http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1944/jan44/f28jan44.htm
Soviets trap 56,000 Germans
Friday, January 28, 1944 www.onwar.com
German forces assemble for relief of the Korsun Pocket [photo at link]
On the Eastern Front... South of Leningrad, forces of the Soviet Volkhov Front capture Lyuban and other small towns to the south. Field Marshal von Kuchler, commanding German Army Group North orders the German 18th Army (Lindemann) to retire to the line of the Luga River in order to prevent it from being encircled by the advancing Soviet forces. In the Ukraine, elements of Soviet 6th Tank Army (Kravchenko), part of 1st Ukrainian Front, and 5th Guards Tank Army (Rotmistrov), part of 2nd Ukrainian Front, link up near Zvenigorodka and complete a double envelopment of elements two corps (German 11th and 42nd Corps) of the German 8th Army (Wohler), part of Army Group South (Manstein). Approximately 56,000 German troops are now cut off southwest of Cherkassy. Field Marshal Manstein immediately assembles armored forces from 1st Panzer and 8th Armies to relieve the trapped forces.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/28.htm
January 28th, 1944 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: London: Official statements concerning the sickening cruelty of the Japanese towards prisoners of war were made today in Britain and the United States. The British foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, said: “Let the Japanese government reflect in time to come that the record of their military authorities in this war will not be forgotten.” The House of Commons and both houses of Congress heard blood-curdling accounts of the inhuman conditions the prisoners are kept in - without sufficient food, water or shelter - and barbarous tortures used by guards.
Frigates HMS Waldegrave and Whitaker commissioned.
Frigate HMS Halladale launched.
GERMANY: U-1272 commissioned.
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Kitchener completed refit Liverpool, Nova Scotia.
U.S.A.: A memo signed by General Walter Bedell-Smith, Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower: “It is highly desirable that the [French] division should be composed of white personnel, which points to the second armoured division, which has only one quarter native troops and is the only French division which could be made 100 per cent white.”
This is in reference to the French division which will be part of the Allied invasion force at Normandy. (Henry Sirotin)
Destroyer escort USS Wingfield commissioned.
Destroyer escort USS Le Ray Wilson launched.
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
U-271 Sunk west of Limerick, in position 53.15N, 15.52W, by depth charges from a US Consolidated PB4Y-1Liberator aircraft (VB-103/E, based in St. Eval, Cornwall under operational control of RAF No. 19 (General Reconnaissance) Group, RAF Coastal Command). The PB4Y crew caught U-271 on the surface and dropped six depth charges causing the sub to settle by the stern and sink. 51 dead (all hands lost).
U-571 Sunk west of Ireland, in position 52.41N, 14.27W, by depth charges from an Australian Shorts Sunderland MKIII aircraft (RAAF-Sqdn 461/D, out of Pembroke Dock, Wales). 52 dead (all hands lost). Unlike many U-boats, which during their service lost men due to accidents and various other causes. U-571 did not suffer any casualties (we know of) until the time of her loss. (Alex Gordon and Jack McKillop)