1942 News and Interesting Tidbits From History


Operation Pastorius
Six Members who were part of Operation Pastorius are executed in the electric chair at the District of Columbia jail.

Operation Pastorius was a failed plan by German Nazi's to sabotage American economic targets including hydro-electric plants, railway stations, and other key US targets, they were landed in the US by German U-Boats in June and the plan failed because two of the saboteurs ( Dasch and Burger ) decided they did not wish to proceed with the plan and informed the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The trial was before a seven-member military commission who sentenced all eight to death but President Roosevelt commuted Burger's and Dasch's to prison sentences because of their co-operation with the FBI.








Japanese Americans Evacuated / internment camps ?
More than 600 Japanese aliens and Japanese-Americans from the Pacific Coast assembled at Pasadena's Rose Bowl under military orders to evacuate to a camp in Owens Valley, California..






Operation Jubilee
Allied troops attempt to gain control of the French port of Dieppe in Operation Jubilee, but are forced to retreat after 8 hours of suffering terrible casualties, the toll is believed to be as high as 4,000 dead or injured from the 6,000 who attempted to land on the beaches.






Estimates of Numbers of Fighting Men World War II 1942
a diagram with the numbers of fighting men on both sides during World War II






K9 Corps Starts Training Dogs For War
The K9 corps begins training dogs for use in warfare, often used to carry messages close to the enemy front and as scout dogs which would bark when intruder was detected .






Island Of Malta Awarded George Cross Medal
King George VI has awarded to the people from small Mediterranean island of Malta the George Cross Medal for Bravery saying "To honour her brave people I award the George Cross to the Island Fortress of Malta, to bear witness to a heroism and a devotion that will long be famous in history."

The Island had been under constant attack by Italian and German bombers and Messerschmidt's machine guns since June 1940 because of it's strategic location for both the North Africa campaign and the European Campaign, Food supplies and health and hygiene became a serious problem as the ships that would normally supply the Island were sunk by the enemy before they bring in new supplies.






Japanese Land On Australian Island
The Japanese have landed for the third time in Australia-this time about 400 miles from the mainland. Australia was soon to become the next World War II target.








The Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway began when the Japanese navy attacked Midway thinking the US forces would quickly be wiped out but due to clever reconnaissance and by letting the Japanese believe there would be little resistance The US were able to send 55 U.S. dive-bombers which took full advantage of the poor strategy, and sunk three of the four Japanese carriers, all cluttered with aircraft and fuel. The attack on Midway resulted in the loss of 322 aircraft and 3,500 men from the Japanese Navy







Lieutenant Edward H. "Butch" O’Hare
Lt. Edward O’Hare downed five Japanese bombers that were attacking the carrier Lexington, which earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor.
He was shot down on 26th November 1943 while leading the a night time fighter attack on a Japanese aircraft carrier.
In 1949 the Chicago, Illinois Orchard Depot Airport was renamed O'Hare International Airport in his honor.







Carrier USS Lexington lost
The Battle of Coral Sea, between the Japanese Navy and the United States and Australian Navies ends with the loss of the carrier USS Lexington and the Japanese carrier Shōhō.






Humphrey Bogart Big Break
The part for Rick Blaine in Casablanca was originally cast for "George Raft" who turned it down so Humphrey Bogart Got the part.







Kate Smith Big Break
Kate Smith began her radio career on CBS. She became best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's song "God Bless America."







Rioting Follows Arrest Of Ghandi
In India rioting and strikes occurred in Bombay and Delhi over the arrest of Mohandas K. Ghandi who advocated non-violent protests. Japan encouraged Indians to fight for their liberty from Britain and reported that they were standing on the India-Burma border ready to help liberate India.






Voice of America Begins
The Voice of America goes on the air for the first time under the Office of War Information with news programs aimed at Japan, the south Pacific, and to areas of Europe and North Africa under the occupation of Nazi Germany.






Eddie Rickenbacker Rescued
World War veteran and daredevil, Eddie Rickenbacker, was pulled out the Pacific Ocean after being lost at sea for 22 days. He and six other men would have starved to death, if they had not caught and eaten a sea gull. Rickenbacker was on a special mission in the South Pacific when he went missing.






Promotional Records Sent To Radio Announcers
Glenn Wallichs for Capitol Records came up with the idea of sending out "promotional" copies of records to radio announcers around the U.S.







Anne Frank began writing in her diary
Anne Frank began her diary after she receives it for her 13th birthday, the diary details her life in hiding from the Nazis in hidden rooms in her father Otto Frank's office building and has become one of the world's most widely read books. She died while held in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp of typhus in March 1945.






Bing Crosby Records White Christmas
Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and John Scott Trotter Orchestra recorded Irving Berlin's "White Christmas." The song becomes the most successful Christmas recording of all time.







Japanese Victory and Singapore Surrenders
The Japanese experienced a major victory in the Pacific as Singapore Surrenders. Japanese had captured Singapore troops and caused them to surrender. In the process, over 60,000 British, Australian, and Indian soldiers were taken captive, along with 70,000 other soldiers fighting on the site of the Allied troops during World War II. This took place a little a year after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. The day after the Pearl Harbor bombing, the Japanese had already been striving for another victory. They moved in on Malay, which was controlled by the British at this time. At this time the Allied Forces of World War II (including Americans) had retreated in the opposite direction, as they were outnumbered. By January of this year (1942) the Allied troops were grossly outnumbered and only held control of the lower half of the Peninsula. The British had dynamited the bridge in this area, but were unable to destroy it in its entirety. As mentioned earlier, Allied troops, were then forces to surrender-including the Singapore troops controlled by the British.







American and Filipino defenders Surrender To Japanese
American and Filipino defenders taking a last stand to the Japanese invasion begun in December 1941 on Bataan surrender to Japanese forces during World War II.




"Bataan Death March"
The Japanese then forced 75,000 captured American and Filipino soldiers to march more than 85 miles in six days from Bataan to a prison camp near Cabanatuan with only one meal of rice in total over the six days known as the "Bataan Death March" During the Forced march hundreds of Americans and many more Filipinos die.




Allies Take Back The Philippines
The Allied and the Philippine Commonwealth forces began the campaign to recapture the Philippines in 1944, with landings on the island of Leyte, and the battle was still going until the Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945 following the dropping of atomic bombs "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, and "Fat Man" over the city of Nagasaki, Japan.






US Gas Rationing
Nationwide gasoline rationing goes into effect with most drivers receiving coupons for 3 gallons per week generally supported by the population, although there was some black market activity.






First Nuclear Demonstration
A self sustaining nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated for the first time at a racquet's court below the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago.







The Empire State Building
The Empire State Building in New York Officially opens






Care from the cradle to the grave accepted in England
The British Coalition Government accepts The Beveridge report which propose a series of changes designed to provide plans for a welfare state offering care to all from the cradle to the grave.






Quisling Prime Minister Norway
A Puppet government is set up in Norway following the German Occupation and Vidkun Quisling, a collaborator with the German occupiers is established as prime minister of a puppet government.







Vichy Government France
The New Vichy Government Headed by Pierre laval at the bidding of his German masters in an attempt to bring the insurgent french people back into line with Nazi ruling by promising to protect the people from the Nazi Regime by gaining concessions






German Offensive Eastern Crimea
The Nazi's have launched a major spring offensive in the Eastern Crimea , Germany is thought to be prepared to use poison gas in it's advance but England has stated if poison gas is used it will retaliate with the RAF using poison gas against the Third Reich







Scrap Days US War Effort
A new war effort has started across the country with the new initiative of " scrap days " encouraging every American to help the war effort by giving scrap consisting of metal and old clothing to the nearest scrap merchant who will then be able to provide much needed raw materials for the war effort. As part of the effort people are encouraged to donate old keys that are no longer used in a " Keyhole For Victory " effort so they can be turned into tanks, guns and ships.








Some Idea Of The Holocaust Figures for 1942
We often read about The Holocaust which was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II. I did some research for 1942 and the extent of what the Nazis called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." just some of the Nazi regime persecution of Jews for 1942.

30,000 Lublin Polish Jews were massacred or transported to Belzec Concentration Camp
700 Jews from Polish Lvov-district reached concentration camp Belzec
SS murdered 200 inmates of Trawniki labor camp
A Nazi decree ordered all Jewish pregnant women of Kovno Ghetto executed
1,500 Jews were gassed in Auschwitz
Hitler promptly ordered the deaths of 10,000 residents of Lidice, near Prague
100,000 people die in the Warsaw ghetto due to disease or starvation
300,000 Warsaw Ghetto Jews are sent to death at Treblinka extermination Camp
5,000 Jews of Rovno, Polish Ukraine, were executed by Nazis
SS shot 1,500 Jews in Josefov, Poland
Jews are transported from Holland to extermination camps
Trains full of Jews are sent from Mechelen, Belgium, to Auschwitz Concentration Camp
German SS einsatzgruppen death battalions killed 35,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia
SS began exterminate 3,500 Jews in Zelov Lodz, Poland
7,000 Jews were rounded up in Vichy, France
At Auschwitz Nazis began experimental gassing executions
In Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, some 50,000 Jews were held by the German SS in crowded conditions and half the inmates died
5,000 Jews of Dubno, Russia, were massacred
1,300 Austrian Jews were transported to Theresienstadt
Nazis murdered some 16,000 Jews in Pinsk, Soviet Union
In Belarus on Yom Kippur 2,900 Jews were killed in Domachevo
Nazis executed 12,000 Minsk ghetto Jews
745 French Jews were deported to Auschwitz.
The German ship SS Donau leaves Oslo with 332 Norwegian Jews bound for death camps
In Bronsk, Poland, 2500 Jews living in a shtetl (small village), were rounded up by the Nazis and gassed at Treblinka.
40,000 French Jews deported to Nazi death camps









News Of Atrocities On Jews In Poland Appears
News is filtering out of German occupied Europe of atrocities and the mass executions of Jews by killing squads and in Poland, Jewish ghetto's were being "systematically emptied" except for the able-bodied who were being sent to labour camps.











1941 Previous Year ---- ( Current Year Is 1942 ) ---- Following Year 1943



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