Below, the events of
World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
January •
January 1 – WWII: The
Declaration by United Nations is signed by China, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and 22 other nations, in which they agree "not to make any separate peace with the
Axis powers". •
January 5 – WWII: Two prisoners, British officer
Airey Neave and Dutch officer
Anthony Luteyn, escape from
Colditz Castle in
Germany. After travelling for three days, they reach the Swiss border. •
January 7 – WWII: •
Battle of Slim River: Japanese forces of the
5th Division, supported by tanks, sweep through sixteen miles of British defenses, shattering the exhausted
11th Indian Division and inflicting some 3,000 casualties. •
Operation Typhoon, the German attempt to take Moscow, ends in failure. •
January 11 – WWII: •
Dutch East Indies campaign: Japan declares war on the
Netherlands and the
Dutch East Indies. Japanese forces invade
Borneo and
Celebes. •
Malayan Campaign: The Japanese
capture Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the
Federated Malay States. •
January 12 – WWII: • New Zealand
Squadron No. 488 loses two aircraft and five damaged against a force of 27 Japanese fighters, in their first combat mission in
Singapore. •
January 13 •
Heinkel test pilot Helmut Schenk becomes the first person to escape from a stricken aircraft with an
ejection seat. •
Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile that would be 30% lighter than a conventional car. •
January 14 • WWII: "
Second Happy Time", the German submarine commanders' name for
Operation PP (Operation Drumbeat), the phase in the
Battle of the Atlantic during which German submarines are successful in attacking Allied shipping along the
East Coast of the United States, opens early this morning when
German submarine U-123 under the command of
Reinhard Hardegen sinks a Norwegian tanker within sight of
Long Island, before entering
New York Harbor and sinking a British tanker off
Sandy Hook the following night, as she leaves heading south along the coast. U-boat successes continue until around June 12. • The
Sikorsky R-4 first flies in the United States; it will become the first mass-produced
helicopter. •
January 16 – American film actress
Carole Lombard and her mother are among all 22 killed aboard
TWA Flight 3 when the
Douglas DC-3 plane crashes into
Potosi Mountain near
Las Vegas while she is returning from a tour to promote the sale of war bonds. •
January 17 – WWII: South African forces of the British
8th Army conquer the
Halfaya Pass ("Hellfire Pass") in Egypt. The Halfaya garrison of 4,200 men of the Italian
55th Division "Savona" and 2,100 Germans surrender. •
January 19 – WWII: • Japanese forces invade
Burma. • The following Commands of the United States
Eighth Air Force are established: VIII Bomber Command initially at
Langley Field in Virginia, and
VIII Fighter Command at
Selfridge Field in Michigan. •
January 20 –
The Holocaust:
Nazis at the
Wannsee Conference convened by
Reinhard Heydrich in Berlin decide that the "
Final Solution (
Endlösung) to the Jewish problem" is deportations to extermination camps. •
January 21 – WWII:
Erwin Rommel launches his new offensive in
Cyrenaica. •
January 23 – WWII: The
Battle of Rabaul begins. Before dawn, 5,000 troops of Japan's elite
South Seas Detachment storm ashore at
Rabaul on the island of
New Britain. With control of the air and support from the guns of their own ships, the Japanese overwhelm the small Australian garrison: the majority are either killed or captured. This marks the start of the
New Guinea campaign. •
January 25 – WWII: • German forces under Erwin Rommel of
Panzer Group Afrika reaches
Msus. General
Alfred Godwin-Austin orders the
4th Indian Division from the British
13th Corps to evacuate
Benghazi. •
Thailand declares war on the United States and the United Kingdom. •
January 26 – WWII: The first American forces arrive in Europe, landing in
Northern Ireland. •
January 31 – WWII:
Malayan Campaign: The last organized Allied forces leave
British Malaya, ending the 54-day campaign, and the
Johor–Singapore Causeway is severed.
February •
February 1 • WWII:
Marshalls–Gilberts raids: Admiral
William Halsey Jr sends airstrikes from the carrier
USS Enterprise against
Kwajalein,
Taroa,
Wotje in the
Marshall Islands. At the same time, cruisers and destroyers bombard Taroa and Wotje. The strikes inflict light to moderate damage on the three islands' naval garrisons, sink three warships and damage several others, including the light cruiser
Katori and damage 15 Japanese aircraft. Further south, the carrier
USS Yorktown attacks
Jaluit,
Mili and
Makin in the
Gilbert Islands. They inflict moderate damage to the Japanese naval installations and destroy three aircraft. • WWII: The
Kriegsmarine introduces the
M4 (German Navy 4-rotor) Enigma machine for
U-boat traffic, blinding Allied
cryptanalysts to their radio signals for most of the year. • WWII: The Command staff of the United States
Eighth Air Force reaches England. •
Mao Zedong makes a speech on "Reform in Learning, the Party and Literature", starting the
Yan'an Rectification Movement in the
Chinese Communist Party. •
February 3 – WWII: Rommel suspends his offensive in Cyrenaica. •
February 7 –
United States Maritime Commission fleet operations are transferred to the
War Shipping Administration (lasting until
September 1,
1946). •
February 8 • WWII:
Battle of Singapore: Japanese forces of the
5th Division and
18th Division (some 23,000 men) begin to cross the
Johor Strait and attack the Australian
22nd Brigade (some 3,000 men) at
Singapore. • WWII:
Daylight saving time goes into effect in the United States. • WWII: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war. •
António Óscar Carmona is reelected as president of Portugal for a third term. •
February 9 – The
ocean liner catches fire while being converted into the troopship USS
Lafayette (AP-53) for WWII at Pier 88 in New York City; she capsizes early the following morning. •
February 11–
13 – WWII:
Operation Cerberus: A
Kriegsmarine (German navy) squadron comprising the
Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau, heavy cruiser
Prinz Eugen and their escort, dash from
Brest through the
English Channel to German ports; the British fail to sink any of them. •
February 14–
18 – WWII:
Battle of Bilin River: Indian forces of the
17th Division under General
John Snyth are ordered to halt the Japanese advance but are outflanked and retreat to the
Sittang River. •
February 14 – WWII: •
Battle of Palembang: Japanese paratroopers (240 men) are dropped near
Palembang, and capture the oil refinery complex undamaged. Dutch forces counter-attack and manage to retake the complex but take heavy losses. A planned demolition fails to do any serious damage to the refinery, but the oil stores are set ablaze. • The , Scottish steamship, is bombed and sunk by Japanese planes while evacuating nurses and wounded servicemen from Singapore. Rescue boats with many survivors reach
Bangka Island. •
February 15 – WWII:
Fall of Singapore: Commonwealth forces under General
Arthur Percival surrender to the Japanese
25th Army. About 80,000 British, Indian, Australian, and local troops become prisoners of war, joining the 50,000 soldiers taken in the
Malayan campaign. •
February 16 – WWII:
Bangka Island Massacre: Japanese soldiers
machine-gun 22
Australian Army nurses and 60 Australian and British soldiers and crew who have survived the sinking of SS
Vyner Brooke. •
February 18 – WWII: •
Japanese occupation of Singapore:
Sook Ching – Japanese forces begin the systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among
Chinese Singaporeans. • More than 200 American sailors die in
Newfoundland when runs aground near Chambers Cove and runs aground at Lawn Point. •
February 19 – WWII: •
Bombing of Darwin: The Japanese
1st Air Fleet under Admiral
Chūichi Nagumo bombs
Darwin, Australia. This force comprises the aircraft carriers
Akagi,
Kaga,
Hiryū and
Sōryū and a powerful force of escorting surface ships. During the attack, 188 planes led by
Mitsuo Fuchida destroy 11 vessels and wreck a lot of the harbor infrastructure, killing some 240 people. • A returning Japanese fighter plane crashes on
Melville Island (Australia) and its pilot,
Hajime Toyoshima, becomes the first Japanese captured on Australian soil, when
indigenous resident Matthias Ulungura takes him prisoner. • President
Franklin D. Roosevelt signs
Executive Order 9066, allowing the United States military to define areas as exclusionary zones. These zones affect the
Japanese on the West Coast, and
Germans and
Italians primarily on the East Coast. •
February 19–
23 – WWII:
Battle of Sittang Bridge: Indian forces of the 17th Division are ordered to defend the Sittang Bridge, but eventually blow up the bridge to halt the Japanese advance to
Rangoon. Survivors of the 17th Division (some 3,500 soldiers) swim and ferry themselves over the Sittang River. •
February 20 – Lieutenant
Edward O'Hare becomes America's first U.S. Navy
flying ace of the war. •
February 21 – WWII:
Invasion of Sumatra: Japanese forces of the
38th Division under General
Tadayoshi Sano capture
Tanjungkarang airfield, which is put to work for air operations against
Java. •
February 22 – WWII: General
George Marshall transmits a direct order to
General MacArthur in
President Roosevelt's name, ordering MacArthur himself to turn over command of the
Philippines to a subordinate, and report to Australia to assume command of the large American force being built up there. The orders are worded to allow MacArthur to choose the exact moment of his
departure; for various reasons, he will not leave until March 11. •
February 23 – WWII: fires 17 high-explosive shells toward an
oil refinery near
Santa Barbara, California, causing little damage. •
February 24 •
Struma disaster: , carrying Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to British-administered Palestine, is torpedoed and sunk by
Soviet submarine Shch-213 in the
Black Sea, killing about 791 men, women and children, with only 1 survivor. •
Propaganda: The
Voice of America begins broadcasting. •
Internment of Japanese Canadians is ordered. •
February 25 – "
Battle of Los Angeles": Over 1,400 AA shells are fired at an unidentified, slow-moving object (probably a meteorological balloon) in the skies over Los Angeles. The appearance of the object triggers an immediate wartime blackout over most of
Southern California, with thousands of air raid wardens being deployed throughout the city. At least 5 deaths are related to the incident. Despite the several-hour barrages no planes are downed. •
February 26 – The
14th Academy Awards ceremony is held in Los Angeles;
How Green Was My Valley wins
Best Picture. •
February 27 – WWII: •
Battle of the Java Sea: An allied (
ABDA) task force of 14 vessels under
Dutch command, trying to stem a Japanese invasion of the
Dutch East Indies, is defeated by a 19-vessel Japanese task force in the
Java Sea; 2.300 sailors die, including the commander, Admiral
Karel Doorman; Japanese attain naval hegemony in East-Asia. • The
USS Langley, first aircraft carrier of the
United States Navy, is attacked by 9 Japanese bombers while ferrying a cargo of USAAF
P-40 fighters to Java.
Langley is so badly damaged that she has to be
scuttled to avoid falling into Japanese hands.
March •
March 1 – WWII: Japanese forces of the
2nd Division land in
Port of Merak on western
Java with the intention to advance on
Batavia, Dutch East Indies. •
March 4 – WWII:
Operation K – The Japanese launch an unsuccessful attack carried out by two
Kawanishi H8K ("Emily") flying boats at
Pearl Harbor. This is the longest distance ever undertaken by a two-plane bombing mission, and one of the longest bombing sorties ever planned without fighter escort. •
March 5 – WWII: Japanese forces of the
16th Army under General
Hitoshi Imamura enter triumphantly the Dutch colonial capital of Batavia without opposition. •
March 6 – WWII:
Yugoslav Partisans, operating in
Nazi-occupied Serbia, assassinate Đorđe Kosmajac in
Belgrade. •
March 8–
13 – WWII:
Invasion of Salamaua–Lae – Japanese forces invade and occupy the
Salamaua–
Lae area in the
Territory of New Guinea to establish an air base for the support of further operations in the region. A small Australian garrison (some 200 men) in the area withdraws to
Wau after executing demolition operations to prevent the use of their facilities for the invaders. In response to the Japanese landings,
Task Force 17 with aircraft carriers
Lexington and
Yorktown led by Admiral
Wilson Brown, attacks the invading naval forces and destroys three transports, and damages the cruiser
Yūbari and several other ships. •
March 8 • WWII: Japanese forces of the
33rd Division under General
Shōzō Sakurai capture
Rangoon. The Allies manage to escape and try to make a stand in central
Burma. •
NIROM, the Dutch East Indies' privately funded broadcaster, closes. •
March 9 – WWII: •
Executive order 9082 (February 28, 1942) comes into effect, reorganizing the United States Army into three major commands:
Army Ground Forces,
Army Air Forces, and
Services of Supply, later redesignated
Army Service Forces, with
Henry H. Arnold as Commanding General of the
United States Army Air Forces. • The Dutch Commander-in-Chief of the Allied forces on Java, General
Ter Poorten, surrenders to the Japanese. Ter Poorten's surrender announcement is made without consulting the commanders of the British and US forces, who want to continue the war. •
March 11 – WWII:
Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines – U.S. General
Douglas MacArthur, his family and key members of his staff are evacuated by
PT boat, under cover of evening darkness, from
Corregidor in the
Philippines. Command of U.S. forces in the Philippines passes to
Major General Jonathan M. Wainwright. •
March 12 – WWII: American troops land at
Nouméa on
New Caledonia to build a base and garrison the island. This landing includes the first
Seabees that are out on active service. The Seabees are Naval Construction battalions, and their name comes from the C and B in construction battalion. •
March 15 –
The Holocaust:
Dünamünde Action – 1,900 central European Jews are shot dead north east of
Riga, 1,840 are killed on the 26th. •
March 16 – WWII: New Zealand and Australia declare war on
Thailand. •
March 17 – The Holocaust:
Operation Reinhard – The
Nazi German Bełżec extermination camp opens in
occupied Poland, about 1 km south of the railroad station at
Bełżec in the
Lublin district of the
General Government. At least 434,508 people are killed here up to December 1942. •
March 18 –
Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, signs
Executive Order 9102, creating the
War Relocation Authority (WRA), which becomes responsible for the internment of Americans of Japanese and, to a lesser extent, German and Italian descent, many of them legal citizens. •
March 19–
30 – WWII:
Battle of Toungoo – Chinese forces under General
Dai Anlan set up a perimeter around
Taungoo. The Japanese
55th Division bombards the positions on the west bank of the
Sittaung River with artillery. The Japanese
56th Division links up with the 55th and crosses the river. Taungoo is surrounded and finally taken, while the remnants of the Chinese
200th Division withdraws to new defensive positions at
Yedashe. •
March 20 – WWII: After being forced to flee the Philippines, U.S. General
Douglas MacArthur announces (in
Terowie, South Australia), "I came through and I shall return." •
March 22 – WWII:
Second Battle of Sirte £ndash; Escorting warships of a British convoy to
Malta ward off a much more powerful
Regia Marina (Italian Navy) squadron, north of the
Gulf of Sirte. •
March 23 – WWII: The Germans burn down the Ukrainian village of Yelino (
Koriukivka Raion), killing 296 civilians. •
March 24 – The evacuation of Polish nationals from the Soviet Union begins. It is conducted in two phases: until April 5; and between August 10 and 30, 1942, by sea from Krasnovodsk to Pahlavi (Anzali), and (to a lesser extent) overland from Ashkabad to Mashhad. In all, 115,000 people are evacuated, 37,000 of them civilians, 18,000 children (7% of the number of Polish citizens originally exiled to the Soviet Union). •
March 25–
26 – The Holocaust:
First mass transport of Jews to Auschwitz concentration camp, 997 women and girls from
Poprad transit camp in the
Slovak Republic. •
March 28 – WWII: •
St Nazaire Raid (Operation Chariot) – British Commandos raid
Saint-Nazaire on the coast of Western France, to put its dockyard facilities out of action. •
Bombing of Lübeck in World War II:
St. Mary's Church, Lübeck is destroyed by an Allied bombing raid. •
March 29 – WWII: Following a coup d'état, the Free Republic of Nias is proclaimed by a group of freed Nazi German prisoners in the Indonesian island of
Nias; the republic exists for less than a month until the island is fully occupied by Japanese troops. •
March 31 – WWII:
Battle of Christmas Island – Japanese troops occupy
Christmas Island without resistance, following a mutiny by
British Indian Army troops against their British officers.
April •
April •
The Holocaust: the
Nazi German extermination camp Sobibór opens in
occupied Poland, on the outskirts of the town of
Sobibór. Between April 1942 and October 1943, at least 160,000 people are killed here. • 77
Uzbek prisoners of war held at
Amersfoort concentration camp in the occupied Netherlands are shot by Nazi German guards, 24 of their compatriots having previously died there as a result of forced starvation. •
April 3 – WWII: Japanese forces begin the last phase of the
Battle of Bataan, an all-out assault on the United States and
Filipino troops on the
Bataan Peninsula. •
April 5 – WWII:
Easter Sunday Raid – Aircraft of the
Imperial Japanese Navy attack
Colombo,
Ceylon (
Sri Lanka).
Royal Navy cruisers and are sunk southwest of the island. •
April 9 – WWII: •
Battle of Bataan: The
Bataan Peninsula falls, American and Filipino forces (some 75,000 soldiers) surrender to the Japanese
14th Army under General
Masaharu Homma. •
Bataan Death March: American and Filipino prisoners of war are forced to march from
San Fernando to
Capas (some 65 miles). During the march some 15,000 soldiers are killed by severe
physical abuse and wanton killings. • The Japanese Navy launches an air raid on
Trincomalee in Ceylon (Sri Lanka); the Royal Navy aircraft carrier and
Royal Australian Navy destroyer are sunk off the country's east coast. •
April 10 –
The Holocaust: Construction of the
Nazi German extermination camp Treblinka II commences in
occupied Poland near the village of
Treblinka. Between July 23, 1942, and October 1943, around 850,000 people are killed here, more than 800,000 of whom are Jews. •
April 13 • WWII: Japanese forces of the
56th Division under General
Masao Watanabe cross the
Sittang River and defeat the Chinese 6th Corps in the
Karen Hills area battles of
Mawchi. • The United States
Federal Communications Commission's minimum programming time required of television stations is cut from 15 hours to 4 hours a week during the war. •
April 14 – WWII: • British submarine is probably sunk by Axis forces in the Mediterranean. • is sunk by off
North Carolina. •
April 15 – WWII:
Award of the George Cross to Malta: King
George VI awards the
George Cross to the island of
Malta to mark the
Siege of Malta, saying, "To honor her brave people I award the George Cross to the Island Fortress of Malta, to bear witness to a heroism and a devotion that will long be famous in history" (from January 1 to July 24, there is only one 24-hour period during which no bombs fall on this tiny island). •
April 17 – WWII:
Henri Giraud, French general captured in 1940, escapes from
Königstein Fortress near
Dresden. He lowers himself down the cliffside fortress with a 50-meter 'rope' he made with odds and ends smuggled in to him. After traveling for three days, Giraud safely reaches the Swiss border. •
April 18 – WWII:
Doolittle Raid – Lieutenant Colonel
Jimmy Doolittle leads a bombing mission against
Japan, along with 79 other airmen of the U.S. Air Force, flying 16
North American B-25 Mitchell land-based bombers. They take off from the
USS Hornet in the
Pacific Ocean, some 700 miles (1,126 km) east of
Tokyo. Thirteen of the B-25 bombers fly over Tokyo and drop their bombs on oil storage facilities, factories and military targets. The other three B-25s drop their bombs over
Yokohama,
Nagoya and
Kobe. All but one of the B-25s run out of fuel before reaching friendly forces in western
China and are forced to land in Japanese-occupied China. With the support of Chinese farmers, 71 airmen reach free China. Eight airmen are captured by the Japanese, who execute four of them in retaliation for the raid. •
April 20 – WWII:
Operation Calendar: The American aircraft carrier
USS Wasp, escorted by the British battlecruiser
HMS Renown, two cruisers and six destroyers, brings 47 planes (
Spitfires) to
Malta. They are successfully delivered – but 30 of them are immediately destroyed on the ground by German bombers and within 48 hours all are destroyed. •
April 23 • WWII:
Exeter becomes the first historic English city bombed as part of the
Baedeker Blitz, in retaliation for the British
bombing of Lübeck. • Exeter-born
William Temple is enthroned as
Archbishop of Canterbury. •
April 25 –
Princess Elizabeth registers for war service in the U.K. •
April 26 • WWII: The
Reichstag meets for the last time, dissolving itself and proclaiming
Adolf Hitler the "Supreme Judge of the German People", granting him the power of life and death over every German citizen. • A gas and coal dust explosion at
Benxihu Colliery in
Manchukuo kills as many as 1,549 workers, the world's all-time worst mining disaster. •
April 27 • WWII:
Conscription crisis in Canada: A national plebiscite is held on the issue of
conscription. • The Jewish
Star of David is required wearing for all Jews in the Netherlands and Belgium; Jews in other Nazi-controlled countries have already been wearing it. •
April 29 – WWII: •
Burma campaign: Japanese forces of the
15 Army under General
Shōjirō Iida capture
Lashio. The allies are in full retreat. • An explosion at a chemical factory in
Tessenderlo, Belgium leaves 200 dead and 1,000 injured.
May •
May –
Operation Pluto: The plan to construct oil pipelines under the
English Channel, between England and France, is tested in the
River Medway. •
May 3–
4 – WWII:
Tulagi is invaded by Japanese forces in the
British Solomon Islands of the South Pacific, as part of
Operation Mo. •
May 5 – WWII:
Battle of Madagascar (Operation Ironclad) begins when British forces land on the
Vichy French colony of
Madagascar. On May 7 the northern city of
Diego Suarez surrenders. •
May 7 – WWII: On
Corregidor, the last American and
Filipino forces in the
Philippines under command of 2LT Robert L. Obourn (
92nd Coast Artillery Regiment, G Battery) from
Fort Mills, surrender to the Japanese as directed by Lt. Gen.
Jonathan M. Wainwright, the overall commander. •
May 8 – WWII: • The
Battle of the Kerch Peninsula: The German
11th Army with Romanian forces launches
Unternehmen Trappenjagd (Operation Bustard Hunt) and destroys the
bridgehead of the three Soviet Armies (44th, 47th, and 51st) defending the
Kerch Peninsula in the eastern part of the
Crimean Front. The battle ends in an Axis victory. • The
Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese and American/Australian fleets, the first battle in naval history where the opponents fight without seeing each other's fleets. The Japanese achieve a tactical victory in terms of tonnage lost (including aircraft carrier
USS Lexington) but are prevented from invading
Port Moresby. •
May 8–
9 – WWII: At night, gunners of the
Ceylon Garrison Artillery on
Horsburgh Island in the
Cocos Islands revolt. The mutiny is crushed, and 3 soldiers are executed (the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny). •
May 9 – WWII:
Operation Bowery: Aircraft carriers
USS Wasp and
HMS Eagle bring 61 Spitfires to Malta (
"Club Runs"). The fighter aircraft are desperately needed to bolster the island's defense against German
Luftwaffe air raids. •
May 12 – WWII: •
Second Battle of Kharkov: In the eastern
Ukraine, the
Soviet Army initiates a major offensive to capture the city of
Kharkov from the German Army, only to be encircled and destroyed. • Japanese minelayer
Okinoshima is sunk by American submarine . •
May 15 – WWII: In the United States, a bill creating the
Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) is signed into law. •
May 20 – The first African-American seamen are taken into the
United States Navy. •
May 21 – WWII: Sinking of the Mexican tanker
Faja de Oro by off
Key West. •
May 23 – WWII: German forces of the
6th Army under General
Friedrich Paulus and the
1st Panzer Army led by General
Ewald von Kleist meet up at
Balakleya, southeast of Kharkov, and encircle most of the Soviet 6th and 9th armies, capturing a 250,000-strong Soviet force inside the pocket. •
May 26 – WWII: •
Battle of Gazala: German forces of
Panzer Army Africa led by General Erwin Rommel launch a frontal attack on the central
Gazala positions. During the day, the bulk of Rommel's forces move forward, giving the British the impression that this is the main Axis assault. When night falls, the armoured formations turn south in a sweeping move around the southern end of the Gazala line. •
Battle of Bir Hakeim: The Free French and British troops slow the German advance in North Africa. • The
Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942, to help establish a military and political alliance between the
USSR and the
British Empire, is signed in London by foreign Secretary
Anthony Eden and Soviet foreign minister
Vyacheslav Molotov. •
May 27 – WWII:
Operation Anthropoid: Czech paratroopers acting for the Czech government in exile and trained in Britain attempt to assassinate
Reinhard Heydrich, acting
Reichsprotektor of the Nazi
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, in
Prague, and succeed in wounding him. •
May 29 –
Thai spelling reform of 1942 is initiated by the government of Prime Minister Field Marshal
Plaek Phibunsongkhram with his office announcing a simplification of the Thai alphabet. The announcement is published in the Royal Gazette on June 1. The reform is canceled by the government of
Khuang Aphaiwong on August 2, 1944. •
May 30–
31 – WWII:
Bombing of Cologne – British
RAF Bomber Command's "Operation Millennium", its first "1,000 bomber raid", with associated fires make 13,000 families homeless and kills around 475 people, mostly civilians; 3,330 non-residential buildings are destroyed. •
May 31–
June 1 – WWII:
Attack on Sydney Harbour: Japanese
midget submarines infiltrate Sydney Harbour in Australia, in an attempt to attack Allied warships.
June under attack by US aircraft at the
Battle of Midway •
June 1 • WWII: Mexico declares war on Germany, Italy and Japan after the sinking of a Mexican tanker by a German U-boat a week earlier. • The
Grand Coulee Dam is finished on the
Columbia River in the United States. •
June 3–
4 – WWII: The
Aleutian Islands campaign opens with the
Battle of Dutch Harbor, Japanese Navy aircraft carrier raids on the
Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and Fort Mears, U.S. Army at
Dutch Harbor on
Amaknak Island in the
Aleutian Islands, in the United States Territory of Alaska. •
June 4 – WWII:
Reinhard Heydrich succumbs to wounds sustained on
May 27, from Czechoslovak paratroopers acting in
Operation Anthropoid. •
June 4–
7 – WWII:
Battle of Midway – An American naval victory halts the Japanese advance in the Pacific. •
June 5 – WWII: The
United States declares war on
Bulgaria,
Hungary and
Romania. •
June 6 – WWII: Aleutian Islands campaign:
Japanese occupation of Kiska. •
June 7 – WWII: •
Siege of Sevastopol (1941–1942): German forces of the
11th Army under General
Erich von Manstein begin renowned infantry attacks against the fortress city of
Sevastopol. The Germans advance cautiously behind air and artillery support. Manstein has enough firepower to destroy the Soviet fortifications: some 1,300 guns and Heavy Artillery Battalion 833 (including a Karl-Batterie with three howitzers of 54 cm nicknamed "Thor", "Odin" and "Loki"). Firing in support, the German 80 cm
Schwerer Gustav railway gun fires seven shells. • Aleutian Islands campaign:
Japanese occupation of Kiska. •
June 8 – WWII:
Attack on Sydney Harbour – The Australian cities of Sydney and
Newcastle are shelled by Japanese submarines. The eastern suburbs of both cities are damaged, and the east coast is blacked out. •
June 10 – WWII: • Free French forces (some 2,700 men) evacuate Bir Hakeim and escape through a minefield, where they are picked up by British patrols of the
7th Armoured Division. •
Lidice massacre: Units of the Nazi
Ordnungspolizei and
Sicherheitsdienst shoot all 173 male residents of the Czech village of
Lidice in retaliation for the
assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Of 503 inhabitants, a total of around 340 are killed, including 82 children deported to
Chełmno extermination camp, and the remainder are removed. All domestic animals are killed and graves despoiled, the village is burned, remains blown up and the site landscaped out of existence; Nazi propaganda (which is open about the event) states "The name of the village was immediately abolished." •
June 11 – WWII: German forces of the
15th Panzer Division together with the
90th Light Division reach
El Adem. Panzer Army Africa captures the area around El Adem, and the
29th Indian Brigade, which has defended El Adem is almost wiped out by the Germans. •
June 12 –
The Holocaust: On her 13th birthday,
Anne Frank receives the book that she will use to keep her
diary in occupied
Amsterdam. •
June 12–
15 – WWII:
Operation Harpoon – An Allied convoy under Admiral
Alban Curteis leaves from
Gibraltar with 6 merchant ships escorted by the British battleship
HMS Malaya, aircraft carriers
HMS Argus and
HMS Eagle, 4 cruisers and 17 destroyers to
Malta. Two of the six merchant ships completes the journey, at the cost of several Allied warships. •
June 13 – WWII: • During the
Battle of Gazala, German forces of the
21st Panzer Division advance from the west and attack the British tanks of the
22nd Armoured Brigade. Erwin Rommel demonstrates superiority in tactics, compressing the British armoured forces between two Panzer Divisions of the Panzer Army Africa and the Italian
Ariete and
Trieste Divisions. By the end of the day, the British tank strength is reduced from 300 tanks to about 70. Rommel establishes armour superiority and surrounds the "Knightsbridge" positions. Due to the many losses, this defeat becomes known as "Black Saturday" to the
Eighth Army. • German scientists under
Ernst Steinhoff at
Peenemünde Army Research Center test a 12-ton rocket (known later as the
V-2 rocket) with a one-ton warhead. • The United States opens its
Office of War Information, a
propaganda center. •
June 14 – WWII: The British Eighth Army under General
Neil Ritchie is forced with two divisions to withdraw from the Gazala Line. The defenders of El-Adem and two neighbouring boxes hold out against the Germans. The South African
1st Division retreats along the coast road, practically intact. General
Claude Auchinleck orders Ritchie to hold the line south-east from
Acroma (west of
Tobruk) through El-Adem to Bir El Gubi. •
June 15 – WWII: Erwin Rommel sends German forces from the 21st Panzer Division and 90th Light Division to attack the defensive boxes at El-Adem and Sidi Rezegh. In the evening, Point 650 box at El-Adem is overrun. •
June 17–
21 – WWII:
Siege of Tobruk – German forces of Panzer Army Africa led by Erwin Rommel attack Tobruk with massed air support. On June 21, they penetrate a weak spot on the eastern defensive perimeter, capturing the port and 33,000 prisoners. •
June 18 – WWII: The SS surrounds the church in Prague where
Jan Kubiš and
Jozef Gabčík, the assassins of
Reinhard Heydrich, are hiding. Kubiš is fatally wounded in the ensuing shootout, and Gabčík commits suicide to avoid capture. •
June 21 – WWII: Japanese submarine
I-25 surfaces off the US
Pacific Coast and
bombards Fort Stevens at the mouth of the
Columbia River. The fort itself is not damaged, though a nearby
baseball field is destroyed. •
June 23 – WWII: • Erwin Rommel arrives in
Bardia and gives the 90th Light Division orders to attack eastwards. The British 8th Army withdraws to
Mersa Matruh, where the Indian
10th Division, elements of the Indian
5th Division and the British
50th Division take up positions. • The experimental early-type nuclear reactor L-IV has
an accident, becoming the first nuclear accident in history and consisting of a steam explosion and reactor fire in
Leipzig. •
June 24 – WWII: Units of the Nazi Gestapo, SS and Czech collaborators shoot all 33 adult residents of the Czech village of
Ležáky in retaliation for the presence of a Czech resistance operative in the aftermath of the
assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. 11 children are deported to
Chełmno extermination camp and gassed. The village is demolished and will never be rebuilt. Nazi propaganda openly announces the event on June 26. •
June 26–
29 – WWII:
Battle of Mersa Matruh – German forces of the Panzer Army Africa under Erwin Rommel pursues the Eighth Army as it retreats into Egypt. On June 28, the fortress port of Mersa Matruh and more than 6,000 prisoners are captured, along with plenty of supplies and equipment. •
June 27 – WWII: Allied
Convoy PQ 17 sails from
Iceland, with 35 merchant ships and 3 passenger ships that have been refitted for rescuing the crews of torpedoed ships. There are also one tanker, 6 destroyers and 13 smaller ships for close escort. The convoy is destined for the Soviet port of
Archangelsk. •
June 28 – WWII:
Operation Blue: German forces of
Army Group South under Generalfeldmarschall
Fedor von Bock drive to
Stalingrad and the
Baku oil fields. Spearheads of the
4th Panzer Army under General
Hermann Hoth drive towards
Voronezh, advancing nearly 50 km on day one. They crossed two rivers and cut the link one between the Soviet 13th and 40th armies. •
June 30 – WWII: • German forces of the 11th Army under General Erich von Manstein take Sevastopol, although fighting rages until July 4. The city is evacuated by the Soviets, some 90,000 prisoners are taken and von Manstein is promoted to Field Marshal. • German forces of Panzer Army Africa under Erwin Rommel approach the
Alamein positions, only 106 km from
Alexandria. The Axis forces are exhausted and Rommel has supply problems, because the British
Royal Air Force attacks his supply lines.
July • July –
The Holocaust: Inmates of
Westerbork transit camp in the occupied
Netherlands begin to be shipped to Nazi
extermination camps. From now until 1944 around 107,000, mostly Jewish, from here will be killed. •
July 1–
27 – WWII:
First Battle of El Alamein: British forces prevent a second advance by Axis forces into Egypt. The 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions are halted and Erwin Rommel orders his forces to regroup. The panzer strength of the German
Afrika Korps has been reduced to only 26 vehicles. •
July 3 – WWII:
Guadalcanal, occupied only by native Solomon Islanders, falls to the Japanese Naval construction force deployed to construct an airfield on the island. •
July 4 – WWII in the
European Theater of Operations: • Twenty-four ships are sunk by German bombers and submarines after
Convoy PQ 17 to the Soviet Union is scattered in the Arctic Ocean to evade the
German battleship Tirpitz. • The United States
Eighth Air Force inauspiciously flies its first mission in Europe, using borrowed British planes, and bombs targets in the Netherlands, such as De Kooy Airfield, attached to the
Den Helder Naval Base. Three of six aircraft return; For this mission, Captain Charles C. Kegelman is the first member of the Force to be awarded the U.S.
Distinguished Flying Cross. •
July 5 – German forces of the 4th Panzer Army under General Hermann Hoth reach the
Don River near Voronezh and become embroiled in the
battle to capture the city. •
July 6 –
The Holocaust:
Anne Frank's family goes into hiding in an attic above her father's office in an
Amsterdam warehouse. •
July 7 – German forces of the 4th Panzer Army reach the outskirts of Voronezh, but the Soviet army mounts a successful counterattack that ties up Hoth's forces for days. •
July 8 – Turkish prime minister
Refik Saydam dies while working in the office. For one day he is succeeded by
Ahmet Fikri Tüzer. •
July 9 –
Şükrü Saracoğlu forms the new (13th) government in
Turkey. •
July 13 – WWII:
U-boats sink three merchant ships in the
Gulf of St. Lawrence. •
July 14 – WWII: •
Bastille Day Gaullist demonstrations in
Vichy France; 2 women are shot dead by members of the fascist
French Popular Party (PPF) in
Marseille. • Germany introduces the
Ostvolk Medal for Soviet personnel in the
Wehrmacht. •
July 16 •
The Holocaust: By order of the
Vichy France government headed by
Pierre Laval, French police officers round-up 13,000–20,000 Jews and imprison them in the
Winter Velodrome. •
Georges Bégué and others escape from the
Mauzac prison camp. •
July 18 – WWII: The Germans test fly the
Messerschmitt Me 262 (using only its
jet engines) for the first time. •
July 19 – WWII:
Battle of the Atlantic: German Grand Admiral
Karl Dönitz orders the last
U-boats to withdraw from there the United States Atlantic coast positions, in response to an effective American convoy system. •
July 21 – WWII: The Japanese establish a beachhead on the north coast of
New Guinea in the Buna-Gona area; a small Australian force begins a rearguard action on the
Kokoda Track campaign. •
July 22 – WWII:
The Holocaust: The systematic deportation of Jews from the
Warsaw Ghetto begins. •
July 23 – WWII: • Adolf Hitler issues
Directive 45, ordering the seizure of the
Black Sea coast down to
Batum, and taking the oilfields of
Maikop,
Grozny and
Baku. • The Holocaust: The
gas chambers at
Treblinka extermination camp begin operation, killing 6,500 Jews newly arrived from the Warsaw Ghetto. •
July 25 – WWII:
Battle of Kalach: German forces of the
6th Army under General
Friedrich Paulus attack the
Stalingrad Front and manages to surround part of the Soviet
62nd and
64th armies in the
Kalach Pocket. •
July 29 – The
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the
Soviet Union institutes the
Order of Suvorov and
Order of Kutuzov and reinstates the
Order of Alexander Nevsky. •
July 30 – WWII: •
WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), the United States Naval Reserve (Women's Reserve), is signed into law. • The
SS Robert E. Lee is sunk in the
Gulf of Mexico by , which is itself sunk by the escorting patrol craft. •
July 31 – The
Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (Oxfam) is founded in England.
August •
August 1 – The
1942–44 musicians' strike begins. The American Federation of Musicians goes on strike against the major U.S. recording companies because of disagreements over royalty payments. •
August 3–
15 – WWII:
Operation Pedestal – A British convoy of 14 merchant ships with a massive escort of two battleships, 4 aircraft carriers, 7 cruisers, 32 destroyers and smaller ships commanded by Admiral
Edward Neville Syfret, sets sail to
Malta under relentless attacks by day and night from enemy submarines, aircraft and Axis surface forces. The 55,000 tons of food and fuel (particularly from oil tanker ) delivered by this convoy saves Malta from surrender and allows Malta-based aircraft and submarines to resume their attacks against Rommel's supply lines, although over 500 British sea- and airmen are killed and many ships (including carrier
HMS Eagle (1918)) are lost. •
August 4 – WWII: Operation Letica: An assassination attempt on Serbian fascist Minister of Finance
Dušan Letica, by a group
Yugoslav Resistance fighters, fails. •
August 5 – WWII: German forces of the
4th Panzer Army under General
Hermann Hoth resume their advance and reach
Abganerovo, 70 km southwest of
Stalingrad. They are stopped by the Soviet 64th Army under General
Vasily Chuikov, who defend the southern approach to Stalingrad. •
August 7 – WWII:
Guadalcanal campaign – The
U.S. Navy and the
U.S. Marine Corps start the first American offensive of the war, with an
amphibious landing on the island of
Guadalcanal in the
Solomon Islands. •
August 8 • WWII:
Battle of Savo Island: The Japanese Imperial Navy under Admiral
Gunichi Mikawa wins a spectacular victory over the US Navy and the Australian Navy at
Savo Island. Five cruisers and one destroyer are sunk, Mikawa's decision to withdraw under cover of the night rather than attempt to destroy the Allied invasion transports is primarily because of a possible Allied carrier strike against his fleet. • WWII: Allied North Atlantic
convoy SC 94 loses 10 ships, as the first to be heavily attacked by
U-boats resuming mid-Atlantic
wolf pack attacks, through the climactic winter of 1942–43. • WWII: In Washington, D.C., six German
saboteurs are executed for their role in the failed mission
Operation Pastorius (2 others are cooperative and receive sentences of life imprisonment instead, being freed a few years after the end of the war). •
August 9 • Indian leader
Mohandas Gandhi is arrested in
Bombay, by British forces. •
Start, led by the goalkeeper Nikolai Trusevich,
play football against the German Luftwaffe team Flakelf in Nazi-occupied Kyiv. Against all odds, they win 5–3. Eight of them are later arrested and tortured, and at least four are killed. •
Leningrad première of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7, with the city still under siege. •
August 11 –
Hedy Lamarr's and her friend
George Antheil's frequency-hopping system for radio-controlled torpedoes is granted a patent under . In 1962 (at the time of the Cuban missile crisis), an updated version of their design will at last appear on Navy ships. •
August 13 – A
Quit India resolution is passed by the
Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), which leads to the start of a historical civil disobedience movement across India. •
August 15 – WWII: American tanker reaches Malta, as part of the convoy of
Operation Pedestal. •
August 16 •
Polish-Jewish teacher
Janusz Korczak follows a group of Jewish children into the
Treblinka extermination camp. • U.S. Navy blimp
L-8 (Flight 101) comes ashore near San Francisco, eventually coming down in
Daly City (the crew is missing). •
August 17 • WWII:
Raid on Makin Island: US Marines of the
2nd Raider Battalion (211 men) under Lt. Col.
Evans Carlson embark aboard the submarines
Argonaut and
Nautilus at
Pearl Harbor. The aim is to destroy the Japanese installations and gather intelligence. Only the first of these objectives is achieved, but the raid does boost morale and provide a test for Raider tactics. • WWII: Heavy bombers of the U.S.
Eighth Air Force, based in England, conduct their first raid against occupied France. •
August 19 – WWII:
Dieppe Raid: An Allied amphibious attack on the German-occupied port of
Dieppe in northern France is repulsed. Some 6,000 men of the Canadian
2nd Infantry Division under General
John Roberts, supported by
3 and
4 Commando, 50 or so
US Rangers and Free French Commandos, are put ashore. The raid is designed to provide battle experience for the troops and to gain information about German defense methods. The casualties are some 3,600 men, 1 destroyer, 30 tanks and 33 landing craft. •
August 20 –
Plutonium is isolated for the first time, at the
Metallurgical Laboratory of the
University of Chicago. •
August 21 • WWII:
Operation Edelweiss: German forces (
Gebirgsjäger) of the
1st Mountain Division place the Nazi
swastika flag on the summit of
Mount Elbrus, a prominent peak of the
Caucasus at 5.629 meters. • WWII:
Battle of the Tenaru: The Americans defeat Japanese land forces on
Guadalcanal. •
August 22 – WWII:
Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy. •
August 23 – WWII:
Battle of Stalingrad: German forces of the
16th Panzer Division reach the suburbs of
Stalingrad. The German 6th Army under General
Friedrich Paulus stabilishes the frontier and takes up positions at the
Volga River. •
August 24 • WWII:
Charge of the Savoia Cavalleria at Izbushensky: An Italian
cavalry regiment attacks Soviet forces with drawn
sabers at Izbushensky, Russia, one of the last major cavalry
charges. • WWII: Allied North Atlantic
convoy ON 122 is attacked by
U-boats, which sink 4 ships. • WWII: The 2-day
Battle of the Eastern Solomons begins: Bombers from carrier
USS Saratoga sink
Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō near
Santa Isabel Island, helping to lead to an Allied victory. •
August 25 • WWII:
Battle of Milne Bay opens, when Japanese marines land at
Milne Bay. •
Dunbeath air crash:
Prince George, Duke of Kent, brother to King
George VI and King
Edward VIII, is among 14 to die in a military aircraft accident at
Morven, Scotland, at the age of 39. •
August 26–
31 – WWII:
Battle of Isurava: Japanese forces (some 2,100 men) of the
South Seas Detachment under General
Tomitarō Horii defeat the Australian
Maroubra Force at
Isurava, who fights delaying actions on the
Kokoda Track. •
August 27–
28 –
Sarny Massacre: Nazi troops and the
Ukrainian Auxiliary Police systematically execute more than 14,000 people, mostly Jews, in and around
Sarny in
German-occupied Poland. •
August 29 – WWII:
Tokyo Express: The Japanese navy starts night-time delivery of reinforcements, supplies and equipment to the Japanese forces operating in and around
New Guinea and the
Solomon Islands. •
August 30 – WWII:
Luxembourg is formally annexed to the German Reich. •
August 30–
September 5 – WWII:
Battle of Alam el Halfa – British forces in the Western Desert resist a German attack under Erwin Rommel. German tanks get slowed down in the minefields around Alam el Halfa Ridge and are forced to withdraw. •
August 31 – The
1942 Luxembourgish general strike is launched, to protest against forced conscription in Luxembourg.
September •
September 2 – WWII: The island of
Les Casquets in the Channel Islands is raided by the forerunner of the British
SAS, the
SSRF, led by Major
Gus March-Phillipps; this is one of the first raids by
Anders Lassen VC. In the raid, the entire garrison of 7 is abducted and returned to England as prisoners, and the radio and lighthouse are wrecked. •
September 3 • WWII: Erwin Rommel orders a general retreat and carries the German forces of
Panzer Army Africa back to the line running from Tel el Eisa – Deir el Shein - west of Deir el Munassib down to the
Qattara Depression. Allied forces of the
2nd New Zealand Division and the British
7th Armoured Division ("Desert Rats") begin an assault, but they are repelled in a fierce rearguard action by the German
90th Light Division. During the attack, Rommel loses some 2,900 men, 50 tanks, a similar number of guns, and 400 vehicles. •
The Holocaust: A German attempt to liquidate the Jewish
Łachwa Ghetto in
occupied Poland leads to an uprising, probably the first
ghetto uprising of the war. •
September 5 • WWII:
Battle of Milne Bay: Japanese forces suffer their first defeat on land. •
The Holocaust: The Jews of
Wolbrom in occupied Poland are rounded up by the Germans and their Ukrainian collaborators. •
September 9 – WWII: A Japanese
floatplane drops
incendiary devices at
Mount Emily, near
Brookings, Oregon, in the first of two "
Lookout Air Raids", the first bombing of the continental United States. •
September 10 • WWII: North Atlantic
convoy ON 127 is attacked by
U-boats, sinking 6 ships. • The
Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) begins operation in the United States. •
September 12 – WWII: The , carrying civilians, Allied soldiers, and Italian prisoners of war, is torpedoed off the coast of West Africa and sinks, killing 1,649 people. •
September 14–
16 – WWII:
Battle of Ioribaiwa: Australian forces (some 3,000 men) under Major-General
Selwyn Porter are forced to withdraw to Imita Ridge, due to supply problems. •
September 15 – WWII: The
Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) is established in the United States. •
September 24 – WWII:
Andrée Borrel and
Lise de Baissac become the first female
SOE agents to be parachuted into occupied France. •
September 26 –
The Holocaust: Nazi official
August Frank issues the
August Frank memorandum, setting out how the belongings of "evacuated" (i.e. murdered) Jews are to be disposed of. •
September 27 – WWII: Both the
commerce raiding German auxiliary cruiser Stier and American
Liberty ship sink, following a gun battle in the South Atlantic.
Hilfskreuzer Stier is the only commerce raider to be sunk by a
defensively equipped merchant ship.
October •
October 2 • British cruiser collides with liner (carrying troops from the United States) off the coast of
Donegal and sinks; 338 drown. • WWII: Japanese troopship
Lisbon Maru sinks, following a torpedo attack the previous day by submarine off the coast of China; 829 are killed, mostly British prisoners of war who (unknown to the attacker) were being held on board. • The first American-built
turbojet aircraft, the
Bell P-59 Airacomet fighter prototype, makes its first official flight. •
October 3 – The first
A-4 rocket is successfully launched from
Test Stand VII at
Peenemünde, Germany. The rocket flies 147 kilometers and reaches an altitude of 84.5 kilometers, becoming the first man-made object to reach space. •
October 9 • WWII:
Third Battle of the Matanikau on
Guadalcanal: American forces defeat the Japanese. • The
Statute of Westminster Adoption Act, passed by the
Parliament of Australia, formalizes Australian autonomy from the United Kingdom. •
October 11 – WWII:
Battle of Cape Esperance: On the northwest coast of
Guadalcanal,
United States Navy ships intercept and defeat a Japanese fleet, on their way to reinforce troops on the island. •
October 13 – WWII: North Atlantic
convoy SC 104 is attacked by
U-boats, sinking seven ships. •
October 14 •
The Holocaust: The
International Committee of the Red Cross, meeting in special session at the Hotel Métropole,
Geneva, Switzerland, declines to issue an international appeal condemning the holding of civilians in
Nazi concentration camps. • WWII: A
U-boat sinks the ferry off
Newfoundland, killing 137. •
October 16 • A
cyclone and consequential floods in the
Bay of Bengal kill 40,000 people, with particularly heavy damage around
Contai. • Animated short film
The Mouse of Tomorrow, featuring the debut of
Mighty Mouse (as "Super Mouse"), is released in the United States. •
October 18 – WWII: Hitler issues the
Commando Order, which stipulates that all Allied
commandos encountered by German forces should be executed immediately without trial, even in proper uniforms, in response to the
Dieppe Raid and
Operation Basalt conducted by the Allies. After the war, the
Nuremberg trials finds this order a direct violation of the
laws and customs of war. •
October 21 – A
Royal New Zealand Air Force torpedo bomber sinks the German
MS Palatia, with a loss of 946 lives. •
October 23 – Award-winning composer and songwriter
Ralph Rainger ("Thanks for the Memory") is among 12 people killed in a mid-air collision between an
American Airlines DC-3 and a U.S. Army bomber near
Palm Springs, California. •
October 23–
26 – WWII:
Battle for Henderson Field: Japanese forces fail to recapture
Henderson Field airfield in
Guadalcanal from the Americans. •
October 23–
November 4 – WWII:
Second Battle of El Alamein: British troops go on the offensive against the Axis forces. •
October 26 – WWII:
Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands: Two Japanese aircraft carriers are heavily damaged and one U.S. Navy carrier is sunk. •
October 28 • Film actor
Errol Flynn is accused of statutory rape by two teenage girls. • The
Alaska Highway is completed. •
October 29 –
The Holocaust: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over
Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews. •
October 30 – WWII: •
U-boats sink 11 ships, attacking diversionary
convoy SL 125, but move out of the path of approaching
troopships, carrying Allied
Operation Torch invasion forces. • British sailors board as it sinks in the Mediterranean and retrieve its
Enigma machine and codebooks.
November •
November 1 – WWII: North Atlantic
convoy SC 107 is heavily attacked by
U-boats, sinking 15 ships. •
November 2 – A
USAAF squadron, including
B-24 Liberators, intercepts many
Luftwaffe patrols off the coast of
Oran, Algeria. •
November 3 – WWII:
Second Battle of El Alamein: German forces under
Erwin Rommel are forced to retreat during the night. •
November 6 – WWII:
Battle of Madagascar ends when
Vichy French forces on
Madagascar sign an
armistice with the Allies. •
November 8 – WWII: •
Operation Torch: Elements of the Allied expeditionary force (some 105,000 men) under Lieutenant General
Dwight D. Eisenhower lands simultaneously along the coastline of
Morocco and
Algeria in
French North Africa. • French Resistance Coup in
Algiers: 400 French civil resisters neutralize the Vichyist XIXth Army Corps and the Vichyist generals (Juin, Darlan, etc.), thus allowing the immediate success of Operation Torch in Algiers, and ultimately the whole of
French North Africa. •
November 9 – WWII: • German forces of the 6th Army under general Friedrich Paulus reach finally the river bank of the Volga, capturing 90% of the ruined city of Stalingrad and splitting the remaining Soviet forces into two narrow pockets. • U.S. serviceman
Edward Leonski is hanged at Melbourne's Pentridge Prison, for the "Brown-Out" murders of three women in May. •
November 10 – WWII: In violation of a
1940 armistice, Germany invades
Vichy France, following French Admiral
François Darlan's agreement to an armistice with the
Allies in
North Africa. •
November 11 – The
Turkish parliament passes the
Varlık Vergisi, a capital tax mostly levied on non-Muslim citizens with the unofficial aim to inflict financial ruin on them and end their prominence in the country's economy. •
November 12 – WWII:
Guadalcanal campaign: A naval battle near
Guadalcanal starts between Japanese and American forces. •
November 13 – WWII: •
Guadalcanal campaign: Aviators from the sink the Japanese
battleship Hiei. • British forces capture
Tobruk. •
November 15 – WWII: • The
Naval Battle of Guadalcanal ends: Although the
United States Navy suffers heavy losses, it retains control of
Guadalcanal. • British forces capture
Derna, Libya. •
November 18 – WWII: North Atlantic
convoy ON 144 is attacked by
U-boats, sinking 5 ships. •
November 19 – WWII:
Battle of Stalingrad:
Soviet Union forces under General
Georgy Zhukov launch the
Operation Uranus counter-attacks at
Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor. •
November 20 – WWII: British forces capture
Benghazi. •
November 21 – The completion of the
Alaska Highway (also known as the Alcan Highway) is celebrated (however, the "
highway" is not usable by general vehicles until
1943). •
November 22 – WWII:
Battle of Stalingrad: The situation for the German attackers of
Stalingrad seems desperate during the
Soviet counter-attack
Operation Uranus, and General
Friedrich Paulus sends
Adolf Hitler a
telegram, saying that the
German Sixth Army is surrounded. •
November 23 – WWII • A
U-boat sinks the off the coast of Brazil. One crewman, Chinese second steward
Poon Lim, is separated from the others and spends 130 days adrift, until he is rescued on
April 3,
1943. • Legislation approves the
United States Coast Guard Women's Reserve, to help fill jobs and free men to serve during the war effort. They are known as the
SPARS ("Semper Paratus, Always Ready!") •
November 25–
26 – WWII:
Operation Harling: A British
Special Operations Executive team, together with
Greek Resistance fighters, blows up the
Gorgopotamos viaduct, in the first major sabotage act in occupied continental Europe. •
November 26 • The movie
Casablanca premières at the Hollywood Theater in New York City. •
A riot involving infantrymen, military police, and local law enforcement officers occurs in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, leading to three deaths. •
November 27 – WWII: At
Toulon, the French navy
scuttles its ships and submarines, to keep them out of Nazi hands. •
November 28 •
Cocoanut Grove fire: A fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in
Boston,
Massachusetts, kills 491. • The large-scale German "pacification" of the Zamojszczyzna region of Poland begins. •
November 29 – The
Blue Star Line cargo liner runs aground on the
Skeleton Coast of
Namibia. Crew and passengers survive, following a 26-day overland trek to
Windhoek. •
November 30 – WWII:
Battle of Tassafaronga – In a nighttime naval battle as part of the
Guadalcanal campaign, ships of the
Imperial Japanese Navy defeat those of the
United States Navy.
December •
December 1 –
Gasoline rationing begins in the United States. •
December 2 –
Manhattan Project: Below the bleachers of Stagg Field at the
University of Chicago, a team led by
Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining
nuclear chain reaction (a coded message, "The Italian navigator has landed in the new world" is then sent to U.S. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt). •
December 4 •
The Holocaust: In
Warsaw, two women,
Zofia Kossak and Wanda Filipowicz, risk their lives by setting up the Council for the Assistance of the Jews. • WWII: USAAF bombers make their first raid on Italy. •
December 6 –
Stary Ciepielów and Rekówka massacre: 5 families in
Occupied Poland are executed by the
Ordnungspolizei as part of the
German retribution against Poles who helped Jews. •
December 7 – WWII: • British commandos conduct
Operation Frankton, a raid on shipping in
Bordeaux Harbour. • The
battleship is launched at
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. •
December 8 – A fire at
Seacliff Lunatic Asylum in New Zealand kills 39 patients. •
December 10 –
The Holocaust: The
Polish government-in-exile sends copies of
The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland, including
Raczyński's Note, the first official report on The Holocaust, to 26 governments who signed the
Declaration by United Nations. •
December 11 – WWII:
Operation Lilliput: The Allies start a convoy operation for transportation of troops, weapons and supplies in a regular transport service between
Milne Bay and
Oro Bay in
New Guinea. The first vessel to arrive at Oro Bay is
Karsik, escorted by
HMAS Lithgow, with four
Stuart light tanks. •
December 12 – WWII: German troops began
Operation Winter Storm, an attempt to relieve encircled Axis forces during the
Battle of Stalingrad. •
December 15 – WWII:
Guadalcanal campaign –
Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse: the United States and allied forces begin to attack Japanese positions near the
Matanikau River. •
December 17 – The Allies issue the
Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations (as the answer to
Raczyński's Note), the first time they publicly acknowledge the
Holocaust. •
December 20 – WWII:
First Arakan Campaign: Allied forces begin a counter-offensive into
Burma. During the offensive, Japanese defenders occupying well-prepared positions repeatedly repulse the British and Indian forces. •
December 22 • An avalanche in
Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, kills 26, including Vulcan Crucible Steel heir-apparent Samuel A. Stafford Sr., when two 100 ton boulders fall on a bus filled with wartime steelworkers on their way home. • An airplane carrying prominent Ustashe general
Jure Francetić crashes. Francetić dies as a result of the injuries on
December 27. •
December 24 – French
Admiral Darlan, the former
Vichy leader who has switched over to the Allies following the Torch landings, is assassinated in
Algiers. •
December 27 – The
Union of Pioneers of Yugoslavia, a communist youth movement, is founded. •
December 28 – North Atlantic
Convoy ON 154 is heavily attacked by
U-boats, sinking 13 ships. •
December 31 – The
Times Square Ball in
Times Square, New York City is not dropped for the first time. Instead, there is a
moment of silence at midnight, followed by the sound of bells playing from sound trucks at the base of
One Times Square.
Date unknown •
DDT is first used as a
pesticide. • circa JuneThe 1942
FIFA World Cup competition in
Association football, which
Nazi Germany sought to host, is not held, due to World War II. ==Births==