December 13th, 1941...New Zealand starts the day by declaring war on Bulgaria, which impacts neither country. While the mystery of what enmity the two had for each other may seem unclear, Bulgaria was a Nazi ally, and New Zealand was a British ally.

In Malaya, Japanese troops march into Alor Star, and take a number of Indian troops prisoner. Among the PoWs is Major Mohan Singh, who agrees to set up a special unit for Indians, Burmese and Thais to fight against the British. The slogan for the unit is "Asia for the Asiatics."

The 11th Indian Division retreats in disarray and pouring rain from the Japanese, its men throwing away their rifles. British troops blow a major railway bridge just as an armored train comes roaring down. Incredibly, the British train jumps the gap in the rails and keeps going. More explosives are needed. Just as the engineers place them, the Japanese arrive. The bridge explodes just in time, but the Japanese cross the river anyway. The tired, exhausted Indians continue to retreat.

On the island of Wake, an American coding clerk follows procedure of padding messages at the beginning and end with material that is plainly nonsense. He signals Pearl Harbor, "Send us Stop Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party Stop more Japs..." This message is seized by American propagandists to become a legend, that the embattled Marines on Wake, asked if they needed anything, said, "Send us more Japs!"

The propaganda story boosts American morale back home and Marine recruiting, but is greeted with ridicule by the Marines on Wake when they hear it on shortwave radio. Isolated, bombed every day, and suffering from diarrhea and fatigue, the last thing the American defenders want are more Japanese.

Ironically, that is what they will get. Having failed in his first invasion of Wake, Rear Adm. Sadamichi Kajioka brings in a regiment of Japanese Sailors and Marines, additional ships, and the aircraft carriers Hiryu and Soryu, to pound Wake. The new invasion is set for Dec. 23rd.

In the Philippines, scared American gunners at Lingayen hear a motor at sea, become convinced they are under attack, and open fire on a nonexistent enemy. Gen. Douglas MacArthur's communique erroneously reports that a Japanese landing at Lingayen was repulsed. All that actually has happened is that a Japanese PT boat has made a reconnaissance of the bay.

However, at Legaspi, where Japanese troops have actually landed, the Japanese are pushing back the 11th Philippine Division. The first knowledge the US Army has of this landing comes from the stationmaster at Legapsi who is talking by phone to MacArthur's headquarters in Manila at the very moment a Japanese officer and his men walk into his office. The conversation ends when the Japanese ask for a train to take them to Manila. The stationmaster, still on the phone, asks US headquarters what he should do. The American answer, relayed to the Japanese: "Tell them the next train leaves a week from Sunday."

Over the Philippine skies, American fighter pilot Buzz Wagner puts his P-40 to good use, shooting down four Japanese planes, and strafes three more that are refuelling at Aparri Airfield. CAPT Jesus Villamor of the Phillipine Air Force mounts a less successful attack, hurling his six ancient open cockpit P- 26s at 50 Japanese bombers. While he and his pilots score no kills, they break up the enemy formation with their courageous attack.

In Norfolk, RADM John W. Wilcox hoists his flag as COMBATDIV 6 (Commander Battleship Division 6) aboard USS Washington. LTJG Rollo Ross later describes Wilcox as always making "unreasonable demands on the ships in terms of spit and polish. I would call him a martinet, and a miserable soul to get along with because he is after you for some inconsequential thing and not paying attention to the serious business of the impending war." His fortunes will turn toward the bizarre.

December 14th, 1941...British efforts to demolish bridges in Malaya don't work out too well, because Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita brought with him highly-trained engineers. British forces blow the Sungei Kedah bridge in the morning, and expect the Japanese will take three days to replace it. They do so in thirty hours, and rocket down the road with tanks, hitting the British after lunch. Within two hours of battle, the exhausted Indian troops are again on the run, as their 37mm (2 lb.) anti- tank guns are no match for the Japanese armor.

In the Philippines, Maj Gen. Lewis Brereton hurls his remaining bombers against Japanese troop transports. A-20 Douglas Boston bombers and outdated B-18 Bolos obediently pursue the enemy, running into Japanese Zero fighters.

One bomber, piloted by Capt. Hewitt T. Wheless, is forced by partial engine failure to fall behind in his flight. He decides to continue his mission. Reaching the target, and already left far behind by the other bombers, Wheless's plane is attacked by 18 Zeros. He manages to drop his bombs, then turns back to his base. But on the return flight, he is pursued by the 18 Zeros for 75 miles. In the running battle, 11 of the Japanese are shot down, while Wheless's radio operator and an air gunner are killed. The Japanese also shoot out one engine, destroy the radio, blow out the tail wheel, and slice out seven of 11 control cables. Mechanics count more than 1,000 holes in the Flying Fortress, when Wheless manages to crash-land the battered bomber on Mindanao. Wheless receives the Distinguished Service Cross.

The disastrous battle proves two points: one that the early model B-17s, lacking tail, nose, and belly guns, cannot battle the Japanese Zeros. Later B-17s, better-equipped, will stand off the Zeros better.

The other is that the American bomber force cannot operate in enemy-controlled skies. Brereton sends his B-17s to Australia. Among them is the "Swoose Goose," piloted by Lt. Col. Paul Kurtz. A few years later, Kurtz names his daughter Swoosie, in honor of his aircraft. Swoosie Kurtz goes on to a distinguished acting career on stage, screen, and television, while named after a B- 17.

In Warsaw, Jewish diarist Emanuel Ringelblum watches a Jewish funeral procession. During it a German policeman, "suddenly, without warning, began shooting." Two mourners fall dead on the spot. "Jews have no peace," Ringelblum writes, "Even when accompanying their dead to eternal rest."

December 15th, 1941...The Red Army drives German forces out of Klin. At Leningrad, Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb asks permission for Army Group North to make a general withdrawal. Hitler refuses to agree, and orders, "Any large-scale retreat by major sections of the Army in midwinter, given only limited mobility, insufficient winter equipment, and no prepared positions in the rear, must inevitably have the gravest consequences."

British troops retreat in Burma, Malaya, and Hong Kong. In Kowloon, the British use Star Ferries and the ancient destroyer HMS Thracian to withdraw Indian troops from Kowloon Harbor. As the last ferry leaves the Star piers, Indian troops blaze away with their Bren guns at the advancing Japanese troops. Hong Kong has held out a week, three days longer than expected, and the Imperial General Staff in Tokyo fires off angry telegrams, demanding to know when the colony will fall.

In Malaya, Japanese dive bombers, not fighters, attack Royal Australian Air Force Brewster Buffalo fighters, and shoot one down. The Buffalo's weaknesses include a lack of radios, and a lack of maintenance manuals to guide the mechanics.

At Pearl Harbor, a task force centered on the carrier USS Saratoga gets underway, with 200 Marines and a squadron of planes to relieve Wake Island's beleagured defenders. The Marines are to land in hastily-built landing craft from the seaplane tender Tangier.

December 16th, 1941...Hans Frank, Nazi ruler of Poland, gets the word that the conference on Europe's Jews is re-scheduled for January. "Do you imagine they're going to be housed in neat estates in the Baltic provinces!" he asks his aides. "We were told in Berlin: why all this bother? We've got no use for Jews in the Eastern areas. Liquidate them yourselves! I ask nothing of the Jews, except that they disappear."

Frank's aides ask what should Germany do. He suggests "steps which, one way or another, will lead to extermination, in conjunction with the large-scale measures under discussion in the Reich."

In North Africa, retreat is on Rommel's mind, too. His casualties for the week are 38,000. The British have lost 18,000. He orders his battered divisions to retreat west of Tobruk.

In the Far East, Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces, in black hats, land at Miri in Sarawak, and Seria in Brunei, both British oil-rich holdings. The Japanese objective is neither Singapore nor the Philippines, but oil-rich Java and Sumatra, to fuel the Japanese economy, which is otherwise starved for oil.

On the island of Wake, the US Marines come under attack from two Japanese carriers, Hiryu and Soryu, diverted from the returning Pearl Harbor strike force. With determination and improvisation, American mechanics keep four F4F Wildcats operational to harass the Japanese bombers. Capt. Winfield Scott Cunningham, island commander, is bombarded with high explosive and fatuous orders from Pearl Harbor. One tells him to use seismographic paper to replace shattered barracks windows. It hardly matters. All the barracks have been blown down. Major James Devereux, commanding the Marines, signals back, "The brass hats who thought up these silly messages had better get down to earth."

In Malaya, British troops evacuate Penang Island.

December 17th, 1941...In Hong Kong, the Japanese control the north side of Hong Kong Harbor, the British Hong Kong Island. After a week of air bombardment, Japanese General Saito sends a captured British civilian woman (and her two dogs) across the harbor to demand surrender from British Governor Sir Mark Young. Sir Mark himself "declines absolutely to enter into negotiations for the surrender of Hong Kong."

In Malaya, the long British retreat continues, with British and Australian troops barely able to stay awake as they flee. The British fail to destroy their airfields in North Malaya, and the Japanese Air Force is delighted to take them over for their Zeros. Gen. Archibald Percival decides to fight on the Perak River line, and his troops dig in. A British officer writes, "It can't go on like this. The troops are absolutely dead-beat. The only rest they are getting is that of an uneasy coma as they squat in crowded lorries which jerk their way through the night. When they arrive they tumble out and have to get straight down to work. They are stupid with sleep, and have to be smacked before they can connect with the simplest order. Then they move like automatons or cower down as an enemy aeroplane flies 200 feet above them."

Soviet troops attack on the Volkhov and Northwest Fronts, while British troops in North Africa reach the Gazala line.

December 18th, 1941...General Saito tells the commander of his lead regiment, Col. Tanaka, that when invading Lei Yu Mun in Hong Kong Island's northeast corner, to take no prisoners. Tanaka obeys orders. After overrunning a battery of anti-tank guns manned by local volunteers, Tanaka's men rope together all 20 survivors of the action, and bayonet the lot to death. The Japanese then storm a Royal Army Medical Corps dressing station, which offers no resistance. The Japanese shot and bayonet to death eight Canadians, four RAMC soldiers, and three St. John's Ambulance men.

After seizing Lei Yu Mun, the Japanese 38th Division storms across Hong Kong Island from east to west, splitting the two British defending brigades. Fighting rages in the island's valleys and hills. Brig. Charles Lawson, commanding the Canadian brigade, is killed by mortar fire.

Company Sergeant Major John Osborn, a World War I veteran, is more gallant. Seeing a Japanese grenade falling in the midst of his colleagues, he shouts a warning and leaps on it itself as it explodes, saving at least six others at the expense of his own life. After the war, when returning PoWs tell of Osborn's deed, he is awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, the only one of the Hong Kong defense.

Today, a statue of Osborn, based on family photographs, stands guard over Hong Kong's Victoria Park, as a memorial to the Allied defenders of 1941.

Over France, the Royal Air Force attacks the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, both moored in Brest.

Over the Philippines, fighter pilot Buzz Wagner repeatedly strafes a Japanese airbase, setting several planes afire, and destroying a fuel dump. He also shoots down an enemy plane to become America's first flying ace of the war, and receives the Distinguished Service Cross.

December 19th, 1941...HMS Neptune is sunk by mines in the Mediterranean, killing 150 New Zealanders, the nation's greatest loss at sea in World War II.

Over China, the "Flying Tigers," officially known as the American Volunteer Group, make their World War II debut, with such colorful pilots as Greg "Pappy" Boyington and Charles Scott. The Tigers attack a Japanese raid from Hanoi and Kunming. Nine out of the 10 Japanese are shot down. The Americans' key is tight training and use of their P-40's sole advantage in air combat, superior diving speed.

The Italians have their finest hour of World War II, by adding to the Allies' shortage of battleships. "Human torpedoes" led by Count de la Penne, sail into Alexandria harbor. These midget submarines lay their mines under the hulls of the British battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Valiant. The Italian crews are caught trying to escape, and hauled onto the quarterdeck of Queen Elizabeth, where the ship's captain, Frederick Morgan, interrogates them himself. The Italians refuse to tell the British where the mines are, until half an hour before they are to go off.

The resulting explosions cause few human casualties, but sink both ships in shallow water. As the ships can and will be raised, the British do not tell the public what has happened. Nonetheless, Britain has lost five battleships and an aircraft carrier in two months, and are pressed nearly to the breaking point.

De La Penne goes to a PoW camp, and later fights alongside the Allies against the Germans when Italy switches sides.

In 1945, De La Penne finally gets the medal he was awarded for sinking HMS Queen Elizabeth. Morgan, his old adversary, presents the steel at the ceremony, marking a chivalrous end to a daring feat of arms.

British troops re-seize Derna and Mechili, two dots on the Libyan map.