1942 | Political Events
Political Events
Japanese forces take Manila January 2, invade the Dutch East Indies January 10, but suffer their first major sea loss in late January at the Battle of Macassar Strait when U.S. and Dutch naval and air forces attack a Japanese convoy.
President Roosevelt calls in January for production in 1942 of 60,000 planes, 45,000 tanks, 20,000 antiaircraft guns, and 6 million deadweight tons of merchant shipping. His $59 billion budget submitted January 7 has more than $52 billion earmarked for the war effort, whose emphasis is initially on stopping Hitler in Europe.
An Inter-American Conference assembles 21 representatives at Rio de Janeiro January 15 to coordinate Western Hemisphere defenses against aggression (see 1941). Delegates from every country except Argentina and Chile attend. They adopt a unanimous resolution January 21 calling for severance of relations with the Axis powers, and the group sets up an Inter-American Defense Board in March. Mexico declares war on the Axis powers and sends pilots to serve in the Pacific.
The German cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneissenhau and Prinz Eugen escape from the occupied French harbor of Brest to the Baltic in February but avoid Allied naval vessels and aircraft (see 1943; Glorious sinking, 1940).
National Socialist Party cofounder Anton Drexler dies in obscurity at Munich February 24 at age 57.
Former first lord of the admiralty William W. Palmer, 2nd earl of Selborne, dies at his native London February 26 at age 82, having initiated the rebuilding of the Royal Navy into a force strong enough to oppose the German Navy in World War I; Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, U.S. Navy (Ret.), dies at New York April 6 at age 87, having seen many of his inventions developed and used to good effect by the navy.
The German battleship Tirpitz comes out of its Norwegian anchorage and attacks a Soviet-bound convoy of ships in March (see 1944).
U-boat activity off the U.S. Atlantic Coast continues to take a heavy toll of merchant ships bound for British and Soviet ports with war matériel, foodstuffs, and men, threatening to cut the lifeline that has enabled Britain and the Red Army to survive (see 1941). Washington orders a dim-out extending 15 miles from the coast April 28 to make it harder for the U-boats to sight their quarry at night, when most attacks occur (more effective on the surface, the submarines also attack at twilight and dawn). New York's Times Square signs, go dark at night above street level beginning May 18 at the navy's request (included is the 13½-year-old news "Zipper" on the Times Tower, but the man in the Camel cigarette sign that went up last year will continue throughout the war to emit rings of Con Edison steam as the man dons a uniform that will be changed periodically to vary his service). Volunteer civil defense air raid wardens make sure that people have drawn blackout curtains to minimize the amount of light that silhouettes merchant ships leaving the port of New York for Europe.
High-frequency detection devices begin to give Allied destroyers the ability to identify lurking U-boats as far as 50 miles away, and aircraft are used to drop depth charges that help to make life more difficult for the German submarine commanders, but a convoy assembled off Iceland in late June with hundreds of tanks, planes, and motorized vehicles comes under U-boat attack. The Admiralty at London decides that the merchant vessels will present less obvious targets if they scatter, it orders the escorting warships to fall back, the merchant vessels find it hard to maneuver in the icy sea, and only 11 of the vessels reach Murmansk, the rest having been sunk by German torpedo planes and U-boats, most of which are actually submersible torpedo boats that can dive for brief periods before, during, and after an attack but cannot remain submerged for long. Convoys are suspended in late August and will not resume until next year, but code breakers at Bletchley Park finally break the Germans' Triton code in December, enabling them to intercept messages from Admiral Doenitz to his U-boats (see 1943).
Thailand's military dictator Luang Phibunsongkhram declares war on Britain and the United States January 25 (see 1941). He makes himself field marshal and in the next 2 years will promote fashions such as wearing shoes and hats (see 1944).
The first Japanese destroyer to be sunk by a U.S. ship goes down in the Pacific February 8; a U.S. ship commanded by James C. Dempsey, 33, receives credit for the kill, but Allied activities in the Pacific remain primarily defensive, with higher priority given to sinking U-boats in the North Atlantic and halting the German aggression in Europe and North Africa.
Palembang in Sumatra falls February 13 to Japanese paratroopers who have landed 3 days earlier and take the city by amphibious assault.
Singapore falls February 15 and the Japanese rename it Syonan (Light of the South) February 17 (see 1941). Three Japanese divisions have landed on Singapore Island February 8 and 9; the big guns of the British naval base have fixed emplacements and point out to sea, making them useless against the Japanese, who have approached from the Malayan interior under the command of Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, 36. He receives the surrender of more than 130,000 British and Commonwealth troops under the command of Gen. Arthur Ernest Percival, 54. Included are 15,000 Australians, 5,000 of whom will die in Japanese prisoner of war camps. Australia's prime minister John Curtin insists that Aussie troops recalled from the Middle East be returned home and not used (as Prime Minister Churchill has wished) to defend Burma.
Dutch rear admiral Karel (Willem Frederik Marie) Doorman, 52, is given tactical command February 25 of a combined U.S., British, Dutch, and Australian fleet and ordered by Gen. Sir Archibald P. Wavell to defend the Java Sea against a Japanese invasion fleet. "I attack, follow me" ("Ik val aan, volgt mij"), Doorman signals the other 12 ships in his force, but he goes down with his flagship De Ruyter February 27 as the vastly superior Japanese force wipes out his squadron in the Battle of the Java Sea and lands troops in the Solomon Islands March 13, threatening the vital route to Australia.
Filipino President Manuel Quezon leaves Corregidor Island in Manila Bay and makes his way to the United States, having given $500,000 in gold to Gen. Douglas MacArthur as payment for his services. Gen. MacArthur leaves Corregidor with his wife and young son in March after issuing a statement saying, "I shall return" (the statement was written by his Filipino aide-de-camp Carlos P. [Peña] Romulo, 43, who has worked as a journalist, made radio broadcasts widely known as the "Voice of Freedom," and won a Pulitzer Prize last year for his prewar evaluations of the military situation in the Pacific). Romulo joins MacArthur and his family in the PT-boat that takes them through 500 miles of rough, mine-infested seas until they finally reach Brisbane, Australia.
U.S. troops on the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines surrender to Gen. Yamashita April 9. Lieut. Gen. Homma Masaharu, 54, has his men round up 70,000 U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war and march them 55 miles from Mariveles north to San Fernando, whence they are taken by rail to Capas, where they are obliged to walk eight more miles to a prison camp. Many are shot or hacked to death on the 3-day "death march," only 54,000 reach Camp O'Donnell, the rest having died en route or escaped into the jungle. Most of the 54,000 will be shot, beheaded, or die of disease or starvation in the camps (only about 4,000 Americans will survive). But guerrilla fighters in Luzon form a People's Anti-Japanese Army (Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon in the Tagalog language) under the leadership of socialist Luis Taruc, 28, to resist the invaders (see 1945; Huk Rebellion, 1946).
A strike force of 16 Mitchell B-25 bombers from the U.S. carrier Hornet conduct a daylight raid on Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe, and Osaka April 18 under the command of Major James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle, now 45 (Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson has given orders that Kyōto not be bombed lest its cultural treasures be damaged). The raid does relatively little harm (90 buildings are destroyed, 90 people killed), but it boosts U.S. morale. Three of the 83 U.S. flyers die in a crash landing in China; the Japanese capture 11 others and execute three as "war criminals," 69 make it to safety and receive a hero's greeting from Mme. Chiang Kai-shek; the Japanese exact revenge, killing thousands of Chinese.
Japanese forces cut the Burma Road now under construction and capture Lashio April 29 (see 1940). Mandalay falls May 2 as the Japanese complete their conquest of northern Burma. British and Chinese forces withdraw across the Chindwin River into India's Assam Province, but British officer Orde (Charles) Wingate, 39, obtains permission to organize a long-range counter-penetration force of three battalions, one of them made up of Ghurkas, the other two of Britons and Burmese. Having organized indigenous Ethiopian fighters to oust the Italians, Wingate calls his 3,000 men Chindits, trains them in jungle-fighting techniques, and sets out to retake territory from the Japanese, using horses, mules, gliders that land behind enemy lines, and supplies dropped by air (see 1944).
The U.S. garrison on Corregidor at the mouth of Manila Bay in the Philippines surrenders May 6 after 300 air attacks. Gen. Jonathan M. (Mayhew) Wainwright III, 59, and his 10,000 men are taken prisoner; many are sent to Unit 731 in Manchuria, where Shiro Ishii's men subject them to tests of biological weapons. The 6-year-old facility begins new field tests of such weapons against Chinese soldiers and civilians, unleashing anthrax, bubonic plague (see 1941), cholera, and other disease germs that create epidemics and kill tens of thousands.
The Japanese suffer their first major reverse and sustain heavy losses from May 4 to 8 in the Battle of the Coral Sea, 300 miles east of New Guinea. Having cracked Japan's Purple Code, U.S. Naval Intelligence has learned of the Imperial Navy's plan to attack Port Moresby in New Guinea, the naval high command rushes carriers to intercept the Japanese fleet, and when Japanese troops land at Tulagi May 3 they are hit by carrier-based planes from a task force commanded by Rear Admiral Frank J. (Jack) Fletcher, 56, whose pilots take off from U.S.S. Yorktown and sink a destroyer and some minesweepers and landing barges. In the first battle ever to pit aircraft carrier against aircraft carrier, opposing carrier groups find each other the next morning, carrier-based Japanese planes sink a U.S. destroyer and oiler May 7, carrier-based U.S. planes sink the light carrier Shoho and a cruiser; the Japanese sink the U.S. carrier Lexington May 8, although her commander, Admiral Frederick C. (Carl) Sherman, 54, survives with much of his crew. Land-based Allied bombers arrive to help the navy pilots, the carrier Shokaku withdraws, badly damaged, but although the Japanese cripple the U.S. carrier Yorktown they lose so many planes that their invasion force has to turn back to Rabaul, and they are halted in their efforts to invade Australia.
Napalm (napthenic acid and palmetate) developed by Columbus, Ohio-born Harvard organic chemist Louis F. Fieser, 43, is a jellied gasoline incendiary that will increase the effective range of flamethrowers and slow down the rate of burning. Created in response to a U.S. Army request, the cheap derivative of petroleum and palm oils will find wide use as a canister filler for bombs.
The antitank weapon tested for the first time in May at the Frankfort Arsenal in Kentucky has been developed by Capt. Leslie A. Skinner, 40, U.S. Army, and Lieut. Edward J. Uhl, 24, U.S. Navy. Servicemen will call the M1 Rocket Launcher a bazooka because it looks like the musical instrument used by radio and film comedian Bob Burns.
House of Commons leader Sir (Richard) Stafford Cripps, 53, arrives in India with an offer of dominion status for a United India (see Government of India Act, 1935). Mahatma Gandhi calls it "a postdated check on a crashing bank." Indian National Congress party leader Jawaharlal Nehru, now 52, also rejects it. The National Congress passes a motion August 8 demanding that the British quit India immediately, authorities jail Gandhi and other leaders, but a massive civil disobedience campaign creates the biggest crisis in India since the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. Pro-Congress crowds take over the streets of Bombay (Mumbai), police fire on the rioters (five are killed), and the British lose control in Patna and Bihar (see Wavell, 1943). "I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire," says Prime Minister Churchill November 10 in a speech at the Mansion House (but see 1947).
The Battle of Midway June 4 ends in 5 minutes with Japan losing three of her five carriers (a fourth is so badly damaged that a U.S. submarine sinks her June 5). Commanded by Baltimore-born Admiral Raymond (Ames) Spruance, 56 (who has succeeded the ailing William "Bull" Halsey), the only three U.S. Pacific fleet carriers to have survived the Battle of the Coral Sea have ambushed a huge Japanese fleet bound for Midway Island under the command of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, 46, who was in charge of the carrier fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor and has hoped to use Midway as a launching site for an assault on the Hawaiian Islands. The opposing commanders are more than 30 miles apart and cannot see each other's ships, but Naval Intelligence has alerted Spruance to Nagumo's plans, and three squadrons of torpedo bombers from the U.S. 5th Fleet carriers Hornet, Enterprise, and Yorktown attack the enemy carriers on a suicide mission, flying without fighter escorts; Japanese fire kills 68 of the 82 aviators, none of whose torpedoes finds their marks (the torpedoes are defective), but the attack draws the Japanese Zero fighters down close to the water, and when U.S. SBD-3 Dauntless dive-bombers come in from 15,000 feet there are no enemy planes to stop them. They badly damage the carriers Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu, the Akagi and Kaga sink soon afterward, the Soryu withdraws to the west and sinks that evening, planes from the Enterprise hit the carrier Hiryu later in the day, and she sinks June 5. Although Yorktown is lost June 7, the stunning U.S. victory reverses the gains made by Japan at Pearl Harbor and will prove to be a turning point in the war (Admiral Nagumo will be killed in 1944).
Japanese forces occupy Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians June 7, having been sent north to distract the Americans from Tokyo's real objective, Midway Island. The commander of U.S. troops in Alaska has told the War Department that his 20,000 men do not have the resources needed to repel a full-scale enemy invasion, President Roosevelt has ordered construction of a highway that will link the territory to the lower 48 by year's end, construction has begun April 11, but Japanese planes have bombed Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians June 3, inflicting more than 100 casualties.
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), created by President Roosevelt's executive order June 13, is an espionage group headed by World War I hero and former New York State assistant attorney general William J. Donovan, now 59, who has been senior partner in the Wall Street law firm Donovan, Leisure, Newton and Lombard. "Wild Bill" Donovan ran for governor against Herbert Lehman in 1932 and was an outspoken critic of the New Deal. Conversations with British spymaster William S. Stephenson have convinced him of the need for counter-propaganda and clandestine operations; President Roosevelt asked him in July of last year to head an agency that would collect and analyze strategic intelligence; and Donovan will soon have 1,500 agents working undercover in Europe and Asia (see CIA, 1947).
China's Chiang Kai-shek captures Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh but releases him under pressure from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) because he has been leading resistance to the Japanese (see Viet Minh, 1941; 1945). Both Chiang and the Viet Minh receive U.S. support: cargo planes deliver supplies from India over "the hump" (the Himalayas); Chiang's Florida-born chief of staff Gen. Joseph Warren "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, 59, begins the 478-mile Burma-India Ledo Road to link up with the old Burma Road. By mid-December British and Indian troops are forcing the Japanese in Malaya to retreat into Burma and forcing those in Burma to fall back.
Japanese planes drop incendiary bombs over Oregon September 9 but fail in their effort to start forest fires.
The FBI captures eight German marines June 28 about a week after they have come ashore in civilian clothes from U-boats on Long Island and Florida beaches, some near Amagansett, some near Jacksonville. All have lived in America and been recruited by the Nazis; some have landed near Amagansett with $100,000, explosives, and orders to blow up production and transportation targets, but have gone on a spending spree before giving themselves up. One of the Germans has betrayed the mission, his call to the FBI was initially brushed off as a hoax, but he has finally convinced agents that he was on the level. The FBI blunder has embarrassed J. Edgar Hoover (the FBI claimed credit for intercepting the saboteurs), and his agents arrest 325 Germans (many of them members of the German-American Bund), 65 Italians, seven Japanese, one Hungarian, and two Romanians in the New York area and discover incriminating evidence on some, including maps of U.S. defenses found on a member of the Japanese Association. President Roosevelt tells his attorney general Francis Biddle that he will resist efforts to give the saboteurs an open trial in a court of law. U.S. Army lawyer Col. Kenneth Royall objects, citing the landmark 1866 Supreme Court decision in Ex Parte Mulligan, but the Supreme Court holds a special session July 31 and unanimously affirms Roosevelt's power to order the military trial (Ex Parte Quirin). A military tribunal tries the eight would-be saboteurs at Washington, D.C., all eight are found guilty, six are electrocuted August 8, two receive prison sentences, including the German who called the FBI.
Tobruk in Libya falls June 21 to Gen. Rommel, who takes 25,000 British prisoners (see 1941). Rommel's panzer divisions have begun their offensive May 27. Adolf Hitler promotes Rommel to field marshal as Axis forces sweep east to El Alamein, 70 miles from Alexandria, before being checked by the 8th Army, commanded as of August 6 by Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery, 54.
A Yugoslav government-in-exile is inaugurated at London January 11 with liberal Serbian jurist and former University of Belgrade vice-chancellor Slobodan Jovanovic, 72, as prime minister (see 1941). He will continue in the office until late June 1943.
Hungarian moderates oust Premier László Bárdossy in March, and the regent Miklós Horthy asks politician Miklós Kállay, 55, to form a new government, which takes office March 9 with Kállay as prime minister (see 1941). He sets out to reverse the policies of his predecessor, distance itself from Nazi Germany, allow the press and left-wing parties to function normally, and give more protection to the Jews than they enjoy almost anywhere else on the Continent (see 1944).
Marshal Pétain reinstates Pierre Laval as French premier under pressure from German occupation forces April 14.
Rolls-Royce test pilot Ronald W. Harker takes off in an RAF Mustang P-51 (Mark IA) fighter plane from an airbase at Duxford April 30, finds it 30 miles-per-hour faster than a Spitfire VB at similar power settings and with nearly twice the range, and reportedly recommends that the North American Aviation-built plane be equipped with a 1,000-horsepower Rolls-Royce Merlin engine (see 1941). U.S. plants will produce 15,575 Mustangs in the next few years, all but 1,580 with Rolls-Royce engines, and an Australian plant will turn out 100. North American Aviation's Inglewood, Calif., plant will manufacture as many as 857 in 1 month, and the planes will be parked in rows outside the plant waiting for pilots to deliver them. At least 25 countries will operate P-51 Mustangs, some of them for more than 35 years.
The IL-2 Stormovik dive bomber designed by Soviet engineer Sergei Vladimirovich Ilyushin, 48, goes into volume production for use against the USSR's German invaders. Some 36,000 of the heavily armored planes will be produced, and the IL-2 will serve as the Soviet equivalent of the U.S. DC-3 introduced in 1935.
Three Soviet armies launch a campaign May 12 to retake Kharkov from the Germans. Marshal Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko, 45, has 640,000 men and 1,200 tanks to throw against Col.-Gen. Ewald von Kleist in the battle for Kharkov, but tank specialist Friedrich Paulus, 51, comes to von Kleist's aid and the Germans wipe out every Soviet armored formation, taking more than 250,000 prisoners (see 1943).
The RAF raids Cologne on the night of May 30 in the first 1,000-bomber attack on German industrial targets. Handley Page has been manufacturing Halifax heavy bombers and transports for the RAF.
Pennsylvania-born West Point graduate and World War I combat pilot Gen. Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, 51, takes command of the U.S. 8th Air Force in England in July and makes plans for a daylight bombing offensive against targets in German-occupied Europe. Germany's Messerschmidt Me 262 Schwalbe (Swallow) turbojet makes its first flight July 18 (see transportation, 1939) and proves much faster than piston-engine planes. Powered by two Junkers 004 engines with 1,980 pounds of thrust each, the fighter plane has a top speed of 540 miles per hour, a cruising speed of 460 mph, a range of 650 miles, and a ceiling of 38,000 feet, but Allied bombings, development issues, and cautious Lüftwaffe leadership delay quantity production (see 1943).
Canadian commandos raid Dieppe on the French coast August 19, crossing the pebble beach with orders to destroy radar installations and silence big guns; 1,000 British commandos and 50 U.S. Rangers participate, Indian-born British captain Patrick (Anthony) "Pat" Porteous, 24, leads an effective bayonet charge despite suffering wounds, but the ill-planned attack is bungled. German defenders repulse the invaders within 9 hours, giving the Allies a lesson in how not to attack their coastal defenses; the 5,000-man Canadian division loses 67 percent of its strength: 3,350 men—177 dead, 633 wounded, 2,547 missing, most of them captured.
The Battle of Stalingrad begins August 22. German forces under the command of Gen. Erich von Manstein have captured Sevastopol in the Crimea July 2 after a month-long siege that has reduced the city and seaport to rubble (see 1941); they launch an offensive against the Volga River center for shipment of oil from the Caucasus, a city of 500,000 whose defenses are headed by Marshal Rokossovsky, now 46, Marshal Vasily I. Chuikov, 42, and Marshal Aleksandr M. Vasilevsky, 47. Field Marshal Paulus commands the attacking force that occupies 90 percent of the city within a few weeks but cannot take its tank factory, whose workers drive their vehicles from the production line straight into battle. The Russians delay their counterattack until the ground is frozen, giving their vehicles solid ground on which to maneuver (see 1943).
The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) established by act of Congress in mid-May is headed by Houston Post editor Oveta Hobby (née Culp), 37, who in 1931 married Texas governor William D. Hobby, 27 years her senior. Black women oppose her appointment because she is known to share the racist views prevalent in Texas, but 3,902 black women will serve in the WAAC. Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers has had the Corps in mind since 1917 and sponsored the legislation, which is designed to free men for active service by putting women in non-combat jobs.
Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES) authorized by act of Congress July 30 to support the navy is headed by Wellesley College president Mildred H. McAfee, 42. Only 68 black women will serve in the WAVES.
The Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron established September 10 flies U.S. aircraft to bases in noncombat areas. Members have civilian status and earn $3,000 per year.
The B-29 bomber makes its maiden flight at Seattle September 21 but will not be used in combat until the fall of 1944. The Army Air Corps has become the Army Air Force in March, its chief of staff is Pennsylvania-born Gen. H. H. (Henry Harley) "Hap" Arnold, 56, and despite doubts by many that such a huge craft could ever get off the ground he has pushed since 1939 for the development of the strategic bomber that he calls the "Superfortress." Powered by four 2,200-horsepower Wright Double Cyclone engines, the 99-foot-long plane weighs 69,160 pounds empty, 105,000 pounds when loaded with bombs, carries an 11-man crew, has a maximum speed of 365 miles per hour and a range of 5,830 miles, can reach an altitude of nearly 32,000 feet, but initially tends to overheat and catch fire. Production will proceed nevertheless in a $3 billion gamble that massive bombing will win the war (see 1944).
Gen. Montgomery's British 8th Army gains a victory at El Alamein October 30 and forces the Afrika Korps to retreat into Libya. A British-U.S. force of 400,000 commanded by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower lands at Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers November 7 and 8 in an armada of 500 transports convoyed by 350 naval vessels. Vichy French garrisons are overpowered after brief fighting, the Allies take the governor's palace at Algiers on the afternoon of the 8th, and the French government-in-exile is moved from London to Algiers.
Soviet Field Marshal Georgi K. (Konstantinovich) Zhukov, now 46, launches Operation Mars in late November, sending seven armies with 817,000 men in 83 divisions against German positions west of Moscow while Operation Uranus is throwing back the Germans in a massive counteroffensive near Stalingrad. Soviet troops advance in bad weather across difficult terrain, and initially they enjoy spectacular successes, but by the time the strongly entrenched German forces have halted Operation Mars 3 weeks later it has cost the Red Army nearly 350,000 dead, wounded, or missing, and Zhukov has lost more than 1,600 of the 2,352 tanks he has committed. Moscow suppresses news of the colossal failure.
German troops take over France's Zone Non-Occupée November 11. Marshal Pétain appoints Pierre Laval as his successor November 17, empowering him to make laws and issue decrees.
French crews scuttle most of the fleet at Toulon November 27 to keep it from falling into German hands; the Vichy government's Admiral Jean-François Darlan, 61, has arranged an armistice and is assassinated at Algiers December 24. His successor as High Commissioner in French Africa is Gen. Henri Honoré Giraud, 63, who was captured by the Germans in 1940 but has escaped, been picked up by a British submarine, and landed in North Africa.
Britain's "cockleshell heroes" blow up German merchant ships at Bordeaux and damage a mine-laying vessel the night of December 11. Five two-man crews of Royal Marines in canoes from the Royal Navy submarine Tuna have set out 4 nights earlier in the Bay of Biscay, three of the five have been lost en route, the four surviving men attach limpet mines to the sides of the German ships, two of the four are captured by the Germans and shot, the other two walk 100 miles to the French village of Ruffec, whence Résistance members spirit them to Spain.
U.S. Marines storm the beaches of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands August 7 on orders from Admiral King and begin a long effort to wrest the island from Japanese control. Oregon-born Marine pilot Marion E. (Eugene) Carl, 26, and other pilots arrive August 20 and soon engage in the first dogfights with Zero fighters over the island. Carl is shot down September 9 and floats for 4 hours before being picked up by a native in a canoe. Sidney, N.Y.-born Marine commander Evans F. Carlson, 46, has led a surprise attack on Makin Island in the Gilberts earlier in August; using experience gained while fighting the Japanese in China from 1927 to 1929 and again as a President Roosevelt's observer with guerrillas in 1938, he has introduced the Chinese term "gung ho" ("work together") into the Marine Corps and directs his "Carlson's Raiders" in a month-long raid beyond Japanese lines on Guadalcanal in November. The risky effort to gain control of Guadalcanal will nevertheless come close to disaster; Japanese resistance on the island will continue for another 5 months.
Japan's foreign minister Shigenori Togo resigns September 1 after less than a year in office, having become unhappy with Gen. Hideki Tojo's aggressive foreign policy.
A Japanese torpedo hits the U.S. light cruiser Juneau off Guadalcanal November 13 and she goes down with most of her 700-man crew. About 100 men—most of them badly wounded, some with missing limbs—help each other into three life rafts, but although some reach a small island after a week of thirst, delirium, and savage shark attacks, only 10 survive. Among the dead are the five Sullivan brothers—George, 29; Francis, 26; Joseph, 23; Madison, 22; and Albert, 20—who enlisted en masse in their Iowa hometown after Pearl Harbor.
The 45,000-ton Iowa class U.S. battleship New Jersey launched at the Philadelphia Navy Yard December 7 is an armor-plated behemoth 887 feet long. It can attain a speed of more than 33 knots, carry more than 1,500 in crew, has three triple 16-inch guns plus 81 smaller guns, and will remain in service until 1991.
The first surface-to-surface guided missile is launched December 24 at Peenemünde by German rocket engineer Wernher von Braun, now 30, who tests the buzz bomb that he has designed under the direction of Major Walter R. Dornberger, now 47 (see exploration, 1932). Their research operation outgrew its facilities at the Kummersdorf Army Proving Grounds in 1937 and a large new facility was erected at Peenemüunde on the Baltic Sea (see V-2 buzz bomb, 1944).
Former Argentine president Marcelo de Alvear dies at his native Buenos Aires March 23 at age 73.
Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy in August but does not declare war on Japan (the country has 250,000 Japanese nationals or Japanese-born citizens); most other Latin-American countries have broken relations with the Axis powers in January but remain neutral.
Ecuador and Peru sign a treaty setting the 1,050-mile border between their two countries, but a 49-mile stretch in the Cordillera del Condor region is not demarcated.