Feb. 1st, 1942 - Feb. 7th, 1942

Feb. 1st, 1942...The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise begins the first US offensive action of the war, launching a dawn airstrike on the Japanese-held island of Kwajalein, Wotje, and Maloelap. Cdr. Hallsted Hopping puts the first bomb of the war on Japanese soil. The damage is marginal, but boosts American morale. The Japanese strike back, but do little damage to Enterprise.

To the south, HMS Warspite, Britain's toughest battleship, enroute to Australia, crosses the Equator. King Neptune boards the battlewagon for the usual festivities.

The British prepare to defend Singapore island, with the 8th Australian Division in the west, 11th and 18th British Divisions to the north and east. Gen. Percival believes the Japanese will attack the northeast, so the west is covered by poorly-trained and undermanned Australians.

Now at last, the British finally dig entrenchments, but because of the panic and retreat, there's no civilian labor. Daily air raids sap morale and impede work. After the daily attacks, Air Raid Precautions trucks pick up bodies and dump them in communal graves. Aviation fuel is dumped instead of being used to set the Johore Straits afire. Singapore's defenses are being prepared at the last minute.

In the Philippines, the Japanese attack the 41st Philippine Division in force, and come under heavy machine gun fire. Dawn finds more than 100 Japanese bodies littering the battlefield, for only a few American casualties.

On Amboina Island, the Japanese capture 10 Australian soldiers and bayonet them to death. The Japanese commander says the PoWs would be "a drag" on his advance. When the Japanese seize the principal port, they capture 809 more Australians, and massacre more than 300.

In Russia, the Nazis execute the last surviving 38 Jews and Gypsies in Loknya. Elsewhere in Russia, partisan warfare is the word of the hour. "Since we have no continuous forward line," writes a German report, "traffic of every kind from the Soviet side and back again is possible, and extensive use is being made of such crossings. New partisan bands have infiltrated. Russian parachutists are being dropped and are taking over leadership." The Second Leningrad Partisan Brigade receives by parachute drop just what it needs: a Boston printing press. The partisans produce their own newspaper, the "People's Avenger." No word on whether it offers "Ann Landers."

As if things weren't tough enough, British intelligence suffers its most serious setback of the war. The Germans change their Enigma code used by their U-Boats. The British won't break this code, called "Shark," for a year, giving the Nazis a major advantage in the Battle of the Atlantic. To make matters worse, the same day, the Germans break the British merchant ship code. Now the Germans know where the British are, instead of vice versa. Disaster will soon ensue.

Feb. 2nd, 1942...In Egypt, Brig. Howard Kippenberger, of Rangiora, New Zealand, marks three weeks as commander of New Zealand's 5th Infantry Brigade. The lawyer-turned-soldier leads the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 28th (Maori) Infantry Battalions, who are regrouping and recovering from the exertions of Operation Crusader in December.

In Malaya, a Japanese staff officer from Southern Army arrives to give Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita Tokyo's plan to invade Singapore. The officer leaves after lunch without a word. Irritated, Yamashita tears the useless plan into shreds, and writes in his diary: "Whenever there are two alternatives, Southern Army always insist on the wrong one."

In Bataan, the Americans counterattack. The Japanese are forced to retreat. Amazingly, the Filipino troops -- poorly trained, wearing coconut hats, blue denims, and rope-soled shoes -- and the hungry and exhausted Americans are standing off the all-conquering Japanese army.

Lt. Gen. A.R. Godwin-Austen, commanding the 30th Corps in North Africa, requests to be relieved, because his bosses have no confidence in him. Godwin-Austen's request is granted, mostly because he's losing the battle to Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. The British 2-lb. anti-tank gun is completely inferior to German armor, while the German 50mm shell easily penetrates the British Crusader tank.

Feb. 3rd, 1942...Japanese aircraft bomb the capital of New Guinea, Port Moresby. The war is inching closer to Australia. Japanese aircraft also bomb Java in the Dutch East Indies, and march into Paan in Burma.

From his headquarters in the Imperial Palace of the Sultan of Johore, Yamashita can look right across to Singapore Island and see Australian troops digging in. Yamashita assembles 200 collapsible launches with outboard motors, and 100 larger landing craft. His men practice assault landings day after day. The leading 4,000 men are all veterans of seaborne landings in China.

Erwin Rommel reports to Berlin: "British troops fought well on the whole, though they never attained the same impetus as the Germans when attacking. Officers were courageous and self-sacrificing, but rather timid if they had to act on their own initiative." Historians will later attribute this failure of initiative to army basic training which tells men "they're not paid to think." Meanwhile, British troops evacuate Derna.

Feb. 4th, 1942...HMNZS Achilles returns to Auckland.

In Malaya, the Japanese demand Singapore's unconditional surrender. The British (and Australian and Indian) defenders react with the usual bulldog determination and rude remarks.

On Amboina Island, the Japanese take 30 Australian PoWs into the jungle to be executed. Lt. Nakagawa, the head executioner, makes each kneel down with a bandage over their eyes. The Japanese troops then step out of ranks to behead each PoW or bayonet him one by one. The same day, at Rabaul on New Ireland, the Japanese massacre 150 Australian PoWs.

In Rakov, near Minsk, the Nazis murder all of Rakov's 100 Jews. In Bereski, 18-year-old partisan Vyacheslav Balakin shoots down three Germans in cold blood. "I captured a cigarette lighter, a gold ring, a fountain pen, two pipes, tobacco, a comb," Balakin notes in his diary.

Nazi Operational Situation Report USSR No. 164 notes that 60 Russians were shot that day.

In London, Canadian press baron Max Beaverbrook is appointed Britain's Minister of Production. His steamrolling determination as Minister of Aircraft Production has already resulted in Britain producing more fighters than Germany.

Feb. 5th, 1942...USS Enterprise returns to Pearl Harbor to rousing cheers from the whole base, gratified the Big E has struck back at the Japanese.

In Malaya, despite shortages of ammunition, the Japanese open their artillery bombardment of Singapore.

In Yugoslavia, the British kick off Operation Disclaim, parachuting a team of agents near Sarajevo to hook up with partisans.

Rommel's offensive is halted by the British at Gazala, just west of Tobruk. His forces have run to the end of their supply line, and his southern flank is hanging in mid-air, vulnerable to British raiders like the Special Air Service. Both sides gasp for breath in the intense desert heat. Rommel's engineers repair the damaged port of Benghazi, and motorize some untis with captured British trucks (which are actually captured American lend-lease deuce-and-a-half trucks, which are very survivable). Another gain for Rommel is the recapture of Axis ammunition stocks in Benghazi, which had been left behind in the December retreat, and inactivated by removing their lighters. Now these stocks are made serviceable.

Feb. 6th, 1942...In Washington, the joint US-British Chiefs of Staff Committee is announced to the press. This will be the top direction of the Allied war effort.

In Malaya, Yamashita summons his top officers at 11 a.m. to give them their orders. The Imperial Guards Division (whose men are six feet tall and drilled for ceremonial) will feint on the evening of Feb. 7th, by taking Palau Ubin island opposite Changi (today the international airport) in the northeast. Next day, the 5th and 18th Divisions will assault Singapore Island's northwest corner. The plan is a replica of British Field Marshal Allenby's victory in Palestine in 1918.

That evening, British chief engineer Brigadier Ivan Simson tells Gen. Percival that the Japanese will probably attack the northwest corner of Singapore island. So Percival, in yet another stupid decision, orders Simson to concentrate supplies in the east.

In Bataan, the Japanese attack again, pushing a pocket into the American lines, but gaining little ground.

The Nazis in Russia report having shot 17 habitual criminals, 103 Communist officials, 16 partisans, and about 350 Jews by order of a Summary Court. (And you thought Captain's Mast was tough!) In addition, 400 inmates of the Igren mental hospital have also been "disposed of."

In Lithuania, SS Col. Karl Jaeger informs his superiors that in the last seven months, his special units have killed 138,272 Jews, including 34,464 children. They also killed, Jaeger notes proudly, 1,064 Russian Communists, 56 Soviet Partisans, 44 Poles, 28 Russian PoWs, five Gypsies, and one Armenian. That day, 500 Jews are driven from their homes in the Polish town of Sierpc, during a march to the nearby town of Mlawa.

In Berlin, Adolf Hitler orders the Minister of Armaments and War Production, Dr. Fritz Todt, to chair a committee to coordinate all ministries involved in armaments design, manufacture and production. One of the grave problems facing Nazi Germany is its inability to organize its war effort. The various companies, ministries, and Nazi party organizations bicker and feud amongst themselves for priorities and resources, hamstringing the war effort.

Feb. 7th, 1942...Gen. Archibald Percival announces that Singapore will be held to the last man. That evening, the Japanese invade the island, crossing the Johore Straits, anyway, to seize Palau Ubin island in Yamashita's strategy.

The Australians get word that the Japanese are moving up to invade Singapore's northwest corner and ask Percival for a spotter aircraft to observe fall of shot, so Australian guns can disrupt the enemy invasion before it starts. Percival does not give such permission, saying there are no planes available, yet another stupid decision.

Mrs. M.V.C. Grigg is the first National Party woman Member of New Zealand's Parliament. She is elected in a by-election following her husband's death overseas.

In North Africa, the Luftwaffe reinforces Erwin Rommel with three wings of Ju 87D Stuke dive bombers, and three wings of Me 109G fighters, more than 180 aircraft. The Stuka, a familiar sight in World War II newsreels, is the perfect weapon for pinpoint dive bombing, but highly vulnerable to flak and fighters. The Italians also increase their strength to 190 aircraft, including the Macchi 2000 fighter, which is inferior to the British P-40 Kittyhawk, but fairly fast.