Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 75.70.133.186 (talk) at 02:20, 20 December 2007 (→December 1941). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "List of timelines of World War II" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

For events preceding September 1 1939, see the timeline of events preceding World War II.

This is a timeline of events that stretched over the period of World War II.

1939

September 1939

1: The Invasion of Poland begins at 4:30 a.m. with the German Luftwaffe attacking miltary targets in Poland. The Luftwaffe launches air attacks against Krakow, Lodz, and Warsaw.

1: Norway, Switzerland and Finland declare their neutrality.

1:The British government declares general mobilisation of the British Armed Forces and begins evacuation plans in preparation of German air attacks.

2: Britain and France issue a joint ultimatum to Germany, requiring German troops to evacuate Polish territory; Mussolini declares Italian neutrality; Ireland also declares neutrality; the Swiss government orders a general mobilisation of its forces.

2: The National Service (Armed Forces) Act (1939), under which all men between 18 and 41 are made liable for conscription is speedily passed through British Parliament.

2: The Free City of Danzig is annexed by Germany.

3: At 11:15am British Summer Time, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, announces on BBC Radio that the deadline of the final British ultimatum for the withdrawal of German troops from Poland expired at 11:00am and that "consequently this nation is at war with Germany". At 12:30pm BST the French Government delivers a similar final ultimatum; which expires at 3:00pm BST. Australia, India, and New Zealand also declare war on Germany.

3: Within hours of the British declaration of War, SS Athenia, a British cruise ship en-route from Glasgow to Montreal is torpedoed by U-30 250 miles Northwest of Ireland. 112 passengers and crew are killed.

4: In the first British offensive action of the war the Royal Air Force launch a raid on the German fleet in the Heligoland Bight. They target the Admiral Scheer anchored off Wilhelmshaven at the western end of the Kiel Canal. Several aircraft are lost in the attack and although the German vessel is hit three times all of the bombs fail to explode.

4: Japan announces its neutrality in the European situation. The United States makes a similar declaration the next day.

5: South African Prime Minister Barry Herzog fails to gain support for a declaration of South African neutrality and is deposed by Jan Smuts.

6: South Africa declares war on Germany.

6: Battle of Barking Creek (a friendly fire incident resulting in the first RAF fighter pilot fatalities of the War).

6: One element of the German army captures Krakow in the south of Poland; Polish army is in general retreat.

7: France begins a token offensive, moving into German territory near Saarbrücken.

7: The National Registration Act (1939) passed in Britain, introducing identity cards and allowing the government to control labour.

8: The British Government announce the re-introduction of the convoy system for merchant ships and a full-scale blockade on German shipping.

9: The French Saar Offensive stalls at the heavily mined Warndt Forest having advanced approximately 8 miles into lightly defended German territory.

10: Canada declares war on Germany.

11:Viceroy of India Lord Linlithgow announces to the two houses of the Indian Legislature (the Council of State and the Legislative Assembly) that due to India's participation in the war, the plans for the Federation of India under the Government of India Act 1935 will be indefinitely postponed.

12: General Gamelin orders a halt to the French advance into Germany.

16: The German Army complete the encirclement of Warsaw.

17: The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east, occupying the territory east of the Curzon line as well as Białystok and Eastern Galicia.

18: Polish President Ignacy Moscicki and Commander-in-Chief Edward Rydz-Smigly leave Poland for Romania, where they are both interned; Russian forces reach Vilna and Brest-Litovsk. Polish submarine escapes from Tallinn - Estonia's neutrality is questioned by the Soviet Union and Germany.

19: The German and Soviet armies link up near Brest Litovsk.

20: U-27 is sunk with depth charges from the British destroyers HMS Fortune and HMS Forester.

21: Romanian Prime Minister Armand Călinescu is assassinated by the Iron Guard, a pro-Nazi fascist group.

25: German home front measures begin with food rationing.

26: Following a massive artillery bombardment, the Germans launch a major infantry assault on the centre of Warsaw.

27: In the first offensive operations by the German Army in Western Europe, guns on the Siegfried Line open up on villages behind French Maginot line.

28: The remaining army and militia in the centre of Warsaw capitulate to the Germans.

29: Estonia signs a Mutual Assistance Pact with the Soviet Union, which allows Soviet troops to enter Estonia; Poland is divided up between Germany and the Soviet Union.

30: The German pocket-battleship Admiral Graf Spee sinks its first merchant ship, the British freighter Clement while off the coast of Pernambuco, Brazil.

October 1939

1: Polish code breakers bring an early Enigma machine to Paris.

2: RAF drops propaganda leaflets on Berlin.

3: British forces move to Belgian border, anticipating German invasion of the West.

5: The Soviet Union begins talks with Finland to adjust the border between the two countries. A treaty is also signed with Latvia giving Russians access to air bases.

6: Chinese army reportedly defeats the Japanese at the battle of Changsha.

6: Polish resistance in the Polish September Campaign comes to an end. Finland begins mobilizing its army; Hitler speaks before the Reichstag, declaring a desire for a conference with Britain and France to restore peace.

9: Hitler issues orders (Plan Yellow) to prepare for the invasion of Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

10: The last of Poland's military surrenders to the Germans.

10: The leaders of the German navy suggest to Hitler the need to occupy Norway.

10: British Prime Minister Chamberlain declines Hitler's offer of peace.

11: An estimated 158,000 British troops are now in France.

12: Adolf Eichmann begins deporting Jews from Austria and Czechoslovakia into Poland.

12: French Premier Daladier declines Hitler's offer of peace.

14: The British battleship HMS Royal Oak is sunk in Scapa Flow harbour by U-47, under the command of Gunther Prien.

16: First air attack on Britain, aimed at ships in the Firth of Forth, Scotland.

19: Portions of Poland are formally inducted into Germany; the first Jewish ghetto is established at Lublin

20: The "Phony War": French troops settle in the Maginot line's dormitories and tunnels; the British build new fortifications along the "gap" between the Maginot line and the Channel.

27: Pope Pius XII's encyclical condemns racism and dictatorships.

27: Belgium announces that it is a neutral in the present conflict.

30: The British government releases a report on concentration camps being built in Europe for Jews and anti-Nazis.

November 1939

1: Parts of Poland, including the Danzig Corridor, are annexed by Germany. Russia annexes Ukraine, now titled the UkSSR.

3: Finland and Russia negotiate new borders, the old ones being seen as obstacles to peace.

4: The U.S. Neutrality (Cash and Carry) Act is passed: the French and British may buy arms, but on a strictly cash basis. American isolationists find the act an "outrage."

4: The Warsaw Jews (numbering approximately 400,000) are ordered into a Jewish ghetto.

8: Hitler escapes a bomb blast in a Munich beerhall, where he was speaking on the anniversary of the beerhall putsch of 1923. British bombers coincidentally bomb Munich.

13: Peace talks between Finland and Russia break down, mainly on the subject of territories to be exchanged; war is threatened as the Finns mobilise.

13: The first bombs are dropped on Britain – in the Shetland Islands – with little damage.

14: The Polish government-in-exile moves to London.

17: The IRA is blamed for bombs set off in London.

20: The Luftwaffe and German U-boats begin mining the Thames estuary.

23: Polish Jews are ordered to wear Star of David armbands.

24: Japan announces the capture of Nanning in southern China.

26: Russia accuses the Finns of firing artillery along the common border.

29: The USSR breaks off diplomatic relations with Finland.

30: The Soviet Union invades Finland in what would become known as the Winter War.

December 1939

1: Russia continues its war against Finland; Helsinki is bombed. In the first two weeks of the month, the Finns retreat to the Mannerheim line, an outmoded defensive line just inside the southern border with Russia.

2: British conscription is increased to cover men from 19 to 41.

5: The Russian invaders start heavy attacks on the Mannerheim line.

7: Italy again declares its neutrality. Norway, Sweden, and Denmark also proclaim their neutrality in the Russo-Finnish quarrel.

11: Russians meet with several tactical defeats by the Finnish army.

13: Battle of the River Plate, off Montevideo, Uruguay. A British naval squadron attacks the Admiral Graf Spee

14: The Graf Spee retreats into Montevideo harbour, badly damaged.

14: The USSR is expelled from the League of Nations.

17: Admiral Graf Spee is forced by International Law to leave Montevideo harbour; it is scuttled just outside the harbour. Captain Hans Langsdorff is interned but on the 20th commits suicide.

18: The first Canadian troops arrive in Europe.

27: The first Indian troops arrive in France.

28: Meat rationing begins in Britain.

29: As the year ends, the Finns continue to have successes in fighting the invaders, along the way capturing many men and vehicles.

1940

January 1940

2: The Russian offensive in Finland is halted by several Finnish victories; numerous Russian tanks are destroyed, and the Russian offensive stalls.

7: Rationing of basic foodstuffs is established in Britain.

7: A major Finnish victory at Suomussalmi is reported; one whole Russian division is eliminated, and again numbers of military vehicles are captured.

16: Captured documents reveal Hitler's plans for the invasion of Scandinavia and a postponement of the invasion of France and the Low Countries until the Spring, when the weather is more compatible to invasion.

17: The Russians are driven back in Finland and retaliate with heavy air attacks.

21: A U-boat sinks British destroyer HMS Exmouth a crew of 135 are all lost.

24: Reinhard Heydrich is appointed by Goering for the solution to "The Jewish question."

27: Germany makes final plans for the invasion of Denmark and Norway.

February 1940

1: Japanese Diet announces record high budget with over half its expenditures being military.

5: Britain and France decide to intervene in Norway to cut off the iron ore trade in anticipation of an expected German occupation and ostensibly to open a route to assist Finland. The operation is scheduled to start about March 20.

9: Erich von Manstein is placed in command of German XXXIII Armour Corps, removing him from planning the French invasion.

10: USSR agrees to supply grain and raw materials to Germany in a new trade treaty.

14: British government calls for volunteers to fight in Finland.

15: Soviet army captures Summa, an important defence point in Finland, thereby breaking through the Mannerheim Line.

15: Hitler orders unrestricted submarine warfare.

16: British destroyer HMS Cossack forcibly removes 303 British POWs from the German transport Altmark in neutral Norwegian territorial waters.

17: The Finns continue retreat from the Mannerheim line.

17: Manstein presents to Hitler his plans for invading France via the Ardennes forest.

21: General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst is placed in command of the upcoming German invasion of Norway.

23: Russians lay down strict requirements for a peace treaty with Finland, including the surrender of significant geographical territories.

24: The Manstein Plan for the German invasion of France and the Low Countries is approved.

27: The Finns retreat even farther north.

March 1940

1: Hitler directs his generals in planning the invasion of Denmark and Norway.

3: Soviets begin attacks on Viipuri, Finland's second largest city, and the last line of Finnish defence.

5: Finland tells the Soviets they will agree to their terms for ending the war. The next day they send emissaries to Moscow to negotiate a peace treaty.

12: In Moscow, Finland signs a peace treaty with the Soviet Union after 105 days of conflict.. The Finns are forced to give up significant territory in exchange for independence

16: German air raid on Scapa Flow causes first British civilian casualties.

18: Hitler and Mussolini meet at the Brenner pass on the Austrian border; Mussolini agrees with Hitler that Italy will enter the war "at an opportune moment".

21: Paul Reynaud becomes Prime Minister of France following Daladier's resignation the previous day.

28: Britain and France make a formal agreement that neither country will seek a separate peace with Germany.

30: Japan establishes a puppet regime at Nanking, China, under Wang Jingwei.

April 1940

1: Sometime between now and early May Polish officers are massacred by the USSR at Katyn.

3: The Ministerial Defence Committee, with the First Lord of the Admiralty (Winston Churchill) as its chair, replaces Lord Chatfield's ministerial position of Minister for Coordination of Defence.

4: Hitler gives the go-ahead for the invasion of Norway and Denmark.

5: Chamberlain makes an ill-timed remark that Hitler has "missed the bus".

8: Allied mining of Norwegian waters is put into action.

9: Germany invades Denmark and Norway; Denmark surrenders. Germans land in several Norwegian ports and take Oslo; Norwegian army quickly capitulates. Britain begins their Norwegian Campaign.

10: Germans set up a Norwegian government under Vidkun Quisling, former war minister.

11: First Battle of Narvik, British destroyers and aircraft successfully make a surprise attack against a larger German naval force. A second attack on April 13 will also be a British success.

12: British troops occupy the Danish Faroe Islands.

13: British and French troops begin landing at Namsos and Harstad in Norway.

14: The Enigma code is broken by the intelligence group at Bletchley Park in Britain.

15: British troops land at Narvik, Norway.

16: More British landings in Norway, notably at Trondheim; the struggle for Trondheim continues until the 22nd.

27: Britain begins pull-out from Norway.

May 1940

1: Allies begin evacuating Norwegian ports; the efforts will continue until June.

5: Norwegian government in exile established in London.

8: Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns after humiliating no-confidence vote in the House of Commons.

9: Conscription in Britain extended to age 36.

10: Germany invades Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Britain upon the resignation of Neville Chamberlain. Britain invades Iceland.

10: Belgium declares a state of emergency. Churchill is called on to form a wartime coalition government.

10: The massive German offensive against the Western front: The invasion of Belgium, the Netherlands, and France begins. In a bold stroke, German paratroops capture the Belgian fort Eben Emael.

11: Luxembourg is occupied.

11: Churchill offers the former Kaiser Wilhelm II, who is now living in the Netherlands asylum in Britain; he declines.

12: The Belgians blow up all the bridges over the Meuse River to halt the German advance.

13: Dutch government in exile established in London.

13: General Heinz Guderian's Panzer corps breaks through at Sedan, France.

13: Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands flees to asylum in Britain.

13: Churchill's "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech in Commons.

14: The creation of the Local Defence Volunteers; (the Home Guard) is announced by the new Secretary of State for War Anthony Eden. It is mostly composed of the elderly and retired.

14: Rotterdam is carpet-bombed by the Luftwaffe, causing many civilian deaths and tremendous damage. The Netherlands decide to surrender with the exception of Zealand.

14: Britain asks the Untied States and Canada for aid in these dark days. Outlines of the new British coalition, which includes Labour, Liberal, and Conservative members, is made public.

15: The capitulation of the Dutch army is signed.

16: Churchill visits Paris and hears that the French war is as good as over; Britain fears it's alone in Europe.

17: Germans enter Brussels and also take Antwerp.

17: Paul Reynaud forms new French government, including 84-year old Marshal Pétain, the French hero of World War I.

18: Maxime Weygand replaces Maurice Gamelin as commander of the French armed forces

19: Amiens, France is besieged by German troops; Rommel's forces surround Arras; other German forces reach Noyelles on the Channel.

20: General Guderian's Panzer groups take Abbéville, threatening Allied forces in the area.

23: Oswald Mosley, leader of the pre-war British fascists, is jailed; he and his wife will spend the duration in prison.

24: Britain makes a final decision to cease operations in Norway.

25: The Allied forces, British and French alike, retreat to Dunkirk. Hitler mysteriously orders a halt to the advance of Germans toward the Allied beachhead.

25: Sporadic Luftwaffe bombings in Britain.

25: Boulogne-sur-Mer surrenders to the Germans

26: Calais surrenders to the Germans

26: Operation Dynamo, the Allied evacuation of 340,000 troops from Dunkirk, begins. The move will last until June 3.

28: Belgium surrenders to the Germans; King Leopold III surrenders and is interned.

30: Crucial British Cabinet meeting: Churchill wins a vote on continuing the war, in spite of vigorous arguments by Lord Halifax and Chamberlain.

31: The Japanese heavily bomb Nationalist capital Chungking, on the upper Yangtse.

June 1940

2: Last of British troops in Norway leave; losses have been heavy on both sides.

3: Last day of Operation Dynamo. 224,686 British and 121,445 French and Belgian troops have been evacuated.

3: Germany raids Paris.

7: German cruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorts sink the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and two destroyers off Norway; the British ships have had no air cover.

10: Italy declares war on France and Britain; Norway surrenders. King Haakon flees to the mountains and is eventually evacuated to Britain.

11: French government decamps to Tours.

14: Paris occupied by German troops; French government moves again, this time to Bordeaux.

16: Philippe Pétain becomes premier of France upon the resignation of Reynaud's government.

17: Sinking of liner RMS Lancastria off St Nazaire while being used as a British troopship—Britain's worst maritime disaster since the Anglo-Dutch wars.

18: General De Gaulle forms the Comité Français de la Libération Nationale, a French government in exile; Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are occupied by the Soviet Union.

21: Franco-German armistice negotiations begin at Compiegne.

22: Franco-German armistice signed.

24: Franco-Italian armistice signed.

25: France officially surrenders to Germany at 0:35.

28: General De Gaulle recognised by Britain as leader of Free French.

28: Italo Balbo, world-renowned Italian aviator, is accidentally killed by Italian anti-aircraft fire at Tobruk, Libya.

30: Germany invades the Channel Islands.

July 1940

1: Channel Islands occupation is completed by German forces; French government moves to Vichy.

1: Marshal Rodolfo Graziani is now the head of Italian forces in North Africa.

2: Hitler orders preparation of plans for invasion of Britain, code-named Operation Sealion.

3: Cardiff is bombed by the Luftwaffe for the first time.

4: The destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, Algeria by the Royal Navy; Vichy French government breaks off diplomatic relations with Britain in protest. At Alexandria the French agree to demilitarise the battleship Lorraine and several smaller ships.

4: The Italians continue their advance into Somaliland, East Africa.

4: The Duke of Windsor (tainted by suspicion of pro-Nazism) is named governor of the Bahamas, putting him some distance from controversy.

5: Romania aligns itself with the Axis.

10: The Battle of Britain begins with Luftwaffe raids on channel shipping.

10: President Roosevelt asks Congress for huge increases in military preparations.

11: RAF raids on enemy emplacements in the Netherlands and on German munitions factories.

12: Luftwaffe attacks on Wales and Scotland.

16: Hitler submits to his military the directive for the invasion of Britain, Operation Sealion.

21: Czechoslovakian government in exile arrives in London. The USSR formally annexes the Baltic states -- Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

22: The Havana Conference meets; the nations of the Western hemisphere meet to discuss neutrality and economic cooperation.

22: Fumimaro Konoye is named the Prime Minister of Japan.

23: The British "Home Guard: is officially established, drawing on elderly men and those considered unable to serve in the regular armed forces.

25: All women and children are ordered to evacuate Gibraltar.

August 1940

1: Hitler sets 15 September as the date for Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain.

2: General De Gaulle sentenced to death in absentia by a French military court.

4: Italian forces under General Guglielmo Nasi invades British Somaliland during the East African Campaign.

5: Bad weather in the Channel results in a postponement of the invasion of Britain.

13: This is "Adler Tag" or "Eagle Day". Goering starts a two-week assault on British airfields in preparation for invasion.(For some German historians, this is the beginning of the "Battle of Britain."

14: British scientist, Sir Henry Tizard, leaves for the United States on the Tizard Mission, giving over to the Americans a number of top secret British technologies including the magnetron, the secret device at the heart of radar. Radar is already proving itself in the defence of Britain.

14: The destroyer/base exchange between the US and Britain goes forward.

15: RAF victories over the Luftwaffe continue, in a wide-ranging fight along the East coast.

15: Sinking of the Greek cruiser Elli by an Italian submarine on 15 August 1940 at Tinos's harbour (see the relevant article).

16: The Battle of Britain continues; the Germans lose 76 planes, the British 35.

16: A first draft of the destroyer/base trade by the US and Britain is made public.

17: Hitler declares a blockade of the British Isles.

18: Heavy fighting in the Battle of Britain; 67 German planes are shot down.

19: Italian forces take Berbera, the capital of British Somaliland, which completes the invasion of the British colony. After taking British Somaliland, the Italians begin a series of minor cross-border raids into British-held Sudan and Kenya.

20: Italy announces a blockade of British ports in the Mediterranean area.

20: Churchill's speech in Commons: "Never was so much owed by so many to so few."

22: Germans are now shelling Dover and the nearby coastal area with long-range artillery.

24: German aircraft mistakenly bomb London, accidentally dictating the future shape of the Battle of Britain.

25: Churchill orders the bombing of Berlin in retaliation for last night's bombing of London.

26: Both London and Berlin are bombed, Berlin for the first time.

30: The bombing of England continues; London is now bombed in retaliation for the bombing of Berlin; thus, the beginning of "the London Blitz."

31: Luftwaffe attacks on British airfields continue, as well as on London.

September 1940

1: Germany's Jews are ordered to wear yellow stars for identification.

2: The Destroyers for Bases Agreement is completed. Britain obtains 50 destroyers in exchange for giving the United States land grants in various British possessions for the establishment of US naval and air bases, on ninety-nine-year rent-free leases.

3: Hitler postpones the invasion of Britain, as the Luftwaffe fails to break the British defences. Fears of the forthcoming invasion continue, however, to haunt Britain.

6: King Carol abdicates the Romanian throne in favour of his son Michael while control of the government is taken by Marshal Antonescu.

7: In one of the major misjudgements of the war, the Luftwaffe shifts its focus to London, away from the RAF airfields. Success may be measured only in the estimated 2,000 civilian dead. Other British cities are hit.

10: Operation Sealion is now set for 24 September.

13: Italian colonial forces in Libya under General Rodolfo Graziani cross the border into Egypt (from Fort Capuzzo, just inside the Libyan border) and initiate the Western Desert Campaign. Their aim is to gain control of the Suez canal. Five Italian divisions advance about 95 km to Sidi Barrani and set up defensively in a series of armed camps..

14: Operation Sealion is postponed until 27 September, the last day of the month with suitable tides for the invasion.

15: Massive German bombing flights on English cities; most are driven off. The RAF begins to claim victory in the Battle of Britain.

16: Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 introduces the first peacetime conscription (this time for men between 21 and 35) in United States history.

16: Italians have victories on the Libya/Egypt border, first at Sollum, then Sidi Barrani. They are sixty miles inside Egypt. The British, according to plan, have retreated 80 miles inside to a small village, Mersa Maruh. Both sides dig in for a few months.

17: Decoded messages now reveal that Hitler has postponed Operation Sealion until further notice.

20: Chinese Communists launch major offensive against the Japanese.

22: Heavy convoy losses to U-boats in the Atlantic.

22: The Japanese establish several bases in French Indo-China; local French administrators become only figurehead authorities.

23: French and British forces attempt landing at Dakar, West Africa; Vichy French naval forces open fire sporadically for two days, and the expedition is called back.

24: Berlin suffers a large bombing raid by the RAF.

24: Vichy French aircraft bomb Gibraltar

27: The Tripartite Pact is signed in Berlin by Germany, Italy, and Japan, promising mutual aid. An informal name,"Axis", emerges.

28: Hitler orders preparations for invasion of Russia.

28: Vidkun Quisling becomes head of state in Norway.

October 1940

1:Chinese Nationalist and Chinese Communists fight each other in southern China. Meanwhile Japanese forces have a setback at Changshaw.

2: The bombing of London continues throughout the month.

3: Warsaw's Jews are directed to move into the Warsaw ghetto.

4: Hitler and Mussolini meet at the Brenner Pass to discuss the prospects in the war.

7: Germany invades Romania to block the Romanian Army and get access to valuable oil fields.

9: Neville Chamberlain resigns from the House of Commons for health reasons; Winston Churchill is elected head of the Conservative Party.

12: Any German invasion of Britain is postponed until Spring 1941 at the earliest.

13: British civilians are still being killed by German bombs though the attacks have dropped off significantly.

15: Clarence Addison Dykstra becomes Director of Selective Service in the United States.

15: Mussolini and his closest advisers decided to invade Greece

16: Draft registration begins in the United States.

20: Italian planes bomb Cairo, Egypt.

21: Liverpool is bombed for the 200th time.

23: Hitler meets with Franco at a Spanish border town; little is accomplished, and least of all Hitler's hope to convince Franco to enter the war on the Axis side.

25: Berlin and Hamburg are bombed.

28: Italy issues ultimatum to Greece and Greek Prime Minister Metaxas replies: "So it is war". The Italian Army launches attacks into Greece from Italian-held Albania and begins the Greco-Italian War. Hitler is angered at the initiative of his ally.

29: Very heavy convoy losses during this period as numbers of U-boats increase.

29: The first number drawings for US Selective Service Act draftees.

30: President Roosevelt, in the middle of an election campaign, promises not to send "our boys" to war.

31: The Warsaw District government moves all Jews living in Warsaw to the ghettos.

November 1940

2: Italian planes bomb Salonika, Greece as their advance continues.

4: President Roosevelt wins a third term. Britain sees the event as promising of more help from the US.

4: The Greeks start a major counterattack against the Italians on the Albanian border.

5: The HMS Jervis Bay, a merchant cruiser, is sunk on convoy duty, but much of the convoy escapes. The loss becomes a media event.

7: It becomes clear that Ireland will refuse to allow ]Britain] to use its ports as naval bases.

9: The Italian invading armies in Greece are now in retreat

11: British naval forces launch attack against Italian navy at Taranto. Swordfish bombers from HMS Illustrious damage three battleships, two cruisers and multiple auxiliary craft. The event secures British supply lines in the Mediterranean. The British success will be studied by Japanese military already preparing for an attack on Pearl Harbor.

14: A heavy night raid on Coventry. Coventry Cathedral is destroyed and the medieval centre of the city is levelled.

15: Warsaw's Jewish ghetto is cordoned off from the rest of the city.

16: Churchill orders some British troops in North Africa to be sent to Greece, despite concerns by his military leaders that they are needed in the current campaign against Rommel.

19: Italian armies in Greece continue their retreat and will be off Greek soil within days.

20: Hungary signs the Tripartite Pact.

21: The Belgian government, in exile in Britain, declares war on Italy.

23: Romania signs the Tripartite Pact.

24: The Slovak Republic signs the Tripartite Pact.

29: A massive overnight bombing raid on Liverpool.

30: A large bombing raid on Southampton in southern England; the city is hit again the next night, then Bristol on the 2nd, and Birmingham on the 3rd.

December 1940

1: Bombing raids are exchanged throughout the month between Germany and Britain. First Germany bombs, then Britain.

1: Joseph P. Kennedy, the US Ambassador to Britain is asked to resign by President Roosevelt after he gives a newspaper interview expressing that "Democracy is finished in Britain".

5: The RAF bombs Düsseldorf and Turin.

8: Franco rules out Spanish entry into the war; the immediate result is that Hitler is forced to cancel an attack on Gibraltar.

8: Greek forces continue to drive the Italian armies back to Albania.

6-9: Operation Compass: The British Western Desert Force begins offensive against Italian forces in North Africa. Initial attacks are launched against the five Italian camps in a gap south of Sidi Barrani. Italian forces are driven back to Bardia, on the Libya/Egypt border.

11: Having cleared Greek soil of Italian invading forces, Greek forces invade Italian-held Albania during the Greco-Italian War.

12: By this date over 39,000 Italians have been captured. The British move into Libya.

16: The first RAF night raid--on Mannheim, Germany.

16: British are in command at Sollum, now take Fort Capuzzo in Libya.

18: Hitler submits plans for Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union

28: The Greco-Italian War continues to go badly for the Italians and, with the Greeks holding roughly one-quarter of Albania, Italy requests military assistance from Germany against the Greeks.

29:Large German air-raids on London; St Paul's Cathedral is damaged.

29: British are moving on Bardia,Libya.

1941

January 1941

1: Accounting of the previous night's bombing of London reveals that the Old Bailey, the Guildhall, and eight churches by Christopher Wren were destroyed or badly damaged.

1: RAF bombs aircraft factories in Bremen, Germany.

2-4 Bardia, is bombed by British bombers and bombarded by naval vessels off shore.

2: German bombers, perhaps off course, bomb Ireland the second night in a row.

4: Operation Compass: Australian troops of the Western Desert Force capture Italian-held Bardia, just across the Egyptian border. The Allies take 45,000 Italian prisoners. Tobruk, the next target, is 70 miles away.

7: Allied offensive nears Tobruk; the airport is taken.

10: Lend-Lease is introduced into the U.S. Congress.

10: German aircraft damage aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, which is heading for Malta.

German Luftwaffe, it is now clear, has command of air over the Mediterranean. The attack is also the opening of Malta's agony over the next months.

12: Operation Compass: British, Australian, and New Zealand troops of the Western Desert Force prepare for the assault on Italian-held Tobruk.

13: Heavy Luftwaffe night raid on Plymouth.

13: Greek army continues to harass the Italians, who are fleeing to seaports in Albania in hopes of being evacuated.

15: The rivalry between Chinese Nationalists and Chinese Communists becomes more evident; large numbers of the latter are forced to give up their arms, reluctantly of course.

16: British forces start the first attacks of their East African counter-offensive, on Italian-held Ethiopia, from Kenya

16: German bombers pound Valetta, Malta, and the HMS Illustrious is hit again.

17: The Battle of Koh Chang ended in a decisive victory for the Vichy French naval forces during the French-Thai War.

18: Air raids on Malta are increasing in focus and intensity.

19: The 4th and 5th Indian Divisions continue the British counter-offensive in East Africa, attacking Italian-held Eritrea from the Sudan.

19: Hitler and Mussolini meet at Berchtesgaden; Hitler agrees to provide aid in North Africa.

21: Operation Compass: British, Australian, and New Zealand troops of the Western Desert Force complete capture of Italian-held Tobruk.

21: Reports seep out that Rumanian fascist "Iron Guards: are executing Jews in Bucharest.

23: HMS Illustrious, heavily damaged, leaves Malta for repairs in Alexandria.

23: Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler

24: British forces in Kenya continue the East African counter-offensive, attacking Italian Somaliland

31: British take Derna, Libya 100 miles west of Tobruk.

February 1941

1: Admiral Husband Kimmel is appointed the Commander of the US Navy in the Pacific.

3: General Erwin Rommel is appointed as head of something called "German Army troops in Africa", later to be designated officially as the "Afrika Korps."

3: Germany forcibly restores Pierre Laval to office in occupied Vichy, France.

7: Operation Compass: After several days of desperate fighting, the Western Desert Force cuts off and destroys the retreating Italian 10th Army during the Battle of Beda Fomm. The British capture roughly 130,000 Italians. The official surrender follows, and Benghazi, just to the north of Beda Fomm, falls into Allied hands.

8: US House of Representatives passes the Lend-Lease bill.

9: Mussolini is informed that German reinforcements are on the way to North Africa.

9: British forces reach El Agheila, Libya, south of Beda Fomm, and halfway to Tripoli. Libya's capital where the remaining Italian forces are now waiting .

9: British battleships shell Genoa; British planes attack Leghorn.

9: Britain again asks the US: "give us the tools."

10: Malta's critical period: now through March, it is under heavy daily attack.

11: Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli, Tunisia; his work with the Afrika Korps will last about two years.

ll: British forces enter Somaliland, an Italian colony in eastern Africa.

14: German forces begin to land in North Africa and move eastward toward advanced positions such as El Agheila, where the British have stopped; the British have been weakened by the transfer of some troops to Greece.

15: Deportation of Austrian Jews to ghettos in Poland begins.

19: The start of the "three nights Blitz" of Swansea, South Wales. Over these three nights of intensive bombing, Swansea town centre is almost completely obliterated.

20: German and British troops confront each other for the first time -- at El Agheila in western Libya.

21: German forces move through Bulgaria toward the Greek front.

24: German U-boat offensive in the Atlantic is now increasingly successful.

24: Admiral Darlan is appointed the head of the Vichy government in France.

25: The British submarine "Upright" sinks the Italian cruiser "Armando Diaz" in one of the numerous sea battles in the North African campaign.

25: Mogadishu, the capital of Italian Somaliland, is captured by British forces during the East African Campaign.

28: RAF planes bomb Asmara, Eritrea.

March 1941

1: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact, thus joining the Axis powers. This legitimises the continuing movement of German troops through the country toward the Greek front.

1: Himmler gives orders for the expansion of Auschwitz prison camp, to be run by Commandant Rudolf Höss.

4: British commandos carry out attack on oil facilities at Narvik in Norway.

4: British military force in Libya is thinned down as some men are sent to assist the Greeks in their emerging battle with approaching German troops.

4: Prince Regent Paul of Yugoslavia agrees to join the Axis pact.

7: First British troops land in Greece, at Piraeus.

8: Another bombing of London, notable because Buckingham Palace is hit.

10: British and Italian troops meet in a brief conflict in Eritrea.

10: Portsmouth suffers heavy casualties after another night of heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe.

11: United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Lend Lease Act (now passed by the full Congress) allowing Britain, China, and other allied nations to purchase military equipment and to defer payment until after the war.

12: German Panzer tanks arrive in North Africa providing heavy armour for the first major German offensive.

13: The Luftwaffe strikes with a large force at Glasgow and the shipping industry along the River Clyde.

17: Huge convoy losses in mid-Atlantic this week.

19: Worst bombing of London so far this year, with heavy damage from incendiary bombs; Plymouth and Bristol are bombed again.

21: The Yugoslav cabinet resigns in protest against Prince Paul's pact with the Nazis. Street demonstration occur, expressive of a deep dislike for Germany.

24: Rommel attacks and reoccupies El Agheila, Libya in his first offensive. The British retreat and within three weeks are driven back to Egypt.

27: Crown Prince Peter becomes Peter II of Yugoslavia and takes control of Yugoslavia after an army coup overthrows the pro-German government of the Prince Regent.

27: Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa arrives in Honolulu, Hawaii and begins to study the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor.

27: British forces advancing from the Sudan win the decisive Battle of Keren in Eritrea

27: Hitler orders his military leaders to plan for the invasion of Yugoslavia. One result of this decision will be a critical time delay in the invasion of Russia.

27: Battle of Cape Matapan: the British navy meets an Italian fleet off southern Greece. The battle continues until the 29th.

31: The Afrika Korps continues the German offensive in North Africa; Mersa Brega, north of El Agheila, is taken.

April 1941

1: British continue the retreat into Libya after the losses at El Agheila. Rommel is surprised, then decides to continue his offensive

1: During this month the heavy bombing of British cities continues, and convoy losses continue heavy.

2: After taking Agedabia, Rommel decides to take all of Libya and moves his troops toward Benghazi. All of Cyrenaic (Libya) seems ready for the taking.

3: A pro-Axis government is installed in Iraq.

3: Bristol, Britain suffers another heavy air attack.

3: Britain takes Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, from the Italian armies.

3: Rommel takes Benghazi, Libya; Tobruk will remain a threat for the next seven months.

4: Rommel is now about 200 miles east of El Agheila, heading for Tobruk and Egypt.

4: An Atlantic convoy suffers almost 50% losses to U-boat campaign.

6: Forces of Germany, Hungary, and Italy, moving through Rumania and Hungary, initiate the invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece.

6: The Italian Army is driven out from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

6: The northern wing of Rommel's forces take Derna, on the Libyan coast.

The southern wing moves toward Mechili, and takes it on the 8th.

7: The Luftwaffe begins a two-day assault on Belgrade, Yugoslavia; Hitler is infuriated by the Yugoslav resistance.

8: The Germans take Salonika, Greece.

10: Greenland is occupied by the United States. With the approval of a "free Denmark", the US will build naval and air bases as counters to the U-boat war.

10: While still being invaded, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia is split up by Germany and Italy. The Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH) is established under Ante Pavelić and his Ustaša.

10: Germans encircle the port of Tobruk, Libya, opening the siege; some of Rommel's forces move east to take Fort Capuzzo and Sollum, on the border with Egypt.

11: The US begins sea patrols in Atlantic, though it is still a "neutral" nation.

11: Heavy Luftwaffe raids on Coventry and Birmingham.

12: Belgrade, Yugoslavia surrenders.

13: Malta is bombed again; it continues to be a thorn in the side of German supply movements in the Mediterranean.

13: Japan and the Soviet Union sign a neutrality pact.

14: Rommel attacks Tobruk, but is forced to turn back. Other attacks, also failures, occur on the 16th and 30th.

15: British destroyers intercept an Afrika Korps convoy and sink all five transports and the three covering Italian destroyers.

16: A heavy Luftwaffe raid on Belfast, Northern Ireland.

16: Germans continue the invasion southward into Yugoslavia; they cut off the Greek army in Albania, which had had notable success against the Italians in January.

17: Yugoslavia surrenders. A government in exile is formed in London. King Peter escapes to Greece.

18: Amedeo, Duke of Aosta Viceroy of Italian East Africa surrenders his embattled forces at Amba Alagi. A guerilla war continues until Italy surrenders in September 1943.

18: Greek Prime Minister Korizis commits suicide; the British plan the major evacuation of Greece.

19: London suffers one of the heaviest air raids in the war; St. Paul's is mildly damaged but remains closed; other Wren churches are heavily damaged or destroyed.

21: 223,000 Greek soldiers surrender.

22: The British, both military and civilian, begin to evacuate Greece.

23: Greek government is evacuated to Crete, which Churchill is determined to defend.

24: British and Australian forces evacuate from Greece to Crete and Egypt.

24: Plymouth suffers the third night of heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe.

25: Rommel wins an important victory at Halfaya Pass, close to the Egyptian border.

26: Rommel attacks the Gazala defence line and crosses into Egypt; Tobruk continues to hold however.

27: Athens is occupied by German troops. Greece surrenders.

27: Hurricane fighter planes are delivered as important reinforcements for besieged Malta.

30: Rommel is ordered to cease attacks on Tobruk after another failure.

May 1941

1: British forces in Iraq come under attack by Iraqis.

1: Seven nights of bombing of Liverpool begins, resulting in wide devastation.

3: Belfast, northern Ireland, experiences another heavy bombing.

3: Italian and British armies clash in Ethiopia.

8: Heavy convoy losses in the Atlantic continue; however, one U-boat (U-110) is captured by the British navy and another copy of the "Enigma" machine is discovered and saved. It will help to turn the fortunes in the Atlantic battle.

9: Britain takes control of Iraq and is represented by the arrival of the 21st Indian Division at Basra

9: A Japanese brokered peace treaty signed in Tokyo ends the French-Thai War.

10: Rudolf Hess is captured in Scotland after bailing out of his plane; his self-appointed mission was to make peace with the United Kingdom.

10: ]'s House of Commons is damaged by the Luftwaffe in an air raid. Other targets are Hull, Liverpool, Belfast, and the shipbuilding area of the River Clyde in Scotland. This is close to the end of the Blitz, as Germany shifts its focus toward Russia and the East.

12: The RAF bombs several German cities, including Hamburg, Emden, and Berlin.

15: First Civilian Public Service camp opens for conscientious objectors in the United States

16: Rommel defeats a counter-attack, "Brevity", at Halfaya Pass. The two sides trade alternating control of Fort Capuzzo and Halfaya Pass.

20: German paratroopers land on Crete; the battle for Crete will continue for seven days.

21: The US merchantman "Robin Moor" is sunk by a U-boat. The incident startles the nation, and President Roosevelt shortly announces an "unlimited national emergency."

21: The last remnants of the Italian army in Ethiopia surrender.

24: British battle cruiser HMS Hood is sunk by a powerful salvo from German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic.

24: The Greek government leaves Crete for Cairo.

26: In the North Atlantic, Fairey Swordfish aircraft from the carrier HMS Ark Royal fatally cripple the Bismarck in torpedo attack.

27: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in North Atlantic, after evasive tactics, and a damaged steering system which forced it into an endless series of circular movements.

28: British and Commonwealth forces begin to evacuate Crete.

28: By this date, it is clear that operation "Brevity" has failed.

31: Heavy Luftwaffe bombing on "neutral" Ireland; numerous civilian casualties.

June 1941

1: Commonwealth forces complete the withdrawal from Crete.

1: Rationing of clothes begins in the United Kingdom.

4: Kaiser Wilhelm, once head of Germany and instigator of World War I, dies in Holland.

4: Britain invades Iraq, the anti-British government there is overthrown.

6: More British fighter planes are delivered to Malta; Luftwaffe attacks go on.

8: Vichy French-controlled Syria and Lebanon are invaded by Australian, British, Free French, and Indian forces.

9: Finland initiate mobilisation and put some units under German command.

14: All German and Italian assets in the United States are frozen.

15: British Operation Battleaxe attempts and fails to relieve the Siege of Tobruk. The British are heavily defeated at Halfaya Pass nicknamed "Hell-fire pass".

16: All German and Italian consulates in the United States are ordered closed and their staffs to leave the country by July 10.

22: Germany invades the Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa, a three-pronged operation aimed at Leningrad, Moscow, and the southern oil fields of the Crimea.

22: British general in Libya/Egypt Wavell is replaced by General Auchinleck.

26: Hungary and Slovakia declare war on the Soviet Union.

26: The Russians bomb Helsinki. Finland pronounces a state of war between Finland and Soviet Union

28: Albania declares war on the Soviet Union.

28: Huge German encirclement of 300,000 Russian troops near Minsk and Bialystok.

July 1941

l: General Auchinleck takes over from General Wavell in North Africa.

1: All American men over 21 are required to register for the draft.

1: German troops occupy Latvia's capital, Riga, on the way to Leningrad.

3: Stalin announces a "scorched earth policy".

4: Mass murder of Polish scientists and writers, committed by German troops in captured Polish city of Lwów.

4: The Ethiopian war comes to an end as the Italian forces surrender.

5: British government rules out possibility of negotiated peace.

5: British torpedo planes sink an Italian destroyer at Tobruk; on the 20th, two more are sunk.

5: German troops reach the Dnieper River.

7: Iceland is occupied by the United States, its future enhanced purpose is to protect shipping lanes.

8: Yugoslavia, a country formed by the Versailles treaty, is dissolved by the Axis into its component parts; especially important will be Croatia, with a pro-Axis government.

8: The German armies isolate Leningrad from the rest of Russia.

8: Britain and the USSR sign a mutual defence agreement, promising not to sign any form of separate peace agreement with Germany.

9: Vitebsk is captured; this opens the battle of Smolensk, an important communications centre, considered by the German high command to be "the gateway to Moscow."

10: Guderian's Panzers take Minsk; the Germans advance farther into the Ukraine.

12: The Vichy French surrender in Syria.

12: Assistant pact signed between the United Kingdom and the USSR.

13: Montenegro starts the first popular uprising in Europe against the Axis Powers.

15: The Russians start a counter-attack near Leningrad.

15: Argentinian naval air base is set up in Newfoundland; it will prove an important transfer station for the Allies for some years.

16: German Panzers under Guderian reach Smolensk, increasing the risk to Moscow.

17: The air attacks on Malta continue.

19: The "V-sign", displayed most notably by Churchill, is unofficially adopted as the Allied signal, along with the motif of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

21: The Luftwaffe strikes heavily at Moscow.

25: Neutral Iran occupied by Britain and the Soviet Union.

26: In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.

28: Japanese troops occupy French Indo-China, including Cambodia. The Vichy French colonial government is allowed by the Japanese to continue to administer Vietnam. French repression continues. The Vichy French also agree to the occupation by the Japanese of bases in Indonesia.

28: The Germans push against Smolensk, Russia and in the meantime solidify their presence in the Baltic states; native Jews are being assassinated.

31: Lewis B. Hershey succeeds Clarence Dykstra as Director of the Selective Service System in the United States.

31: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."

August 1941

1: The US announces an oil embargo against "aggressors."

5: German armies trap Russians in Smolensk pocket and take 300,000 soldiers; Orel is taken.

6: Germans take Smolensk.

6: Britain and the Untied States warn Japan not to invade Thailand.

9: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet at NS Argentia, Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter is created, signed, and released to the world press.

11: Malta is relieved by a convoy.

11: Chungking, the nominal capital of Nationalist China located far up the Yangtze River, suffers several days of heavy bombing.

12: Hitler, against the advice of his generals, shifts some forces from the Moscow front to Leningrad and the Crimean offensives.

18: Adolf Hitler orders a temporary halt to Nazi Germany's systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and handicapped due to protests. However, graduates of the Action T4 operation were then transferred to concentration camps, where they continued in their trade.

22: German forces close in on Leningrad; the citizens continue improvising fortifications.

25: British and Soviet troops invade Persia (Iran) to save the Abadan oilfields and the important railways and routes to Russia for the supply of war material.

27: Another U-boat is forced to surface off Ireland and its Enigma machine is captured.

31: The first signs appear that a Leningrad "siege" is beginning.

September 1941

1: With the assistance of Finnish armies in the North, Leningrad is now completely cut off.

1: A pro-German Government of National Salvation formed in Serbia under Milan Nedić. It is informally known as Nedić's Serbia.

4: The USS Greer becomes the first United States warship fired upon by a German U-boat in the war, even though the United States is a neutral power. Tension heightens between the two nations as a result. The US is now committed to convoy duties between the Western Hemisphere and Europe.

5: Germany occupies Estonia.

7: Berlin is heavily hit by RAF bombers.

8: Siege of Leningrad begins-a reasonable date to start measuring "the 900 days." German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad; Stalin orders the Volga Deutsche deported to Siberia.

10: German armies now have Kiev completely surrounded.

10: Controversial speech by Charles Lindbergh with heavy anti-Semitic overtones.

11: Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Navy to shoot on sight if any ship or convoy is threatened.

15: "Self-government" of Estonia, headed by Hjalmar Mäe, is appointed by German military administration.

16: Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran is forced to resign in favour of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran under pressure from the ] and the Soviet Union.

19: German capture of Kiev is now formal. The Russians have suffered many casualties in defending this important city in the Russian south.

25: The German armies now seem to have isolated the Crimean and are ready to absorb this oil-rich area.

28: German SS troops kill over 30,000 Jews at Babi Yar, on the outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine.

26: The US Naval Command orders an all-out war on Axis shipping in American waters.

October 1941

2: Operation Typhoon - German "Central" forces begin an all-out offensive against Moscow. Leading the defence of the capital is General Georgi Zhukov, already a Russian Hero for his work against the Japanese in the East and also at Leningrad.

3: Mahatma Gandhi urges his followers to begin a passive resistance against British rule in India.

7: Heavy RAF night bombings of Berlin, the Ruhr, and Cologne, but with heavy losses too.

8: In their invasion of the southern Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol. However, there are signs that the invasion is beginning to bog down as rainy weather creates muddy roads for both tanks and men.

10: German armies encircle about 660,000 Russian troops near Vyasma (east of Smolensk); some make a glowing prediction of the end of the war.

12: HMS Ark Royal delivers a squadron of Hurricane fighter planes to Malta.

13: Germans attempt another drive toward Moscow as the once muddy ground hardens.

14: Temperatures fall further on the Moscow front; heavy snows follow and immobilise German tanks.

15: The Germans drive on Moscow.

16: Soviet Union government begins move eastward to Kuibyshev, a city on the Volga, but Stalin remains in Moscow. The citizens of Moscow frantically build tank traps and other fortifications for the coming siege.

17: The destroyer USS Kearney is torpedoed and damaged near Iceland, killing eleven sailors; they are the first American military casualties of the war.

18: Russian troop reinforcements arrive in Moscow from Siberia; Stalin is assured that the Japanese will not attack the USSR from the East.

18: General Hideki Tojo becomes the 40th Prime Minister of Japan.

19: An official "state of siege" is announced in Moscow; The city is under martial law.

20: Lt. Col. Fritz Hotz, the German commander in Nantes, is killed by Resistance; 50 hostages are shot in reprisal. The incident will become a model for future occupation policies.

21: New Zealand troops land in Egypt and take over Fort Capuzzo.

21: Negotiations in Washington between the US and Japan seem headed toward failure.

22: Rostov-on-Don, an important hub on the Southern front, is taken by the Germans.

23: Heavy desert fighting in Libya, as Rommel thwarts "Operation Crusader" near Tobruk.

24: Kharkhov, Russia, an important mining and industrial centre, falls to the German "Southern" forces.

26: Last Italian troops are surrendering in Ethiopia.

27: German "Southern" forces reach Sevastopol in the Crimea, but the tanks of the "Northern" forces are slow or stopped entirely by mud. The leading tanks are on the outskirts of Moscow.

30: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.

31: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It makes headlines because it is the first loss of an American "neutral warship."

November 1941

2: Political conflict in Yugoslavia as leftists under Tito (Josip Broz) are in competition with the more conservative Serbs under Draja Mihaelovich.

3: Germans take Kursk.

6: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule (the first time was earlier that year on July 2). He states that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, that the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers (a gross exaggeration) and that Soviet victory was near.

7: Heavy RAF night bombings of Berlin, the Ruhr, and Cologne, but with heavy losses.

12: Battle of Moscow - Temperatures around Moscow drop to minus 12 °C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.

12: The HMS Ark Royal delivers a squadron of Hurricane fighter planes to Malta.

13: Germans start a new offensive against Moscow as the muddy ground freezes again.

13: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is hit by German U-boat U-81

14: HMS Ark Royal capsizes and sinks, having been torpedoed by U 81.

15: The Germans drive on Moscow.

17: Joseph Grew, the United States ambassador to Japan, cables the State Department that Japan had plans to launch an attack against Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (his cable was ignored).

18: Operation Crusader: British troops cross into Libya and at least temporarily relieve the Siege of Tobruk.

19: Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran sink each other off the coast of Western Australia.

21: Italian troops continue to surrender in Ethiopia; the surrender is over by 11:26.

22: Rostov-on-Don, an important hub on the southern front is taken by the Germans.

22: Britain issues an ultimatum to Finland to end war with Russia or face war with the Allies.

22: Rommel starts counteroffensive, retakes Sidi Rezegh (south of Tobruk) which the British had taken a few days earlier. British tank losses are heavy.

23: Rommel's attack continues around Sidi Rezegh; British losses continue to rise.

24: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French.

24: Rommel begins a surprising 15-mile foray into Egypt; he meets no opposition.

26: Japanese attack fleet of 33 warships and auxiliary craft, including six aircraft carriers, sailed from northern Japan for the Hawaiian Islands; The Hull note ultimatum is delivered to Japan by the United States.

26: After his brief dash into Egypt, Rommel retreats to Bardia for refuelling; it is during this brief withdrawal that Tobruk is temporarily relieved when the British 8th Army meets with the besieged.

27: Battle of Moscow - German Panzers are on the outskirts of Moscow.

December 1941

1: Malta "celebrates" its 1,000th bombing raid.

2: Prime Minister Tojo rejects "peace feelers" from the US.

3: Conscription in Britain now includes all men between 18 and 50. Women will not be neglected since they will serve in fire brigades and in women's auxiliary groups.

4: Japanese naval and army forces continue to move toward Pearl Harbor and South-east Asia.

5: Germans call off the attack on Moscow, now 11 miles away; Russians counter-attack during a heavy blizzard.

5: Britain declares war on Finland, Hungary and Romania.

7: Japan heavily attacks Pearl Harbor, Guam and Wake Island; they invade Siam (Thailand) and Malaya; Air attacks also on Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, and Shanghai. Canada declares war on Japan (Prime Minister King announces war on evening of 7th, the Canadian parliament confirms the declaration the following morning.)

7: German "Night and Fog decree" dictating the elimination of anti-Nazis in Western Europe.

8: Japan invades Malaya; the United States and Britain declare war on Japan; The Netherlands declares war on Japan.

8: Japanese forces take the Gilbert Islands (which include Tarawa). Clark Field in the Philippines is bombed, and many American aircraft are destroyed on the ground.

9:|China]] officially declares war on Japan.

10: British battleships HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales sunk by Japanese air attack.

11: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. US forces repel a Japanese landing attempt at Wake Island.

11: Japanese invade Burma.

12: Japanese landings on the southern Philippine Islands -- Samar, Jolo, Mindanao.

12: The United States and Britain declare war on Bulgaria. India declares war on Japan; United States seizes French ship Normandie.

13: Hungary declares war on the United States.

13: Japanese under General Yamashita continue their push into Malaya. Under General Homma the Japanese forces are firmly established in the northern Philippines. Hong Kong is threatened.

14: The British cruiser HMS Galatea is sunk by U-557 off Alexandria, beginning a series of naval defeats for the Allies.

15: Italian "human torpedoes" sink two British battleships, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Valiant in Alexandria harbour.

15: Allied troops push Rommel back at the Gazala line.

16: Rommel orders a withdrawal all the way to El Agheila, where he had begun in March. He awaits reinforcements of men and tanks.

16: Japan invades Borneo.

16: The German offensive around Moscow is now at a complete halt.

17: Battle of Sevastopol begins.

18: Japanese troops land on Hong Kong Island.

19: Hitler becomes Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the German Army

20: The battle for Wake Island continues with several Japanese ships sunk or damaged.

20: The "Arcadia Conference": Churchill is a guest in the White House. Overall strategies for fighting the War are agreed upon.

21: The suffering of besieged Leningrad continues; thousands die of starvation and various diseases. It is estimated that about 3,000 are dying each day.

22: The Japanese land at Lingayan Gulf, on the northern part of Luzon in the Philippines.

23: A second Japanese landing attempt on Wake Island is successful, and the American garrison surrenders after hours of fighting.

23: General MacArthur declares Manila an "Open City."

23: Japanese forces land on Sarawak (Borneo).

24: American forces retreat into the peninsula of Bataan.

24: Japanese bomb Rangoon.

25: On Christmas Day, Hong Kong surrenders.

25: Allied forces retake Benghazi.

25: Russian amphibious forces land at Kerch, in the Crimea; their occupation will last only through April.

27: British Commandos raid the Norwegian port of Vaagso, causing Hitler to reinforce the garrison and defences.

28: Japanese paratroopers land on Sumatra.

30: The first "Liberty Ship", the SS Patrick Henry is launched. Liberty Ships will prove to be major parts of the Allied supply system.

1942

January 1942

1: The "United Nations: is established with 26 Allied nations signing a Joint Declaration against the Axis. The term "United Nations" is first officially used to describe the Allied pact.

2: Manila is captured by Japanese forces.They also take Cavite naval base, and the American and Filipino troops continue the retreat into Bataan.

5: The beginning of a major Russian offensive under General Zhukov.

6: The British advance continues to El Agheila, on the western edge of Libya.

6: in his State of the Union speech, President Roosevelt promises more aid to Britain, including planes and troops.

7: Siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins.

7: Heavy air attacks on Malta; it is estimated that the bomb tonnage dropped on the island is twice that dropped on London.

9: Japanese advances in Borneo meet with little opposition.

11: Japanese troops capture Kuala Lumpur, Malaya; Japan declares war on the Netherlands and invades the Netherlands East Indies.

12: Japanese invade Indonesia, landing on the island of Celebes.

13: Russian armies take Kirov and Medya, as their counter-offensive continues.

13: The German U-boat offensive comes closer to the US shores.

19: Japanese forces take prisoner large numbers of British troops north of Singapore.

20: Nazis at the Wannsee conference in Berlin decide that the "final solution to the Jewish problem" is relocation, and later extermination.

20: Japanese bomb Singapore as their troops approach the city.

21: Rommel begins a surprising counter-offensive at El Agheila; his troops, with new reinforcements and tanks, capture Agedabia, then push north to Beta Fomm.

23: The Battle of Rabaul, New Guinea begins.

24: American troops land in Samoa, as part of a strategy to stop the Japanese advance in the Pacific.

25: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom; Japanese troops invade the Solomon Islands.

26: The first American forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.

27: The British withdraw all troops back into Singapore.

28: Brazil breaks off relations with the Axis powers.

29: Rommel enters Benghazi, Libya in his drive east. For the next few months, the two sides will rest and rearm.

30: Hitler speaks at the Berlin Sports Palace and threatens the Jews of the world with annihilation; he also blames the failure of the offensive in Russia on the weather.

31: The Japanese take the port of Moulmein, Burma; they now threaten Rangoon as well as Singapore.

31: On the Russian front, the Germans are in retreat at several points.

31: The last organised Allied forces leave Malaya, ending the 54-day battle.

February 1942

1: Vidkun Quisling becomes Minister-President of Norway despite strong opposition

1: Rommel's forces reach El Gazala, Libya, near the border with Libya; during a "Winter lull" he will remain there.

2: General Joseph ("Vinegar Joe") Stilwell is named Chief of Staff to Chiang Kai-Shek and Commander-in-Chief of the Allied forces in China.

3: Japanese air power is thrown against Java, especially the naval base at Surabaya. Port Moresby, New Guinea is bombed, increasing the threat to Australia.

7: Americans continue their courageous defence of Bataan against General Homma's troops.

8: The German armies in Russia are driven from Kursk, an important point in the centre.

9: British troops are now in full retreat into Singapore for a final defence.

9: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war.

10: The cruise liner "Normandie" catches fire and capsizes in New York harbour. Although the cause is probably a welder's torch, various conspiracies are imagined in the media.

11: The "Channel Dash." The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen rush out of Brest through the English Channel to northern ports, including Wilhelmshaven, Germany; the British naval units fail to sink any of them.

13: The battle for Bataan continues.

15: Singapore surrenders to Japanese forces; this is arguably the most devastating loss in British military history.

16: Being discussed in high American government circles are plans for the internment of Japanese-Americans living generally in the western US.

17: Orders are given for Rangoon to be evacuated as Japanese forces approach.

19: Japanese aircraft attack Darwin, Australia.

19: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs 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.

19: A military conscription law is passed in Canada.

20: Japanese troops cross the important Salween River in Burma.

20: Japanese invade Bali and Timor by a combined use of paratroops and amphibious troops.

21: The American Air Corps is now firmly established at bases in the UK.

22: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defence of the nation collapses.

23: A Japanese submarine (I-17) makes the first attack on the American mainland by shelling an oil refinery at Ellwood, California.

25: The internment of Japanese-American citizens in the Western United States begins as fears of invasion increase.

25: Princess Elizabeth registers for war service

27: Battle of the Java Sea. Under a Dutch Admiral, the combined forces lose one aircraft tender (the Langley), six destroyers, and five cruisers off Java.

28: Japanese land forces invade Java.

March 1942

1: A Russian offensive in the Crimea begins; in the north, the siege of Leningrad continues with all its horrors.

3: Japanese aircraft make a surprising raid on the airfield and harbour at Broome, Western Australia.

4: By Executive decree, all Japanese-Americans, especially on the West coast, find themselves subject to relocation in special camps.

5: New conscription laws in the United Kingdom include women and men up to the age of 45.

6: Rangoon falls to the Japanese.

6: Malta receives more fighters for its on-going defence.

8; The Japanese land at Lae and Salamaua, on Huon Bay, New Guinea, beginning their move toward Port Moresby, New Guinea, and then Australia.

9: It appears that the Japanese are in control of Java, Burma, and New Guinea.

9: The Secretary of War reorganises the United States Army into three major commands - Army Ground Forces, Army Air Forces, and Services of Supply, later redesignated Army Service Forces

11: General MacArthur is ordered by President Roosevelt to leave the Philippines; he will travel to Australia by PT boat and aircraft. He tells General Wainwright and the Filipino people "I shall return."

11: The Japanese land on Mindanao, the southernmost island in the Philippines.

12: American troops begin to land in Noumea, New Caledonia; it will become an important staging base for the eventual invasion of Guadalcanal.

13: RAF launches a massive air raid against Essen, Germany.

14: Japanese land troops in the Solomons, underscoring Australia's dangerous situation, especially if, as it is soon made clear, an airfield is built on Guadalcanal.

14: A Russian offensive is started to retake Kharkov, lost to the Germans about a month ago.

14: The Japanese are now threatening American forces around Manila Bay; the retreat to Corregidor begins.

17: U.S. General Douglas MacArthur arrives in Australia, after leaving his headquarters in the Philippines.

17: The United Kingdom institutes rationing of electricity, coal, and gas; the clothing ration is decreased as well.

20: The bombing of Malta begun in December continues; an invasion is a possibility.

22: A fractured convoy reaches Malta, after heavy losses to the Luftwaffe and an Italian sea force. Continued heavy bombing attacks on the island with slight opposition from overtaxed RAF air forces.

25: RAF sends bomber raids against targets in France and Germany.

26: Jews in Berlin must now clearly identify their houses.

28: The RAF sends a monster raid against Lubeck, destroying over 30% of the city, and 80% of the medieval centre. Hitler is outraged.

28: British commandos launch the a raid on Saint-Nazaire. HMS Campbeltown, filled with explosives on a time-delay fuse, rams the dock gates and commandos destroy other parts of the naval service area. The port is completely destroyed and does not resume service till 1947; however, around two-thirds of the raiding forces are lost.

April 1942

2: Over 24,000 sick and starving troops (American and Filipino) are now trapped on Bataan.

2: Japanese make landings on New Guinea, most importantly at Hollandia.

3: Japanese forces begin an all-out assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.

4: Germans plan "Baedeker raids" on touristy or historic British raids, in revenge for the Lubeck bombing.

5: On Bataan, the Japanese overwhelm Mt. Samat, a strong point on Allied defensive line.

5: The Japanese Navy attacks Colombo in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Royal Navy cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire are sunk southwest of the island.

6: Japanese naval forces are observed on the Indian Ocean; they put troops ashore in the Solomon Islands.

8: Heavy RAF bombing of Hamburg.

8: German summer offensive in the Crimea opens up.

8: American forces are strained for one last offensive on Bataan.

9: The Japanese Navy launches air raid on Trincomalee in Ceylon (Sri Lanka); Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and Royal Australian Navy destroyer HMAS Vampire are sunk off the country's East Coast.

9: Bataan falls to the Japanese. The "Bataan Death March" begins, as the captives are taken off to detention camps in the north. Corregidor, in the middle of Manila Bay, remains a final point of resistance.

10: Japanese land on Cebu Island, a large middle island of the Philippines.

15: Malta is awarded the George Cross by King George VI for "heroism and devotion".

18: Doolittle Raid on Nagoya, Tokyo and Yokohama; his B25's take off from the USS Hornet. The raids are a great boost of morale for Americans whose diet has been mostly bad news.

19: At a press conference, President Roosevelt explains with some amusement that the Doolittle bombers took off from "Shangri-La", an allusion to James Hilton's popular novel.

23: Beginning of so-called Baedeker Raids by the Luftwaffe on English provincial towns like Bath, Norwich, and York; attacks continue sporadically until June 6.

24: Heavy bombing of Rostock, Germany by RAF.

26: Hitler assumes a kind of supreme authority over Germany.

27: Rostock is bombed for fourth night in a row.

27: A national plebiscite is held in Canada on the issue of conscription. French Canadians are main, though not the only, objectors to the draft.

29: The "Baedeker raids" continue, focused on Norwich and York.

29: Japanese cut Burma Road with the capture of Lashio.

May 1942

1: Rommel readies for a new offensive during the early part of this month.

1: Japanese take Mandalay and other ports in Burma.

4: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins: it will last four days and is a first in that the ships on both sides never are in sight of the other; the USS Lexington is sunk, but the Americans can claim an overall victory.

3: The Japanese forces land on Tulagi Island in the Solomons, not far from Guadalcanal.

5: Heavy Japanese artillery attack on Corregidor.

5: British forces begin "Operation Ironclad": the invasion of Madagascar to keep the Vichy French territory from falling to a possible Japanese invasion.

5: The city of Exeter is bombed by the Luftwaffe, another "Baedeker Raid".

6: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese. About 12,000 are made prisoners.

8: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end. This is the first time in naval history where two enemy fleets fought without seeing each other. In addition to the loss of the Lexington the Yorktown is badly damaged; it returns to Pearl for repairs.

8: The Germans take the Kerch peninsula in the eastern Crimea, Russia.

9: On the night of 8/9 May 1942, gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebelled. Their mutiny was crushed and three of them were executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War.

11: Another first: An allied ship on the St. Lawrence River, Canada is sunk by a U-boat.

12: Second Battle of Kharkov - In the eastern Ukraine, the Soviet Army initiates a major offensive. During the battle the Soviets will capture the city of Kharkov from the German Army, only to be encircled and destroyed.

15: In the United States, a bill creating the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) is signed into law.

18: The Russians are in a major retreat at Kerch, after large numbers surrender.

20: The Japanese conquest of Burma is complete; it is called a "military catastrophe."

21: Invasion of Malta postponed indefinitely.

22: The battle of Kharkov continues; for the Germans it is an important step on the way to Stalingrad.

22: Mexico declares war on the Axis.

25: In preparation for the next battle, the Japanese naval strategists send diversionary forces to the Aleutians.

26: The Anglo-Soviet Treaty: their foreign secretaries agree that no peace will be signed by one without the approval of the other. (An important treaty since Himmler and others will attempt to separate the two nations at the end of the war.)

26: Rommel begins a Spring offensive at the Gazala line (west of Tobruk). The battle lasts well into June and ends with a total victory for Rommel.

27: Reinhard Heydrich, head of Reich Security, is fatally hurt in Prague by bomb and gunfire in an ambush by Czech patriots; he will die on June 4 from his wounds.

27: British use American Sherman tanks in attempts to stop Rommel's attacks on the Gazala line.

27: The USS Yorktown, damaged at the Coral Sea, limps into Pearl Harbor; it is ordered to get repaired and ready as fast as possible for the impending battle.

29: The Jews in France are ordered to wear the yellow Star of David.

29: Japanese forces have large successes south of Shanghai.

29: Rommel turns his troops to Bir Hachim on the south edge of the Gazala line; once it is taken, he can move north and destroy the Allied emplacements in the line.

30: "The Thousand Bomber Raid" on Cologne, revealing new area bombing techniques.

30: The USS Yorktown leaves Pearl after hasty repairs and moves to join the USS Enterprise for the next expected battle.

31: Huge German successes around Kharkov, with envelopment of several Russian armies.

June 1942

1: First reports in the West that gas is being used to kill the Jews sent to "the East."

1: Japanese midget subs enter Sydney harbour and sink one support ship; fears of invasion grow.

1: Mexico declares war on Germany, Italy, and Japan.

2: Further heavy bombing of industrial sites in Germany, centred mainly on Essen.

3: The British coal industry is nationalised.

4: The Battle of Midway begins; The Japanese attack installations on the island, but fail to detect nearby American carriers.

4: Reinhard Heydrich dies in Prague having been assassinated by Czechoslovak patriots (Operation Anthropoid)

5: United States declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania.

7: Japanese forces invade Attu and Kiska. This is the first invasion of American soil in 128 years, but it is only a diversion from the main naval efforts off Midway Island.

7: The Battle of Midway comes to a close; the USS Yorktown sinks; four Japanese carriers and one cruiser are sunk. The battle is viewed as a turning point in the Pacific war.

8: Malta receives a squadron of Spitfires.

8: A Japanese submarine fires several shells into a residential area in Sydney but with little effect.

9: Nazis burn the Czech village of Lidice as reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich. The men and boys are killed and the women and children are taken off to concentration camps.

10: Rommel pushes the Free French forces out of Bir Hakeim, a fortress south-west of Tobruk.

12: Anne Frank, young Jewish girl in Amsterdam, receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday.

12: Heavy fighting in Sevastopol with serious losses of life on both sides.

12: Rommel finally pushes Allies out of Gazala line.

13: The United States opens its Office of War Information, a centre for production of propaganda.

16: Two convoys moving toward Malta suffer heavy losses; German air forces continue to bomb the island itself.

17: The British pull out of the areas called "Knightsbridge" and "the Cauldron" in the Western desert area between Tobruk and El Gazala. Tobruk is now surrounded.

18: Manhattan Project is started, the beginning of a scientific approach to nuclear weapons.

18: Winston Churchill arrives in Washington for meetings with Roosevelt.

18: The siege of Tobruk intensifies; some defending forces are pulled back to Egypt.

21: Afrika Korps recaptures Tobruk, with 35,000 men captured; the road to Egypt is now open as the British retreat deep into Egypt. Tobruk's loss is a grievous blow to British morale. German land forces have been assisted by Luftwaffe attacks.

23: Marsa Matruh, Egypt falls to Rommel, about 140 miles from Alexandria.

24: British fall back to El Alamein, 60 miles from Alexandria, for a "final stand."

25: General Eisenhower arrives in London ready to assume the post of Commander of American forces in Europe.

25: Another massive "Thousand Bomber" raid, this time on Bremen; the raiders suffer grievous losses.

26: The Germans drive toward Rostov, Russia.

27: Doomed convoy PQ17 sets sail from Iceland; only 11 of 37 ships will survive.

28: Operation Blue, the German plan to capture Stalingrad and the Russian oil fields in the Caucasus, begins. Generally, forces are shifted to the South.

30: Rommel reaches El Alamein.

July 1942

1: First Battle of El Alamein begins as Rommel begins first assault on British defences.

1: Sevastopol falls to the Germans; the end of Russian resistance in the Crimea.

2: Churchill survives a censure motion in the House of Commons.

2: Allies experience heavy June losses of shipping to U-boats, including those of PQ17.

3: Guadalcanal is now firmly in the hands of the Japanese.

4: First air missions by American Air Force in Europe.

6: Anne Frank's family goes into hiding in an attic above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.

11: Rommel's forces are now stalemated before El Alamein, largely because of a lack of ammunition.

12: It now becomes clear that Stalingrad is the largest challenge to the invaders.

15: The only action around El Alamein is light skirmishing.

16: On order from 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. (See Rafle du Vel'd'Hiv.)

18: The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jets for the first time.

19: Battle of the Atlantic - German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to an increasingly effective American convoy system.

20: After landing in the Buna-Gona area, the Japanese in New Guinea move across the Owen Stanley mountain range aiming at Port Moresby in the south-eastern part of the island, close to Australia; a small Australian force begins rearguard action on the Kokoda Track.

22: The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins. Treblinka, "a model" concentration camp is opened in Poland.

24: Germans take Rostov-on-the-Don; the Russians are in general retreat along the Don River.

26: A second attack by the British under Auchinleck fails against Rommel. First Battle of El Alamein may be said to be over.

27: Heavy RAF incendiary attack on Hamburg.

29: The Japanese take Kokoda, halfway along the Owen Stanley pass to Port Moresby.

30: Continuing stalemate at El Alamein between Rommel and Auchinleck.

August 1942

1: Germans continue successful advance toward Stalingrad.

3: A convoy to Malta is decimated by the Luftwaffe and U-boats

5: The U.S. planning team for Operation Torch, which includes George S. Patton; James Doolittle; Kent Lambert; and Hoyt S. Vandenberg, meets in Washington, District of Columbia to join the combined planning team from London, England.

7: Operation Watchtower begins the Guadalcanal Campaign as American forces invade Gavutu, Guadalcanal, Tulagi and Tanambogo in the Solomon Islands.

7: General Bernard Montgomery takes command of the British 8th Army in North Africa.

8: In Washington, DC, six German would-be saboteurs are executed (two others were cooperative and received life imprisonment instead).

8: The naval Battle of Savo Island, near Guadalcanal; the Americans lose three cruisers, the Australians one.

9: In their retreat out of the Crimean peninsula, the Russians destroy oil refineries.

9: Numerous riots in favour of independence in India; Mahatma Gandhi is arrested.

10: Rommel begins an attack around El Alamein, but by September he is back to his original lines.

11: The HMS Eagle, a carrier on convoy duty to Malta, is torpedoed and sinks with heavy loss of life.

12: At a conference in Moscow, Churchill informs Stalin that there will not be a "second front" in 1942.

12: American forces establish bases in the New Hebrides islands.

12: Fighting increases as the Germans approach Stalingrad.

13: General Bernard Montgomery appointed commander of British Eighth Army in North Africa; Churchill is anxious to see more offensive action on the part of the British.

13: Disastrous end to the Malta convoy, but one tanker and four merchant ships get through.

15: Operation Pedestal arrives at the island fortress of Malta.

17: Major US Air Force bombing on Rouen, France and its rail network.

18: Japanese reinforce New Gunea; Australians also land troops at Port Moresby. Meanwhile, American planes have destroyed Japanese air power at Wewak, New Guinea.

19: Operation Jubilee, a raid by British but mainly Canadian forces on Dieppe, France, ends in disaster; they come under heavy gunfire and eventually most are killed or captured by the German defenders.

20: Henderson Field on Guadalcanal receives its first American fighter planes.

21: Japanese counter-attack at Henderson Field; in another foray at the Tenaru (or Ilu) River, many Japanese are killed in a banzai charge.

22: Brazil declares war on the Axis countries, partly in response to numerous riots by a populace angry at the sinking of Brazilian ships.

23: Germans get closer to Stalingrad.

24: The naval battle of the Eastern Solomons; the USS Enterprise is badly damaged and the Japanese lose one light carrier.

26: Battle of Milne Bay begins: Japanese forces land and launch a full-scale assault on Australian base near the eastern tip of New Guinea.

27: Marshal Georgii Zhukov is appointed to the command of the Stalingrad defence; the Luftwaffe is now delivering heavy strikes on the city.

28: Incendiary bombs dropped by a Japanese seaplane causes a forest fire in Oregon.

30: The Battle of Alam Halfa, Egypt, a few miles south of El Alamein begins. This will be Rommel's last attempt to break through the English lines; British air superiority plays a large role.

30: Luxembourg is formally annexed to the German Reich.

September 1942

3: The Battle of Stalingrad proper may be said to have begun on this date, with German troops in the suburbs; even civilian men and boys are conscripted by the Russian military to assist in the defence.

4: There is IRA rioting in Belfast during the night.

Manhattan Engineering District is formally created, full-effort production of the atomic bomb is begun.

5: Australian and U.S. forces defeat Japanese forces at Milne Bay, Papua, the first outright defeat for Japanese land forces in the Pacific War. Their evacuation and the failure to establish an airbase eases the threat to Australia.

6: The Black Sea port of Novorossisk is taken by the Germans.

9: A Japanese plane drops more incendiaries on Oregon, but with little effect.

10: RAF blasts Düsseldorf with large incendiary bombing.

10: (To the 14th). The Battle of "Bloody Ridge", Guadalcanal: Americans drive off Japanese forces attempting to recapture Henderson Field.

12: RMS Laconia, carrying civilians, Allied soldiers and Italian POWs, is torpedoed off the coast of West Africa and sinks.

12: Second Quebec Conference (to the 16th): FDR and Churchill agree to postwar occupation zones in Germany and further Lend-Lease arrangements.

13: The Battle for Stalingrad continues; it is now totally surrounded by the Germans. On the Russian side General Vasily Chuikov is put in charge of the defence.

14: The Japanese retreat again from Henderson Field, Guadalcanal.

14: The Japanese are now within 30 miles of Port Moresby, New Guinea, on the Kokoda trail.

14: Continued convoy losses in the Atlantic.

15: Americans send troops to Port Moresby as reinforcements for the Australian defenders.

15: Light carrier USS Wasp is sunk by a Japanese submarine off Guadalcanal.

18: Battle of the "grain silo" in Stalingrad; the Germans are beaten back. The Russians begin ferrying Red Army troops at night across the Volga.

20: RAF bombs Munich and Saarbrucken.

23: General Rommel leaves North Africa for medical treatment in Germany.

27: The Battle of Matanikau River, Guadalcanal; Japanese naval bombardment and landing forces nearly destroy Henderson field in an attempt to take it, but the land forces are soon driven back.

28: The Japanese continue their retreat back down the Kokoda trail in New Guinea.

30: The Eagle Squadron (American volunteers in the RAF) are officially transferred to the US Army Air Force.

30: Hitler speaks to the nation and boasts that Stalingrad will be taken.

October 1942

3: First successful launch of A4-rocket at Peenemünde, Germany. The rocket flies 147 kilometres wide and reaches a height of 84.5 kilometres and is therefore the first man-made object reaching space.

4: British Commandos raid Sark, a Channel Island, capturing one German soldier.

6: By mutual arrangement, the Allies agree on a strategy whereby Americans will bomb in the daytime and the RAF at night.

11: 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. With the help of radar they sink one cruiser and several Japanese destroyers.

12: The Russian system of ferrying troops across the Volga and into Stalingrad directly seems to be a success, as the German advance comes to a halt.

13: Heavy bombardment of Henderson Field, Guadalcanal by the Japanese navy.

14: A German U-boat sinks the ferry SS Caribou, killing 137.

18: Hitler issues Commando Order, ordering all captured commandos to be executed immediately.

18: Admiral William "Bull" Halsey is given command of the South Pacific naval forces.

21: Heavy RAF activity over El Alamein.

22: Conscription age in Britain reduced to 18.

22: American General Mark Clark secretly lands in Algeria to confer with Vichy officials and Resistance groups in preparation for impending Allied invasion.

23: Second Battle of El Alamein begins with massive Allied bombardment of German positions. Then Australian forces, mainly, begin advance while offshore British naval forces support the right flank (n.b. the ongoing concurrent victories being prepared at Guadalcanal and Stalingrad.)

24: US Navy Task Force 34, consisting of aircraft carriers, a variety of support ships, including Troop Ships and other vessels, set sail from Hampton Roads, Virginia with Patton's forces for Operation Torch, the landing in North Africa. The other two task forces of Operation Torch, the first American-led force to fight in the European and African theatres of war, depart Britain for Morocco.

24: Crisis at El Alamein: British tanks survive German 88mm fire; Montgomery orders the advance to continue despite losses.

25: Rommel hurriedly returns from his sickbed in Germany to take charge of the African battle. (His replacement, General Stumme had died of a heart attack).

25: The Japanese continue their attacks on the Marines west of Henderson field.

26: The naval battle of Santa Cruz. The Japanese lose many aircraft and have two aircraft carriers severely damaged. The USS Hornet is sunk and the USS Enterprise is damaged.

29: The Japanese continue to send troops as reinforcements into Guadalcanal.

31: The British make a critical breakthrough with tanks west of El Alamein; Rommel's mine fields fail to stop the Allied armour.

29: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews.

November 1942

1: Operation Supercharge, the Allied breakout at El Alamein, begins.

3: Second Battle of El Alamein ends - German forces under Erwin Rommel are forced to retreat during the night.

8: Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of Vichy-controlled Morocco and Algeria, begins; French resistance coup in Algiers, consisting of about 400 fighters neutralise the Vichyist XIXth Army Corps and the Vichyist generals (Juin, Darlan, etc.), contributing significantly to the immediate success of the operation.

10: In violation of a 1940 armistice, Germany invades Vichy France ; they are responding to the fact that French Admiral François Darlan has signed an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.

10: Oran, Algeria falls to US troops; 17 French ships are sunk at Oran, causing a rift between the French and the Allies. There are more Allied landings near the Tunisian border.

10: Montgomery begins a major British offensive beginning at Sollum on the Libya/Egypt border. The British reach Bardia on the 11th, Tobruk on the 12th, and Benghazi on the 18th.

10: Lieutenant General Montgomery is knighted and made a full General.

10: Churchill speaks: "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

11: Convoys reach Malta from Alexandria; an official announcement proclaims that the island is "relieved of its siege."

12: Battle of Guadalcanal - A climactic naval battle near Guadalcanal starts between Japanese and American naval forces. Notably, the USS Juneau is sunk with much of its crew, including the five Sullivan brothers.

12: The Russians make an attempt to relieve Stalingrad at Kotelnikov.

13: British Eighth Army recaptures Tobruk.

13: In the Battle of Guadalcanal - aviators from the USS Enterprise sink the Japanese battleship Hiei.

14: The USS Washington sinks the Japanese battleship Kirishima in the only battleship battle of World War II.

15: The naval battle of Guadalcanal ends. Although the United States Navy suffers heavy losses, it still retains control of the sea around Guadalcanal.

15: The British move westward in Tunisia.

17: Japanese send reinforcements into New Guinea; Americans are stymied at Buna.

18: Heavy British RAF raid on Berlin with few losses.

19: At Stalingrad the Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch Operation Uranus aimed at encircling the Germans in the city and thus turning the tide of battle in the USSR's favor.

20: The Allies take Benghazi, Libya; the Afrika Corps continues the retreat westward.

21: The Russian attempt at encirclement of Stalingrad continues with obvious success.

21: American army moves to shove Japanese off the extreme western end of Guadalcanal.

22: 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 6th Army is surrounded.

22: Russian troops complete the encirclement of the Germans at Kalach, west of Stalingrad.

23: "Der Kessel"-- the Cauldron, a description of the heavy fighting at Stalingrad; Hitler orders General Paulus not to retreat, at any cost.

25: The encirclement of Stalingrad continues to stabilise. Hitler reiterates his demand of Paulus not to surrender.

27: At Toulon, the French navy scuttles its ships (most notably the Dunkerque and Strasbourg) and submarines to keep them out of German hands; the French have declined another option --to join the Allied fleets in North African waters.

29: The Allied offensive in Tunisia meets with only minimum success.

30: The naval battle of Tassafaronga Point (off Guadalcanal); this is a night action in which Japanese naval forces sink one American cruiser and damage three others.

December 1942

1: Gasoline rationing begins in the United States.

1: The US cruiser Northampton is sunk as Japanese destroyers attempt to come down "the Slot" to Guadalcanal.

2: Heavy fighting in Tunisia, as German forces are pushed into the final North African corner.

2: Below the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiate the first nuclear chain reaction. A coded message, "The Italian navigator has landed in the new world" is sent to President Roosevelt.

4: The first US bombing of mainland Italy --Naples.

6: RAF bombs Eindhoven in Holland.

7: On the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, the USS New Jersey, America's largest battleship is launched (commissioned five months later).

7: British commandos conduct Operation Frankton a raid on shipping in Bordeaux harbour.

9: The Marines turn over Guadalcanal to the American army.

12: Rommel abandons El Agheila and retreats to Tripoli; the final stand will be at the Mareth line in southern Tunisia.

12: In a large operation named "Winter Storm", the Germans attempt to break through to forces trapped in Stalingrad.

13: The Luftwaffe flies in meagre supplies to the beleaguered Stalingrad troops.

14: Naval action off Cape Bon, northern Tunisia; British destroyers sink two Italian cruisers.

15: American troops finally push Japanese out of Buna, New Guinea.

22: The Germans begin a retreat from the Caucusus.

22: The battle for "Longstop Hill" begins; a key position outside Tunis, the Germans eventually take it and hold it until April.

24: French Admiral Darlan, the former Vichy leader who had switched over to the Allies following the Torch landings, is assassinated in Algiers.

25: The British take Sirto, Libya.

25: American bombers hit Rabaul.

26: Heavy fighting continues on Guadalcanal, now focused on Mount Austen in the West.

31: As the year comes to an end, things look bright for the Allies: Rommel is trapped in Tunisia, the Germans are encircled at Stalingrad, and the Japanese appear ready to abandon Guadalcanal.

1943

January 1943

2: The Japanese are now cleared out of Buna, New Guinea after a fierce two-month struggle; it becomes clear that the American campaign was badly mismanaged.

7: Japanese land more troops at Lae, New Guinea.

10: Soviet troops launch an all-out offensive attack on Stalingrad; they also renew attacks in the north (Leningrad) and in the Caucasus.

13: The Russians announce, perhaps prematurely, that the Leningrad siege has been broken.

14: Casablanca Conference of Allied leaders begins. Churchill and Roosevelt discuss the eventual invasion of mainland Europe, the impending invasion of Sicily and Italy, and the wisdom of the principle of "Unconditional Surrender."

15: The British start an offensive aimed at taking far-off Tripoli.

16: Iraq declares war on the Axis powers.

16: RAF begins a two-night bombing of Berlin.

18: The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rise up for the first time, starting the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

18: Besieged defenders of Leningrad link up with relieving forces, ending the 900-day siege.

19: General Georgy Zhukov is promoted to Marshal as the Stalingrad struggle grinds to a close.

21: Last airfield at Stalingrad is taken by Red forces, insuring that Goering's aircraft will be unable to supply German troops any further; Hitler still demands that Paulus continue the fight.

21: Russian armies have more victories in the Caucasus and also take Vitebsk.

23: Allies capture Tripoli, Libya.

23: Japanese continue their fight in western Guadalcanal; they now seem to have given up completely on the Papua campaign.

24: German forces in Stalingrad are in the last phases of collapse.

26: French forces enter Tripoli.

27: 50 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany. (Wilhelmshaven, the large naval base, is the primary target).

28: A new conscription law in Germany: men between 16 and 35 and women between 17 and 45 are open to mobilization.

29: The naval battle of Rennel Island, near Guadalcanal; the USS Chicago is lost.

29: Another two-day bombing of Berlin by the RAF.

30: The last Japanese have cleared out of Guadalcanal by a brilliant evacuation plan undetected by the Americans.

31: Large parts of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, including now a Field Marshal Paulus, surrender.

February 1943

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

2: Rommel retreats farther into Tunisia, establishing his troops at the Mareth line. Within two days, Allied troops move into Tunisia for the first time.

5: The Allies now have all of Libya under control.

5: Essen is bombed, marking the beginning of a four-month attack on the Ruhr industrial area.

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

8: The Chindits (a "long range penetration group) under British General Orde Wingate begin an incursion into Burma.

8: Nuremberg is heavily bombed.

9: Guadalcanal is finally secured; it is the first major achievement of the American offensive in the Pacific war.

9: The Battle of Kurskis begins. The Russians take Belgograd.

9: Munich and Vienna are heavily bombed, along with Berlin.

11: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is selected to command the Allied armies in Europe.

13: Rommel launches a counter-attack against the Americans in western Tunisia; he takes Sidi bou Zid and Gafsa. The Battle of the Kasserine Pass begins: inexperienced American troops are soon forced to retreat.

14: Rostov-on-Don, Russia is liberated by the Red Army;

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

18: In a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels declares a "Total War" against the Allies; The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement, an anti-Nazi youth group.

18: Chindits under Wingate cut the railway line between Mandalay and Myitkyina.

21: Americans take the Russel Islands, part of the Solomons chain.

26: Rommel retreats northward from the Mareth line in Tunisia.

28: The SS United Victory, the first Victory ship is launched; this class of transport will prove to be crucial in hauling men and supplies across the oceans.

28: Operation Gunnerside, 6 Norwegians led by Joachim Ronneberg successfully attack the heavy water plant Vemork.

March 1943

1: Heinz Guderian becomes the Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops for the German Army.

1: Battle of the Bismarck Sea. United States and Australia naval forces, over the course of three days, sink eight Japanese troop transports near New Guinea. Heavy losses of Japanese lives.

2: Wingate's Chindits continue their localised strikes in Burma.

5: In early March, Rommel stirs up small attacks near the Mareth line, southern Tunisia.

5: German advances around Kharkov threaten Russian achievements.

5: Continued RAF bombing of the Ruhr valley, particularly Essen.

6: Battle of Medenine, Tunisia. It is Rommel's last in Africa as he is forced to retreat.

7: Allies are now in full control of Tunisia.

8: Continuing German counter-attacks around Kharkov.

10: The USAAF 14th Air Force is formed in China, under General Claire Chennault, former head of the "Flying Tigers."

10: The US House of Representatives votes to extend the Lend Lease plan.

11: The Germans enter Kharkov and the fierce struggle with the Russians continues.

13: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.

14: The Germans succeed in taking Kharkov, lost to the Red Armies about a month ago.

16: The first reports of the Katyn massacre in Poland seep to the West; reports say that more than 180,000 prisoners of war were killed by the Russians, who eventually blame the massacre on the Germans.

16: Stalin for the nth time demands a "Second Front," accusing his allies of treachery.

l7: Devastating convoy losses in the Atlantic due to increased U-boat activity; the middle of the Atlantic apparently is not sufficiently covered by planes or ships.

l8: General Patton leads his tanks of II Corps into Gafsa, Tunisia.

19: First Warsaw Rising, carried out by the Jews in the ghetto; the outcome is probably inevitable.

19: The Bermuda Conference opens, the subject being the plight of the European Jews; the Allies come to no solid conclusion.

20: Montgomery's forces begin a breakthrough in Tunisia, striking at the Mareth line. (This defensive line was originally built by the French to hold off Italian tanks and infantry.)

23: American tanks defeat the Germans at El Guettar, Tunisia.

26: The British break through the Mareth line in southern Tunisia, threatening the whole German army. The Germans move north.

26: Battle of the Komandorski Islands. In the Aleutian Islands United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska. Poor leadership on both sides leads to a stalemate of sorts, and the Japanese withdraw without achieving their goal.

April 1943

1: Allies continue to squeeze the Germans into the corner of Tunisia; the seaport of Sfax is bombed. It will be taken on the 10th.

6: Hitler and Mussolini come together at Salzburg, mostly for the purpose of propping up Mussolini's fading morale.

7: Allied forces--the Americans from the West, the British from the East--link up near Gafsa in Libya.

7: Bolivia declares war on Germany, Japan, and Italy.

8: The Russians attack in an attempt to free all of the Crimea of German forces; they take Kerch in the East on the 11th, and the Germans retreat westward to Sevastopol.

11: The Germans offer an official surrender of Sfax, but heavy fighting continues as other units move north.

12: The last units of the Afrika Korps surrender in the northern corner of Tunisia.

13: Radio Berlin announces the discovery by Wehrmacht of mass graves of Poles purportedly killed by Soviets in the Katyn massacre.

15: Heavy RAF raid on Stuttgart.

18: Admiral Yamamoto, chief architect of Japanese naval strategy, is killed when his plane is shot down by American P38's over Bougainville. He was on an inspection tour.

18: The "Palm Sunday massacre": large numbers of German troop-transport aircraft are shot down before reaching Tunisia, where they were to pick up the isolated German troops.

19: The Warsaw Rising continues, with new German army units sent in to fight the Jewish Resistance.

26: The British finally take "Longstop Hill" in Tunisia, a key position on the breakout road to Tunis.

28: Allies attempt to close the mid-Atlantic gap in the war against the U-boats with long-range bombers.

May 1943

1: Allies close in on the cornered Germans in the Tunis area.

2: At this late date, Japanese aircraft drop bombs on Darwin, Australia.

3: British forces take Rangoon, Burma.

7: Tunis captured by British First Army. Meanwhile the Americans take Bizerte.

9: German and Italian forces in Tunisia announce surrender to British.

11: American troops invade Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces. The battle is difficult, including banzai charges.

12: Trident Conference begins in Washington, D.C. with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill taking part. The discussions are mostly on future strategy.

13: German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces. Allies take over 250,000 prisoners.

15: The French form a "Resistance Movement."

16: The Dambuster Raids by RAF 617 Squadron on two German dams, Mohne and Eder; the Ruhr war industries lose electrical power.

16: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends. The ghetto is destroyed.

17: Surviving RAF Dam Busters return.

19: Winston Churchill addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress. He praises the partnership of the two Allies.

19: Propaganda Minister Goebbels announces that all the Jews have left Berlin.

22: Allies begin heavy bombing of Sicily and Sardinia, both possible landing sites.

24: Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the majority of U-boats to withdraw from the Atlantic because of heavy losses to new Allied anti-sub tactics.

24: Josef Mengele becomes Chief Medical Officer in Auschwitz.

29: RAF bombs Wuppertal, causing heavy civilian losses.

30: The Japanese abandon Attu Island in the Aleutians.

31: American B-17's bomb Naples.

June 1943

4: General Henri Giraud becomes Commander of the Free French forces in North Africa.

8: Japanese forces abandon Kiska Island in the Aleutians, their last foothold in the Western hemisphere. The event is almost to the year of their landing.

11: British forces take Pantelleria and Lampedusa, small islands between Tunisia and Sicily, after several days of bombardment.

13: Heavy US aircraft losses over Kiel.

17: Allies bomb Sicily and the Italian mainland, as signs increase of a forthcoming invasion.

20: Operation Cartwheel opens with landings by the United States 4th Marine Raider Battalion at Segi Point on New Georgia in the Solomon Islands. It will not be secured until August.

22: The Red armies begin a major offensive.

23: American troops land in the Trobriand Islands, close to New Guinea. The American strategy of driving up the Southwest Pacific by "Island Hopping" continues.

24: Continuing attacks against the Ruhr industrial valley. One result is the evacuation of large numbers of German civilians from the area.

30: American troops land on Rendova Island, New Georgia, another part of Operation Cartwheel.

July 1943

3: Continuing American landings on New Guinea; one goal is the Munda airport.

4: General Władysław Sikorski and several other members of the Polish government-in-exile are killed in what is ostensibly an air accident at Gibraltar.

5: Battle of Kursk begins; it is the largest tank battle in history, involving an estimated 6,000 tanks. The Russians stop the German Panzers, including new Panther and Tiger tanks.

5: Allied air power strikes hard at U-boat forces in the Bay of Biscay.

6: An Allied invasion fleet sails toward Sicily.

6: Americans and Japanese fight the Battle of Kula Gulf off Kolombangara, near the Solomons. American forces try to stop the landing of Japanese forces, but with little success. The American cruiser Helena is sunk.

9: The Allied invasion of Sicily marks the beginning of the allied defeat of Axis-controlled Europe. The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Divisionplays a central role.

12: The Wehrmacht and the Red Army fight the Battle of Prokhorovka.

12: The battle of Kolombangara (near New Georgia). The Japanese use advanced radar to damage three American cruisers and sink one destroyer with torpedoes. They then land more reinforcements.

13: The Battle of Kursk draws to a close with huge tank losses on both sides. On the whole it is the Russian tanks that prevail. Meanwhile the Russians launch a huge attack near Orel, north of Kursk. Hitler withdraws some forces to support his defences in Sicily. It is said that the German threat in the East is over.

19: Rome is bombed by the Allies for the first time in the war.

21: Allies have successes in Sicily, capturing towns and numerous prisoners.

22: Patton's forces take Palermo in north-western Sicily, then head toward Messina.

22: Deportations of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins. The extermination camp Treblinka is opened.

24: Benito Mussolini is dismissed by the "Fascist council."

24: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, those of the Americans bomb by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.

25: In Italy the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo withdraws its consent to support Mussolini. Mussolini is arrested and the power is given to Maresciallo d'Italia Gen. Pietro Badoglio.

27: The German army retreats from Orel, north of Kursk and northernmost of the strong points in the battle line.

28: Operation Gomorrah continues: British aeroplanes bomb Hamburg, causing a third firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.

29: Americans continue to bombard Kiska, unaware that the Japanese have pulled out.

30: Widespread strikes in Italy. Fascist leaders come under physical attack and there are some lynchings.

31: Large units of the German army are trapped in northern Sicily.

August 1943

1: Ltjg John F. Kennedy's PT boat 109 is rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer off the Solomon Islands.

2: Chiang Kai-shek is made president of the Chinese National government.

3: An "incident" in a Sicilian hospital--there is a second on August 10--when General Patton slaps a soldier whom he considers a malingerer and therefore dishonorable.

5: Catania, Sicily falls to Montgomery's British forces.

6: Americans and Japanese fight the Battle of Vella Gulf off Kolombangara in the Solomons. American destroyers sink three Japanese destroyers.

6: The Germans enter Italy as an occupying army, as it appears that Italy is on the brink of dropping out of the war.

7: The Americans take Munda airport in New Guinea.

8: Continued advances by separate American and British troops on Sicily, continuing an unspoken competition between Patton and Montgomery.

12: The Germans begin their evacuation of Sicily.

14: Quadrant Conference begins in Quebec City. Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King meets with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

14: General Patton apologises for slapping soldiers in the Sicilian hospitals.

15: Huge Russian offensive at Kharkov threatens the encirclement of German armies.

15: Americans occupy Vella Lavella Island in the Solomons. They also retake Kiska, which had been emptied of Japanese forces for some time.

16: Portugal agrees to permit British bases in the Azores.

17: The US 7th Army under General George S. Patton arrives in Messina, Italy followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily. The victory is incomplete, however, in that most of the German troops succeed in moving to the mainland.

17: Roosevelt and Churchill sign the Quebec Agreement, the formal agreement for coordinating atomic bomb research and plans for the Normandy invasion, and for the establishment of a Southeast Asia Command.

17: American air raids on Schweinfurt and Regensburg with heavy losses of planes and crews.

17: Peenemunde on the Baltic Coast is bombed as Allies have identified the mysterious first V-1 sites.

23: The Battle of Kursk ends with a heavy defeat for the German forces. The Russians retake Kharkov.

23: RAF restarts bombing of Berlin with heavy losses.

26: Lord Louis Mountbatten is appointed commander of the Southeast Asia forces.

27: Anti-German uprising in Naples, Italy; a general massacre of citizens follows.

29: Germany dissolves the Danish government after it refuses to deal with a wave of strikes and disturbances. Bombs are set off in the Copenhagen and a few small naval vessels are sunk.

September 1943

3: Mainland Italy is invaded as Allied forces under Bernard L. Montgomery land at Reggio de Calabria. An Italian Armistice is signed and Italy drops out of the war.

3: Nazi Germany begins the evacuation of civilians from Berlin.

4: Russia declares war on Bulgaria.

4: The 503rd Parachute Regiment under American General Douglas MacArthur lands and occupies Nadzab, just east of the port city of Lae in northeastern Papua New Guinea. Lae falls into American hands and Australian troops take Salamau.

8: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies.

8:The USAAF bombs the German General Headquarter for the Mediterranean zone at Frascati.

9: The Allies land at Salerno, Italy; meanwhile the British troops take Taranto in the heel of the Italian "boot." Allied strategy aims at a "drive" up the "boot."

9: Russians aim an offensive at Kiev, capital of the Ukraine.

9: Iran, seeing the successes of the Allies in Italy, declares war on Germany.

10: Germans occupy Rome, now that Italy has surrendered to the Allies. The Italian fleet meanwhile surrenders at Malta and other Mediterranean ports.

12: Mussolini is rescued from a mountaintop captivity ordered by the Fascist Council--see above entry for July 24--by German paratroopers led by Otto Skorzeny. Mussolini is then set up by Hitler, who remains loyal to his old friend, as the head of "Salo," a quasi government: "the Italian Social Republic."

13: German and Italian troops are fighting each other in Greece.

13: The Salerno beachhead is in jeopardy, as German counterattacks increase.

14: British troops take Bari, an important port in southeastern Italy. American troops meanwhile land on Sardinia and in effect take it.

15: Mussolini proclaims the "Italian Social Republic." (See above September 15 entry.)

15: Chiang Kai-shek, newly elected president of China, asks that General Stilwell, American military advisor/commander, be recalled for suggesting an alliance with the Communists.

16: British forces are taking various Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.

16: British and American troops link up near the Salerno beachhead.

20: Allied forces approach Naples.

21: British midget subs attack the German battleship Tirpitz, at anchor in a Norwegian fjord, crippling her for six months.

21: The battle of the Solomons can now be considered at an unofficial end.

22: Australian forces land at Finschhafen, a small port in New Guinea. The Japanese continue the battle well into October.

25: The Russians take Smolensk, an important city west of Moscow; they also reach the suburbs of Kiev.

27: Chiang Kai-shek has Mao Tse-tung's brother executed.

28: The people of Naples, sensing the approach of the Allies, rise up against the German occupiers. The uprising is put down with many civilian deaths. Allied forces do not show.

28: The Germans take over the island of Corfu from the Italians, the previous occupiers.

29: News arrives that the Danes are secretly sending their Jewish countrymen to Sweden by means of dangerous boat crossings; thousands have been saved already.

October 1943

1: British and American forces enter Naples; the port has been heavily damaged by a combination of Allied bombing and sabotage by the retreating Germans.

1: The Russians continue their moves on Kiev by crossing the River Dnieper.

4: Corsica is liberated by Free French forces.

4: American naval planes and ships bombard Wake Island.

6: Americans and Japanese fight the Naval Battle of Vella Lavella. The Japanese, however, successfully evacuate the island.

7: Lord Louis Mountbatten officially becomes the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia.

12: The US Fifth Army crosses the Volturno River in Italy.

12: A huge bombing raid on Rabaul, New Britain.

13: The new government of Italy, led by Marshal Badoglio, sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.

13: The Russian army takes Riga, the capital of Latvia.

14: "Black Thursday": the Second Schweinfurt raid in which numerous American bombers are lost.

18: Chiang Kai-shek takes the oath of office as president of China.

19: Meeting of Foreign Ministers in Moscow: Anthony Eden (UK), Cordell Hull (US) and V Molotov (USSR) begin discussions on how the peace is to be handled.

19: Lord Mountbatten meets with Chiang Kai-shek to coordinate supply efforts in China.

20: MacArthur returns: he lands with his forces on Leyte.

22: RAF delivers a highly destructive air strike on the German industrial and population centre of Kassel

22: Many Japanese aircraft at Rabaul airfields are destroyed by Allied air forces.

25: The Russians cross the Dnieper and take Dneporpetrovsk.

29: British dockworkers strike in London; troops are marshalled to do the work.

31: Heavy rains in Italy slow the Allied advance below Rome.

November 1943

1: In Operation Goodtime, United States Marines land on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. The fighting for this island will continue to the end of the war.

2: In the early morning hours, American and Japanese ships fight the inconclusive Battle of Empress Augusta Bay off Bougainville, but the Japanese are unable to land reinforcements.

2: British troops, in Italy, reach the Garigliano River.

6: The Red Army liberates the city of Kiev. This is an anniversary of the Russian Revolution in 1917.

9: Allies take Castiglione, Italy.

9: General De Gaulle becomes President of the French Committee of National Liberation.

11: American air power continues to hit Rabaul.

12: Germans overrun British forces on the Dodecanese islands, off Turkey.

14: Heavy bombers hit Tarawa, in the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific.

15: Allied Expeditionary Force for the invasion of Europe is officially formed.

15: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies and "part-Gypsies" are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps."

16: Anti-German resistance in Italy increases; there are explosions in Milan.

16: 160 American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway

16: Japanese submarine sinks surfaced USA submarine USS Corvina near Truk

18: 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF lose nine aircraft and 53 aviators.

20: Battle of Tarawa begins - United States Marines land on Tarawa and Makin atolls in the Gilbert Islands and take heavy fire from Japanese shore guns. The American public is shocked by the heavy losses of life.

20: British troops under Montgomery continue their slow advances on the eastern side of Italy.

22: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and ROC leader Chiang Kai-Shek meet in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss ways to defeat Japan.

23: Heavy damage from Allied bombing of Berlin. Notably, the Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße in the Berlin district of of Charlottenburg is destroyed.

24: Heavy bombing of Berlin continues.

25: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Cape St. George between Buka and New Ireland. Admiral Arleigh Burke's destroyers distinguish themselves.

25: Rangoon is bombed by American heavy bombers.

26: The Russian offensive in the Ukraine continues.

27: The Casablanca Conference ("Sextant") ends; Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek complete the Cairo Declaration, which deals with the overall strategic plan against Japan.

27: Huge civilian losses in Berlin as heavy bombing raids continue.

28: The Teheran Conference . US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin meet in Teheran to discuss war strategy; (on November 30 they establish an agreement concerning a planned June 1944 invasion of Europe codenamed Operation Overlord). Stalin at last has the promise he has been waiting for.

29: Second session of AVNOJ, the Anti-fascist council of national liberation of Yugoslavia, is held in Jajce, Bosnia and Herzegovina, determining the post-war order of the country.

December 1943

3: Edward R. Murrow delivers his classic "Orchestrated Hell" broadcast over CBS Radio describing a Royal Air Force nighttime bombing raid on Berlin.

4: Bolivia declares war on all Axis powers.

4: In Yugoslavia, resistance leader Marshal Tito proclaims a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in-exile.

12: Rommel is appointed head of "Fortress Europa", chief planner against the expected Allied offensive.

16: Kalinin is retaken in a large Russian offensive.

24: US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.

26: German battle cruiser Scharnhorst is sunk off North Cape (in the Arctic) by an array of British cruisers and destroyer torpedoes.

26: American Marines land on Cape Gloucester, New Britain.

27: General Eisenhower is officially named head of Overlord, the invasion of Normandy.

28: In Burma, Chinese troops have some success against the Japanese.

1944

January 1944

4: The Battle of Monte Cassino begins.

4: The Russians cross into Poland from the Ukrainian front.

9: British forces take Maungdaw, Burma, a critical port for Allied supplies.

11: The first battle of Monte Cassino. The Americans are driven off.

12: Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister and Mussolini's son-in-law is executed by Mussolini's revived Fascist government sympathisers.

17: British forces, in Italy, cross the Garigliano River

19: Russian troops push westward toward the Baltic countries.

20: The Royal Air Force drops 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin

20: The U.S. Army 36th Infantry Division, in Italy, attempts to cross the Rapido Riverbut suffers heavy losses.

22: Allies begin Operation Shingle, the landing at Anzio, Italy. The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division stand their ground at Anzio against violent assaults for 4 months. Time and again aggressive German artillery and troop attacks nearly overwhelm the beachhead.

24: The Allied forces have a major setback on the Rapido River.

29: American troops land in the Admiralty Islands, part of New Guinea.

30: United States troops invade Majuro, Marshall Islands.

31: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.

31: Americans are still struggling to protect the beachhead at Anzio.

February 1944

1: United States Marines mop up on Roi and Namur in the Marshall Islands.

1: The battles at both Monte Cassino and Anzio intensify.

2: Russian forces move into Estonia.

3: United States taking of the Marshall Islands is nearing completion.

3: The Russians capture two German Army corps at the Korsun "pocket", south of Kiev.

3: American planes bomb Eniwetok in the Marshalls, later to be a major B-29 base.

4: Kwajalein, the world's largest atoll and a major Japanese naval base is secured.

5: American Navy bombards the Kurile Islands, northernmost in the Japanese homelands.

6: Germans continue to have continuing success in staving off the Allies at Cassino.

7: In Anzio, the Allies continue to be threatened by German artillery attacks.

8: The plan for the invasion of France, Operation Overlord, is confirmed.

14: SHAEF headquarters are established in Britain by U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower

14: Anti-Japanese revolt on Java.

15: The "second" Battle of Monte Cassino begins. The history-rich monastery atop Monte Cassino is destroyed by Allied bombing. The bombing is controversial since the Germans deny the Allied charge that the grounds were used as observation posts.

16: Germans launch a major counter-attack at Anzio, threatening the American beachhead.

16: Germans, with Panzer forces leading, fail to break out of the Korsun pocket.

16: Diplomats from the USSR and Finland meet to sign an armistice.

17: American Marines land on Eniwetok Atoll.

18: Monte Cassino is captured in a final push in which Polish troops distinguish themselves.

18: American naval air raids on the Truk islands, a major Japanese naval base, but it will be one of the bypassed fortresses of the Japanese outer defence ring.

19: Leipzig, Germany is bombed for two straight nights. This marks the beginning of a "Big Week" bombing campaign against German industrial cities by Allied bombers.

23: US Navy planes attack the Mariana Islands of Saipan, Guam, Tinian.

26: The "Big Week" bombing campaign comes to a successful conclusion; the American fighter P-51 Mustang with its long range proves invaluable in protecting American bombers over Germany.

26: Russians continue to bomb Helsinki, Finland as peace talks continue.

28: The Admiralty Islands are invaded by U.S. forces, marked by the Battle of Los Negros and Operation Brewer. The struggle for this important fleet anchorage will continue until May. Rabaul is now completely isolated.

March 1944

1: The keels of USS Tarawa and USS Kearsarge are laid down.

1: Anti-fascist strikes occur in northern Italy.

6: Wingate's Chindits make several successful forays in Burma.

7: Japanese begin an invasion attempt on India, starting a four-month battle around Imphal.

8: American forces are attacked by Japanese troops on Hill 700 in the Bougainville; the battle that will last five days.

8: A widespread Russian attack west of the Dnieper in the Ukraine forces the Germans into a major retreat.

12: The creation of the politic Committee of national liberation in Greece.

13: On Bougainville, Japanese troops end their failed assault on American forces at Hill 700.

15: The National Council of the French Resistance approves the Resistance programme.

15: The "third" Battle of Cassino begins with the small town of Cassino destroyed.

15: Americans take Manus Island in the Admiralty chain.

17: Heavy bombing of Vienna.

18: German forces occupy Hungary. The Russians meanwhile approach the border of Romania.

19: Yugoslav partisans attack Trieste, on the border of Italy and Croatia.

20: Russian advances in the Ukraine continue with great success.

22: Japanese forces cross the Indian border all along the Imphal front.

22: Frankfurt is bombed with heavy civilian losses.

24: The Fosse Ardeatine massacre in Rome, Italy. 335 Italians are killed, including 75 Jews and over 200 members variouos groups in the Italian Resistance; this is a German response to a bomb blast that killed German troops

24: Orde Wingate is killed in an plane crash.

24: Heavy bombings of German cities at various strategic locations last for 24 hours.

28: Japanese troops are in retreat in Burma.

30: Soviets occupy Danzig, the controversial territorial issue that was one of the supposed causes of the war.

30: RAF suffers grievous losses in a huge air raid on Nuremberg.

April 1944

3: Allied bombers hit Budapest, Hungary (now occupied by the Germans) and Bucharest, Rumania (ahead of advancing Russians).

4: General Charles de Gaulle takes command of all Free French forces.

5: US Air Force bombs Ploesti oil fields in Rumania, with heavy losses.

6: The Japanese drive on the Plain of Imphal, supposedly halted, proves strong enough to surround British forces at Imphal and Kohima, in India.

7: Russians take Kerch in the eastern Crimea and drive toward Sevastopol

12: German troops begin evacuation of the Crimea.

14: Odessa in the Crimea is liberated by Soviet forces.

15: Heavy air raids on Ploesti oil fields by both the RAF and the US Air Force.

17: Americans land on Mindanao, in the southern Philippines.

17: Japanese launch a major offensive in central China, aiming toward southeast China air bases where American bombers are located. By the next day they have had some successes.

17: Yalta, an important port in the southeast Crimea, is taken by the Russians.

21: The Badoglio government in Italy falls and he is quickly asked to form another.

21: An air raid on Paris kills a large number of civilians.

22: American navy planes carry out widespread attacks in New Guinea. US troops land at Hollandia and Aitape in northern New Guinea. Japanese forces in New Guinea will now be cut off.

24: British troops force open the road from Imphal to Kohima in India.

27: The Slapton Sands tragedy: American soldiers are killed in a training exercise in preparation for D-Day at Slapton in Devon.

30: Vast preparations for D-Day are going on all over southern England.

30: American navy air raids continue in the Carolina Islands, including Truk.

May 1944

6: Heavy Allied bombings of the Continent in preparation for D-Day.

8: D-Day for Operation Overlord set for June 5.

9: The German Army evacuates Sevastopol the largest city and an important port in the Crimea; the Russian army moves in.

9: The Battle at the "Gustav line" near Monte Cassino continues without resolution.

11: The British cross the Rapido River. A "fourth" battle of Monte Cassino begins, concurrent with the opening of an offensive campaign toward Rome.

12: Soviet troops finalise the liberation of Crimea.

12: Large numbers of Chinese troops invade northern Burma.

13: The bridgehead over the Rapido River is reinforced.

18: Battle of Monte Cassino ends with an Allied victory; Polish troops hoist their red and white flag on the ruins of Monte Cassino. The Germans have ceded it and departed.

18: Allied troops take airfields at Myitkyina, Burma, an important air base; the struggle over the city itself will continue for nearly three months.

18: The last Japanese resistance in the Admiralty Islands, off New Guinea comes to an end.

21: Increased Allied bombing of targets in France in preparation for D-Day.

23: Allies advance toward Rome, after a linkup of American II and III corps.

25: Germans are now in retreat in the Anzio area. American forces break out of the beachhead and link up with the Fifth Army; both then begin their advance on Rome.

27: Americans land on Biak, Dutch New Guinea, a key Japanese air base; stubborn Japanese resistance until August.

31: The Japanese retreat from Imphal (India) with heavy losses; their invasion of India is over.

June 1944

1: Romanian prime minister, head of the Fascist Iron Guards, Ion Antonescu is executed.

1: Eamon de Valera's government is re-elected in Eire.

2: The provisional French government is established.

3: Daily bombings of the Cherbourg peninsula and the Normandy area.

4: Operation Overlord is postponed 24 hours due to high seas.

4: American, English and French troops enter Rome.

5: Rome falls to the Allies. It is the first capital of an Axis nation to fall. More than 1000 British bombers drop 5000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.

5: The first Allied troops land in Normandy--paratroopers scattered from Caen southward.

6: Battle of Normandy begins. D-Day Operation Overlord, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.

7: Bayeux is liberated by British troops.

9: No agreement having been reached on their mutual borders, Stalin launches an offensive against Finland with the intent of defeating Finland before pushing for Berlin.

10: 642 men, women and children are killed at Oradour-sur-Glane (a town near Limoges) France in a German response to local Resistance activities.

11: American navy planes attack the Marianas, including Saipan, preparing for invasion.

13: Germany launches a V1 Flying Bomb attack on England, in Hitler's view a kind of revenge for the invasion. He believes in Germany's victory with this "secret weapon." The V-1 attacks will continue through June.

15: The United States invades Saipan.

17: Free French troops land on Elba.

18: Elba is declared liberated.

18: Allies capture Assisi, Italy.

19: The Battle of the Philippine Sea. Known by America's navy pilots as "the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" in which numerous Japanese planes and pilots are destroyed and two Japanese carriers are sunk.

19: A severe Channel storm destroys one of the Allies' Mulberry harbours in Normandy.

19: The Red Army prepares for "Operation Bagration," a huge offensive in Byelorussia (White Russia).

20: The British take Perugia, Italy.

20: Siege of Imphal is lifted after a three-month siege.

21: Allied offensive in Burma.

22: V-1's continue to hit England, especially London, sometimes with horrifying losses.

22: Operation Bagration: General attack by Soviet forces to clear the German forces from Belarus This results in the destruction of the German Army Group Centre, possibly the greatest defeat of the Wehrmacht during World War II.

22: Burma Campaign: The Battle of Kohima ends in a British victory.

25: The Battle of Tali-Ihantala between Finnish and Soviet troops begins. Largest battle ever to be fought in the Nordic countries.

26: Cherbourg is liberated by American troops.

July 1944

2: V-1's continue to have devastating effects in terms of material destruction and losses of life.

3: Minsk in Byelorussia is liberated by Soviet forces.

3: The Allies find themselves in the "battle of the hedgerows", as they are stymied by the agricultural hedges in Western France which intelligence had not properly evaluated.

3: Siena, Italy falls to Algerian troops of the French forces.

6: Largest Banzai charge of the war: 4,300 Japanese troops are slaughtered on Saipan.

7: Russian troops enter Vilna, Lithuania.

9: After heavy resistance Caen, France is liberated by the British troops on the left flank of the Allied advance.

9: Saipan is declared secure, the Japanese having lost over 30,000 troops; in the last stages numerous civilians commit suicide with the encouragement of Japanese military.

10: Japanese are still resisting on New Guinea.

10: Tokyo is bombed for the first time since the Doolittle raid of April, 1942.

11: President Roosevelt announces that he will run for an unprecedented fourth term.

13: The Russians take Vilna, Lithuania.

16: First troops of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) arrive in Italy

17: Field Marshal Rommel is badly wounded when ihs car is strafed from the air in France.

18: St. Lo, France is taken, and the Allied breakout from hedgerow country in Normandy begins.

18: General Hideki Tojo resigns as chief minister of the Japanese government as the defeats of the Japanese military forces continue to mount. Emperor Hirohito asks General Kuniaki Koiso to form a new government.

19: American forces take Leghorn (Livorno), Italy far up the Italian boot.

20: The July 20 Plot is carried out by Col. Claus von Stauffenberg in a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler. Hitler was visiting headquarters at Rastenburg, East Prussia. Reprisals follow against the plotters and their families, and even include Rommel.

21: US Marines land on Guam.

24: Majdanek Concentration Camp is liberated by Soviet forces, the first among many. The Russians are now in control of several large cities in Poland, including Lublin and Pskov.

24: US bombers mistakenly bomb American troops near St. Lo, France.

24: Marines land on Tinian Island, last of the Marianas (after Saipan and Guam); Tinian will eventually be a B-29 base, and the base from which the atomic bombers departed.

24: "Operation Cobra" is now in full flood-- the breakout at St. Lo in Normandy with American troops taking Coutances.

28: The Russians take Brest-Litovsk, the site of the Russo-German peace treaty in World War I.

August 1944

1: The Second Warsaw Uprising, this time by the Polish Home Army commences; the Polish people rise up, expecting aid from the approaching Russian armies. The tragic event will last 63 days.

1: The Russian army isolates the Baltic States from East Prussia by taking Kovno.

1: The Americans complete the capture the island of Tinian.

2: The battle for Guam, another island in the Marianas, however, continues.

3: Myitkyina in northern Burma, falls to the Allies (the Chinese and Americans under Stilwell), after a vigorous defence by the Japanese.

4: Florence is liberated by the Allies, particularly British and South African troops; before exiting, however, the Germans under General Kesselring destroy some historic bridges and historically valuable buildings.

4: The trials of the bomb conspirators against Hitler are underway in a court presided over by notorious Judge Roland Freisler.

4: Rennes is liberated by American forces.

8: Plotters in the bomb plot against Hitler are hanged, their bodies hung on meat hooks; reprisals against their families continue. Rommel is given a state funeral.

10: Guam is liberated by American troops and all of the Marianas are now in American hands. They will be turned into a major air and naval centre against the Japanese homeland.

11: The Warsaw Rising continues; the Russians remain on the west side of the Vistula, apparently unwilling to help their supposed allies against the occupying Germans.

14: The failure of the Allies to close the Falaise gap in France, proves advantageous to the Germans fleeing to the east who escape the pincer movement of the Allies.

15: The Allies reach the "Gothic Line", the last German strategic position in North Italy.

15: Operation Dragoon begins, marked by amphibious Allied landings in southern France.

16: The Russian armies make moves to close in on Warsaw.

18: The Russians reach the East Prussian border.

19: French Resistance begins uprising in Paris, partly inspired by the Allied approach to the Seine River.

20: The Russian army crosses the border into Rumania.

21: The Dumbarton Oaks Conference begins, setting up the basic structure of the United Nations.

22: The Japanese are now in total retreat from India.

23: Romania breaks with the Axis, surrenders to the Russians, and joins the Allies.

25: Paris is liberated; De Gaulle and Free French parade triumphantly down the Champs-Élysées. The German military disobeys Hitler's orders to burn the city. Meanwhile the southern Allied forces move up from the Riviera, take Grenoble and Avignon.

28: The Germans surrender at Toulon and Marseilles, in southern France.

28: Patton's tanks cross the Marne.

29: An anti-German rising starts in Czechoslovakia.

30: The Allies enter Rouen, in northwestern France.

31: The Soviet army enters Bucharest.

31: American forces turn over the government of France to Free French troops.

September 1944

1: Canadian troops capture Dieppe, France, scene of their humiliation in August, 1942.

2: Allied troops enter Belgium.

2: Finland agrees to an armistice with Russia and demands a withdrawal of German troops.

3: Brussels liberated by British Second Army while Lyon is liberated by French and American troops.

5: Antwerp is liberated by British 11th Armoured Division.

5: The uprising in Warsaw continues; Russian forces are available for relief and reinforcement, but are apparently unable to move without Stalin's order.

6: The "blackout" is diminished to a "dim-out) as threat of invasion and further bombing seems an unlikely possibility.

6: Ghent and Liège are liberated by British troops.

8: Ostend is liberated by Canadian troops.

8: Russians invade Bulgaria.

9: The first V-2 rocket lands on London.

9: De Gaulle forms provisional government in France, and Bulgaria makes peace with the USSR then declares war on Germany.

10: Luxembourg is liberated by U.S. First Army.

10: Two Allied forces meet at Dijon, cutting France in half.

10: First Allied troops enter Germany, entering Aachen, a city on the border.

13: American troops reach the Siegfried line, the West wall of Germany's defence system.

15: American marines on Peleliu in the Palau Islands; the bloody and for some a useless.

16: The Red Army enters Sofia, Bulgaria and also opens a huge offensive in the Baltic states.

17: Operation Market Garden, the attempted liberation of Arnhem and turning of the German flank begins.

18: Brest, France, an important Channel port, falls to the Allies.

19: Nancy liberated by U.S. First Army; Armistice is signed between the Soviet Union and Finland.

21: British forces take Rimini, Italy.

21: The Second Dumbarton Oaks Conference begins: it will set guidelines for the United Nations.

22: The Russians take Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.

22: The Germans surrender at Boulogne.

23: Americans take Ulithi atoll in the Carolina Islands; it is a massive atoll that will later become an important naval base.

24: The Russians are well into Poland at this time.

25: British troops pull out of Arnhem with failure of Operation Market Garden. Over 6,000 paratroopers are captured. Hopes of an early end to the war are abandoned.

26: There are signs of civil war in Greece as Communists and neo-Fascists seem irreconcilable.

30: German garrison in Calais surrenders to Canadian troops. At one time, Hitler thought it would be the focus of the cross-Channel invasion.

October 1944

1: Soviet troops enter Yugoslavia.

2: Germans finally succeed in putting down Warsaw Uprising by Polish Home Army. The Russian armies have never moved to assist their allies.

2: American troops are now in a full-scale attack on the German "West Wall."

2: Allied forces land on Crete.

4: German troops withdraw from Greece; Allied troops enter after a three-year absence.

5: Canadian troops cross the border into the Netherlands.

5: Russian armies enter Hungary; meanwhile they launch an offensive to capture Riga, Latvia.

6: Soviet and Czechoslovak troops enter northeastern Slovakia.

6: The Battle of Debrecen begins as German and Soviet forces advance against each other in eastern Hungary.

9: Allied Conference ("Tolstoy") in Moscow: Churchill and Stalin discuss spheres of influence in the postwar Balkans.

10: The Russians reach the Niemen River in Prussia and continue the battle around Riga.

10: The Allied combined forces take Corinth, in southern Greece.

12: US Navy carriers attack Formosa (Taiwan).

12: The Second Quebec Conference ("Octagon"). President Roosevelt and Churchill discuss military cooperation in the Pacific, and the division of Germany.

14: Athens is liberated by British troops entering the city.

14: Field Marshal Rommel, under suspicion as one of the "bomb plotters" voluntarily commits suicide to save his family.

15: Allied bombardment of Aachen continues, the first major battle on German soil.

16: The Germans depose Admiral Horthy, regent and dictator of Hungary; once a fervent ally of Germany, he had lost the trust of the German government.

16: The Red Army and Yugoslav partisans under the command of Josip Broz Tito liberate Belgrade. The Russian forces are also in East Prussia.

18: Hitler orders a call-up of all men from 16 to 60 for Home Guard duties.

21: Aachen is occupied by U.S. First Army; it is the first major German city to be captured.

23: The Allies recognise General de Gaulle as the head of a provisional government of France.

23: Battle of Leyte Gulf begins. Largest sea battle in history. Americans experience the first kamikaze attacks from Japanese aircraft; the USS Princeton is hit with grave damage.

23: The battle of San Bernardino Strait; the Japanese attempt to stop MacArthur's landing on Leyte. Small aircraft carriers save the day as Admira Halsey is lured north out of the action.

23: B-29's are now using Tinian Island, in the Marianas, as a base for the systematic bombing of Japan.

25: Romania is fully liberated by Russian and Romanian troops.

27: The battle of the Hurtgen Forest is developing, and will continue through October and November and have its last spasms in December

November 1944

1: Brtish forces take Salonika in northeast Greece. The situation for civilians in Athens is now desperate.

1: "Operation Infatuate": An Allied attempt to free the approaches to Antwerp; notably there are amphibious landings on Walcheren Island.

2: Canadian troops take Zeebrugge in Belgium; Belgium is now entirely liberated.

4: Remaining Axis forces in Greece surrender.

5: US planes bomb Singapore, under Japanese control since 1942.

5: Zionist terrorists assassinate the British government representative in the Middle East.

6: Franklin Delano Roosevelt wins a fourth term.

6: The aircraft carrier Lexington is heavily damaged by kamikazes.

9: General Patton's troops and tanks cross the Moselle River and threaten the city of Metz.

10: V-2 rockets continue to hit Britain, at the rate of about eight a day.

12: After numerous bombings while anchored in a fjord at Tromso, Norway, the German battleship Tirpitz is sunk.

17: The Germans give up Tirana, Albania, and the country is liberated by Allies.

20: Hitler leaves his wartime headquarters at Rastenberg, East Prussia, never to return; he goes to Berlin, where he will soon establish himself at the bunker.

23: Metz, France is taken, and Strasbourg, in eastern France, is liberated by French troops.

24:The first B-29 originating from Tinian, in the Marianas, raid Tokyo.

24: The USS Intrepid is hit by kamikazes for the third time; other American ships are heavily damaged.

25: Japanese take Nanning in south China, as the war in that theatre continues.

26: The war in Italy is at a stalemate, partly because of heavy rains.

28: Antwerp is now a major supply port for the onward moving Allies.

29: Russian troops enter Hungary.

30: Kunming, China, an important air base, is threatened by Japanese attacks.

December 1944

3: The beginnings of a civil war are now seen in Greece. There are large clashes in Athens in which a strong Communist organization plays an important role.

3: The British Home Guard is stood down.

5: The Allies are now in control of Ravenna, Italy.

8: The softening up bombardment of Iwo Jima begins.

15: Americans land troops at Mindoro, the Philippines.

15: The Battle of the Bulge begins as German forces attempt a breakthrough in the Ardennes region. The main object of Hitler's plan is the taking of Antwerp.

17: A typhoon hits the Third Fleet of Admiral Halsey; three destroyers capsize.

17: The Malmedy massacre: SS troops execute 86 American prisoners in the Ardennes offensive. The SS troops are led by SS commander Jochen Peiper.

18: Bastogne, an important crossroads, is surrounded.

20: General McAuliff's famous message of "Nuts" is sent to German officers at Bastogne demanding surrender.

22: The battle for Bastogne is at its height, with Americans running low on ammunition.

23: The skies clear over the Ardennes, permitting Allied aircraft to begin their attacks on the German offensive, the one factor that Hitler feared in his planning.

24: The American counter-attack at the "Bulge" begins.

26: The siege of Bastogne is broken, and with it the Ardennes offensive proves a failure.

28: Churchill and his Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden are in Athens in an attempt to reconcile the warring factions.

29: Soviets launch the Battle of Budapest against German and Hungarian forces in and around the Hungarian capital city.

31: Hungary, now led by a Russian-controlled government, declares war on Germany.

1945

January 1945

1: The Germans begin a surprise offensive Operation Nordwind along the Saar and aimed at retaking Strasbourg.

2: The Japanese increasingly use kamikaze tactics against the US naval forces nearby.

3: The Allies take the offensive east of the Bulge but they fail to close the pincers (which might have surrounded large numbers of Germans) with Patton's tanks.

4: US navy air attacks on Formosa (Taiwan)

5: The German offensive "North Wind" crosses the border into Alsace.

5: Japanese retreat across the Irrawaddy River in Burma with General Slim's troops in pursuit.

6: American B-29's bomb Tokyo again.

7: Germans, as part of the plan to retake Strasbourg, break out of the "Colmar pocket", a bridgehead on the Rhine, and head east.

8: The battle of Strasbourg is underway, with Americans in defence of their recent acquisition.

9: Americans land on Luzon, the central island of the Philippines; there are more kamikaze attacks on the American navy.

12: The first convoy moves on the Ledo (or "Stilwell") road in northern Burma, linking India and China.

12: A major Russian invasion of East Prussia begins.

14 British forces clear the Roer Triangle during Operation Blackcock; it is an area noted for its industrial dams.

15: Hitler is now firmly embedded in the bunker in Berlin with his companion Eva Braun.

16: United States First and Third link up following Battle of the Bulge; Soviet troops meanwhile liberate Budapest.

17: Warsaw liberated by Red Army troops. A government favourable to the Communists is installed.

17: It is announced officially that the The Battle of the Bulge is at an end.

17: Auschwitz concentration camp is liberated by Soviet troops.

18: Americans drive on Manila.

20: The Russians advance into East Prussia. Germans begin long retreat.

20: Franklin D. Roosevelt is sworn in as President (his fourth term); Harry Truman is sworn in as Vice President.

25: American navy bombards Iwo Jima in preparation for invasion..

28: The Russians complete the occupation of Lithuania.

31: Soviets cross the Oder River into Germany and are now less than 50 miles from Berlin.

31: A second invasion on Luzon by Americans, this time on the west coast.

31: The whole Burma Road is now opened as the Ledo Road linkage with India is complete.

February 1945

2: Ecuador declares war on Germany.

2: Naval docks at Singapore are destroyed by B-29 attacks.

3: U.S. forces enter Manila, Japanese forces in the city massacre 100,000 Filipinos civilians. A vicious urban battle ensues, to last for some weeks.

3: Heavy bombing of Berlin.

4: Yalta Conference ("Argonaut" of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin begins; the main subject of their discussions is postwar spheres of influence.

4: Belgium is now cleared of all German forces.

8: Paraguay declares war on Germany.

9: The "Colmar pocket", the last German foothold west of the Rhine, is eliminated.

12: Peru declares war on Germany.

13: The Battle of Budapest ends with Soviet victory, after a long defence by the Germans.

13/14: The controversial bombing of Dresden; it is firebombed by Allied air forces and large parts of the historic city are destroyed. Allies claim it is important strategically.

14: Bombing of Prague; later called a mistake on the order of the bombing of Dresden.

16: American naval vessels bombard Tokyo and Yokohama.

16: American paratroopers land on Corregidor Island, in Manila Bay. Once the scene of the last American resistance in early 1942, it is now the scene of Japanese resistance.

19: U.S. Marines invade Iwo Jima.

21: Vicious fighting in and around Manila.

23: U.S. Marines raise the American flag on Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima.

24: Egypt declares war on Axis.

24: Massive bombing of Germany by approximately 9,000 bombers.

25: US incendiary raids on Japan.

25: Turkey declares war on Germany.

25: After ten days of fighting, American troops recapture Corregidor.

26: Syria declares war on Germany and Japan.

28: The Sixth United States Army captures Manila, capital of the Philippines after an unyielding Japanese defence force.A Philippine government is established.

28: Americans increase their presence in the Philippines by invading Palawan, a western island in the group.

March 1945

3: Battle of Meiktila, Burma comes to an end with General Slim's troops overwhelming the Japanese; the road to Rangoon is now cleared.

4: Finland declares war on Germany, backdated to Sept. 15, 1944.

6: Germans launch an offensive against Soviet forces in Hungary.

7: When German troops fail to dynamite the Remagen Bridge over the Rhine, Americans begin crossing the Rhine into Germany.

7: Germans begin to evacuate Danzig.

9: The US firebombs a number of cities in Japan, including Tokyo, with heavy civilian casualties.

9: Amid rumors of a possible American invasion, Japanese overthrow the Vichy French Decoux Government which had been operating independently as the colonial government of Vietnam: they proclaim an "independent" Empire of Việt Nam, with Emperor Bảo Đại as nominal ruler. Premier Trần Trọng Kim forms the first Vietnamese government.

11: Nagoya, Japan is firebombed by hundreds of B-29's

15: V-2 rockets continue to hit England and Belgium

16: The German offensive in Hungary ends with another Soviet victory.

16: Iwo Jima is finally secured after a month's fighting; for the only time, the only battle, in the war the number of American casualties is larger than those of the Japanese. Sporadic fighting will continue as isolated Japanese fighters emerge from caves and tunnels.

18: Russians approach Danzig (postwar Gdansk).

19: Heavy bombing of important naval bases in Japan, Kobe and Kure.

20: German General Gotthard Heinrici replaces Heinrich Himmler as commander of Army Group Vistula, the army group directly opposing the Soviet advance towards Berlin.

20: Mandalay liberated by Indian 19th Infantry Division.

20: Tokyo is firebombed again.

20: Patton's troops capture Mainz, Germany

20: Mandalay, in central Burma, is now firmly under British and Indian control.

22-23: US and British forces cross the Rhine at Oppenheim.

23: By this time it is clear that Germany is under attack from all sides.

24: Montgomery's troops cross the Rhine at Wesel.

27: The western allies slow their advance and allow the Russians to take Berlin.

28: Argentina declares war on Germany, the last Western hemisphere country to do so; its policies for sheltering escaping Nazis are also coming under scrutiny.

29: The Red Army enters Austria. Other Allies take Frankfurt; the Germans are in a general retreat all over the centre of the country.

30: Russian forces capture Danzig.

31: General Eisenhower broadcasts a demand for the Germans to surrender.

April 1945

1: U.S. troops invade Okinawa. It will be a leaping off base for a mainland invasion.

1: Americans retake Legaspi in the eastern Philippines, one of the original Japanese landing sites in December,1941,

2: Soviets launch Vienna Offensive against German forces in and around the Austrian capital city. They meanwhile cross the border into Rumania

2: German armies are surrounded in the Ruhr region.

5: American forces drive toward the Po Valley in northern Italy.

4: Ohrdruf death camp is liberated by the Allies.

7: The Japanese battleship Yamato is sunk in the East China Sea.

9: Battle of Königsberg ends in Soviet victory.

9: A heavy bombing at Kiel by the RAF destroys the last two major German warships.

10: Buchenwald concentration camp liberated by American forces.

11: Japanese kamikaze attacks on American naval ships continue at Okinawa; the carrier Enterprise and the battleship Missouri are hit heavily.

12: President Roosevelt dies suddenly. Harry Truman becomes president of the United States.

13: Vienna Offensive ends with Soviet victory.

14: Monster firebombing of Tokyo.

15: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated bt the British Army.

16: The Battle of the Seelow Heights and the Battle of the Oder-Neisse begin as the Soviets continue to advance towards the city of Berlin.

18: Ernie Pyle, famed war correspondent for the GI's, is kiled by a sniper on Ie Shima, a small island near Okinawa.

19: Allies continue their sweep toward the Po valley.

19: The Soviet advance towards the city of Berlin continues and soon reach the suburbs.

20: Hitler celebrates his 56th birthday in the bunker in Berlin; reports are that he is in an unhealthy state, nervous, and depressed.

21: Soviet forces under Georgiy Zhukov (1st Belorussian Front), Konstantin Rokossovskiy (2nd Belorussian Front), and Ivan Konev (1st Ukrainian Front) launch assaults on the German forces in and around the city of Berlin as the opening stages of the Battle of Berlin.

21: Hitler ordered SS-General Felix Steiner to attack the 1st Belorussian Front and destroy it. The ragtag units of "Army Detachment Steiner" are not fully manned.

22: Hitler is informed late in the day that, with the approval of Gotthard Heinrici, Steiner's attack was never launched. Instead, Steiner's forces were authorised to retreat.

22: In response to the news concerning Steiner, Hitler launches a furious tirade against the perceived treachery and incompetence of his military commanders in front of Wilhelm Keitel, Hans Krebs, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Burgdorf, and Martin Bormann. Hitler's tirade culminates in an oath to stay in Berlin to head up the defence of the city,

22: Hitler ordered German General Walther Wenck to attack towards Berlin with his Twelfth Army, link up with the Ninth Army of General Theodor Busse, and relieve the city. Wenck launched an attack, but it came to nothing.

24: Meanwhile, Himmler, ignoring the orders of Hitler, makes a secret surrender offer to the Allies, (led by Count Bernadotte, head of the Red Cross)provided that the Russians are not involved. The offer is rejected; when Hitler hears of Himmler's betrayal, he orders him shot.

24: Forces of the 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front link up in the initial encirclement of Berlin.

24: Allies encircle last German armies near Bologna, and the Italian war in effect comes to an end.

25: Elbe Day: First contact between Soviet and American troops at the river Elbe, near Torgau in Germany.

26: Hitler summons Field Marshall Robert Ritter von Greim from Munich to Berlin to take over command of the Luftwaffe from Hermann Goering. While flying into Berlin von Greim is seriously wounded by Soviet anti-aircraft fire.

27: The encirclement of German forces in Berlin is completed by the 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front.

28: Head of State for the Italian Social Republic, Benito Mussolini, heavily disguised, is captured in northern Italy while trying to escape. Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci, are shot and hanged in Milan the next day. Other members of his puppet government are also executed by Italian partisans and their bodies put on display in Milan.

29: Dachau concentration camp is liberated by the U.S. 7th Army. All forces in Italy officially surrender and a ceasefire is declared.

29: Hitler marries his companion Eva Braun.

30: Hitler and his wife commit suicide, he by a combination of poison and a gunshot. Before he dies Adolf Hitler dictates his last will and testament. In it Joseph Goebbels is appointed Reich Chancellor and Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz is appointed Reich President.

30: While Donitz ascends to his high office, Goebbels and his wife kill their four children and then take poison in the bunker.

May 1945

1: As one of his last acts Reich Chancellor Joseph Goebbels has sent German General Hans Krebs to negotiate the surrender of the city of Berlin with Soviet General Vasily Chuikov. Chuikov, as commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army, (and one time leader of the defence at Stalingrad) commands the Soviet forces in central Berlin. Krebs is not authorized by Goebbels to agree to an unconditional surrender, so his negotiations with Chuikov end with no agreement.

1: Partisan leader Tito and his troops capture Trieste in northwest Italy. New Zealand troops play a supporting role.

1: The war in Italy is over but some German troops are still not accounted for.

2: The Battle of Berlin end when German General Helmuth Weidling, commander of the Berlin Defence Area, unconditionally surrenders the city of Berlin to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov.

3: The German cruiser Hipper is scuttled, having been hit heavily by the RAF in April.

3: Eamon de Valera, Prime Minister of Ireland, offers regrets for Hitler's death to German officialdom.

3: Rangoon is liberated.

4: Neuengamme concentration camp is liberated.

4: Bratislava, the capital of the Slovak Republic, is over-run by advancing Soviet forces. The remaining members of Prime Minister Jozef Tiso's pro-German government fled to Austria.

4: German troops are surrendering throughout Europe, notably to Montgomery in the North.

5: Czech resistance fighters started Prague uprising.

5: Soviets started Prague Offensive.

5: Mauthausen concentration camp is liberated.

5: German troops in the Netherlands officially surrender; Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands accepts the surrender.

5: Denmark liberated by Allied troops.

5: Formal negotiations for Germany's surrender begin at Reims, France.

5: Kamikazes have major successes off Okinawa.

6: This date marks the last fighting for American troops in Europe.

6: German soldiers open fire on crowd celebrating the liberation in Amsterdam.

7: Germany surrenders unconditionally to the Allies in Rheims, France at 1:41 a.m. In accordance with orders from Reich President Karl Dönitz, General Alfred Jodl signs for Germany. The plans are for a more all-inclusive surrender soon in Berlin.

7: Hermann Goering, for awhile in the hands of the SS, surrenders to the Americans.

8: Ceasefire takes effect at one minute past midnight; V-E Day in Britain.

8: The remaining members of the Prime Minister Jozef Tiso's pro-German Slovak Republic capitulates to the American General Walton Walker's XX Corps in Kremsmünster, Austria.

8: Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies in Berlin, Germany. In accordance with orders from Reich President Karl Dönitz, General Wilhelm Keitel signs for Germany.

8: In accordance with orders from Reich President Karl Dönitz, Colonel-General Carl Hilpert unconditionally surrenders his troops in the Courland Pocket.

8: Prague uprising ends with negotiated surrender with Czech resistance which allowed the Germans in Prague to leave the city.

8: Việt Nam is considered a minor item on the agenda; in order to disarm the Japanese in Việt Nam, the Allies divide the country in half at the 16th parallel. Chinese Nationalists will move in and disarm the Japanese north of the parallel while the British will move in and do the same in the south. During the conference, representatives from France request the return of all French pre-war colonies in Southeast Asia (Indochina). Their request is granted. Việt Nam will once again become French colony following the removal of the Japanese.

9: Red Army entered Prague as part of the Prague Offensive.

9: German garrison in Channel Islands agreed to unconditional surrender.

11: Prague Offensive ends with Soviet capture of the capital city, the last major city to be liberated, though the war is over. Eisenhower stops Patton from participating in the liberation.

11: German Army Group Centre in Czechoslovakia surrenders.

11: War in New Guinea continues, with Australians attacking Wewak.

14: Nagoya, Japan is heavily bombed.

15: Fighting in the southern Philippines continues.

18: Continued fierce fighting on Okinawa.

16: British troops complete liberation of Channel Islands.

20: Georgian Uprising of Texel ends, concluding hostilities in Europe.

23: British forces capture and arrest the members of what was left of the Flensburg government. This was the German government formed by Reich President Karl Dönitz after the suicides of both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels.

23: Heavy bombing of Yokohama, an important port and naval base.

23: Heinrich Himmler, head of the notorious SS, dies of suicide by cyanide pill.

29: Fighting breaks out in Syria and Lebanon, as nationalists demand freedom from French control.

June 1945

5: A huge Pacific typhoon hits the American navy under Admiral Halsey; the fleet suffers widespread damage.

6: Allies agree to divide Germany into four areas of control.

10: Australian troops land at Brunei, Borneo.

15: Osaka, Japan is bombed heavily.

16: The Japanese are in a general retreat in central china.

19: the United Kingdom begins demobilisation.

20: Schiermonnikoog, a Dutch island, is the last part of Europe freed by Allied troops.

21: The defeat of the Japanese on Okinawa is now complete.

26: The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco.

July 1945

4: General MacArthur announces that the Philippines have been liberated.

6: Norway declares war on Japan.

10: US Navy aircraft participate in attacks on Tokyo for the first time.

14: Italy declares war on Japan.

16: U.S. conducts the Trinity test at Alamagordo, New Mexico, the first test of a nuclear weapon.

17: The Potsdam Conference begins. The Allied leaders agree to insist upon the unconditional surrender of Japan.

24: Truman hints at the Potsdam Conference that the United States has nuclear weapons.

26: The Labour Party win the United Kingdom general election by a landslide. The new United Kingdom Prime Minister Clement Atlee replaces Churchill at the negotiating table at Potsdam.

28: The Japanese battleship Haruna is sunk by aircraft from US Task Force 38.

30: The USS Indianapolis is sunk shortly after midnight by a Japanese submarine after having delivered atomic bomb material to Tinian; because of poor communications, the ship's whereabouts are unknown for awhile and many of its men drown or are attacked by sharks in the next day or two.

31: US air attacks on the cities of Kobe and Nagoya in Japan.

August 1945

2: End of the Potsdam Conference: left unsolved is the status of a divided Germany and the birth of a new atomic age.

6: The first nuclear weapon ever used in war, "Little Boy", is dropped on Hiroshima by the B-29 Enola Gay.

8: Soviet Union declares war on Japan; the invasion of Manchuria begins about an hour later. Soviets also invade the Kurile Islands.

9: A second atomic bomb, "Fat Man", is dropped on Nagasaki by Bocks Car.

9: Soviet troops enter China and Korea.

14: An attempted coup by Japanese military and right-wingers to overthrow the government and prevent the inevitable surrender.

15: Emperor Hirohito issues a radio broadcast announcing Japan's surrender; though the surrender seems to be "unconditional," the Emperor's status is still open for discussion.

15: World-wide celebration of VJ Day.

16: Emperor Hirohito issues an Imperial Rescript ordering Japanese forces to cease fire.

19: At a spontaneous non-communist meeting in Hà Nội, Hồ Chí Minh and the Việt Minh assumed a leading role in the movement to wrest power from the French.

19: Hostilities between Chinese Nationalists and Chinese Communists break into the open.

22: Japanese armies surrender to the Russians in Manchuria.

27: Japanese armies in Burma surrender at Rangoon ceremonies.

30: Royal Navy force under Rear-Admiral Cecil Harcourt liberates Hong Kong.

31: General MacArthur takes over command of the Japanese government in Tokyo.

September 1945

2: Japan signs the articles of surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

2: In Việt Nam, Chinese Nationalists accept surrender of Japanese Occupation Forces north of the 16th parallel. The British are to accept surrender south of the line under British Major General Douglas Gracey's 20th Indian Division, some 26,000 men in all. British General Gracey arrives in Saigon (South Việt Nam) which is in turmoil.

5: Singapore is officially liberated by British and Indian troops.

16: Japanese garrison in Hong Kong officially signs the instrument of surrender.

22: The British release 1,400 French Paratroops from Japanese camps around Saigon.

October 1945

1: In the South of Việt Nam, a purely bilateral British/French agreement recognizes French administration of the southern zone. In the North, 180,000 Chinese troops go on a "rampage". Hồ's Việt Minh are hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with it. Hồ Chí Minh accepts an Allied compromise for temporary return of 15,000 French troops to rid the North of anti-Communists. The Chinese troops of Chiang flee to Taiwan, looting as they depart. As World War II ends, starvation kills over 3 million Vietnamese.

December 1945

31: The British Home Guard is disbanded.

See also

• Timeline of events preceding World War II
• Timeline of the WWII Eastern Front
• Timeline of the Manhattan Project

External links

• Timeline of WWII
• Documents of World War II
• World War II Timeline

• Articles lacking sources from October 2007
• Timelines of military conflicts
• World War II