THE AXIS FORCES
1942 saw the ongoing conflict known as World War 2 continue on an unprecedented scale. Modern weaponry saw levels of death and destruction that surpassed even the horrors of World War 1.
America became involved in December 1941 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, declaring war on Japan on December 8th. Also, in December 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on America.
Countries led by Germany, Italy and Japan (the Axis forces) at this stage of the war were making progress in taking and controlling most of their objectives by force, while the Allies led by Great Britain, Russia and the United States struggled to come up with a strategy to defeat the belligerent Axis powers.
1942 was a successful year looking at it from the Axis point of view. The war which started in 1939 was now in its 3rd year and at this stage looked set to continue for some time.
There were many defeats and disappointments for the Allied countries and indeed it looked many times as if the Axis forces were unstoppable and could very well win the war.
However, there were some signs the Allied forces were becoming better trained and more battle hardened and when their huge resources of men and materials began to take effect, the tide of war started to turn against the Axis powers.
In this article we take a look at some of the main events of 1942 and how the ebb and flow of the various engagements began to swing in the Allied countries favour.
January 2nd: The United States, Great Britain, Russia, China, the Netherlands and twenty-one other nations signed a compact undertaking to employ their full military and economic resources against the common enemies and not to make a separate armistice or peace.
PACIFIC THEATRE
9th January: Japanese forces start to attack the Philippines. Douglas MacArthur, Commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East (promising, he would be back), under orders from Roosevelt, leaves the Philippines for Darwin, Australia on March 12th.
February 15th: Singapore surrenders to the Japanese. This was a major setback for British forces. The fortress was thought to be impregnable from the sea. Japanese forces attacked from land catching the garrison by surprise. Winston Churchill was enraged by what he considered the largest capitulation in British history, around 80,000 Commonwealth troops are taken prisoners of war.
April 9th: Allied forces at Bataan surrender and the Philippines fall to Japan. 78,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war are forced on the 65-mile Bataan Death March. This was one of the worst defeats in American military history.
April 18th: Sixteen B-25 bombers, launched from the US aircraft carrier Hornet, carry out the first air raids on Japan. Although damage inflected was slight, the raid caught the Japanese high command by surprise and showed the country was not immune to air attack. The bombers were not able to return to the carrier and went on to either crash-land or land in friendly airfields in China. Most pilots survived the attack including the leader, Jimmy Doolittle and were able to return to the US to fight another day. This was a massive propaganda result for the Americans.
May 3rd: The Battle of Coral Sea began and ended on May 8th with a victory for the US fleet. The action was the first-time aircraft carriers had engaged each other, with neither side’s ships ever sighting each other.
June 4th: US forces defeat the Japanese in their attempt to capture Midway Island. The U.S. Navy's decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) and its successful defence of the major base located at Midway Island, dashed Japan's hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval power and effectively turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific.
August: Up to this point, the Allies were on the defensive in the Pacific, but the strategic victories at Midway and other battles provided an opportunity to seize the initiative from Japan.
On August 7, 1942, Allied forces, predominantly United States Marines, landed on the islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi and Florida in the southern Solomon Islands with the objective of denying their use by the Japanese to threaten Allied supply and communication routes between the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.
The Allies overwhelmed the outnumbered Japanese defenders who had occupied the islands since May 1942 and captured Tulagi and Florida as well as an airfield (later named Henderson Field) that was under construction on Guadalcanal.
Surprised by the Allied offensive, the Japanese made several attempts between August and November to retake Henderson Field, but failed.
December: The Japanese abandoned their efforts to retake Guadalcanal and evacuated their remaining forces by February 7, 1943, in the face of an offensive by the U.S. Army’s XIV Corps.
EUROPEAN THEATRE
By 1942 France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands had been under German rule since 1940. Allied planners knew a second front would have to be opened to liberate those countries but were not in a position to launch an invasion at this point in time. In fact, it would be another 2 years beginning with D-Day in 1944 before those nations were liberated.
Hitler decided to invade Russia in 1941 having failed to overcome the RAF, effectively losing the Battle of Britain. The main course of the war in Europe at this point in time was the Russian offensive known as Operation Barbarossa, starting in June 1941. It was on this front that some of the biggest battles of World War Two were fought.
The German army were able to penetrate deep into Russian territory at first, sweeping all before them and it seemed for a while as if Russia could fall. However, the country was able to regroup and with supplies coming from America via the Atlantic Convoys, along with their own resources, Soviet forces began to push the Germans back.