WWII Timeline 4: 1942 - The Fall of Singapore

1942 JANUARY

2 January: Friday. Japanese troops enter Manila as US-Filipino forces retreat into the Bataan Peninsula.

3 January: Saturday. Winston Churchill and Roosevelt announce the unified ABDA (American, British, Dutch and Australian) Command in the SouthWest Pacific, under Wavell.

5 January: Monday. Lt. Airey Neave and Dutchman Tony Letaine, dressed in grey German uniforms, walk out of Colditz and into the surrounding forest. They catch a train to the Swiss border, and then head for Gibralter via Marseille, the Spanish border and the Pyrynees. 

7 January: Wednesday. British forces continue their retreat in central Malaya. The 11th Indian Division is shattered by Japanese tanks at Slim River, Malaya.                    

10 January: Saturday. The Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies begins with landings at Tarakan (Borneo) and the Celebes. Wavell arrives in Java and activates ABDA.

11 January: Sunday. The Japanese capture Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaya.

16 January: Friday. The Japanese invade Burma from Thailand. Heavy US losses are incurred on the Bataan Peninsula as the Japanese advance.       

16 January: Friday. Carole Lombard boards an aeroplane in Illinois in order to return home to her husband, Clark Gable. She is decapitated when the aircraft hits a mountain 35 miles west of Los Angeles. To Be or Not To Be is released posthumously.

19 January: Monday. The Japanese advance into Burma.

21 January: Wednesday. German troops go on the offensive in the Western Desert.

The first Japanese bombing of New Guinea takes place.

23 January: Friday. Japanese troops land at Balikpapan in Borneo and occupy Rabaul on New Britain Island. Australia appeals to the UK and US for immediate reinforcements.

24 January: Saturday. US destroyers torpedo three Japanese transports off Balikpapan. This is the first US surface action since 1898 but the Japanese landings continue undisrupted.

24 January: Saturday. MTB 219 is adopted by the citizens of Thame and surrounding district during Thame Warship Week to the 31^st January 1942.

25 January: Sunday. Australia mobilises fully. The US Pearl Harbour enquiry finds Admiral Kimmel, then the Commander-in-Chief of the US Fleet, guilty of dereliction of duty. A court martial is announced later.

26 January: Monday. US-Filipino withdrawal to the last Bataan defence line is completed.

31 January: Saturday. Explosive charges blow a gap in the causeway connecting Singapore to the mainland.

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1942 FEBRUARY

1 February: Sunday. The British Army retreats to Singapore with the Japanese only 8 miles away.

1 February: Sunday. The US Navy attacks Japanese bases in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands.

2 February: Monday. Rosehip syrup goes on sale nationwide. Two million more children get free cod liver oil. 

3 February: Tuesday. The Japanese launch air raids on Port Moresby.

4 February: Wednesday. The British refuse to surrender at Singapore. Heavy bombardment by the Japanese continues for 4 days.

7 February: Saturday. Lieutenant General Percival, the commander at Singapore, says the city will be held to the last man.

8 February: Sunday. The Japanese cross the Straits of Jahore and land on Singapore Island.

10 February: Tuesday. The first meeting of the Pacific War Council is held in London with Dutch, New Zealand, Australian and UK representatives.

10 February: Tuesday. Glenn Miller wins the first gold disc for selling over a million copies of Chattanooga Choo Choo.

11 February: Wednesday. The Jacob and the Angel sculpture by Jacob Epstein goes on show.

14 February: Saturday. The Japanese invasion of Sumatra begins.

15 February: Sunday. The British in Singapore surrender to the Japanese, through a lack of water, food, petrol and ammunition at 7:00pm (12:30 pm British Summer Time). General Percival and Major Wild surrender to Yamashita. The Japanese capture 80,000 British troops and 9,000 are killed.

16 February: Monday. British newspaper The Daily Herald carries the headline 'Singapore, Surrounded, Falls to Japs'. The Australian Prime Minister Curtin, calls the surrender of Singapore 'Australia's Dunkirk'.

17 February: Tuesday. The Japanese invade Bali, despite allied naval interception.

19 February: Thursday. The Japanese launch a surprise bomb-attack on the Royal Australian Navy at Darwin in Northern Australia.

22 February: Sunday. British forces are in retreat, less than 100 miles from Rangoon, the capital of Burma. Roosevelt authorises the transfer of General MacArthur.

23 February: Monday. Sir Arthur Harris takes over as the head of RAF Bomber Command.

24 February: Tuesday. The broadcast company VOA begins in America.

27 February: Friday. The battle of the Java Sea begins and continues for three days, during which the Allies lose five cruisers and six destroyers. The Japanese lose just four transports.

27 February: Friday. At 2300hrs, 122 paratroopers, led by Major John Frost, take-off in Whitley aircraft from Thruxton to capture a German radar at Bruneval, near Le Havre.

28 February: Friday. The Japanese invade Java, Indonesia, and are only fifty miles north of Rangoon. Allied warships are reported to have been sunk in the Java Sea.

28 February: Friday. 12:15am, 122 British paratroopers are dropped from Whitley aircraft over Bruneval. Lt. Charteris and his men are incorrectly dropped one mile away. The parachute regiment capture the chateau where the radar is held, secure an area for embarkation and deal with a German counter-attack. They escape from the beach in six landing craft and transfer to gunboats. Two men are killed and six missing. The captured equipment is examined by R.V. Jones and is found to have no jamming defence.

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1942 MARCH

2 March: Monday. General Wavell reassumes his post as the C-in-C of India and Burma. Burma is now cut off from the Southwest Pacific. The Dutch take supreme command of all Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific.

3 March: Tuesday. General Chiang Kai-shek meets General Wavell in Burma.

5 March: Thursday. General Alexander becomes C-in-C of Burma.

6 March: Friday. The Japanese occupy Batavia in Java and cut all roads north of Rangoon, trapping the British at Pegu.

8 March: Sunday. There are large-scale Japanese landings in New Guinea. Rangoon falls but the British forces escape to the north.

9 March: Monday. The Government of the Dutch East Indies reaches Adelaide as Java surrenders. US General Stilwell becomes Chiang Kai-shek's Chief of Staff. 

10 March: Tuesday. The Japanese capture Rangoon, Burma.

10 March: Tuesday. Parole is granted to Henry Methvin, the member of the Barrow gang that betrayed Bonnie and Clyde.

12 March: Thursday. General MacArthur leaves Corregidor for Australia.

14 March: Saturday. US troops arrive in Australia in force.

17 March: Tuesday. General MacArthur arrives in Australia from Corregidor saying, 'We shall return'.

20 March: Friday. The Chinese expeditionary force is reported in action in Burma.

24 March: Tuesday. The British Government refuses to hold an inquiry into the loss of Singapore during a Lords debate.

27 March: Friday. The Filipino President and Government arrive in Australia.   

28 March: Saturday. There is a Royal Air Force raid on Lubeck, Germany.

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1942 APRIL

1 April: Wednesday. The Japanese force the Chinese out of Toungoo, north of Rangoon. The Japanese begin landing in Dutch New Guinea.

2 April: Thursday. The British retreat from Prome, upper Burma.

3 April: Friday. The Japanese bomb Mandalay in Central Burma, killing 2,000. The final Japanese offensive on Bataan begins.

5 April: Sunday. Colombo (Ceylon) is attacked by 180 Japanese planes from five aircraft carriers, sent on a raid in the Indian Ocean. The armed merchant cruiser Hector and destroyer Tenedos are sunk. Fifty-three Japanese carrier-aircraft also sink the Royal Navy's heavy cruisers Dorsetshire and Cornwall, to the south west of Ceylon, in just 22 minutes. 

9 April: Thursday. The Japanese capture Bataan in the Pacific. US-Filipino forces surrender on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. 78,000 troops are captured, including 12,000 Americans, but 2,000 escape to Corregidor. This is the largest capitulation in US history. Japanese aircraft sink the British carrier Hermes, the destroyer Vampire and three other warships in the Indian Ocean. Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in India.

10 April: Friday. The 'Death March' in Bataan begins. British negotiations in India break down.

14 April: Tuesday. Session musician Tony Burrows is born in Exeter, Devon. 

18 April: Saturday. Colonel Doolittle leads 16 Army B25 bombers from the carrier Hornet in the first air raid on Tokyo.

23 April: Thursday. Winston Churchill tells the House of Commons of the disasters in the Japanese war.

27 April: Monday. Session drummer and Beatles associate Jim Keltner is born in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

30 April: Thursday. The British complete their retreat over the Irrawaddy at Mandalay in Burma.

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1942 MAY

1 May: Friday. Mandalay, Burma, is captured by the Japanese.

Battle of the Coral Sea 4 - 8 May 1942

4 May: Monday. The Battle of Coral Sea, Pacific, is the first major naval battle between the USA and Japan in World War II. It is the first naval battle fought entirely with aircraft.

5 May: Tuesday. The Japanese land on Corregidor after intensive bombing. The Japanese advance into China along the Burma Road.

6 May: Wednesday. The Japanese capture Corregidor, Philippines. 15,000 prisoners are taken by 1,000 Japanese.

11 May: Monday. The British retreat across Chindwin is complete.

13 May: Wednesday. HM MTB 219 sinks a German destroyer, the Seeadler. 

15 May: Friday. British forces retreating from Burma reach the Indian frontier.

20 May: Wednesday. British rearguards cross from Burma into India.

21 May: Thursday. Japan allows International Red Cross representatives to visit British prisoners.

25 May: Monday. Filming begins on Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart.  

26 May: Tuesday. The two Czech agents, sent to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, have completed their plan.

27 May: Wednesday. Oakley Airfield, Buckinghamshire, becomes operational as a satellite for Bicester.

27 May: Wednesday. Gestapo chief Reinhard Heydrich is injured in an assassination attempt, Operation Anthropoid, on the outskirts of Prague, by two Czech agents.

30 May: Saturday. Arthur 'Bomber' Harris assembles 1,000 aircraft, including Lancaster bombers, for codename Millennium, the bombing of Cologne. 860 bombers find the city centre and release their bombs. 480 people are killed and 45,000 are de-housed.  

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Battle of Midway 3 - 6 June 1942

1942 JUNE

3 June: Wednesday. The Battle of Midway in the Pacific begins when the US fleet engages the Japanese. After three days the Japanese retreat with heavy losses..

4 June: Thursday. Reinhard Heydrich dies.

5 June: Friday. The Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryu, is badly damaged and scuttled.

6 June: Saturday. American aircraft carrier Yorktown, already abandoned, is sunk by a Japanese submarine.

6 June: Saturday. The body of Reinhard Heydrich is carried to Prague Castle.

7 June: Sunday. The Japanese invade the Aleutian Islands.

7 June: Sunday. Reinhard Heydrich is laid in state.

10 June: Wednesday. The funeral of Reinhard Heydrich is held, with Hitler as the chief mourner. Heinrich Himmler gives the oration. The village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, is destroyed in reprisal for the death of Heydrich. The two agents, and five other parachutists, hide in a Serbian orthodox church.

16 June: Tuesday. A man betrays the parachutists to the Gestapo. At the siege of the church, the parachutists are shot, or shoot themselves.

18 June: Thursday. Thursday. Paul McCartney is born in Liverpool as James Paul McCartney.

20 June: Saturday. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys is born.

21 June: Sunday. Tobruk, Libya, is captured by the German Afrika Corps.

22 June: Monday. Erwin Rommel is promoted to the rank of field marshal.

25 June: Thursday. 1,000 RAF bombers raid Bremen, Germany.

28 June: Sunday. The Eighth Army retreat to El Alamein, North Africa.

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1942 JULY

3 July: Friday. The Germans capture Sebastopol in the Crimea, USSR.

10 July: Friday. The remains of Convoy PQ-17 reach Archangel.

19 July: Sunday. The Japanese invasion fleet leaves Rabaul for Buna, New Guinea.

21 July: Tuesday. The Japanese land at Buna, New Guinea.

28 July: Tuesday. The Germans capture Rostov-on-Don, USSR. Soviet forces retreating from Paulus’s Sixth Army face annihilation west of the River Don. General Vasilevsky and Stalin redraft Order No. 227, more commonly known as ‘Not One Step Backwards’. 

30 July: Thursday. The Chinese capture Tsingtien in Eastern Chekiang, cutting off the Japanese at Wenchow. The Japanese capture crucial islands en-route to New Guinea.

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1942 AUGUST

1 August: Saturday. The Japanese establish a puppet government in Burma.

1 August: Saturday. In USSR, the Germans cut the railway line from Stalingrad to Krasnodar, to the 6^th August.

6 August: Thursday. In the USSR, the Germans advance on Stalingrad from the south, to the 23^rd August.  

7 August: Friday. General Zhukov implements Order No. 227, using tanks to fire on any soldiers who waver.

7 August: Friday. US troops invade Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, Pacific.

8 August: Saturday. A Japanese naval counter-attack is beaten off in the Solomon Islands. US marines take Henderson Airfield on Guadalcanal.

8 August: Saturday. Six Nazi saboteurs, captured by the FBI in America, are executed in the electric chair.

9 August: Sunday. The Battle of Savo Island begins as 7 Japanese cruisers and a destroyer approach undetected west of Savo Island, Solomon Islands and sinks the U.S. heavy cruisers, Quincey, Vincennes and Astoria and the Australian cruiser Canberra. They also damage 1 cruiser and 2 destroyers. The allied ships depart leaving the Guadalcanal area is in the control of the Japanese forces.

11 August: Tuesday. Son Seals is born Frank Seals in Osceola, Arkansas.

17 August: Monday. The first US bombing raid in Europe is launched.

19 August: Wednesday. The Japanese send 4 transport ships with a close escort of a cruiser and 4 destroyers to strengthen their land forces on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. Movement is covered by 3 carriers, 2 battleships, 5 cruisers and 17 destroyers.

19 August: Wednesday. There are heavy Allied casualties on a Dieppe raid.

20 August: Thursday. 31 US aircraft touchdown on the newly completed Henderson Airfield, on Guadalcanal, to help marines fighting over control of the island.

22 August: Saturday. The first wave of Japanese reinforcements are wiped out by US forces on Guadalcanal.

22 August: Saturday. The first of three Soviet camps are set up for the interrogation of any Russian soldier who escapes from German custody or encirclement. Commanders permitting retreat are stripped of their rank and sent to penal companies or battalions. Penal companies, ‘shtrafroty’, perform suicidal tasks such as mine clearance during an attack. Altogether, some 422,700 Red Army men die for their ‘crimes’.   

23 August: Sunday. In the USSR, the Germans cross the River Don, the last obstacle to an all-out assault on Stalingrad, to the 2^nd September.   

24 August: Monday. The Japanese try to land reinforcements on Guadalcanal. US forces beat off the Japanese Combined Fleet sinking the carrier Ryujo, but suffering damage to the carrier Enterprise.

25 August: Tuesday. The Battle of the Eastern Solomons continues with a Japanese destroyer being sunk off Santa Isabel.

25 August: Tuesday. In the night, the Japanese succeed in landing troops from destroyers on Guadalcanal. Nauru, Gilbert Island and Goodenough, off the south- east coast of New Guinea, are occupied by the Japanese. The Battle of Milne Bay, Papua, begins. A Japanese Special Naval Landing Force of 1,200 men comes ashore.

Battle of Stalingrad 26 August 1942 - 2 February 1943

26 August: Wednesday. Two thousand Japanese land at Milne Bay, South East of Port Moresby and advance up Kokoda Trail.

26 August: Wednesday. Germans reach Stalingrad and make increasingly desperate attempts to take the city.

29 August: Saturday. Japanese warships begin to evacuate Milne Bay.

30 August: Sunday. U.S. Naval and Army forces occupy Adad, Aleutian Islands, for an air and naval base.

31 August: Monday. The US aircraft-carrier Saratoga is attacked and damaged by a Japanese submarine near Santa Cruz.

31 August: Monday. 1,200 Japanese reinforcements landed on Guadalcanal by ‘Tokyo Express’.

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1942 SEPTEMBER

1 September: Tuesday. In USSR, Paulus’s Sixth Army, part of Army Group B, reach the Volga, north of Stalingrad, to the 6^th. It is the most easterly point ever attained by any army invading Russia from the west.  

6 September: Sunday. In USSR, the Germans take the major Black Sea naval base of Novorossiisk, to the 8^th.

8 September: Tuesday. At Stalingrad, the Germans attack Soviet Army positions in the west of the city, to the 11^th.

11 September: Friday. In Stalingrad, the Germans drive a wedge through the Soviet positions, threatening the city centre.  

12 September: Saturday. General Zhukov, Stalin’s deputy as commander-in-chief of the Red Army, is summoned to the Kremlin. General Vasilevsky, the Chief of Staff is also present. Stalin orders them to go to the General Staff to consider what must be done in the Stalingrad area.

13 September: Sunday.  Generals Zhukov and Vasilevsky return to the Kremlin. They tell Stalin that the city should be held in a battle of attrition with a minimum of troops. The Stavka, incorporating the General Staff, the body that plans military operations and determines supply priorities, will secretly assemble fresh armies behind the lines for a major encirclement. It is the theory of ‘deep operations’ with mechanised ‘shock armies’.   

13 September: Sunday. The Germans begin a massive assault on Stalingrad.

22 September: Tuesday. Singer Mike Patto is born Michael Thomas McCarthy in Cirencester, Gloucestershire.

30 September: Wednesday. Gus Dudgeon, record producer, is born in Woking, Surrey.

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1942 OCTOBER

3 October: Saturday. A new US price law freezes wages, rents and farm prices.

12 October: Monday. The birth of James Dewar, bassist and singer with Robin Trower.

The battle of el-Alamein 23 October 1942 - January 1943

23 October: The British Eighth Army launch their infantry attack at El Alamein at 10:00 PM, starting the El Alamein battle, but find the German minefields harder to clear than they had foreseen.

23 October: Jasper Maskelyne and his Magic Gang construct 2,000 dummy vehicles and 1,000 sun-shields for the battle of El Alamein.

25 October: Sunday. Some British tanks are deploying six miles beyond the original front. When Erwin Rommel, ordered back to Africa by Hitler, reaches the front in the evening, half of the Germans' available armour is already destroyed.

26 October: Monday. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel returns to the battle front from sick leave.

26 October: Monday. The impetus of the British onslaught is stopped, when German antitank guns take a heavy toll of armour trying to deepen the westward penetration.

28 October: Wednesday. In the night, Montgomery turns the offensive northward from the wedge, but this drive likewise miscarries. In the first week of their offensive the British lose four times as many tanks as the Germans, but still have 800 available against the latter's remaining 90.

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1942 NOVEMBER

4 November: Wednesday. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel retreats in North Africa.

8 November: Sunday. The Allies land in French North Africa under the command of General Dwight Eisenhower.

9 November: Monday. The German Army marches into unoccupied France.

13 November: Friday. The British recapture Tobruk, Libya.

19 November: Thursday. The Soviet Army surrounds the Germans at Stalingrad.

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1942 DECEMBER
9 December: Wednesday. Dick Butkus, NFL hall of fame linebacker for the Bears, and sports broadcaster, is born in Chicago, Illinois.

9 December: Wednesday. Joe McGinniss, author of Selling of the President (1968), is born in Rye, New York.

9 December: Wednesday. The Aram Khachaturian ballet Gayane, featuring the Sabre Dance, is first performed by the Kirov Ballet.

9 December: Wednesday. Sir Nicholas Bonsor, Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office 1955-97, is born.

9 December: Wednesday. Judge Dawn Freedman, a circuit judge, is born.          

10 December: Thursday. Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, in a meeting with the Fuhrer, discusses the ransom of Jews (held at Bergen-Belsen) for foreign currency.

10 December: Thursday. HMS Implacable, built by Fairfield, is launched.

25 December: Friday. White Christmas by Bing Crosby is a hit record.

Thanks to: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/asia-and-the-pacific/asia-and-the-pacific-index.htm

Originally posted on Tuesday 8th and Wednesday 9th March 2011