja and declare independence as the Second East Turkistan Republic.
The Japanese destroyers Akebono, Akishimo, Hatsuharu and Kiso were all bombed and sunk by U.S. Navy aircraft in and around the Cavite Naval Yard in Manila, while destroyer Okinami was sunk 8 nautical miles west of the city.
Japanese submarine I-12 was hedgehogged and sunk east of Hawaii by American warships.
Civil air service returned to London for the first time since September 1939.[5]
Japanese aircraft carrier Shin'yō was torpedoed and sunk in the Yellow Sea by the American submarine Spadefish.
While part of convoy Hi-81, the Japanese landing craft depot ship Mayasan Maru was sunk in the East China Sea by the American submarine Picuda. Some 3,856 lives were lost in one of the highest maritime casualty counts of the war.
Canadian Parliament assembled in a special meeting to debate the conscription crisis. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King said that it had not become necessary to require drafted troops to serve overseas and that to do so "would occasion the most serious controversy that could arise in Canada. I can think of no course fraught with greater danger to our war effort, to say nothing of the unity and strength of Canada today and for generations to come, than a general election at this late stage of the war on the conscription issue. Until it is apparent conscription for overseas forces is necessary, the government would not be justified in taking the risk of widespread national dissention."[1]
The British submarine Stratagem was depth charged and sunk in the Strait of Malacca by the Japanese submarine chaser CH 35.
The government of Ferenc Szálasi in Hungary fled Budapest to escape encirclement by the Soviets and re-established itself in Sopron.[23]
The Terrace Mutiny began when Canadian soldiers based in Terrace, British Columbia began disobeying orders and seizing weapons after hearing rumors that conscripts might be deployed overseas. The mutiny was largely censored by authorities and it did not come to be well known by the general public.
About 1,000 Canadian soldiers from the military camp in Vernon, British Columbia paraded through the city shouting, "Down with conscription."[24]
A German V-2 rocket struck the intersection of High Holborn and Chancery Lane in the Holborn section of London, killing 6 and wounding 292. Then, in the worst V-2 attack of the war, another one landed across the street from the Woolworths department store in New Cross, South London and killed 168.[5][25]
The Norwegian prisoner ship Rigel was bombed and sunk in the Norwegian Sea by Fairey Barracuda aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm. 2,571 people were killed.
French Canadian nationalist René Chaloult said during a political meeting that Quebec should secede from Canada if the province was not allowed to decide its own policies on conscription.[28]
^Blalock, Alfred (May 19, 1945). "The Surgical Treatment of Malformations of the Heart In Which There Is Pulmonary Stenosis or Pulmonary Atresia". JAMA. 128: 189-202.