February 2: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end with the surrender of the German 6th Army.

February 3: The Four Chaplains of the U.S. Army are among those drowned when their ship, United States Army Transport Dorchester, is struck by a German torpedo in the North Atlantic.

February 5: Lt. General Frank M. Andrews is selected to command the U.S. armies in Europe, while General Dwight D. Eisenhower is assigned command in North Africa; General Andrews will serve only three months before dying in an airplane crash.

February 7: In the United States, it is announced that shoe rationing will go into effect in 2 days.

February 9: Guadalcanal Campaign in the Solomon Islands ends with United States forces in command of Guadalcanal, the evacuation of Japanese forces in Operation Ke having been completed two days earlier.

February 10-March 3: Mohandas Gandhi (under arrest by the British Raj in Pune as a member of the Quit India Movement) keeps a hunger strike to protest at his imprisonment.

February 14: Rostov-on-Don in Russia is liberated.

February 14-17: Battle of Sidi Bou Zid: In the Tunisia Campaign, German Panzer divisions commanded by Hans-Jürgen von Arnim are victorious over the United States Army.

February 16: The Soviet Union reconquers Kharkov, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkov.

February 18: In a Sportpalast speech in Berlin, German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declares a "Total War" against the Allies, tacitly admitting that Nazi Germany faces serious dangers. - The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose German Resistance movement.

February 19-25: Battle of the Kasserine Pass: German General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps and other Axis forces launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia; it is the United States' first major battle defeat of the war.

February 20: American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies. - The Parícutin volcano begins to appear in a cornfield in Mexico.

February 22: Members of White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.

February 23-24: Cavan Orphanage Fire: 35 girls and a cook from St Joseph's Orphanage, an industrial school at Cavan in the Republic of Ireland, are killed in a fire in their dormitories. A subsequent inquiry absolves the Poor Clares of blame.

February 27: Smith Mine disaster: an explosion at Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, United States kills 74 coal miners.

February 28: Operation Gunnerside: 6 Norwegians led by Joachim Ronneberg successfully attack the heavy water plant at Vemork. (source: Wikipedia)