As his troops continue to retreat, Adolf Hitler tells Gen. Franz Halder, "The will to hold out must be brought home to every unit!" However, according to Soviet figures, more than 55,000 German soldiers have died in the battle for Moscow.

In the Pacific, the Japanese make their grand outflanking movement to cut off the Philippines, by landing on the island of Mindanao. Filipino machine gunners of the 101st Regiment inflict heavy Japanese casualties until the Japanese turn five-inch naval guns on the defenders. The Americans are forced to retreat into the hills.

The besieged defenders at Wake receive a visitor, a Navy PBY Catalina, bringing official mail and word that a relief convoy is due on Dec. 24th. It takes out Maj. Walter J. Bayler and messages from the Marines to their families. Bayler says later, "I looked at our flag, still snapping in the breeze at the top of the pole where it had been hoisted on December 8. I looked at the cheerful, grinning faces and the confident bearing of the youngsters on the dock. As I waved a last good-bye and took my seat in the plane, my smile was as cheerful as theirs. I knew all would go well with Wake Island." Bayler is the last man off the island. In 1945, when Japan surrenders, he will be the first man back.

A legend is born in the skies over Burma as the American Volunteer Group, better known as the Flying Tigers, fight their first battle with P-40B Tomahawks. This colorful collection of about 100 pilots and 55 planes tears a swath through superior Japanese airpower: 286 confirmed aerial kills for a total loss of 13 pilots in battle. The Tigers owe their success to their boss, Maj. Gen. Claire Chennault, whose tactics...two-man fighting teams...accurate gunnery...no unnecessary heroics...are ahead of their time. The Tigers also owe their success to the fact that they get a $500 reward for every plane they shoot down.

December 21st, 1941...German U-Boats attack convoy HG-76, enroute from Gibraltar to Britain, and run into something new in war, a British escort carrier, HMS Audacity. This small carrier and her torpedo planes sink four attacking German U-Boats, including U- 567, the reigning ace. The British only lose one merchant ship out of 32. Adm. Karl Donitz, head of the Nazi U-boat arm, believes his submarines cannot successfully combat Allied convoys.

In Russia, near Minsk, several thousands Soviet PoWs are frozen to death during a march across open fields. In Vilna, several hundred PoWs, most half-naked, many without boots, are forced to clear snow from railway lines. A Jewish woman, taking pity on their plight, offers one Russian a piece of bread. This is noticed by a German guard, who shoots down the Russian and the Jews.

Japanese planes bomb Wake Island, tearing up the defenses. However, the advancing relief force is only doing 12 knots, held back by the force's slow oiler. The commander, RADM Frank Jack Fletcher, delays fuelling his force. His obsession with fuelling will cost him dearly in this and future battles.

December 22nd, 1941...Japanese troops under Gen. Masaharu Homma land in the main island of Luzon, the Philippines' main island, at Lingayen. This is the main thrust upon Manila, the Philippines' capital. The Japanese battle heavy weather, but storm ashore anyway, quickly brush aside the thin Filipino defenses -- some defenders are wearing cardboard shoes -- and march south.

In Washington, Winston Churchill arrives by battleship HMS Duke of York for conferences with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Americans and British agree to combine their General Staff to coordinate strategies against Germany and Japan. The staff immediately gets down to planning the invasion of Germany, a confident tone. Field Marshal Sir John Dill is assigned to this staff, and the urbane Briton proves a superb choice, using his natural intelligence and diplomacy to smooth over problems. For his efforts, Dill pays a heavy price, dying in 1944. The Americans salute his accomplishments by laying Dill to rest in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington.

420 miles from Wake, the US relief force based on the carrier Saratoga, has trouble fuelling in heavy seas. RADM Frank Jack Fletcher has waited a day too long, a fatal misjudgment. That evening, while his force blunders westward, Japanese landing craft line up for the second invasion of Wake.

December 23rd, 1941...The Japanese try again to invade Wake, with 2,000 Marines and two aircraft carriers. Marine defenders are joined by civilian construction workers in defense of the island. The battle is fiercely fought. US coastal guns hit the destroyer Hayate and sink her. Marines from VMF-211, whose planes are all destroyed, follow the Marine tradition and fight as riflemen. Japanese dive bombers add to the din.

Out at sea, RADM Frank Jack Fletcher's task force is ordered by the acting CINCPAC, the cautious VADM William S. Pye, to turn around. Fletcher's officers howl with rage and beg him to ignore the message. RADM Aubrey Fitch is so angry, he leaves Saratoga's bridge. Marine aviators, ready to fly to Wake to relieve their buddies, break into tears.

Pye radios Washington, "The use of offensive action to relieve Wake had been my intention and desire. But when the enemy had landed on the island, the general strategic situation took precedence, and the conservation of our Naval Forces became the first consideration. I ordered the retirement with extreme regret." ADM Joseph M. Reeves, however, calls Pye's withdrawal "a disgrace to the United States Navy." Radio Tokyo taunts, "Where, oh where, is the United States Navy?"

On Wake, The Marines radio Pearl Harbor, "Enemy on island, issue in doubt," then go off the air for good. Capt. Winfield Scott Cunningham, the island's top defender, puts on his last dress uniform, and surrenders the island. Japanese casualties, 840. US losses: 120.

However, at a Washington press conference, a reporter asks a top Marine general to explain Wake's stout resistance, compared with less brilliant Allied performances elsewhere. The general's reply, "Just what did you expect of the Marines, anyway?"

The Japanese turn Wake into a fortress, but the Americans don't come back until Sept. 17th, 1945, to take the island's surrender from its starving, isolated, Japanese defenders.

When Washington learns that untrained civilian workers were flung into the defense of Wake, they decide to create a Naval engineering force of Construction Battalions that can build facilities as engineers and fight for them as infantry. Using the initials "C" and "B," these forces are publicized (quite successfully) to the world as the "Seabees."

Japanese bombers give Rangoon, Burma's capital, a good pasting, losing 10 aircraft for nine Allied (four Flying Tigers and five RAF planes). For once, bombing a city induces panic, as fires rage throughout the city, killing and wounding thousands, wrecking shorefront warehouses. While British volunteers clean up the mess and tend wounded, thousands of Burmese and Indians flee the city, leaving behind chaos.

December 24th, 1941...In the Philippines, 10,000 more Japanese troops land in Luzon. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, aware that Manila is menaced from two directions, orders War Plan Orange-III into effect. US troops will now execute the trickiest maneuver possible by an Army, a double retreat (north and south), yielding Manila, falling back into the mountainous and malarial peninsula of Bataan. While the retreat successfully moves the bulk of MacArthur's US and Filipino troops into the peninsula, it leaves behind supplies. All the racks of food at Fort Stotsenberg stay on their shelves. Boxes of rice in Manila's stadium remain behind. Nobody moves to seize the wares in Japanese-owned butcher shops and restaurants in Manila. Army trucks that could carry supplies roll into Bataan empty. MacArthur himself, with his wife and son Arthur, flee by ferry to the fortified island of Corregidor, their new headquarters, after declaring Manila an open city. The Japanese bomb it anyway.

In Manila, US demolition squads destroy millions of gallons of fuel. The last two US destroyers are sent to Java, leaving behind only the submarine Shark and subtender Canopus, and some PT boats.

In Burma, 54 Japanese bombers and 24 fighters attack airbases around Rangoon, destroying many Allied aircraft on the ground, mostly outdated Brewster Buffaloes and Bristol Blenheims. The Flying Tigers get airborne, though, and shoot down six Japanese, for a loss of two of their own.

In Hong Kong, the British defenders are split in two, and short of water. In one area, British and Japanese troops fight it out across the length of a hotel restaurant. Japanese troops capture 53 British and Canadian soldiers, rope them together, and shoot or bayonet them to death. In the village of Stanley, the Japanese attack doctors and wounded soldiers in St. Stephen's College Emergency Hospital, bayoneting more than 50 men in their beds. The Royal Navy's China Fleet Club manages to destroy its entire store of wines and spirits.

In the German-occupied Baltic States, German governor Hinrich Lohse orders his police to treat Gypsies in the same manner of Jews, claiming Gypsies carry disease.

Soviet PoWs are also murdered on a horrific scale. At a PoW camp in Hola, Poland, more than 100,000 have been herded into an open field, and given no food. They dig holes in which to try to get shelter from the wind and eat grass and roots. Any nearby villagers who throw food to the Russians are shot by the Germans. By month's end, all 100,000 are dead.

December 25, 1941....At dawn in Hong Kong, British Governor Sir Mark Young faces facts: his troops are split, short of water and food, and outnumbered. He surrenders unconditionally to the Japanese in Kowloon's Peninsula Hotel. 11,000 British and Canadian troops go in the bag, 13,000 Japanese are dead, after the 18-day siege. At St. Andrew's College, scene of the massacre yesterday, a Japanese officer presents flowers and apologies to the head of the British medical unit.

In the Philippines, US troops retreat and try to delay the Japanese advance, with some success. Japanese aircraft drop leaflets on Manila sporting pictures of naked women on the front, with "Tickets to Surrender" on the back. American troops are grateful for the additional toilet paper.

On Bataan, US Army engineers go into a new business, creating fisheries and rice mills to feed the troops streaming into the malarial peninsula. MacArthur believes he can withstand a siege of six months, and expects reinforcement at any moment.

Enroute to Sydney, HMNZS Achilles unpacks Christmas parcels from the Red Cross for its crew, and enjoys a special dinner with a bottle of beer per man.

In Rangoon, Burma, the city grinds to a halt because of the exodus of citizens. To prevent looting and rioting, martial law is ordered. As Indian troops take up their positions, 60 Japanese bombers and 20 fighters arrive. So do 13 Flying Tiger P-40s. The Americans rout the Japanese, shooting down 23 for a loss of only two. RAF fighters knock off an additional 12.

Radio Tokyo, infuriated, warns the Flying Tigers that if they do not abandon their unorthodox tactics, they will be "treated as guerrillas and shown no mercy whatsoever."

In besieged Leningrad, 3,700 citizens die of starvation.

At the Black Sea, the great fortress port of Sevastopol, home of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, is also under German siege. The Germans lob shells from the 480mm gun Thor at the Soviets. To relieve the siege this day, 3,000 Soviet naval troops are put ashore on the Kerch Peninsula, to establish a new Crimean front.

December 26, 1941...Japanese troops advance to Ipoh in Malaya after breaking through Perak River defenses. In Singapore, Australian Maj. Gen. Gordon Bennett blames his boss, British Lt. Gen. Arthur Percival, for the British collapse. Percival blames the governor, Sir Shenton Thomas. Alfred Duff-Cooper, Churchill's eyes and ears in the area, blames all three. But the real problem is rapidly turning out to be that the Japanese have tanks, and the British don't. The Japanese infantry are well-trained for jungle fighting, the British are not. The Japanese move through jungles and swamps to outflank and surround the road-bound British troops.

The British reaction to this continuing mess is to appoint their Chief Engineer, Brig. Ivan Simson, as head of Civil Defense, instead of putting him to work building fortifications on Singapore Island.

Simson raises the issue of building defenses again with his boss, Percival, and says, "I've raised this question time after time. You've always refused. What's more, you've always refused to give me any reasons. At least tell me one thing -- why on earth are you taking this stand (of refusing to build defenses)?"

Percival says, "I believe that defenses of this sort you want to throw up are bad for the morale of troops and civilians."

Simson, shaking, prepares to leave, but has one last remark, "Sir, it's going to be much worse for morale if the Japanese start running all over the island."

On the island of Wake, captured US Marines are ordered to clean captured rifles, machine guns, and 3-inch AA guns. They do a magnificent job of shining the weapons, and pour salt water down the rifle barrels to wreck them. They polish the 3-inchers until they look new, then put gritty sand into the recoil mechanisms. The machine guns glitter, but the Japanese find they all lack firing pins.