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04/01/1942 Allied forces in Burma begin an agonizing, month-long retreat after the Japanese outflank their defense line 150 miles north of Rangoon.
The U. S. Navy organizes its first counter-measure against German U-boats that have been devastating allied shipping along the East Coast. The Navy will escort convoys during the day and anchor them in protected harbors at night. British anti-submarine trawlers will help protect the convoys.
In the Mediterranean, a British sub sinks the Italian cruiser Bande Nere. Axis planes destroy two British subs near Malta.
The American sub Seawolf severely damages the Japanese cruiser Naka near recently invaded Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. The Seawolf's success causes the Japanese to withdraw from Christmas two days later.
In Europe, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Spain agree to send military forces to help the Germans in the Soviet Union.
04/02/1942 The carrier Hornet sails from San Francisco with 16 Army medium bombers on its flight deck. The Army squadron, commanded by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, soon will carry out one of the most dramatic bombing raids of the war.
In the Philippines, Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright's U. S.-Filipino army on Bataan counterattacks, recovering several positions lost to Japanese probing attacks.
In Burma, British Empire and Chinese units withdraw up the valleys of the Irawaddy and Sittang rivers toward Mandalay. British Gen. Harold Alexander is considering abandoning the entire country.
Support for a second front in Western Europe is gathering steam. President Roosevelt tells Prime Minister Churchill that the allies should invade France or Belgium as soon as possible. An invasion plan drawn up by Maj. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower soon will be presented to Churchill. Churchill favors waiting until 1943 or 1944.
04/03/1942 A powerful artillery bombardment opens the long expected Japanese offensive against the U. S.-Filipino army on Bataan.
The Japanese have only 28,000 men, but they are fresh troops supported by heavy guns, tanks and scores of bombers based at nearby Clark airfield. On paper, Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright has more than 80,000 troops, but four months of starvation rations and disease have reduced them to shambling scarecrows.
The assault comes at the height of the dry season. Artillery fire ignites the jungles and sugar cane fields. suffocating and incinerating many of the defenders. The Japanese advance nearly a mile, halt and reorganize for another attack the next day.
Japanese bombers savage Mandalay, killing 2,000 people and destroying most of the fabled city of pagodas on the Irrawaddy River. A squadron of U. S. B-17s attacks Rangoon.
04/04/1942 The Japanese renew their attack on Bataan, wearing down Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright's sick, hungry and dispirited defenders. By nightfall, the Japanese are only seven miles from Bataan's southern tip.
Near Ceylon, a British Catalina flying boat spots Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo's fleet. Planes from his five carriers fail to find the British Far Eastern Fleet, which has withdrawn to the Maldive Islands, 600 miles south of Ceylon.
In the Mediterranean, RAF bombers hit Benghazi and Derna in Libya to ease the pressure on Malta.
The U. S. recognizes Free French control over two French colonies in Africa: Cameroon and French Equatorial Africa. It's a significant accession of power for Free French leader Charles de Gaulle.
04/05/1942 The Japanese 14th Army takes Mount Samat; the linchpin of the U. S.-Filipino defense line on Bataan. From his headquarters on Corregidor, Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright orders a counterattack, but the exhausted defenders on the peninsula lack the physical strength to drive back the Japanese.
Led by Lt. Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida, who directed the air attack on Pearl Harbor, 1230 Japanese planes from five carriers raid the British naval base at Colombo, Ceylon. But the forewarned British Far Eastern Fleet has left, and the Japanese sink or damage only four ships and destroy 27 planes. Later in the day, however, Japanese divebombers sink the cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire near Ceylon.
In Europe, Hitler issues his plan for the German summer offensive in the Soviet Union. The main objective will be the oilfields in southern Russia. Other attacks will be launched in the Crimea and on Stalingrad and Leningrad.
In Scotland, the American carrier Wasp and the Battleship Washington reinforce the British Home Fleet at Scapa Flow.
04/06/1942 Bataan's defenses crumble. Tens of thousands of exhausted U. S. and Filipino troops trudge toward Mariveles, a tiny port at the tip of the peninsula. Small boats will evacuate 2,000 to Corregidor, the island fortress guarding the entrance to Manila Bay.
In the Bay of Bengal, a Japanese task force accompanied by a small carrier bombards the cities of Vizagapatnam and Cocanada on India's east coast and sinks 23 Allied ships during a six-day rampage.
Japanese Prime Minister Tojo urges Indians to rebel against the British or suffer "great calamities" when India is overrun.
In the Southwest Pacific, the Japanese establish footholds on Bougainville in the northern Solomons and Manus in the Bismarck Archipelago. Both landings increase the threat to Australia.
Elements of the U. S. Army's 41st infantry, a National Guard outfit from the Pacific Northwest, arrive in Melbourne, Australia, becoming the first rifle-toting Yanks to disembark Down Under.
04/07/1942 The U. S.-Filipino army on Bataan disintegrates. The Japanese 14th Army is only a few miles from the tip of the peninsula and final victory.
Nurses and key personnel are evacuated to nearby Corregidor where Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright commands a 15,000-member garrison. The sub Seadragon evacuates several dozen pilots from the island fortress.
In Burma, the British Empire Army and Chinese forces have retreated into the harsh, dry valleys of central Burma where they will establish a line to protect Mandalay and Yenanguaung oil fields.
Navy Secretary Frank Knox announces the Navy will accept black volunteers and allow them to fight alongside whites. Until Knox's order, blacks in the navy were officers' servants.
04/08/1942 With Japanese artillery pounding his headquarters, Bataan's commander, Maj. Gen. Edward King, radios a last message: "We have no further means of organized resistance."
The revived Flying Tigers shoot down four Japanese planes over China, including one flown by Capt. Katsumi Anma, one of Japan's top aces.
An Army Air Corps cargo plane makes the first flight over "The Hump," the 22,000-foot-high Himalayan mountain range that separates India and China. During the next four years, more than 650,000 tons of supplies will be flown over the Hump to Kunming, China. More than 450 planes will crash during the airlift, giving the route over the mountains the nickname "The Aluminum Trail."
04/09/1942 On Bataan 76,000 Americans and Filipinos surrender to the Japanese. It is the worst defeat in the history of the U. S. Army.
Japanese bombers and big guns immediately begin pounding Corregidor, the island fortress where a 15,000-man garrison commanded by Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright is holed up.
The U. S. and Filipino soldiers are rounded up and ordered to march 65 miles to a rail depot, where they will be hauled to a prison camp. Thousands will die during the "Bataan Death March."
Japanese planes wipe out a five-ship British task force that includes the carrier Hermes and destroyer Vampire. They also damage shore facilities at Trincomalee, a British naval base on Ceylon.
In Europe, the people of Norway conduct a one-day "silence strike" on the second anniversary of the German invasion. No Norwegian speaks to a German or Norwegian collaborator.
04/10/1942 The 76,000 sick and starving U. S. and Filipino prisoners on Batan begin a ghastly march and railroad journey to prison camp in central Luzon.
Along the way, 7,000 are shot, bayoneted, beaten to death, run over by trucks or buried alive. Japanese guards shoot civilians trying to give food and water to the prisoners.
Another 18,000 will die in prison camps during the next two months; additional thousands will succumb before the end of the war. Americans won't learn about the terrible Bataan Death March until three POWs escape in mid-1943.
Unable to defeat the Japanese task force raiding Ceylon and India, the British Far Eastern Fleet retreats to bases in Bombay and East Africa. But the Japanese are ending their Indian Ocean foray and heading back into the Pacific.
04/11/1942 The worst incident of the Bataan Death March occurs when the Japanese bayonet and behead 350-400 Officers and non-commissioned officers of the Filipino 91st division.
Japanese troops are swiftly overrunning Cebu, one of the central Philippines' most important islands. The 4,500-member U. S.-Filipino Garrison retreats to the interior and prepares to wage guerrilla war.
In Europe, the Royal Air Force's night bombing offensive hammers Germany's industrial Ruhr Basin and blasts targets in LeHavre, France.
04/12/1942 The Japanese intensify their aerial and artillery bombardment of Corregidor, the last heavily defended allied outpost in the Far East.
Indian leaders headed by Jawaharhal Nehru announce they will not support the British war effort, but if the Japanese invade India they will vigorously oppose the aggression.
In Burma, the Japanese 15th Army has conquered nearly half of the British colony and is rushing toward the Burma-India border. The Japanese are very close to capturing the Yenangyaung oil fields.
The Army Air Corps announces plans to send the 8th Air Force to Britain to support the Royal Air Force bombing campaign against Germany.
04/13/1942 The Japanese conquest of Cebu in the Central Philippines is virtually complete, but some U. S. and Filipino units have holed up in the island's mountainous interior to wage guerrilla warfare.
In Burma, the Japanese punch a hole in the British Empire army's defense line 250 miles north of Rangoon; Gen. Harold Alexander orders his troops to fall back.
Two U. S. task forces with carriers Hornet and Enterprise rendezvous northwest of Hawaii and head toward Japan. Hornet's flight deck is crowded with 16 Army Twin-engine bombers commanded by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, one of the country's most famous test pilots.
The British Royal Air Force turns its wrath on Italy when its night raiders cross the Alps and blast Genoa and Turin. RAF planes also hit industrial targets in Germany's Ruhr and Rhineland.
04/14/1942 A huge pall of smoke blackens the sky over central Burma as the retreating Allied army sets fire to the Yenangyaung oil fields and storage facilities. The pursuing Japanese 15th Army is closing in on the oil complex and a nearby Royal Air Force airfield.
In eastern Burma, the Japanese are encircling a Chinese unit that's trying to defend Lashio, the eastern terminus of the Burma Road, the Himalayan highway that carries most of China's war supplies.
The destroyer Roper becomes the first U. S. warship to sink a German sub when it successfully depth-charges U-85 a few miles off Nags Head, N. C. There are no survivors. But the Kriegsmarine scores a success in the arctic when its U-boats sink three U. S. ships transporting supplies to northern Russia.
04/15/1942 In Burma, the Japanese offensive bypasses the remnants of the 1st Burmese division near the Yenangyaung oil fields; British commander Harold Alexander orders his forces to halt their retreat and rescue their comrades.
The People of Malta are awarded Britain's highest decoration for civilian heroism, the George Cross.
During the past 22 months Malta has suffered more than 1,500 air raids. The Maltese are living in caves and subsisting on starvation rations.
A Soviet surprise attack in the Ukraine cracks the German defenses near Bryansk, 200 miles southwest of Moscow.
The U. S. Army Air Corps' 8th Bomber Command establishes its headquarters in Britain. Together, the RAF and the "Mighty 8th" will conduct round-the-clock raids on Germany, the RAF by night and the Eighth by day.
In Washington, a House committee reports that the fire that destroyed the French liner Normandie two months earlier was caused by "gross carelessness," not sabotage.
04/16/1942 U. S. codebreakers determine that the next major Japanese offensive will begin May 1 in the Southwest Pacific.
They pinpoint Port Moresby in southern New Guinea and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands as the initial targets. Japanese control of the two areas would intensify the threat to Australia. Pacific fleet commander Adm. Chester Nimitz and Gen. Douglas MacArthur decide the Japanese must be stopped.
Another large island in the Philippines falls when 4,000 Japanese troops land on Panay. Once again, U. S. and Filipino defenders retreat to the island's interior to wage guerrilla warfare.
Domestically President Roosevelt nominates Claire Chenault, the leader of the Flying Tigers, to be a brigadier general in the Army Air Corps.
The House of Representative approves legislation establishing the WAVES, women who will serve in the Navy. The Office of Price Administration restricts Americans to a half-pound of sugar per week.
04/17/1942 In Burma, Chinese and Indian units are rushed to Yenangyaung to rescue the encircled 1st Burmese division. A bitter battle erupts and halts the advance of the Japanese 15th Army. In eastern Burma, the Japanese smash through other Chinese forces and push toward Mandalay.
Domestically, War Production Board Chairman Donald Nelson assures Americans that the combined industrial might of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union far outstrips the industrial capacity of Germany, Italy and Japan.
The revitalized Royal Air Force flexes its muscles with its biggest daylight attack of the war. More than 600 bombers and fighters hit dozens of targets in northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The Germans now have only two fighter groups in western Europe and have lost air superiority.
The first issue of Stars and Stripes, the weekly newspaper of the U. S. Army in Europe, goes to press in London. It will become the most famous servicemen's newspaper in history.
In Warsaw ghetto in Poland, the Nazis murder 50 Jewish social workers.
04/18/1942 Sixteen U. S. Army B-25 Mitchell bombers led by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle raid Tokyo, Kobe, Nagoya, Yokohama and Yokusuka and give American morale a tremendous boost.
The raiders take off from the carrier Hornet after a Japanese picket boat discovers Vice Adm. William Halsey's task force 800 miles east of Tokyo. That forces Doolittle's squadron to get airborne earlier than scheduled and eliminates their chances of flying to airfields in unoccupied China. The raid causes little damage, but one B-25 plants a bomb on the Japanese carrier Ryujo in Yokohama harbor.
Thirteen of the B-25s crash land or are abandoned by their crews over free China. Two crews are captured by the Japanese after their planes crash in occupied China. One crew is interned after landing near Vladivostok in the Soviet Far East. The Japanese will execute three of Doolittle's men in October 1942.
The raid angers the Japanese, and Fleet Commander Isoroku Yamamoto accelerates plans for a naval showdown near Midway in the central Pacific.
The U. S. Navy orders a blackout of waterfront lights along the eastern seaboard, where German U-boats have been using the illumination to silhouette their targets.
In eastern Burma, a Chinese division collapses and opens the way for a Japanese drive toward Lashio, the eastern terminus of the Burma Road.
04/19/1942 The Allies win a pyrrhic victory in Burma. They rescue the encircled 1st Burmese division near Yenangyaung, but lose all of their tanks and much of their artillery and motorized transport. They have very little left to defend Mandalay, Lashio and the Burma Road and northern Burma.
In the central Philippines, the Japanese have completed their conquest of Cebu and encounter little organized opposition on nearby islands.
Allied resistance firms in the Southwest Pacific, where Gen. Douglas MacArthur is confirmed as supreme theater commander by the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the Netherlands.
In the Caribbean, a German U-boat uses its deck gun to bombard Royal Dutch Shell refineries at Ballen Bay on the island of Curacao in the Dutch West Indies.
Domestically, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau asks Americans to spend 10 percent of their income on war savings bonds.
04/20/1942 In the Philippines, Japanese heavy artillery, including 9.5-inch mortars, on Bataan smashes U. S. positions on Corregidor, two miles away. The Japanese conquest of the central Philippines is nearly complete, Cebu and Panay are conquered. Small U. S. and Filipino garrisons have fled into the hills of Leyte, Samar, Negros and Bohol.
An attempt to bolster Malta's air defenses by the Royal Air Force and the U. S. carrier Wasp is cut to ribbons by the German Luftwaffe.
Escorted by a protecting task force, the Wasp brings 46 RAF Spitfires to within flying distance of Malta and launches them. But German intelligence has monitored Wasp's approach and Axis fighters intercept the nearly out-of-gas Spitfires as they land on Malta's airfields. Thirty of the 46 Spitfires are shot down or destroyed moments after touching down.
04/21/1942 Domestically, the federal government decides to build the "Big Inch" oil pipeline from Texas to New York so Allied tankers won't have to run the German submarine gauntlet along the East Coast.
Malta is nearly defenseless and ripe for invasion. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is eager to take Malta and strongly urges an assault led by German parachute units. Hitler is hesitant, recalling the heavy losses his paratroopers suffered in 1941 when they drove the British from Crete.
In Russia, the three-month battle to relieve 100,000 Germans trapped in the Demyansk pocket northwest of Moscow ends with the surrounded Germans breaking through the Russian lines.
In Germany, the former commander of the French Army, Gen. Henri Giraud, makes a dramatic escape from a German prison camp. He reaches Switzerland and eventually makes his way to unoccupied France.
04/22/1942 In Burma, the Japanese 15th Army pursues British Empire forces to within 150 miles of Mandalay. In eastern Burma, a Japanese armored column has bypassed the defenses of Lt. Gen. Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell's Chinese army and is rushing toward Lashio, the eastern terminus of the Burma Road.
The Office of Price Administration announces that motorist in 17 eastern states will be allowed to purchase no more than 21.4 gallons of gasoline per week beginning May 15.
The British win a small victory with a commando raid on Boulogne, a French port on the English Channel. The commandos suffer few casualties during a two-hour action.
04/23/1942 Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto and U. S. Pacific Fleet commander Chester Nimitz both believe they have made strategic mistakes as they head toward showdowns near Australia and Midway.
Yamamoto has allocated two of his large carriers to operations north of Australia. He realizes the absence of the ships will seriously weaken his fleet when he attacks Midway in early June.
Nimitz knows he erred when he ordered two carriers to conduct the Jimmy Doolittle raid on Tokyo. As a result, the Enterprise and Hornet won't be able to reach the area north of Australia when the Japanese launch offensives against New Guinea and the Solomons. Instead of four carriers to attack the Japanese, the U. S. Navy will have two.
In Burma, a Japanese tank offensive panics part of U. S. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell's Chinese army. Cut off from their British allies, several divisions flee homeward.
In Europe, the Germans bomb the famed cathedral city of Exeter in reprisal for massive damage the RAF inflicted on Lubeck the previous month.
04/24/1942 During a secret meeting in San Francisco, U. S. Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King and Pacific Fleet commander Chester Nimitz set the basic strategy for opposing Japan's upcoming double offensive near Australia and Midway Island.
A task force including the carriers Lexington and Yorktown will attack Japanese forces trying to capture Port Moresby in New Guinea and Tulagi in the southern Solomon Islands. After defeating those Japanese thrusts, the Lexington and Yorktown will reinforce the fleet defending Midway.
In Burma, the Japanese are only 100 miles from bombed out Mandalay and an armored force is closing in on Lashio, the western end of the Burma Road, China's only overland supply line.
Domestically, the Office of Price Administration freezes food prices and rents in 301 communities near defense plants and military bases.
04/25/1942 The battle for Burma is nearly over. British generals Harold Alexander and William Slim meet with U. S. Lt. Gen. Joseph Stilwell near Mandalay and decide there's nothing left in Burma to fight for.
Rangoon and the Burmese oil fields have fallen, Mandalay has been destroyed by Japanese bombers, and Lashio, the eastern terminal of the Burma Road will soon be captured by the Japanese.
Alexander decides to retreat to India and recommends that Stilwell lead his army back to China.
More U. S. troops land on New Caledonia and become part of the Americal division. The Americal will help make New Caledonia a jump-off point for counteroffensives against Japanese forces in the Southwest Pacific.
04/26/1942 In the Philippines, 4,800 Japanese troops are transferred from Cebu to Mindinao, the only southern Philippine island where U. S. and Filipino forces still are resisting.
The German and Italian bombing of Malta is so intense that the British withdraw their remaining warships and submarines.
Particularly discouraging is the recent loss of the British submarine Upholder and its brilliant captain, Lt. Cmdr. Malcom Wanklyn, winner of the Victoria Cross. During 25 patrols, Wanklyn has sunk and damaged more than 20 German and Italian ships, including three large troop transports, a cruiser, a destroyer and two U-boats. His submarine is lost with all hands.
Malta is considered "Neutralized" by German Field Marshall Albert Kesselring, commander of the air fleet pounding the fortress island. He claims Malta no longer offers any worthwhile targets.
04/27/1942 A Japanese version of the German blitzkrieg -- a fast-moving sweep by tank columns -- is closing in on Lashio in eastern Burma.
In a bold gamble, a Japanese armored force bypasses Lt. Gen. Joseph Stilwell's Chinese army and is using captured fuel dumps to keep rolling. Its spearhead is only 65 miles from Lashio, the western terminus of the Burma Road.
On the home front, 13 million men aged 45 to 64 register for the draft. They are to be called only in a dire emergency. In Canada, voters overwhelmingly approve a military draft.
04/28/1942 The Japanese carrier Shoho and supporting cruisers and destroyers sail from Truk -- the big Japanese naval base in the central Pacific -- and head toward New Guinea and the Solomons.
It is the first move in the Japanese campaign to take Port Moresby in New Guinea and Tulagi in southern Solomons.
By capturing both places the Japanese will pose a major threat to Australia and allied bases in the Hebrides.
To bolster the campaign, the Japanese establish a seaplane base at Shortland Island in the northern Solomons. The new base is reported to allied headquarters by a "coastwatcher," one of the courageous band of radio-equipped spies the British and Australians have sprinkled throughout the Solomons
The RAF and Luftwaffe trade air assaults. The RAF strikes the newly established German naval base at Trondheim, Norway, and the Germans bomb historic York.
04/29/1942 The Japanese tank column speeding through eastern Burma gives Emperor Hirohito a birthday present by capturing Lashio, the western terminal of the Burma Road, China's only overland supply line to the free world. China's armies must now be supplied by cargo planes flying over the "Hump," the 22,000-foot-high extension of the Himalayas separating India and China.
Near bomb-wrecked Mandalay, the British Empire army commanded by Gen. Harold Alexander retreats across the last bridge over the Irrawaddy River and heads for India.
In the Philippines, the Japanese pound beleaguered Corregidor. Japanese army units launch a new offensive against the remains of U. S. and Filipino units on Mindanao.
At home, the 1st Marine Division in North Carolina is ordered to ship out to New Zealand. The marines will spearhead the Navy's South Pacific amphibious force.
04/30/1942 Seven Japanese task forces with more than 50 ships will try to overwhelm Port Moresby in New Guinea and establish a seaplane base at Tulagi, the finest harbor in the Solomons. The Port Moresby landing force will be embarked on 12 troop transports protected by 20 warships, including the carrier Shoho.
The carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku will cruise the Coral Sea to further protect the two invasions. Three of the seven Japanese task forces have sailed from Truk and Rabaul. The others will weigh anchor during the next few days.
To oppose the twin strikes, American task forces with carriers Lexington and Yorktown are moving toward the Coral Sea.
In Burma, British Empire forces blow up the last bridge across the Irrawaddy River. In the Philippines, Navy PBY flying boats make a daring night evacuation of 50 members of Corregidor's besieged garrison. Most of the evacuees are nurses.
