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05/01/1942 The carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku steam toward the Coral Sea where they will provide air support for the invasions of Port Moresby in New Guinea and Tulagi in the southern Solomons.

The U. S. carriers Lexington and Yorktown head for a rendezvous in the Coral Sea southeast of Guadalcanal.

In Burma, it is over. The Japanese take the ruins of Mandalay, their last goal in the British colony. The British Empire Army is retreating to India, and Lt. Gen. Joseph Stilwell is desperately trying to save his disintegrating 100,000-man Chinese army.

Because of the new convoy system along the U. S. East Coast, German supreme submarine commander Karl Donitz orders several U-boats to prowl the Gulf of Mexico. During the coming month, the Gulf raiders will sink more than 30 allied ships.

05/02/1942 The most frightening week of the war begins in Australia. Prime Minister John Curtin's government issues an invasion alert for northern Australia, and the small Aussie garrison at Tulagi in the southern Solomons is evacuated.

But the situation isn't as bad as it seems. U. S. Navy Vice Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher knows the Japanese targets are Port Moresby in New Guinea and Tulagi. He maneuvers his Task Force 17 -- which includes carriers Lexington and Yorktown -- in the Coral Sea beyond the range of Japanese reconnaissance planes and plans a surprise attack.

In the Arctic Ocean, a German U-boat torpedoes and sinks the British cruiser Edinburgh, one of the warships escorting a convoy from Russia to Iceland.

In Great Britain, Maj. Gen. Carl "Tooey" Spaatz is named commander of the nascent 8th Air Force.

05/03/1942 A small Japanese force establishes a seaplane base at Tulagi, the finest harbor in the southern Solomons. It is the opening gambit of the five-day Battle of the Coral Sea.

Learning of the Japanese move, Vice Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher and the carrier Yorktown make a high speed run across the Coral Sea and prepare to launch a morning bombing attack.

In the Philippines, the sub Starfish evacuates 25 nurses and officers from Corregidor as the Japanese bombardment reaches a frenzy. More than 16,000 Japanese bombs and shells smash "The Rock" during a round-the-clock assault.

Japanese reinforcements swarm ashore on Mindanao in the southern Philippines where out manned and ill-equipped American and Filipino units have little hope.

In Russia, a Red Army offensive in the Ukraine surges 100 miles beyond Kharkov, one of the Soviet Union's largest cities.

05/04/1942 The U. S. Navy's first attack in the Battle of the Coral Sea is a disappointment.

Dive bombers and torpedo planes from the carrier Yorktown jump a small Japanese task force that has established a seaplane base at Tulagi in the southern Solomons, but fogged bombsights and defective torpedoes ruin the attack. A handful of pilots manage hits that sink or damage six small ships, including destroyer Kikuzuki.

The assault occurs as 12 Japanese troop transports leave Rabaul and head for Port Moresby, Australia's main base in New Guinea. The Japanese Coral Sea operation is now in full swing.

The German U-boat campaign scores its first success in the Gulf of Mexico when U-507 sinks the steamship Norlindo off Key West, Florida. In Europe, the RAF batters Hamburg in northern Germany and U-boat bases at St. Nazaire, France.

05/05/1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea begins a two-day respite as American and Japanese naval forces grope for each other through a belt of thunderstorms and bad weather.

The final showdown begins on Corregidor when 2,000 Japanese troops storm ashore. Many are cut down by machinegunners of the 4th Marine regiment and patchwork Army-Navy units, but the surviving Japanese take the eastern end of the island and are heavily reinforced by tanks and infantry.

A British force successfully lands on Madagascar, a 900-mile-long island ruled by Vichy France, to forestall the Japanese establishing bases that could control the Indian Ocean. The Vichy French units offer little resistance. It is the first large allied seaborne operation since Gallipoli in World War I.

05/06/1942 Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright surrenders Corregidor and its 11,500-man garrison to avoid a massacre.

Wainwright's last message to President Roosevelt says he is giving up "with broken heart and head bowed in sadness, but not in shame."

Wainwright is forced to order all American and Filipino forces in the far-flung archipelago to lay down their arms. Some refuse to do so and organize guerrilla units that will harry the Japanese for three years.

In Madagascar, British forces capture Diego Suarez and the Vichy French naval base at Antsirene.

The RAF's spring offensive in Europe hits Stuttgart in southern Germany for a second consecutive night.

05/07/1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea explodes into action with blunders by both sides.

The Japanese make the first error when one of their search planes misidentifies the oiler Neosho and destroyer Sims as a carrier and a cruiser. Vice Adm. Takeo Takagi hurls most of the planes from the carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku at the two American ships. Neosho and Sims are sunk, but Takagi has wasted his big punch on minor targets.

Similarly, an American reconnaissance plane erroneously reports spotting the Japanese carriers, and Vice Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher repeats Takagi's mistake. He sends most of the planes from carriers Lexington and Yorktown to attack a group of cruisers and destroyers.

But the Americans have better luck than the Japanese. Fighter planes stumble on a Japanese task force that includes light carrier Shoho. The Shoho becomes the Japanese navy's first major loss and the subject of a famous message when divebomber commander Robert Dixon radios: "Scratch one flattop!"

05/08/1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea climaxes with a duel between the American carriers Lexington and Yorktown and the Japanese carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku.

U. S. divebombers knock Shokaku out of the war for several months when Lt. John J. "Jo Jo" Powers of Brooklyn, N. Y. instead of releasing his bomb at 2,000 feet, drops in at 200 feet. Powers is killed when his plane crashes alongside the carrier. He will be awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.

The Navy also shoots down 77 Japanese carrier planes that were supposed to provide air cover for the invasions of New Guinea and Tulagi. These losses cause both operations to be canceled. For the first time in the war, a Japanese offensive has been defeated.

But an air strike from Shokaku and Zuikaku sinks the Lexington, the largest ship in the U. S. Navy, and a bomb severely damages Yorktown.

05/09/1942 The damaged carrier Yorktown and its task force is ordered to leave the Coral Sea and return to Pearl Harbor. The Japanese also retreat from the Coral Sea and cancel their planned attack on Port Moresby, New Guinea.

In the Mediterranean, 61 RAF Spitfires fly to Malta from the U. S. carrier Wasp and British carrier Eagle. Unlike an earlier ill-fated reinforcement operation, these Spitfires are swiftly whisked into protective revetments. The arrival of the fighters breathes new life into Malta's defense.

British Prime Minister Churchill sends a congratulatory message to the American carrier: "Who said a Wasp couldn't sting twice?"

Off Cape Hatteras, N. C., the U. S. Coast Guard Cutter Icarus depth charges and sinks a German submarine, U-352.

05/10/1942 The last substantial pocket of resistance in the Philippines collapses when Maj. Gen. William Sharp orders all forces in the central and southern islands to surrender.

The surrender completes the initial Japanese war aim: conquest of the Philippines, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies and Hong Kong.

In Burma, the British Empire army of Gen. Harold Alexander is 90 miles from India and desperately trying to get there before the monsoons turn northern Burma into a Quagmire.

British Prime Minister Churchill warns the Germans that if they use poison gas against the Russians, the RAF will retaliate by dropping poison gas on German cities.

05/11/1942 The American sub S-42 torpedoes and sinks the Japanese command ship Okinoshima north of the Solomon islands.

German divebombers sink the British destroyers Jackal, Kipling and Lively as they try to ambush an Axis convoy carrying supplies from Italy to Field Marshal Rommel's army in Libya. A fourth destroyer loaded with survivors escapes.

Royal Air Force fighters and anti-aircraft guns on Malta have shot down 31 German and Italian planes during the past three days and probably destroyed another 20.

Another German spring offensive explodes in Russia. A tank and infantry attack by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein's 11th Army gouges holes in Red Army defenses in the Crimea.

In the Battle of the Atlantic, a U-boat makes a daring penetration of Canadian waters and sinks a freighter in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

05/12/1942 The American sub S42 torpedoes and sinks the Japanese command ship Okinoshima north of the Solomon Islands.

(NOTE: duplicate from 5/11/1942 - rest is omitted - ROB)

05/13/1942 The U. S. Navy codebreakers find evidence the Japanese are planning a massive operation in the central Pacific in early June. The most likely target is Midway, an atoll 1,100 miles west of Pearl Harbor and linchpin of Hawaii's outer defenses.

The Japanese armada apparently will include six to eight carriers, 165 ships and thousands of troops. To oppose the operation, the U. S. Pacific Fleet has only 60 ships, including three carriers: Enterprise, Hornet and recently damaged Yorktown.

In Russia, the Germans demolish the Red Army's defenses in the eastern Crimea, but more than 80,000 Russians escape the rapidly closing German trap.

Congress considers raising the pay of Army and Marine Privates and Navy apprentice seamen to $50 per month. Congress also cuts income tax exemptions from $750 to $500 a year for single persons and from $1,500 to $1,200 for married couples.

05/14/1942 Remnants of the British Empire Army mangled by the Japanese in Burma cross the India-Burmese border, having lost 30,000 of its 45,000 men, most of them Burmese who deserted to join the Japanese.

Lt. Gen. "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell also crosses the Indian border and admits his straggling Chinese army "got a hell of a beating ... and it is as humiliating as hell." Only 10,000 of his 100,000 troops are in fighting shape.

The first units of the 32nd "Red Arrow" division, a National Guard outfit from Michigan and Wisconsin, disembark in Australia.

The first Atlantic seaboard convoy protected by U. S. and British warships sails from Hampton Roads, Va., being sure to pass Cape Hatteras, N. C., during daylight. The waters off Cape Hatteras have become a hunting ground for U-boats striking at night.

The War Department announces the Army Air Corps will soon commandeer all commercial airliners.

05/15/1942 In Australia, Gen. Douglas MacArthur makes a crucial decision: His Aussie and American forces will not abandon northern Australia to the Japanese. Instead, they will defend Australia by fighting the Japanese in New Guinea, the huge island several hundred miles north.

Aussie reinforcements are sent to Port Moresby, the allies' main New Guinea base.

After a swift and brutal battle, the German 11th Army captures Kerch, a historic city on the Black Sea, and overcomes all Russian resistance in the eastern Crimea. The Russians lose more than 170,000 men, 1,100 big guns, 250 tanks and 300 planes. German casualties are only 7,500.

In North Africa, Gen. Erwin Rommel's Armee Afrika and British Lt. Gen. Neil Ritchie's 8th Army have been heavily reinforced and both armies are ready to begin offensives. The question is: Which army will strike first?

05/16/1942 Convinced by navy codebreakers that the Japanese will attack Midway, Pacific Fleet commander Chester Nimitz orders carriers Enterprise and Hornet to leave the South Pacific and return to Pearl Harbor.

For the past two days, Vice Adm. William Halsey has been using the carriers to bamboozle a Japanese force planning to invade Nauru and Ocean islands in the central Pacific.

Halsey heads toward the Japanese task force, allowing the Enterprise and Hornet to be spotted by Japanese reconnaissance planes. Fearing raids from the U. S. carriers, Vice Adm. Shigeyoshi Inouye calls off the operation. Halsey, his bluff a success, retreats.

In the Mediterranean, the Axis makes a major mistake by dispersing the powerful air fleet that has pulverized Malta. During the next few months, British planes and subs based on Malta will destroy dozens of ships carrying supplies to Rommel's Afrika Corps.

05/17/1942 In the Pacific, Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King sends a cruiser-destroyer task force to bolster Australia's defenses.

The Japanese carrier Shokaku, severely damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea, arrives in Japan after eluding eight American subs. Shokaku will not be able to participate in the battle at Midway. Nor will carrier Zuikaku, which lost most of its planes and pilots at Coral Sea.

The Germans launch another offensive in the Soviet Union, their third since mid-April.

Nineteen German and Romanian divisions smash into Soviet formations that for the past week have been driving toward Kharkov, the second-largest city in the Ukraine. The Germans punch a 25-mile-wide hole in the Russian lines and race to encircle 27 Soviet tank, cavalry and infantry divisions.

In Western Europe, the RAF attacks scores of targets in northern France, especially near Boulogne on the English Channel.

05/18/1942 Vice Adm. William Halsey and carriers Enterprise and Hornet leave the Southwest Pacific and head for Pearl Harbor, the first move in a three-week campaign that will climax with the battle of Midway. Naval operations in the southwest Pacific will be directed by Vice Adm. Robert Ghormley who arrives in Noumea, New Caledonia.

In Europe, Rear Adm. Sir Henry Harwood takes command of the British Mediterranean Fleet. Royal Navy carriers Eagle and Argus ferry 17 Spitfire fighters to Malta.

The U. S. Army's "Old Ironsides" 1st armored division begins disembarking in Northern Ireland. They join the "Red Bull" 34th infantry division, in Northern Ireland since late January.

Movie star Lew Ayres joins the army as a noncombatant after six weeks in a conscientious objectors camp at Hood River, Ore.

Night baseball games in New York's three stadiums are banned because their lights endanger allied ships.

05/19/1942 The badly damaged carrier Yorktown leaves the South Pacific and limps toward Pearl Harbor trailing a 10-mile oil slick.

In Washington, President Roosevelt gives the Medal of Honor to Brig. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle for the bombing raid against Japan.

Later, FDR says gasoline rationing -- which has begun in the Eastern states -- may be imposed nationwide.

In Russia, the Red Army is reeling toward another disaster. The Germans have widened their penetration of Russian defense line near Kharkov in the Ukraine, overwhelmed the Soviet 9th Army and are clobbering the Soviet 6th Army.

05/20/1942 Codebreakers at Pearl harbor intercept a long radio message that obviously is a battle order to the Japanese fleet. It heightens belief that Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto will launch a major offensive in the central and northern Pacific during early June, probably at Midway and against Alaska's western Aleutian islands.

Forewarned, U. S. Pacific Fleet commander Chester Nimitz rushes reinforcements to Midway and orders fast completion of an airbase at Umnak in the Aleutians.

The Royal Air Force strikes one of its heaviest blows of the spring with a raid on Mannheim. Its bombers drop more than 40,000 incendiaries on the German industrial center and ignite hundreds of fires.

The Navy announces it will begin recruiting 1,000 Negroes per month beginning June 1 and the Marine Corps will form a Negro battalion. The Army is organizing two Negro infantry divisions, the 92nd "Buffalo" and 93rd "Bloody Hand."

05/21/1942 U. S. Navy codebreakers at Pearl Harbor determine the Japanese will send a fleet that includes six carriers to take Midway in early June. The Japanese also will send a task force with two carriers to occupy Alaska's western Aleutian islands.

To prevent another Pearl Harbor debacle, Pacific Fleet Commander Chester Nimitz sends his seven old, slow battleships to the West Coast. he will throw his big punch with aircraft carriers Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown. A force of eight cruisers and destroyers sails from Pearl to oppose the strike at the Aleutians.

In Europe, Hitler postpones the planned invasion of Malta. He orders Rommel's Afrika Corps to conquer Libya and Egypt first. Hitler blunders. By taking Malta first, his forces would eliminate a threat to their supply lines in Africa.

Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams joins the Navy. He will later become a Marine Corps pilot.

05/22/1942 The Japanese aim a major offensive at Foochow in southern China.

A lone British twin-engine bomber raids a Japanese airfield in Burma and is pursued by five Japanese fighters. The British turret gunner, J. S. McLuckie, damages two of the fighters and shoots down a third, killing Col. Tateo Kato, Japan's ace-of aces.

President Roosevelt orders all 18 and 19-year-old men to register for the draft by June 30. It is the fifth draft signup since October 1940.

Mexico declares war against Germany, Italy and Japan because German U-boats have sunk several Mexican ships.

In the Soviet Union, the Germans complete the encirclement of two Russian armies near Kharkov in the Ukraine. Two other Russian armies have suffered heavy losses.

Greek guerrillas blow up a section of the Salonika railroad which Germans are using to transport troops and supplies to the Soviet Union.

05/23/1942 U. S. Army engineers complete the hurryup construction of an airfield on Umnak in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Planes from the airbase will oppose a Japanese invasion of the western Aleutians in early June.

British foreign minister Sir Anthony Eden and Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov are negotiating a 20-year Russo-British treaty of alliance and cooperation.

In London, Molotov pushes for an immediate allied invasion of France or Belgium to force the Germans to withdraw divisions from the Soviet Union. He also wants the British to approve post-war boundary changes giving large chunks of Poland and Romania to the Soviet Union.

The Russian army evacuates the remnants of its badly defeated army from the eastern Crimea and tries to rally its mauled forces near Kharkov in the Ukraine.

05/24/1942 U. S. Navy codebreakers at Pearl Harbor give Pacific Fleet Commander Chester Nimitz a highly accurate forecast of the upcoming Japanese offensive in the central and northern Pacific.

Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto envisions the Americans rushing north to defend the Aleutians. Then, as the Americans race back toward Midway, they will be ambushed by carrier planes and battleships.

In Russia, the Germans are wrapping up their victory over four Soviet Armies near Kharkov in the Ukraine. By the end of the month, the Russians will have lost 250,000 men -- including 214,000 prisoners. The Germans will suffer only 20,000 casualties.

05/25/1942 Fearing the Japanese may bypass Midway and bomb California, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall sends several fighter squadrons to air bases near Los Angeles and San Francisco. Both cities get additional anti-aircraft guns and barrage balloons.

Reinforcements head for Midway aboard aircraft ferry Kittyhawk. Pacific Fleet commander Chester Nimitz knows the Japanese offensive will begin June 4 and a landing on Midway is scheduled for June 6. Nimitz has sent several thousand Marines and 100 planes to the atoll.

In Washington, Congress debates a pay raise for the armed forces and by mid-month will approve a new pay scale. Privates and apprentice seamen will get $50 per month; sergeants and third class petty officers, $81.90; master sergeants and chief petty officers, $144.90; second lieutenants, $157.50; colonels, $383, and generals, $666.

05/26/1942 In the Pacific, Task Force 16 with aircraft carriers Enterprise and Hornet arrives at Pearl Harbor. Its Commander, the hard fighting Vice Adm. William Halsey, is hospitalized with a severe skin rash, and replaced by Rear Adm. Raymond Spruance.

German and Italian forces in Libya under Gen. Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox," launch a surprise offensive against the British 8th Army.

Rommel feints at the northern end of the 40-mile-long British line, then personally leads a column of 500 tanks around the 8th Army's southern flank.

Rommel's army is substantially outnumbered. The 8th Army has more than 1,000 tanks, the Axis forces fewer than 650. But Rommel will rely on surprise, speed and tactics.

In London, representatives of Great Britain and the Soviet Union sign a 20-year mutual assistance treaty.

05/27/1942 The carrier Yorktown limps into Pearl Harbor and is drydocked to repair damage from the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Yorktown needs a three-month overhaul, but U. S. Pacific Fleet commander Chester Nimitz tells 1,400 stunned dockyard workers they must repair the carrier in three days so it can participate in the upcoming battle near Midway.

A Japanese force, which includes four of the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor, begins steaming toward Midway. Another task force with two carriers is moving toward the western Aleutian islands.

In North Africa, Rommel's panzers smash an Indian brigade. Other units attack Bir Hacheim, a Beau Geste-like fort garrisoned by French regulars and Foreign Legionnaires.

Czech resistance fighters mortally wound German Deputy Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich in Prague.

On its first enlistment day, 13,600 women volunteer for the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps.

05/28/1942 Task Force 16 with carriers Enterprise and Hornet leaves Pearl Harbor and heads for "Point Luck," a patch of ocean 350 miles northeast of Midway. Rear Adm. Raymond Spruance's orders are "to be governed by the principle of calculated risk." That means Spruance is to hit the enemy hard but not expose his ships to devastating counterattack.

Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto sorties from Japan's Inland Sea on the super-battleship Yamato. He will arrive near Midway on June 4.

In North Africa, Rommel's Afrika Corps is in trouble. Its offensive has bloodied the British 8th Army but hasn't defeated it. Some of the panzers, which are behind the British lines, have run out of fuel, others are close to it. The attack on the Free French defending the southern end of the 8th Army line at Bir Hacheim has failed.

Domestically, the SEC identifies the three highest salaried persons in America: movie magnate Louis B. Mayer, $704,425; movie stars James Cagney, $362,000 and Clark Gable, $357,000.

05/29/1942 Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto and 165 warships and transports have sailed from Japan's Inland Sea, Hokkaido, Guam and Saipan. Fifteen transports with 5,000 troops are earmarked for the invasion of Midway and eight transports with 1,500 men will make diversionary landings on Attu and Kiska islands in Alaska's western Aleutians.

In Pearl Harbor, carrier Yorktown's frantic repairs have been completed and the ship will sail tomorrow with Vice Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher's Task Force 17. Yorktown will join the carriers Enterprise and Hornet 350 miles northeast of Midway to try to ambush Yamamoto's fleet.

Japanese forces capture Kitewha, a provincial capital in south China. The Chinese claim they are being subjected to poison gas attacks.

05/30/1942 A Japanese mini-submarine torpedoes British battleship Ramillies in the harbor of Diego Suarez, Madagascar.

The vanguard of the U. S. 1st Marine division disembarks at Wellington, New Zealand.

The RAF stages the biggest bombing raid of the war, thus far. A thousand bombers blast Cologne with 14,000 tons of high explosives and incendiaries, causing an inferno that kills 500 Germans, destroys 3,300 homes and damages another 9,500. The British lose 36 planes.

In Libya, a desperate Gen. Erwin Rommel has pulled his forces into an area called the Cauldron. He is trying to penetrate the British defenses so he can reprovision his panzers. Gen. Ludwig Cruwell, Rommel's close friend and commander of Italian forces, is captured.

In Russia, the battle of Kharkov ends in a resounding German victory. The Germans have captured more than 200,000 Soviets and mauled four Russian armies.

05/31/1942 In the Pacific, the battleships Colorado and Maryland sail from San Francisco to reinforce Adm. Chester Nimitz's Pacific Fleet.

Three Japanese mini-submarines penetrate the harbor of Sydney, Australia. A ferryboat is torpedoed but all three intruders are sunk.

British 8th Army commander Lt. Gen. Neil Ritchie boasts he has Gen. Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps "in the hollow of my hand."

Rommel's panzers are trapped behind the British defense line and short of fuel and ammunition. Another Axis attack on the hard-fighting Free French garrison at Bir Hacheim fails. Ritchie launches an assault on Rommel's isolated tank force but it is repulsed.