Eighty years ago the Soviets launch a decades long campaign of denying their crimes but the Japanese boast of theirs

 

 

The Soviet regime broke off diplomatic relations with the Polish government-in-exile because it refused to endorse the transparent Soviet fiction that the 10,000 Polish officers and other elite killed at Katyn Wood had been murdered by the Germans. The Poles sought an investigation by the Red Cross into the crime. The Germans had announced the discovery of the corpses some days beforehand. The Soviet explanation was seen as a sign of guilty conscience and a gift to German propaganda. Only in 2010 did the Russian parliament formally admit responsibility.

Japan announced openly that it had carried out illegal death sentences on US aircrew from the Doolittle air raid the previous year who had fallen into their hands. Eight had been sentenced to death supposedly for intentionally attacking civilian targets, but five of these sentences were commuted. 

The British Eighth Army captured Longstop Hill, the last major terrain feature protecting the Axis enclave in Tunisia. In December command of the hill had seesawed between British and Germans but eventually it had been left to the Germans. Key to the renewed and successful British push was the deployment of Churchill tanks which were able to climb the steep slopes of the hill. US forces also took Hill 609 nearby.

Sir George Thomson made a gift of Dorneywood his country house in Buckinghamshire to the nation then being used as a hostel for military officers. On his death and that of his sister the house would be placed at the disposal of the prime minister for the use of a senior minister.