What happened in 1942

World6

• Jan 14The Sikorsky R-4 first flies in the United States; it will become the first mass-produced helicopter.
• Jul 4Twenty-four ships are sunk by German bombers and submarines after Convoy PQ 17 to the Soviet Union is scattered in the Arctic Ocean to evade the German battleship Tirpitz.
• Jul 23The Holocaust: The gas chambers at Treblinka extermination camp begin operation, killing 6,500 Jews newly arrived from the Warsaw Ghetto.
• Aug 15WWII: American tanker reaches Malta, as part of the convoy of Operation Pedestal.
• Oct 26WWII: Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands: Two Japanese aircraft carriers are heavily damaged and one U.S. Navy carrier is sunk.
• Nov 13Guadalcanal campaign: Aviators from the sink the Japanese battleship Hiei.

Japan4

• Feb 16WWII: Bangka Island Massacre: Japanese soldiers machine-gun 22 Australian Army nurses and 60 Australian and British soldiers and crew who have survived the sinking of SS Vyner Brooke.
• Apr 18WWII: Doolittle Raid – Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle leads a bombing mission against Japan, along with 79 other airmen of the U.S. Air Force, flying 16 North American B-25 Mitchell land-based bombers. They take off from the USS Hornet in the Pacific Ocean, some 700 miles (1,126 km) east of Tokyo. Thirteen of the B-25 bombers fly over Tokyo and drop their bombs on oil storage facilities, factories and military targets. The other three B-25s drop their bombs over Yokohama, Nagoya and Kobe. All but one of the B-25s run out of fuel before reaching friendly forces in western China and are forced to land in Japanese-occupied China. With the support of Chinese farmers, 71 airmen reach free China. Eight airmen are captured by the Japanese, who execute four of them in retaliation for the raid.
• Apr 29Burma campaign: Japanese forces of the 15 Army under General Shōjirō Iida capture Lashio. The allies are in full retreat.
• Nov 30WWII: Battle of Tassafaronga – In a nighttime naval battle as part of the Guadalcanal campaign, ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy defeat those of the United States Navy.

North America19

• Jan 1WWII: The Declaration by United Nations is signed by China, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and 22 other nations, in which they agree "not to make any separate peace with the Axis powers".
• Jan 16American film actress Carole Lombard and her mother are among all 22 killed aboard TWA Flight 3 when the Douglas DC-3 plane crashes into Potosi Mountain near Las Vegas while she is returning from a tour to promote the sale of war bonds.
• Feb 19President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, allowing the United States military to define areas as exclusionary zones. These zones affect the Japanese on the West Coast, and Germans and Italians primarily on the East Coast.
• Feb 24Propaganda: The Voice of America begins broadcasting.
• Feb 25"Battle of Los Angeles": Over 1,400 AA shells are fired at an unidentified, slow-moving object (probably a meteorological balloon) in the skies over Los Angeles. The appearance of the object triggers an immediate wartime blackout over most of Southern California, with thousands of air raid wardens being deployed throughout the city. At least 5 deaths are related to the incident. Despite the several-hour barrages no planes are downed.
• Mar 11WWII: Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines – U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, his family and key members of his staff are evacuated by PT boat, under cover of evening darkness, from Corregidor in the Philippines. Command of U.S. forces in the Philippines passes to Major General Jonathan M. Wainwright.
• Jun 1The Grand Coulee Dam is finished on the Columbia River in the United States.
• Jun 3WWII: The Aleutian Islands campaign opens with the Battle of Dutch Harbor, Japanese Navy aircraft carrier raids on the Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and Fort Mears, U.S. Army at Dutch Harbor on Amaknak Island in the Aleutian Islands, in the United States Territory of Alaska.
• Jun 4WWII: Battle of Midway – An American naval victory halts the Japanese advance in the Pacific.
• Aug 7WWII: Guadalcanal campaign – The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps start the first American offensive of the war, with an amphibious landing on the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
• AugManhattan ProjectThe U.S. project to build the atomic bomb. At its peak more than 100,000 people worked on it. In July 1945 it carried out the world's first nuclear test in New Mexico.
• Nov 2A USAAF squadron, including B-24 Liberators, intercepts many Luftwaffe patrols off the coast of Oran, Algeria.
• Nov 8Operation Torch: Elements of the Allied expeditionary force (some 105,000 men) under Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower lands simultaneously along the coastline of Morocco and Algeria in French North Africa.
• Nov 15The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal ends: Although the United States Navy suffers heavy losses, it retains control of Guadalcanal.
• Nov 26The movie Casablanca premières at the Hollywood Theater in New York City.

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Europe32

• Jan 20The Holocaust: Nazis at the Wannsee Conference convened by Reinhard Heydrich in Berlin decide that the "Final Solution (Endlösung) to the Jewish problem" is deportations to extermination camps.
• Feb 11WWII: Operation Cerberus: A Kriegsmarine (German navy) squadron comprising the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and their escort, dash from Brest through the English Channel to German ports; the British fail to sink any of them.
• Feb 27Battle of the Java Sea: An allied (ABDA) task force of 14 vessels under Dutch command, trying to stem a Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies, is defeated by a 19-vessel Japanese task force in the Java Sea; 2.300 sailors die, including the commander, Admiral Karel Doorman; Japanese attain naval hegemony in East-Asia.
• Mar 17The Holocaust: Operation Reinhard – The Nazi German Bełżec extermination camp opens in occupied Poland, about 1 km south of the railroad station at Bełżec in the Lublin district of the General Government. At least 434,508 people are killed here up to December 1942.
• Apr 10The Holocaust: Construction of the Nazi German extermination camp Treblinka II commences in occupied Poland near the village of Treblinka. Between July 23, 1942, and October 1943, around 850,000 people are killed here, more than 800,000 of whom are Jews.
• AprThe Holocaust: the Nazi German extermination camp Sobibór opens in occupied Poland, on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór. Between April 1942 and October 1943, at least 160,000 people are killed here.
• May 12Second Battle of Kharkov: In the eastern Ukraine, the Soviet Army initiates a major offensive to capture the city of Kharkov from the German Army, only to be encircled and destroyed.
• Jun 10Lidice massacre: Units of the Nazi Ordnungspolizei and Sicherheitsdienst shoot all 173 male residents of the Czech village of Lidice in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Of 503 inhabitants, a total of around 340 are killed, including 82 children deported to Chełmno extermination camp, and the remainder are removed. All domestic animals are killed and graves despoiled, the village is burned, remains blown up and the site landscaped out of existence; Nazi propaganda (which is open about the event) states "The name of the village was immediately abolished."
• Jul 18WWII: The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me 262 (using only its jet engines) for the first time.
• Aug 16Polish-Jewish teacher Janusz Korczak follows a group of Jewish children into the Treblinka extermination camp.
• Aug 19WWII: Dieppe Raid: An Allied amphibious attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe in northern France is repulsed. Some 6,000 men of the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division under General John Roberts, supported by 3 and 4 Commando, 50 or so US Rangers and Free French Commandos, are put ashore. The raid is designed to provide battle experience for the troops and to gain information about German defense methods. The casualties are some 3,600 men, 1 destroyer, 30 tanks and 33 landing craft.
• Sep 2WWII: The island of Les Casquets in the Channel Islands is raided by the forerunner of the British SAS, the SSRF, led by Major Gus March-Phillipps; this is one of the first raids by Anders Lassen VC. In the raid, the entire garrison of 7 is abducted and returned to England as prisoners, and the radio and lighthouse are wrecked.
• Oct 18WWII: Hitler issues the Commando Order, which stipulates that all Allied commandos encountered by German forces should be executed immediately without trial, even in proper uniforms, in response to the Dieppe Raid and Operation Basalt conducted by the Allies. After the war, the Nuremberg trials finds this order a direct violation of the laws and customs of war.
• Oct 30U-boats sink 11 ships, attacking diversionary convoy SL 125, but move out of the path of approaching troopships, carrying Allied Operation Torch invasion forces.
• Dec 10The Holocaust: The Polish government-in-exile sends copies of The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland, including Raczyński's Note, the first official report on The Holocaust, to 26 governments who signed the Declaration by United Nations.

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USSR / Russia8

• Jan 7Operation Typhoon, the German attempt to take Moscow, ends in failure.
• May 26The Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942, to help establish a military and political alliance between the USSR and the British Empire, is signed in London by foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov.
• Jun 28WWII: Operation Blue: German forces of Army Group South under Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock drive to Stalingrad and the Baku oil fields. Spearheads of the 4th Panzer Army under General Hermann Hoth drive towards Voronezh, advancing nearly 50 km on day one. They crossed two rivers and cut the link one between the Soviet 13th and 40th armies.
• Jul 29The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union institutes the Order of Suvorov and Order of Kutuzov and reinstates the Order of Alexander Nevsky.
• Aug 23WWII: Battle of Stalingrad: German forces of the 16th Panzer Division reach the suburbs of Stalingrad. The German 6th Army under General Friedrich Paulus stabilishes the frontier and takes up positions at the Volga River.
• Nov 19WWII: Battle of Stalingrad: Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counter-attacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.
• Nov 22WWII: Battle of Stalingrad: The situation for the German attackers of Stalingrad seems desperate during the Soviet counter-attack Operation Uranus, and General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram, saying that the German Sixth Army is surrounded.
• Dec 12WWII: German troops began Operation Winter Storm, an attempt to relieve encircled Axis forces during the Battle of Stalingrad.

Asia9

• Jan 11Malayan Campaign: The Japanese capture Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the Federated Malay States.
• Jan 11Dutch East Indies campaign: Japan declares war on the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. Japanese forces invade Borneo and Celebes.
• Jan 31WWII: Malayan Campaign: The last organized Allied forces leave British Malaya, ending the 54-day campaign, and the Johor–Singapore Causeway is severed.
• Feb 8WWII: Battle of Singapore: Japanese forces of the 5th Division and 18th Division (some 23,000 men) begin to cross the Johor Strait and attack the Australian 22nd Brigade (some 3,000 men) at Singapore.
• Feb 15WWII: Fall of Singapore: Commonwealth forces under General Arthur Percival surrender to the Japanese 25th Army. About 80,000 British, Indian, Australian, and local troops become prisoners of war, joining the 50,000 soldiers taken in the Malayan campaign.
• Feb 18Japanese occupation of Singapore: Sook Ching – Japanese forces begin the systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among Chinese Singaporeans.
• Apr 3WWII: Japanese forces begin the last phase of the Battle of Bataan, an all-out assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.
• Apr 9Battle of Bataan: The Bataan Peninsula falls, American and Filipino forces (some 75,000 soldiers) surrender to the Japanese 14th Army under General Masaharu Homma.
• Aug 13A Quit India resolution is passed by the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), which leads to the start of a historical civil disobedience movement across India.

Middle East4

• Jul 1WWII: First Battle of El Alamein: British forces prevent a second advance by Axis forces into Egypt. The 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions are halted and Erwin Rommel orders his forces to regroup. The panzer strength of the German Afrika Korps has been reduced to only 26 vehicles.
• Aug 30WWII: Battle of Alam el Halfa – British forces in the Western Desert resist a German attack under Erwin Rommel. German tanks get slowed down in the minefields around Alam el Halfa Ridge and are forced to withdraw.
• Oct 23WWII: Second Battle of El Alamein: British troops go on the offensive against the Axis forces.
• Nov 3WWII: Second Battle of El Alamein: German forces under Erwin Rommel are forced to retreat during the night.

Africa5

• May 5WWII: Battle of Madagascar (Operation Ironclad) begins when British forces land on the Vichy French colony of Madagascar. On May 7 the northern city of Diego Suarez surrenders.
• May 26Battle of Gazala: German forces of Panzer Army Africa led by General Erwin Rommel launch a frontal attack on the central Gazala positions. During the day, the bulk of Rommel's forces move forward, giving the British the impression that this is the main Axis assault. When night falls, the armoured formations turn south in a sweeping move around the southern end of the Gazala line.
• May 26Battle of Bir Hakeim: The Free French and British troops slow the German advance in North Africa.
• Jun 13WWII: During the Battle of Gazala, German forces of the 21st Panzer Division advance from the west and attack the British tanks of the 22nd Armoured Brigade. Erwin Rommel demonstrates superiority in tactics, compressing the British armoured forces between two Panzer Divisions of the Panzer Army Africa and the Italian Ariete and Trieste Divisions. By the end of the day, the British tank strength is reduced from 300 tanks to about 70. Rommel establishes armour superiority and surrounds the "Knightsbridge" positions. Due to the many losses, this defeat becomes known as "Black Saturday" to the Eighth Army.
• Nov 6WWII: Battle of Madagascar ends when Vichy French forces on Madagascar sign an armistice with the Allies.

Oceania14

• Jan 23WWII: The Battle of Rabaul begins. Before dawn, 5,000 troops of Japan's elite South Seas Detachment storm ashore at Rabaul on the island of New Britain. With control of the air and support from the guns of their own ships, the Japanese overwhelm the small Australian garrison: the majority are either killed or captured. This marks the start of the New Guinea campaign.
• Feb 19Bombing of Darwin: The Japanese 1st Air Fleet under Admiral Chūichi Nagumo bombs Darwin, Australia. This force comprises the aircraft carriers Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū and Sōryū and a powerful force of escorting surface ships. During the attack, 188 planes led by Mitsuo Fuchida destroy 11 vessels and wreck a lot of the harbor infrastructure, killing some 240 people.
• Mar 31WWII: Battle of Christmas Island – Japanese troops occupy Christmas Island without resistance, following a mutiny by British Indian Army troops against their British officers.
• May 8The Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese and American/Australian fleets, the first battle in naval history where the opponents fight without seeing each other's fleets. The Japanese achieve a tactical victory in terms of tonnage lost (including aircraft carrier USS Lexington) but are prevented from invading Port Moresby.
• Aug 8WWII: Battle of Savo Island: The Japanese Imperial Navy under Admiral Gunichi Mikawa wins a spectacular victory over the US Navy and the Australian Navy at Savo Island. Five cruisers and one destroyer are sunk, Mikawa's decision to withdraw under cover of the night rather than attempt to destroy the Allied invasion transports is primarily because of a possible Allied carrier strike against his fleet.
• Aug 21WWII: Battle of the Tenaru: The Americans defeat Japanese land forces on Guadalcanal.
• Aug 24WWII: The 2-day Battle of the Eastern Solomons begins: Bombers from carrier USS Saratoga sink Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō near Santa Isabel Island, helping to lead to an Allied victory.
• Aug 25WWII: Battle of Milne Bay opens, when Japanese marines land at Milne Bay.
• Sep 5WWII: Battle of Milne Bay: Japanese forces suffer their first defeat on land.
• Oct 9WWII: Third Battle of the Matanikau on Guadalcanal: American forces defeat the Japanese.
• Oct 11WWII: Battle of Cape Esperance: On the northwest coast of Guadalcanal, United States Navy ships intercept and defeat a Japanese fleet, on their way to reinforce troops on the island.
• Oct 23WWII: Battle for Henderson Field: Japanese forces fail to recapture Henderson Field airfield in Guadalcanal from the Americans.
• Nov 12WWII: Guadalcanal campaign: A naval battle near Guadalcanal starts between Japanese and American forces.
• Dec 15WWII: Guadalcanal campaign – Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse: the United States and allied forces begin to attack Japanese positions near the Matanikau River.