The Axis Conquers the Philippines: January 1942-July 1942
The Axis continued to smash forward in World War II during the first half of 1942. On February 15, 1942, the British Empire suffered one of its most humiliating defeats. At 6:15 p.m., in a makeshift conference room in the Ford Motor Company factory in Singapore, General Arthur Percival surrendered the island to Lieutenant General Yamashita Tomoyuki.
The Japanese made the island the headquarters of the Southern Army, which conquered Southeast Asia, and renamed Singapore "Shonan," meaning "Light of the South." Of the 50,000 white troops captured, 18,000 would die of disease and/or mistreatment before war's end.
 Japan's capture of the island fortress of Singapore in February 1942 shocked Britain and other European colonial powers. See more pictures of World War II. |
The Japanese armed forces aimed to capture a broad area in the south. They would defend the perimeter while the rich resources of the region were incorporated into the Japanese war effort.
Resistance was limited. In the Dutch East Indies, the 140,000-man colonial army was overwhelmed. The northern Philippines, with a mixed native and American force, was quickly overrun except for the Bataan Peninsula, where 100,000 soldiers and refugees were bottled up. The Japanese captured the peninsula in April.
The American headquarters in the fortress of Corregidor, in Manila Bay, fell on May 6, 1942, after a fierce defense. By early June, nearly all American forces in the Philippines had surrendered.
Further west, a Japanese force overran Burma and entered the capital, Rangoon, on March 8. A Japanese aircraft carrier raided the northern Australian port of Darwin on February 19, and in April Japanese aircraft sank British shipping on the Indian coast.
This was the limit of Japanese expansion, though the assault had been so successful and rapid that senior commanders sought to capitalize on their advantage with further advances. In early May, a naval force sailed south to seize the southern peninsula of New Guinea while Admiral Yamamoto planned a mid-Pacific offensive. This was designed to destroy what was left of U.S. naval power in the ocean and cut off American aid to the South Pacific.
The prelude to the final Japanese assault was the seizure of Port Moresby in southern New Guinea. The task force that was dispatched south in early May was attacked by a small Allied force in the Coral Sea. The battle was a strategic setback for Yamamoto, who was obliged to abandon his plan to seize Port Moresby and isolate Australia. This was the first hint that Japanese expansion was nearing its limit.
A month later, Yamamoto dispatched a huge task force to Midway Island, hoping to lure what was left of the U.S. Pacific Fleet to battle and then annihilate it. With a small force of carriers and sufficient secret intelligence on Japanese intentions, the Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Chester Nimitz, planned a daring interception.
As the Japanese carrier fleet neared Midway, it was attacked by American dive-bombers. Only a few of their bombs struck, but they sank all four fleet carriers. Yamamoto ordered a return to Japan. His plans had been frustrated by America's intelligence successes, astute leadership, combat skills, and luck.
Elsewhere, the global war remained balanced on a knife edge. China's long, drawn-out conflict with Japan had become a formal state of war on December 9, 1941, following Pearl Harbor. Although the Japanese army controlled much of eastern and northern China, Chinese hit-and-run tactics made it difficult for Japan to pacify and control even those areas under occupation.
In May 1942, Japanese commanders embarked on a ruthless policy of pacification -- "kill all, steal all, burn all" -- to try to deter further Chinese resistance. Roughly 250,000 Chinese were killed in 1942.
In North Africa, British Empire forces based in Egypt had moved forward successfully across Libya against weak Italian resistance. But in January 1942, against an Axis force strengthened by a Nazi German corps under General Erwin Rommel, the British Empire Forces began a long retreat back to Egypt. Tobruk fell to the Axis on June 21, and by the end of June Axis forces were a few miles from El Alamein, Egypt, within striking distance of the Suez Canal.
The British position at sea -- in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic -- remained precarious. In 1942 they lost 7.8 million tons of shipping. Britain was able to import only one-third of what it took in before the war. The Allies' persistent bombing of Nazi German naval installations and submarine building sites achieved almost nothing.
The most dangerous situation lay in the Soviet theater. With the successful defense of Moscow in December 1941, the Soviets launched further offensives, trying to find weak spots in the Nazi German line. In the south, the Red Army created a large salient in Nazi German defensive lines south of Kharkov.
But when Joseph Stalin ordered the Red Army to capture the city in May 1942, the Nazi German front absorbed the attack and then encircled and annihilated the attackers. In the Crimea, the Nazi Germans repulsed a Soviet counteroffensive on the Kerch Peninsula. In July, they captured Sevastopol after an assault with the world's largest artillery piece: "Big Dora."
Nazi Germany's central ambition was the final defeat of the Soviet Union in 1942. Adolf Hitler planned to attack the less well-defended southern front toward the Volga River and the Caucasus oil fields. Their capture would give his forces huge new oil supplies and deny them to the enemy.
On June 28, Nazi Germany launched "Operation Blue" with substantial success. The Soviet southern front retreated. So successful was the assault that Adolf Hitler divided the force in two. He sent the Sixth Army, under General Friedrich Paulus, to seize Stalingrad and cut the Soviet Union off from the resources of the south. By August, Nazi German forces had reached the oil city of Maikop and were advancing toward the rich oil fields around Grozny.
 A Nazi German infantryman gives food to a malnourished Soviet child. |
In midsummer 1942, the war was poised in the balance. The strategic dream of the Axis powers was to link up in the Middle East. They would seize the Suez Canal and the oil that lay beyond it from one side, and they would sweep down from the Caucasus on the other side.
With Japan threatening India and the United States not yet fully armed, the ambition seemed less fantastic at the time than it now appears. Yet the summer of 1942 saw the high watermark of Axis aggrandizement. Over the next year, the Allies would find not just greater resources but also more effective ways of fighting. They were poised to reverse the long series of defeats that had until then littered their war effort.
Let's take a closer look at these events, beginning with a timeline of early January 1942 on the next page.
Learn more about the significant events and players of World War II in these informative articles:
- World War II Timeline
- Russian Army Repels Hitler's Forces: August 1942-January 1943
- Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor: July 1941-December 1941
World War II Timeline: January 1942-January 11, 1942
On January 2, 1942, the Philippine capital of Manila was occupied by the Japanese army. Learn about this and the other important World War II events that occurred during the month of January 1942 below.
World War II Timeline: January 1-January 11
January 1: The United Nations is born from an agreement among 26 Allied nations not to make separate peace with the signatories of the Tripartite Pact.
Auto dealerships across the United States close their doors after steel conservation measures force a moratorium on new car and truck sales.
Twenty-three Czech partisans are murdered by the Nazi occupation force on suspicion of sabotage.
January 2: The rampaging Japanese army occupies the Philippine capital of Manila.
January 3-12: China emerges victorious in a battle for Changsha, Hunan. The Chinese drive some 70,000 Japanese troops into full retreat.
January 4: New Japanese bases in Thailand are now operational.
January 6: Washington and London announce plans to station American troops in Britain to help further Allied military goals in Europe.
In a victory that is Britain's first against Nazi German troops in this war, the Eighth Army routs a division of Erwin Rommel's Panzer Corps, inflicting nearly 40,000 casualties.
January 10: The Japanese launch a propaganda war in the skies over the Philippines, dropping leaflets on Allied troops that press for their surrender.
January 11: Japan invades the Celebes Islands, part of the Dutch empire, and declares war on the Netherlands.
Japan continues its campaign of conquest with the seizure of the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.
World War II Headlines
Below are more highlights and images that outline the events of World War II and show the details and consequences of Japan conquering the Philippines in 1942.
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British Borneo falls to Japan: Japanese infantry go on the assault in British Borneo. Mountainous and heavily jungled, with a limited network of roads, Borneo was strategically important due to its position on the main routes between Japan and Malaya. It also offered large supplies of oil and raw materials to the resource-starved Japanese (though for Japan to successfully transport oil along shipping lanes that would see increased Allied activity would be difficult).
For the moment, though, the possibility of Japanese access to additional oil was unappealing to the Allies. British strategists had long realized that Borneo could not be held. Nevertheless, the only Allied ground unit on Borneo, an outnumbered Indian battalion of the 15th Punjab Regiment, managed to resist for 10 weeks before it was overwhelmed.
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The Battle of Changsha, China: A Chinese soldier mans a light machine gun during the Battle of Changsha. The Japanese offensive against the city began with 120,000 troops in late December 1941. The Chinese army resisted with 300,000 men, which harassed the Japanese advance and then established lines of defense in Changsha itself.
The Japanese assault penetrated the city, but on January 1 the Chinese counterattacked, inflicting heavy casualties. Other Chinese units swept down from the mountains to sever Japanese supply lines. Suddenly finding themselves besieged, the Japanese began a costly retreat, finally reaching the safety of the Sinchiang River on January 15.
Brazil linked to Nazi Germany: The United States had deep concerns about Brazilian policy in the years prior to World War II. Enamored of the Nazi German model, Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas had dissolved Brazil's constitutional government in 1937 and strengthened trade links with Nazi Germany, creating alarm in U.S. political circles. Vargas cleverly played upon those fears to win economic concessions from the U.S. In 1942 Brazil finally came into the war on the Allied side. However, enemy agents and the large German population in South America provided pro-Axis pressure and cover for Axis communication facilities well into 1944.
Based on peculiar perspectives on Confucianism and Zen Buddhism, Bushido demanded unquestioning loyalty and sacrifice. The Japanese soldiers' written code ordered them to keep in mind that duty was "weightier than a mountain," while death was "lighter than a feather." Indeed, death was idealized as something to be welcomed. Thus, soldiers, sailors, and airmen willingly sacrificed themselves in banzai charges, kamikaze aircraft, and kaiten submarines. Japan's leaders now believed surrender as unthinkable for Japanese and contemptible in enemies, thus justifying abominable treatment of prisoners after prior years of very decent treatment of prisoners (also attributed to Bushido). In keeping with the samurai tradition, they also revered the sword, which led to the beheading of their captives. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East blamed Bushido as a contributing factor in Japanese atrocities. Atrocities were part of every major Japanese land operation and were directed against both combatants and civilians. The demeaning training and disciplinary regimes in the Japanese services featured corporal punishment and probably contributed to the brutality of their personnel. The Japanese army employed ruses that their enemies considered unacceptable, including wearing enemy uniforms, booby-trapping corpses, and feigning surrender in order to kill would-be captors. The atrocities could be blamed on other reasons. The Japanese were fighting a losing war, combating insurgencies, and trying to survive amid starvation. However, the atrocities had begun when Japan was winning the war. Japanese servicemen were repeatedly told that their martial spirit was superior to that of their materialistic enemies, who would eventually succumb. Initially, the combination of Japanese ferocity and skill was frighteningly successful. However, the ultimate defeat of the Japanese discredited their cultural prejudice. |
See the next section for a timeline and more headlines from January 1942.
Learn more about the significant events and players of World War II in these informative articles:
- World War II Timeline
- Russian Army Repels Hitler's Forces: August 1942-January 1943
- Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor: July 1941-December 1941
World War II Timeline: January 12, 1942-January 22, 1942
The Soviet Union began evacuating the besieged city of Leningrad on January 22, 1942. Learn about this and the other important World War II events that occurred during the month of January 1942 below.
World War II Timeline: January 12-January 22
January 12: The Inter-Allied Conference meets in London and resolves to try Axis officials with war crimes at the end of the conflict.
January 13: The first 700 of 10,000 Polish Jews from the city of Lódz´ scheduled for "resettlement" are shipped to the newly established Chelmno death camp in Poland.
The Nazi Germans launch Operation Drum Roll, a U-boat offensive along the American East Coast.
January 14: American and British war planners, meeting in Washington, D.C., agree to focus on Adolf Hitler's defeat before turning their attention to Japanese domination in the Pacific.
Nearly 2,000 European companies with Axis interests are barred from doing business with any American entity, public or private.
The tanker Norness, flying Panamanian colors, is torpedoed off North Carolina's Cape Hatteras. It is the first ship attacked off the U.S. East Coast by a Nazi German U-boat.
January 20: At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, the Nazis draw most German government agencies into the European portion of the "Final Solution" for the Jews. Reinhard Heydrich suggests that they should be worked to death, and those that don't succumb should be executed.
Facing a certain threat by Japan, Winston Churchill calls on British troops to defend Singapore "to the death."
January 21: Erwin Rommel shocks his British foes by directing his Afrika Korps in a tactical about-face. He launches an offensive in Libya that will see him regain lost territory almost immediately.
January 22: The Soviets begin the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from the besieged city of Leningrad.
World War II Headlines
Below are more highlights and images that outline the events of World War II in 1942, including Japan's victories after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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Japan gathers a string of victories in the Southeast: Soon after Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces invaded Thailand and Malaya. Landings also took place in the Philippines, North Borneo, and the Dutch East Indies. On December 26, the fall of Hong Kong ended an 18-day Japanese onslaught. During January 1942, Manila and Kuala Lumpur were occupied and the Solomon Islands invaded. From February to April, the British stronghold of Singapore fell, and Japanese landings were made at Bali, Mindanao, and Dutch New Guinea.
Then, just as the overextended Japanese forces sought to consolidate their newly won territories, a series of U.S. victories from May to August -- in the Coral Sea, at Midway, and at Guadalcanal -- finally reversed the strategic situation.
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The political cartoons of Dr. Seuss: A decade before he broke through as a famous children's book author, Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) created more than 400 political cartoons for the liberal New York tabloid PM during the war. Primary targets for his biting caricatures were Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, conservative politicians, and isolationists. Dr. Seuss also condemned anti-black and anti-Semitic beliefs, but he targeted all Japanese as potential enemies of America.
In cartoon pictured aboved, which appeared in PM on February 13, 1942, he expressed the fear that most of the Japanese Americans on the Pacific coast were potential saboteurs. His cartoons contributed to the hysteria that led to the internment of Japanese Americans in 1942.
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Italy routed at Tobruk, Libya: In January 1942, the Italian garrison of Tobruk, Libya, fell to the Allied Western Desert Force. Some 25,000 prisoners, 208 guns, 23 tanks, 200 trucks, and a multiplicity of rations and supplies were captured -- as was a guaranteed source of fresh water. The British also acquired a major port vital to their logistic plans.
Meanwhile, the Italian navy suffered from defective operating concepts, underfunding, poor gunnery, and general mismanagement. Accordingly, the part-submerged remains of the Italian destroyer pictured above, sunk by the Royal Navy outside the harbor, symbolized the totality of the Italian defeat at Tobruk.
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Nazi Germans freeze on Eastern Front: Nazi German soldiers huddle around a fire during their first winter in the Soviet Union in 1941-1942. Daytime temperatures were routinely -30şF. Although Nazi German morale generally held up remarkably well, the Wehrmacht high command was unprepared for campaigning in the Soviet winter. Lubricants froze, and consequently vehicles and weapons refused to work. Many horses upon which the army -- especially the artillery units -- still depended died during the bitterly cold nights. Meanwhile, many infantry companies were quickly reduced to platoon strength due to their lack of winter clothing. The Red Army was much better prepared.
Australians ambush Japanese: Trapped in a defile, Japanese troops are cut down near the Gemencheh Bridge near Gemas, Malaya. On January 14, 1942, a company of Australians ambushed Japanese bicycle-mounted troops who were passing through a cutting that led to the bridge on the Sungei Gemencheh River. Despite inflicting heavy casualties in their first major confrontation with the Japanese, the Australians were eventually forced to withdraw. The Japanese Fifth Division lost an estimated 1,000 men in the ambush and subsequent fighting closer to Gemas. The Australian 2/30th Battalion suffered just 81 casualties.
Find a World War II timeline detailing the important events of January 1942 on the next page.
Learn more about the significant events and players of World War II in these informative articles:
- World War II Timeline
- Russian Army Repels Hitler's Forces: August 1942-January 1943
- Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor: July 1941-December 1941
World War II Timeline: January 23, 1942-February 1, 1942
On January 25, 1942, Thailand declared war on the United States and Great Britain. Learn about this and the other important World War II events that occurred during 1942 below.
World War II Timeline: January 23-February 1January 23: Australia sends an urgent request for assistance from the Allies after a series of conquests in the Southwest Pacific brings the Japanese within a thousand miles of Australian territory.
January 24: U.S. Supreme Court justice Owen Roberts reports that inquests into culpability for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor reveal indifference and neglect on the part of Navy and Army commanders -- Rear Admiral Husband Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short.
The first significant naval battle in the Pacific Theater, the Battle of Makassar Strait, ends with the Japanese losing four transport ships. Despite their losses, they will achieve their objective of securing the oil-rich port of Balikpapan, Borneo.
January 25: Thailand declares war on the United States and Great Britain.
January 26: The U.S. armed forces establish their British office in the capital city of London.
The Japanese gain a critical base with the capture of Rabaul, New Britain.
January 30: In a speech that leaves no doubt about one of Adolf Hitler's primary goals of the war, the Führer asserts that the conflict will end with the "complete annihilation of the Jews," calling them "the most evil universal enemy of all time."
February 1: The Reich institutes a policy of tobacco rationing in the Fatherland, allowing German women half a man's ration.
Nazi puppet Vidkun Quisling is named Norwegian premier for the second time. He will publicly accept his reappointment in a speech unapologetically delivered in German.
Nazi German U-boats adopt a new cipher called "Triton," meaning the Allies can no longer interpret their messages.
World War II Headlines
Below are more highlights and images that outline the events of World War II, including the evacuation of Singapore.
Civilians killed during evacuation of Singapore: Women and children arrive in Britain after evacuating from Singapore. Confident of the impregnability of the fortress and fearful of creating a panic, British authorities waited too long to begin the mass evacuation of civilians. As defeat loomed, all available ships were hastily loaded with fleeing civilians. The Empire Star, designed to carry a small number of passengers, was crammed with 2,000 refugees. As coordination broke down, the evacuation became a debacle. Enemy planes attacked the fleeing ships and thousands of civilians drowned. Others survived drowning only to be murdered by Japanese troops as they struggled ashore on Bangka Island.
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Australian Vivian Bullwinkel survives Japanese massacre: Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, an Australian Army nurse, was among the last 65 nurses evacuated from Singapore before it fell in February 1942. Their ship was sunk by Japanese aircraft off Bangka Island near Sumatra. Bullwinkel and a group of survivors struggled ashore and surrendered to Japanese soldiers, who bayoneted the men and shot the women.
Miraculously, Bullwinkel survived a bullet to the side. She escaped into the jungle and eventually surrendered to Japanese sailors, from whom she concealed her wounds. She then endured three years of harsh imprisonment, attributing her survival to the friendship of fellow nurses and faith in Australia.
Britain's heartbreaking defeat in Singapore: The loss of the "Gibraltar of the Far East" on February 15, 1942, ranks among the greatest defeats in British military history. The quick Japanese victory over a numerically superior force stunned the world, shattered British military power in the region, exposed the myth of Western superiority for all to see, and raised the hopes of nationalist movements chafing under colonial rule. Britain's colonial star went into decline and would never regain its former ascendancy.
For the Allies to prosecute the war successfully, they needed to establish and maintain a sound working relationship between the national military staffs of the U.S. and Great Britain at the strategic level. To achieve this, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the British Chiefs of Staff formed the Combined Chiefs of Staff in February 1942. Britain was represented in Washington by the British Joint Staff Mission. |
See the next page for a World War II timeline that follows the major events of early February 1942.
Learn more about the significant events and players of World War II in these informative articles:
- World War II Timeline
- Russian Army Repels Hitler's Forces: August 1942-January 1943
- Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor: July 1941-December 1941
World War II Timeline: February 1, 1942-February 13, 1942
Franklin Roosevelt approved aid to the Nationalist Chinese on February 7, 1942. Learn about this and the other important World War II events that occurred during the month of February 1942 below.
World War II Timeline: February 1-February 13February 1: Japanese bases on the Gilbert and Marshall islands come under attack by more than 90 carrier-based U.S. warplanes.
February 4: In Egypt, British ambassador Sir Miles Lampson surrounds King Farouk's palace with Allied tanks to pressure the monarch into appointing a pro-British government.
Japan presses Britain to surrender control of Singapore, the crown jewel in the British Asian empire.
February 6: British and American officials meet in Washington, D.C., for the first conference of the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff.
The United States counterattacks a reinforced Japanese force on the island of Luzon, Philippines.
February 7: A congressional call for $500 million in aid to the Nationalist Chinese gets Franklin Roosevelt's stamp of approval.
February 9: The Japanese capture Singapore's Tengah airfield, a vital supply link.
February 10: Axis sabotage is suspected when Normandie, the luxury French liner impounded in New York, catches fire and capsizes. No sabotage actually occurred.
February 11: London questions Vichy France's assertions of neutrality, revealing that France has supplied Nazi German forces in North Africa with more than 5,000 tons of fuel over the past three months.
February 11-13: The Nazi German navy humiliates the British with the perfect execution of Operation Cerberus, also known as the "Channel Dash." Unable to return from Brest, France, to their home ports via the British-controlled Atlantic route, the Nazi German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the cruiser Prinz Eugen make an audacious escape up the English Channel.
World War II Headlines
Below are more highlights and images that outline key events of World War II, such as Japan's air raid on Surabaya, Java.
Adolf Galland, the Wehrmacht's youngest general: Adolf Galland, probably the best-known Luftwaffe ace of the war, led a fighter group during the Battle of Britain that accounted for 103 aircraft "kills." By late 1941, he was commanding the Luftwaffe fighter arm. In late 1942, he became the Wehrmacht's youngest general (age 31). Despite his youth, he consistently demonstrated impressive organizational and intellectual abilities. Galland's well-founded advocacy of using the Luftwaffe tactically rather than strategically was fully in line with the air-warfare policies of Hermann Göring and Adolf Hitler. He was dismissed in January 1945, and was later shot down and captured while commanding an Me 262 jet fighter squadron.
The Blenheim bombers attack Nazi German targets: The British Royal Air Force's (RAF) Bristol Blenheim bombers were the first RAF aircraft to make a bombing attack against Nazi German targets. These three-man-crewed light bombers flew at 225 mph to a range of 1,450 miles, carrying up to 1,350 pounds of bombs. Five machine guns were provided for self-defense.
Fifteen RAF Blenheim squadrons were in service by 1939, with a much-improved "long-nose" Mark IV version introduced that year. Used for low-level daylight bombing raids in 1941-1942, almost 600 of 1,012 RAF Blenheims were lost -- 403 to enemy action. They were finally withdrawn from service in late 1942, and were replaced progressively by Boston, Ventura, and Mitchell bombers.
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Japan goes after Java's oil: Clouds of smoke roil into the sky following an air raid on Surabaya, Java, in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in February 1942. The Japanese had long coveted the region's vast oil fields and refineries, and they moved to occupy Java soon after the fall of Singapore. An Allied attempt to turn away the Japanese invasion fleet failed in the seven-hour Battle of the Java Sea on February 27. Five Allied warships were sunk in the melee, while the Japanese lost only a single destroyer.
Shortly after Italy entered the war in June 1940, Malta came under bombing attack. At first, the island's only air defense was three Gladiator biplanes, named Faith, Hope, and Charity. The Nazi Germans joined the fighting in early 1941, and raids intensified in early 1942. By April 1942, Malta had received twice the tonnage of bombs dropped on London during the entire Blitz. Nearly 1,500 civilians were killed. With the island under siege, the Royal Navy deployed a high proportion of its strength to protect convoys headed for Malta in the face of heavy Nazi German and Italian air attack. In nine epic convoy battles, Axis warships, bombers, submarines, and E-boats attacked Allied merchant ships making the Malta run. Though starved, Malta survived. When Winston Churchill came to suspect that the island's commander was considering a surrender, he replaced him with General Lord Gort, who would never surrender. Meanwhile, Malta became the base for British naval and air force attacks on Axis convoys that tried to get supplies (especially fuel) to support Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps in Libya and Egypt. Using "Ultra" intelligence (which gave precise details of ships and cargos), Malta-based submarines and bombers starved Rommel of vital supplies. Why was Malta not invaded and taken? A Nazi German plan, Operation Hercules, was devised, but Adolf Hitler -- having seen his airborne force badly hurt on Crete -- refused to risk it again. The refusal to run this risk allowed British forces based on Malta to make a decisive contribution to the outcome of the war in the Mediterranean and North Africa. In 1942 King George VI recognized the courage and endurance of Malta's civilians by awarding the island the George Cross, Britain's highest award for civilian gallantry. |
See the next page for details of the other significant World War II events that occurred during February 1942.
Learn more about the significant events and players of World War II in these informative articles:
- World War II Timeline
- Russian Army Repels Hitler's Forces: August 1942-January 1943
- Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor: July 1941-December 1941
World War II Timeline: February 13, 1942-February 22, 1942
On February 15, 1942, Great Britain surrendered Singapore to the Japanese. Learn about this and the other important World War II events that occurred during the month of February 1942 below.
World War II Timeline: February 13-February 22
February 13: After numerous delays, Adolf Hitler permanently cancels the Nazi German invasion of Britain, code-named Operation Sealion.
Japanese aviators inadvertently dive-bomb their own troops in a raid on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines.
February 14: The British government directs the British Royal Air Force (RAF) to begin a campaign that targets German civilians, shifting the focus away from exclusively bombing military and production facilities.
February 14-16: The Japanese score an important strategic victory with the seizure of the oil-rich island of Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies.
February 15: In a stunning defeat for the Empire, the British surrender Singapore to the Japanese, who will raise the rising sun flag over the governor's residence the following day.
February 19: The Canadian Parliament approves a resolution calling for a military draft.
In just one day, the unstoppable Japanese attack Bali, Mandalay, and Timor. They will install occupation forces in both Bali and Timor the following day.
February 20: Lieutenant Edward "Butch" O'Hare, Navy flying ace for whom Chicago's major airport will eventually be named, shoots down five Japanese bombers over a five-minute period.
February 22: The Allies launch a campaign against Japanese shipping when they seed the mouth of Burma's Rangoon River with 40 British magnetic mines dropped from USAAF B-24 bombers.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt reassigns General Douglas MacArthur, pulling him from his post in the Philippines and naming him commander of Allied forces in Australia.
World War II Headlines
Below are more highlights and images that outline the events of World War II, including the involvement of Burma in the war.
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Kondo Nobutake among Japan's top commanders: Vice Admiral Kondo Nobutake ranked among Japan's most outstanding fleet commanders in 1941 and 1942. He led the naval forces that supported the invasion of Malaya, Java, and Singapore, and spearheaded the main "covering force" in the Battle of Midway. He later commanded the Second Fleet in the bitter -- and ultimately unsuccessful -- struggle to dominate the waters off Guadalcanal from August to November 1942. Following that defeat, he served as deputy commander of the Combined Fleet and briefly as commander following Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku's death in 1943. Kondo survived the war and died in 1953.
Kozo Nishino's swears revenge on California: In the late 1930s, a Japanese tanker docked near the Ellwood oil field outside of Santa Barbara, California, for refueling. As its commander, Kozo Nishino, walked along a path from the pier, he slipped and fell on a prickly pear cactus. Several workers on a nearby oil rig laughed at Kozo's misfortune. Humiliated, he reportedly swore revenge. On February 23, 1942, a Japanese submarine fired several shells at an Ellwood oil rig. Although the shells did minimal damage, they raised the anxiety level of civilians anticipating a Japanese invasion. The skipper of the enemy submarine was none other than Kozo Nishino.
President Roosevelt approves funds for testing bat bombs: In January 1942, dental surgeon Lytle Adams submitted a plan to the White House that, he claimed, would bring the blazing effects of war to Japanese civilians. Upon review, President Franklin Roosevelt released funds for testing. Adams's plan called for the delivery of a large number of bats carrying small incendiary bombs over enemy cities. The bombs would be set to ignite after the bats took daylight refuge in surrounding buildings. Testing began in March 1943 with limited success. Approximately $2 million was spent on the project before it was scrapped in early 1944.
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Allies scorch Rangoon, Burma, before departing: Smoke billows over Rangoon on March 6, 1942, as British forces prepare to abandon the city to the advancing Japanese. As Burma's capital and major port, Rangoon served as a major Allied supply point. Determined to leave nothing of value for the Japanese, the Allies evacuated the city and declared a general scorched-earth policy. Oil storage tanks, refineries, port installations, cars and trucks, stockpiles of tires, and even stocks of blankets and bed sheets were destroyed. The main power station was blown up on March 9 as the last defenders left. The Japanese entered the ravaged city the following day.
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Chinese try to help in Burma: Chinese troops arrive in Burma in early 1942 to join the British in the battle against invading Japanese. Concerned about the loss of their Lend-Lease supply routes, the Chinese offered assistance soon after Burma was invaded by the Japanese. The British accepted their help only after the Japanese had broken through toward Rangoon. By late February, two Chinese armies had joined the campaign, but they proved to be little match for the Japanese. The British withdrew to India and the Chinese units returned to China as best they could, some as an undisciplined mob of refugees.
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Divided loyalties between British and Japanese in Burma: Burmese civilians trudge north to escape the advancing Japanese in March 1942. Many Burmese resented British colonial rule and supported the Japanese in hopes of obtaining independence. Others, particularly groups such as the Karen and Kachins, remained loyal to the British and organized resistance units to fight the Japanese. They suffered severely from both the Japanese and the puppet Burmese Independence Army. They later provided invaluable aid when the Allies recaptured Burma in 1944-1945.
Check out the next section for a timeline of major World War II events in late February and early March 1942.
Learn more about the significant events and players of World War II in these informative articles:
- World War II Timeline
- Russian Army Repels Hitler's Forces: August 1942-January 1943
- Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor: July 1941-December 1941
World War II Timeline: February 23, 1942-March 9, 1942
More than 270 Allied merchant vessels were lost during March 1942. Learn about this and the other important World War II events that occurred during 1942 below.
World War II Timeline: February 23-March 9
February 23: In the first Japanese "attack" on the American mainland, a Japanese submarine surfaces at night off Ellwood, California, near Santa Barbara. It fires on an oil derrick, damaging a catwalk but little else. Much local panic follows for a few days.
February 26: Joseph Stalin makes the first of many requests to the American and British command to open a second European front against the Nazi Germans so as to relieve some of the pressure on the Red Army.
February 27: Japan launches an assault on the Andamans, a chain of islands on India's Bay of Bengal.
February 27-March 1: Ten Allied warships are sunk during the disastrous Battle of the Java Sea. With the Allies suffering one of the worst wartime defeats at sea, Japanese ships are left to roam Indonesian waters at will.
February 28: Pearl Harbor commanders Lieutenant General Walter Short and Rear Admiral Husband Kimmel retire. The U.S. military announces it will court-martial the two commanders at a later date.
March: The Allies lose 273 merchant vessels this month.
Desperate for metal to manufacture airplane engines, Nazi Germany begins to collect bronze and copper church bells for the smelter's fires.
March 2: The U.S. government bans all Japanese Americans from all of two and portions of three Pacific coastal states.
Nazis murder some 5,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia.
March 8: The Japanese take the Burmese capital of Rangoon.
March 9: The Japanese seize the Indonesian island of Java from the Dutch.
World War II Headlines
Below are more highlights and images that outline the events of World War II and provide details on Japanese internment during World War II.
Japanese Americans report to internment camps: In response to dire warnings from the military and rising panic among ordinary citizens, the U.S. government in February 1942 began evacuating people of Japanese ancestry from Pacific Coastal areas. About 8,000 Japanese Americans voluntarily left, and another 120,000 -- 72,000 of whom were U.S. citizens -- were forcibly relocated. Japanese Americans were held under guard at assembly centers, where their baggage was inspected for forbidden items, such as cameras, shortwave radios, and guns. They were then bussed to camps east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Life in the Japanese internment camps: Japanese Americans were relocated into barracks in such locations at Manzanar, California. Since the internees knew nothing about where they were being taken, most did not have suitable clothing for the extremes of heat and cold in their new locations. Each family was assigned a 20' X 25' living space, and they shared communal latrines and showers. Confinement to barbed-wire fenced camps that were overseen by armed guards and watchtowers was psychologically devastating to people who considered themselves good Americans.
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Canada interns Japanese: Above, an officer of the Royal Canadian Navy questions Japanese Canadian fishermen. When Canadians became afraid that fishermen of Japanese ancestry might be charting the Pacific coastline for the enemy, the government confiscated all Japanese fishing boats. In early 1942, Canada interned the nearly 23,000 Japanese Canadians who lived in British Columbia -- about three quarters of whom were citizens -- in 10 camps scattered throughout the nation. At first, men and women were incarcerated separately. Later, families were allowed to be together if the men agreed to fill labor shortages on sugar beet farms.
About 110,000 people of Japanese descent, more than 60 percent of whom were American citizens, were relocated to 10 inland War Relocation Camps. Limited to taking only what they could carry, the internees lost homes, businesses, and personal possessions. Camp life was spartan. At Manzanar, located in California's arid Owens Valley, about 10,000 internees lived in 100-foot-long barracks that were divided into six one-room apartments. Those who lived in each block of 14 barracks shared latrine, bath, and eating facilities -- all behind barbed wire and under guard. While numbers of Nazi German and Italian aliens were also interned during the war, their detentions did not approach those of Japanese Americans in scope or severity. Despite reason for resentment, substantial numbers of young Japanese Americans volunteered for U.S. military service. The Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team fought in Italy and became the most highly decorated unit of its size in U.S. military history. In 1988 President Ronald Reagan apologized on behalf of the government for the internment of Japanese Americans, which a federal commission had stated was the result of "race prejudice, war hysteria, and the failure of political leadership." Beginning in 1990, reparations were paid to surviving internees. |
The next page outlines some of the other major events that occurred during March 1942.
Learn more about the significant events and players of World War II in these informative articles:
- World War II Timeline
- Russian Army Repels Hitler's Forces: August 1942-January 1943
- Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor: July 1941-December 1941
World War II Timeline: March 10, 1942-March 20, 1942
On March 18, 1942, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten was named the chief of Combined Operations by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Learn about this and the other important World War II events that occurred during the month of March 1942 below.
World War II Timeline: March 10-March 20
March 10: Britain has already spent more than nine billion pounds on the war effort, more than was spent on the entire First World War.
March 11: The French Resistance blows up a Nazi troop train, killing about 250 Nazi German soldiers.
As compensation for their shipping losses to the Axis, Brazil seizes Axis property.
March 13: America enters the China-Burma-India theater with the arrival of U.S. Army Air Force airmen in Karachi, India.
March 14: Washington sets plans in motion to increase troop levels in Europe in preparation for an eventual attack on the heart of the Nazi Reich.
In response to the Japanese menace, the first contingent of American troops that will serve under General Douglas MacArthur lands in Australia.
March 17: General Douglas MacArthur assumes his new post as supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific Theater. He lands in Darwin, Australia, a few days after his first group of men.
March 17-31: Some 20,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, are murdered in the new Belzec, Poland, death camp, which opened on March 13.
March 18: The American and British Combined Chiefs of Staff install Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten as the chief of Combined Operations.
March 19: British home secretary Herbert Morrison accuses the London paper The Daily Mirror of "reckless indifference to the national interest" for its practice of publishing stories with an antiwar slant.
March 20: Japanese and Chinese troops clash along the Sittang River on the Burmese front.
World War II Headlines
Below are more highlights and images that outline the events of World War II, as well as the involvement of British women during the war.
Hu Shih solicits U.S. support for China: Known as "the father of the Chinese literary revolution," Hu Shih studied at Cornell University in 1910 and later at Columbia University. A noted philosopher and intellectual, he served as Chinese ambassador to the United States from 1938 to 1942.
As ambassador, he successfully rallied U.S. sympathy and support for his nation's battle against the Japanese. He later served as a delegate to the San Francisco Conference, which established the United Nations. An outspoken advocate of democracy and human rights, Hu Shih relocated to Taiwan after the Chinese Revolution. He died of a heart attack in 1962.
Chinese struggles to provide medical care: Throughout the war, the Chinese struggled to adequately treat wounded and diseased troops and civilians. The relatively few available hospital facilities suffered from a lack of supplies and equipment, and a shortage of doctors. Conditions were better at a U.S. missionary hospital run by Dr. Gordon Seagrave and his nurses in the Namhkam Valley, Burma, off the Burma Road. Seagrave had been recruited by the U.S. military and may have had intelligence duties as well as medical responsibilities.
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British singer Vera Lynn, the "Forces' Sweetheart": When war began, young British singer Vera Lynn was sure that her fledgling career was over. She volunteered for wartime duty, expecting to work in a factory or join the Army. To her surprise, Lynn was told that she would be more useful as an entertainer. Soon dubbed the "Forces' Sweetheart," she became the most popular vocalist of her time, raising spirits on the war front and at home with her wide repertoire of wartime songs. "We'll Meet Again" was one of Vera Lynn's best-loved selections.
Resisters' develop innovations to aid war effort: Active and passive resistance movements developed within most of Nazi German-occupied Europe. Inevitably, resisters attracted harsh reprisals, brutal interrogations, and summary executions. Many resisters used ingenious technical innovations -- assassination weapons, booby traps, codes, sabotage explosives, and communications equipment. Such innovations were designed and provided by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) or devised locally. One such Norwegian device was an intricately wired denture plate that could receive radio broadcasts from London some 1,200 miles away.
Britain's Women's Land Army created: The Women's Land Army (WLA) was formed in 1939 under its first director, Lady Gertrude Denman, and numbered 87,000 fully trained "land girls" by mid-1943. The organization's members worked in agriculture and forestry, producing much of the vital food stocks and timber for wartime Britain. Although many land girls lived fairly well, either on the farms or in hostels, others endured an isolated and often rudimentary rural existence. In 1945 government parsimony denied the land girls postwar financial benefits.
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HMS Hermes, the war's oldest aircraft carrier, destroyed: Launched in 1919, the HMS Hermes was the world's first purpose-built aircraft carrier. A relic by the time of World War II, the Hermes suffered from design problems that included a small hanger and instability at high seas. Even so, the carrier served the Allies in the southern Atlantic and off the coast of Africa. On April 9, 1942, it was destroyed by 70 Japanese attack aircraft near Ceylon. Shown sinking here (in a photograph taken by a Japanese pilot), it went down with 307 men.
See the next page for a timeline of the major World War II events of early spring 1942.
Learn more about the significant events and players of World War II in these informative articles:
- World War II Timeline
- Russian Army Repels Hitler's Forces: August 1942-January 1943
- Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor: July 1941-December 1941
World War II Timeline: Spring 1942-March 31, 1942
On March 28, 1942, the first of 6,000 Parisian Jews were sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Learn about this and the other important World War II events that occurred during the spring of 1942 below.
World War II Timeline: Spring 1942-March 31, 1942
Spring: Construction begins at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. The U.S. Army constructs simulated Japanese and German towns in order to test the effects of incendiary bombs and other weapons.
March 22: British and American Air Force units are left exposed to assault as they beat a retreat after the Japanese capture of Burma's Magwe airfield. The loss of the strategic landing strip leaves the Allies unable to call for air support.
Abwehr (German intelligence) captain and double agent Paul Thummel, a British MI6 asset on the ground in Czechoslovakia, is arrested by the Nazis.
March 24: Japan launches an offensive against Bataan.
March 26: The Nazi government orders that all Jewish homes in Germany and the occupied territories must be identified as such.
Admiral Ernest King, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Fleet, becomes the highest-ranking officer in the Navy with his appointment as chief of Naval Operations.
March 28: Allies deliberately slam the HMS Campbeltown into the gates at the Normandy dock at St. Nazaire on the French Atlantic coast, the largest drydock in Nazi-occupied Europe and the only one large enough to handle the Nazi German battleship Tirpitz. Once past the gates, Allied commandos sabotage the facility.
The first of 6,000 Parisian Jews designated for "resettlement" at Auschwitz are loaded onto a train and sent to that extermination camp.
March 31: India's Congress Party demands immediate independence from Britain. It rejects a British offer made the previous day that included Indian independence but only after the conclusion of the war.
World War II Headlines
Below are more details that outline the events of World War II, including the horrific acts carried out by Japanese troops.
Homma Masaharu commands Philippines invasion: Japan's Homma Masaharu, whose 14th Army conquered the Philippines, was an unusual general. Highly intelligent, artistic, and familiar with Western ways through close contact with the British Army in World War I and India, he was said to lack samurai spirit. After experience in China, he was appointed to command the Philippines invasion. He planned meticulously and captured Manila quickly, but his failure to prevent American withdrawal to Bataan precluded victory within the allotted 50 days. His unimpressed superiors effectively ended his career by recalling him in August 1942. Arrested by U.S. troops in 1945 for war crimes in the Philippines, Homma was executed by firing squad in April 1946.
Bataan prisoners beaten and killed by Japanese: American and Filipino troops totaling 78,000 went into captivity on Bataan on April 9, 1942. Their starving and diseased condition influenced Major General Edward King's decision to surrender, though he was unable to extract from the Japanese commanders a commitment to treat the prisoners compassionately. The Japanese decided to march the prisoners to Camp O'Donnell, some 65 miles away. The following quote by U.S. Army tank crewman Lester Tenney describes his experiences following capture on Bataan:
The first Japanese soldier I came into contact with used sign language to ask if I had a cigarette. . . . I had to tell him I did not have any cigarettes. He smiled and then a second later hit me in the face with the butt of his gun. Blood spurted from my nose and from a deep gash on my cheekbone. He laughed and said something that made all of his buddies laugh, too. He walked away from me and went to the GI on my right. He used the same sign language, and this time my buddy had cigarettes and offered him one. The Japanese soldier took the whole pack, and then he and his friends began beating my friend with rifle butts and cane-length pieces of bamboo until he could not stand. Then they left, laughing, laughing at the defeated and weak Americans.
POWs perish in the Bataan Death March: The trek from Bataan to Camp O'Donnell became known as the Bataan Death March. Japanese plans for the march did not take into account the exhaustion, starvation, and illness of the prisoners, who were thus sure to die in large numbers. Added to this neglect was active Japanese persecution. Some senior Japanese officers so despised the prisoners that they wanted them killed en masse. Field officers beheaded many with their swords, and Japanese common soldiers willfully buried prisoners alive or set fire to civilians who sought to aid those suffering. No single factor adequately explains this brutality.
Though signatories to the 1929 Geneva Conventions, the Japanese in practice paid little heed to humanitarian restrictions. Prisoners were worked to death; would-be escapees were summarily beheaded; prisoners were denied routine medical care, food, and water; and prisoners were bayoneted or decapitated for sport. The death rate for prisoners of war in Japanese hands ranged between 30 and 50 percent. The statistics become numbing. On the Bataan Death March in 1942, hundreds of American and thousands of Filipino prisoners died of exhaustion or were murdered. In a single year, 20,000 Allied POWs -- one in three -- died in forced labor on the Burma-Siam railroad. During the Rape of Nanking in 1937, tens of thousands of Chinese men, women, and children were systematically murdered. Thousands of other Asian women were enslaved as military prostitutes during the course of the war. The rape, torture, and murder of civilians by the Japanese military became almost routine. A Japanese participant in the Guadalcanal campaign wrote of two POWs who were dissected alive. "It was very informative," he observed nonchalantly. An American survivor of the Bataan Death March recalled a Filipino couple who tried to give the marchers a bit of food. Japanese soldiers burned them alive. Another marcher began counting decapitated heads along the roadway but soon quit, fearing he would go insane. |
The next timeline carries us into the major events of April 1942.
Learn more about the significant events and players of World War II in these informative articles:
- World War II Timeline
- Russian Army Repels Hitler's Forces: August 1942-January 1943
- Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor: July 1941-December 1941
World War II Timeline: April 1, 1942-April 11, 1942
The British Royal Air Force (RAF) attacked Hamburg, Germany, with more than 270 bombers on April 8, 1942. Learn about this and the other important World War II events that occurred during the month of April 1942 below.
World War II Timeline: April 1-April 11
April 1: Vital supplies reach the Soviets, as 14 of the 19 ships of the first Arctic convoy successfully make it to the Soviet port of Murmansk.
April 3: Some 2,000 Burmese civilians die during a Japanese air raid on Mandalay.
April 4: Adolf Hitler orders the Baedeker raids. Named after a series of tourist guides, the raids will be specifically targeted to inflict maximum damage on Britain's most important historic sites.
April 6: Japanese troops land at Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.
April 7: The air raid sirens on Malta sound for the 2,000th time since the beginning of the war.
April 8: In one of the most intense air raids of the war, the RAF attacks Hamburg, Germany, with more than 270 bombers.
A new lifeline is opened to China with the inauguration of U.S. Air Ferry Command service over the Himalayan mountain range.
April 9: Soviet general Mikhail Yefremov takes his own life rather than suffer the shame of surrendering to the Nazi Germans.
April 10: Japanese troops land on Cebu Island, Philippines.
The atrocity that will become known as the Bataan Death March begins with the surrender of more than 78,000 exhausted and starving American and Filipino troops in the Bataan Peninsula. In an effort to get them to the nearest railhead, their Japanese captors will force-march the prisoners some 65 miles. Eleven thousand of the captives will be killed or will perish along the way.
April 11: The first 8,000-pound bomb is dropped on Essen, Germany, by a Halifax bomber. It is not known if the bomb reached its target or what damage it caused.
World War II Headlines
Below are more highlights and images that outline the events of World War II, including Japanese bombings in Australia, German bombings in England, and the American raid on Tokyo.
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German shortwave radio broadcasts to North America: This program guide, titled "Germany Calling," lists German shortwave radio broadcasts to North America for April 13 through April 19, 1941. In addition to German versions of international news, the schedule included such programs as America Asks -- Germany Answers (purported to be answers to questions from American listeners), German Contributions to Making America, and From the German Heart, as well as commentary from the infamous "Lord Haw-Haw."
The Baedeker Raids destroy historic sites: The 15th-century Old Boar's Head Inn in Norwich, England, was damaged in an April 1942 Luftwaffe raid. Nazi Germany bombed the picturesque English towns of Exeter, Bath, Norwich, and York. Nazi propagandist Baron Gustav Braun von Sturm declared, "We shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the [German-published] Baedeker [travel] guide." These Baedeker Raids on England -- which included Canterbury and other nonstrategic historic sites -- took lives and destroyed property. However, the heavy toll on the Luftwaffe revealed the German bombers' limitations.
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The Flying Tigers assist in war effort: The P-40 Tomahawk fighters were operated by the American Volunteer Group (AVG), more popularly known as the Flying Tigers. Commanded by Claire Chennault, the AVG was comprised of American military pilots who had "resigned" from the service in order to fly against the Japanese in China. In their first encounter on December 20, 1941, the AVG shot down three or possibly four Japanese bombers. Though their overall impact was limited, the AVG provided some deterrent to Japanese airpower over the next several months. The Flying Tigers were incorporated into the U.S. Army Air Force in 1942.
American Claire Chennault helps Chiang Kai-shek: A native of Louisiana, Claire Chennault learned to fly during World War I and remained in the service for two decades afterward. However, he was unpopular in the U.S. military because of his acerbic criticism of accepted fighter tactics, and he retired in 1937 with the rank of major. He then was hired by Chiang Kai-shek to revamp the Chinese air force, and he became a lifelong supporter of the Nationalist general. After the U.S. entered the war, Chennault was promoted to general and given command of the 14th Air Force.
Australia's leader John Curtin galvanizes the nation: John Curtin of the Labor Party became prime minister of Australia in October 1941. Curtin was a pacifist before the war, and his cabinet was short on military experience. Nevertheless, the Pacific war enabled him to galvanize the nation in 1942-1943. His insistence that the Seventh Division be returned to Australia -- and not Burma, as Winston Churchill wanted -- proved wise and saved Port Moresby when the Japanese tried to take it by a land assault.
Curtin announced in December 1941 that Australia looked to America rather than Britain for support. He welcomed the appointment of General Douglas MacArthur as supreme commander of Allied Forces in the South West Pacific Area and proved amenable to the American's direction. Against his party's traditions, John Curtin promoted labor and military conscription. He died in office in July 1945.
Japanese bomb Port Darwin, Australia: On February 19, 1942, some 200 Japanese warplanes dropped more bombs than they had on Pearl Harbor in two waves of attacks on Port Darwin, Australia. They sank eight ships, devastated structures, and killed at least 243 people in a population of about 2,000. The unprepared Australian government reaffirmed its intention to rely on the American military rather than the British, and U.S. general Douglas MacArthur promptly established his headquarters in Australia.
James Doolittle prepares for raid: A former racing and stunt pilot, Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle had been directed to look into the feasibility of flying medium bombers off an aircraft carrier to attack Japan. Doolittle worked out the takeoff requirements, weight limitations, and necessary fuel, and arranged for special equipment and training for the all-volunteer force. Eager to get into combat, he volunteered to personally lead the dangerous mission.
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Doolittle Raid affects both Japanese and American morale: This aerial photo, snapped during the Doolittle Raid, reveals ships moored in Tokyo Bay. Most of the B-25s arrived over Tokyo just after noon on April 18. They targeted an oil tank farm, steel mill, and power plants. Other bombers hit targets in Yokohama and Yokosuku. All the B-25s survived the actual raid, except for one that crash-landed in China after it ran out of fuel. Though minimal damage was done to the targets, the harm to Japanese morale was immense. By contrast, the raid lifted American spirits, which had been at low ebb following a string of Allied military defeats.
Doolittle raiders take off from aircraft carrier: Army pilots had practiced short takeoffs from dry land, but none had ever tried it from a heaving carrier deck. The force for the Doolittle Raid was comprised of 16 modified bombers, each carrying five crew members, four bombs, and extra fuel. An encounter with a Japanese picket boat forced the Doolittle Raiders to launch earlier than planned. Aided by a 50-mph headwind, all the B-25s got safely into the air, though many hung perilously close to the waves before gaining altitude.
Reprisals after the Doolittle Raid: Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek had been reluctant to allow the U.S. bombers to land in China following the Doolittle Raid, fearing that harsh Japanese reprisals would result. Events proved him correct. Less than a month after the raid, the Japanese army launched the operation Sei-Go. Japan intended to seize Chinese airfields within range of the home islands and take vengeance on villages that aided the airmen. As many as 250,000 civilians were killed in the Chekiang and Kiangsu provinces during Sei-Go.
On April 18, 1942, 16 B-25 bombers lumbered off the deck of the American aircraft carrier Hornet and turned toward the Japanese coast, more than 600 miles away. Their top-secret mission: to carry out the first attack of the war on the enemy homeland. |
Find out about the major events during the remainder of April 1942 on the next page.
Learn more about the significant events and players of World War II in these informative articles:
- World War II Timeline
- Russian Army Repels Hitler's Forces: August 1942-January 1943
- Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor: July 1941-December 1941
World War II Timeline: April 14, 1942-April 29, 1942
On April 15, 1942, the newest Nazi extermination camp in Poland, Sobibór, opened its gates. Learn about this and the other important World War II events that occurred during the month of April 1942 below.
World War II Timeline: April 14-April 29
April 14: The U.S. Navy "kills" its first U-boat when U-85 is attacked by the destroyer USS Roper in the Atlantic Ocean.
With Japanese forces closing in, British troops torch Burma's Yenangyaung oil fields to keep them out of Axis hands.
April 15: Sobibór, the newest Nazi extermination camp in Poland, opens its gates.
In an effort to minimize textile-industry labor, Britain bans the manufacture of lace on women's underwear, effective June 1.
April 16: Nazi German field marshal Gerd von Rundstedt is appointed commander-in-chief of the Atlantic Wall defenses.
Britain presents the strategically critical island of Malta with the George Cross, a medal given for valiant service to the Empire.
April 18: Japan is blindsided by a carrier-based bombing raid on Tokyo by 16 B-25 bombers from the USS Hornet.
April 20: The Luftwaffe destroys 30 Spitfire planes on the island of Malta.
April 21: General Henri Giraud, captured by the Nazis when they occupied his native France, makes a daring escape to Allied territory.
April 24: Nazi German authorities issue a decree prohibiting Jews from using public transportation of any kind.
April 26: Adolf Hitler is empowered to act outside the laws of the Reich in dealing with his subjects when the Reichstag confers on him the ultimate title of "supreme justice," among others.
April 29: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet to decide how to address internecine border bickering between Hungary and Romania.
Nazi saboteurs are suspected when an explosion in a Belgian chemical plant claims some 250 lives.
A critical link to China is lost when Japan's capture of Lashio, Burma, closes the Burma Road.
World War II Headlines
Below are more details that outline the events of World War II, such as the deportation of Jews to extermination camps.
Allies deliver tanks to Soviets: When Germany sent its powerful army against the USSR in June 1941, the Soviet Union dismantled and moved some of its arms factories away from highly endangered areas. That disrupted production, and by fall the nation was in urgent need of tanks and aircraft. Britain and the U.S. began supplying Russia with 400 tanks and 500 aircraft per month -- numbers that would rise as the war progressed.
English pianist Myra Hess keeps the music playing: When Nazi German air raids closed down British concert halls, internationally renowned English pianist Myra Hess organized hundreds of musicians to play lunchtime concerts at London's National Gallery. Even while bombs fell on London, Hess herself gave hugely popular performances of German composers, not merely defying Nazi violence but reminding audiences of the humanity of German culture. For her patriotic efforts, Hess was honored with the title Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 1941.
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Jews deported to death camps: In spring 1942, trains began transporting Jews from ghettos in Germany and its occupied nations to camps. Here, Jews board trains for deportation from the ghetto in Lódz´, Poland, to the Chelmno extermination camp in Poland in April 1942. On July 19, Heinrich Himmler accelerated the program, ordering that all Jews be "resettled" by the end of 1942 -- although the deportations would extend far beyond his deadline. In all, some 3,000 trains moved about three million people. Since this was only about 15 percent of the total trains that the Reich operated each day, the economic effect on Nazi Germany was manageable during the early years of the Holocaust.
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Nazi Germans prepare boys for war: Wenn die Soldaten durch die Stadt marschieren (When the Soldiers March Through Town) was a hugely popular 1942 book of verses and pictures that portrayed children enraptured by Nazi German soldiers. The Nazi regime did more than merely romanticize the military in children's eyes. Starting in 1936, preparation for military service became mandatory for boys. If he was deemed sufficiently fit and racially pure, a 10-year-old boy began his training and indoctrination in the Deutsches Jungvolk (German Youth). He then graduated to the paramilitary organization Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) at age 14.
Americans committed to stopping Adolf Hitler: After the Nazi German declaration of war on the United States in December 1941, Americans committed themselves to stopping the spread of Nazi evil in Europe. Rallies such as the one in New York's Times Square on Adolf Hitler's birthday, April 20, 1942, expressed American sympathies and also boosted the sale of War Bonds, which helped finance the war effort on both fronts.
Four stout, red-faced Germans, arms bare, gallop on horseback along the platform, ply their whips ceaselessly, treading whomever they find in their way, vent their wrath on mothers holding babies in their arms. . . . Suddenly a horrible scream of a woman is heard, followed by a shot. A woman with a baby in her arms keels over. She wanted to throw the baby over the fence, in the hope that it would be spared. But a moment later she and the baby are trodden to death by the horses' hooves. A deadly silence descends on the platform. I hold fast to the window-sill; I feel terribly dizzy. -- Hava Follman, a young fugitive from the Warsaw Ghetto, describing a scene at Hrubieszow, Poland, June 1942 |
Continue on to the next page for details on the major events of late April and early May 1942.
Learn more about the significant events and players of World War II in these informative articles:
- World War II Timeline
- Russian Army Repels Hitler's Forces: August 1942-January 1943
- Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor: July 1941-December 1941
World War II Timeline: April 30, 1942-May 11, 1942
Nationalist Chinese general Chiang Kai-shek led his troops in a major offensive against the Japanese occupation in May 1942. Learn about this and the other important World War II events that occurred during 1942 below.
World War II Timeline: April 30-May 11
April 30: By the end of the month, the squalor of the Warsaw Ghetto has claimed the lives of nearly 4,500 Polish Jews.
May 1: A strategic error by Britain allows the Japanese to take Mandalay by penetrating the Royal Army's exposed left flank.
May 2: Aid is promised to both Iran and Iraq under the provisions of the U.S. Lend-Lease Act.
May 4: The USAAF Flying Tigers shift their base of operations to Kunming, China, and out of Japanese-occupied Burma.
May 4-8: The Battle of the Coral Sea, the first carrier-to-carrier battle in history, results in a tactical Japanese victory, since they sink a major American carrier. But it marks a strategic Japanese reverse since the Japanese are unable to seize New Guinea and thus isolate Australia.
May 5: Nationalist Chinese general Chiang Kai-shek leads his troops in a major offensive against the Japanese occupation, striking seven key cities.
May 6: After 27 days of artillery barrage, the Americans surrender to the Japanese at Corregidor in the Philippines.
May 8: Japan's ability to produce fuel from its captured oil fields in the Dutch East Indies is seriously crippled when the ship carrying skilled production workers to the fields is sunk by an Allied torpedo.
May 10: Winston Churchill sternly warns Nazi Germany against engaging in chemical warfare on the Russian front.
May 11: An Allied personnel transport ship is struck by a Nazi German U-boat that managed to make its way up Canada's St. Lawrence River undetected.
World War II Headlines
Below are more details that outline the events of World War II, including the Japanese capture of the island of Corregidor.
The Red Cross Blood Bank offers blood: In February 1941, the American Red Cross began a blood donor service in anticipation of America's entrance into the war. By September 1945, the Red Cross had collected 13.4 million pints of blood from 6.6 million donors. The system for storing blood plasma was pioneered by African American physician Dr. Charles Drew, who was appointed the first director of the Red Cross Blood Bank. He resigned, however, when the organization excluded black blood donors. As the war progressed, the Red Cross began accepting "black blood" but restricted its use to black GIs.
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Nazi German E-boats patrol English Channel: The Nazi German fast patrol and torpedo-carrying Schnellboot was dubbed "E-boat" by the Allies. The MTB and PT boats were the Anglo-U.S. equivalents. E-boats were used extensively in the English Channel and North Sea littoral region for raids on Allied shipping, routine patrols, clandestine operations, and rescue of downed aircrew. By 1944 about 40 E-boats were operating in the Channel area. One of their most significant successes was on April 28, 1944, when two flotillas attacked a D-Day landing exercise in the Channel off Slapton, Devon, sinking two LSTs and killing 749 men of the U.S. Fourth Infantry Division.
Germany's premier admiral, Erich Raeder, battles with Nazi leaders: In 1933 Admiral Erich Raeder became the architect of German naval rearmament. A committed Nazi, he planned to provide Nazi Germany with world-class surface and subsurface fleets by 1949. The outbreak of war in 1939 forestalled this aspiration. Nevertheless, he successfully oversaw the operations of the Kriegsmarine as its commander-in-chief until 1943. That year, his friction with Hermann Göring over airpower priorities, and the increasing divergence of his maritime policy views from those of Adolf Hitler, resulted in his enforced retirement. Found guilty on three counts at Nuremberg, Raeder was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was released in 1955 due to ill health.
Massive warfare at Kharkov, Ukraine: Nazi German troops surrendered to Red Army soldiers near Kharkov, Ukraine, on May 4, 1942, following four relatively uneventful months near the city that the Nazi Germans had captured the previous October. Much more activity occurred in May around Kharkov, which Adolf Hitler had selected for the launch of the Nazi German spring offensive. Joseph Stalin ordered a major offensive there by Marshal Timoshenko's Southwest Front beginning May 12. Initially, Timoshenko's armies struck deep, with two tank corps pushing rapidly to seize Kharkov. But then, on May 17, the Nazi German Sixth and First Panzer armies counterattacked, trapping more than 250,000 Soviet troops and 1,200 tanks by May 28.
Japan takes Corregidor, Philippines: At first, Japan struggled to capture Corregidor. Though supported by powerful artillery, the confident invaders landed in disorder on May 5, 1942. The cornered Americans, including Army and Navy personnel, fought back fiercely, inflicting hundreds of casualties. The Japanese ran dangerously short of ammunition and landing craft, but the arrival of tanks and continuous artillery bombardment eventually proved decisive. On May 6, General Wainwright sought terms.
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Corregidor's Malinta Tunnel used as U.S. headquarters: To make full use of Manila Harbor after the surrender of the American and Filipino troops on Bataan, the Japanese had to first take control of the nearby island of Corregidor, which the U.S. military occupied. Beneath the surface, the U.S. built the Mal