Started new career in August 2019 to commemorate the beginning of WWII, 80 years before ...
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Tuesday, 24 March 1942 - Lorient
The British House of Commons begins a two-day debate on the conduct of the war in Germany; bombing of German cities is to be a focal point.
18 RAF Boston light bombers attack targets in northern France, targeting power stations, rail marshaling yards, and other targets of military importance.
German bombers attack Malta, damaging British destroyer HMS Legion with near misses.
Japanese Navy aircraft begin daily bombings of Corregidor in the Philippine Islands.
Admiral Chester Nimitz is appointed the Commander in Chief of the US Pacific Theater.
Wednesday, 25 March 1942 - Lorient
254 RAF Bomber Command aircraft (192 Wellington, 26 Stirling, 20 Manchester, 9 Hampden, and 7 Lancaster aircraft) attack Krupp iron works and factories at Essen, Germany; 5 civilians are killed, 11 are wounded. The British lose 5 Manchester, 3 Wellington, and 1 Hampden aircraft.
The main Japanese offensive against Taungoo, Burma begins at 0800 hours, striking northern, western, and southern sides of the city nearly simultaneously. Fierce house-to-house fighting will continue through the night.
Thursday, 26 March 1942 - Lorient
3 British destroyers and 16 smaller vessels depart Falmouth, England, United Kingdom with commandos aboard at 1400 hours for the drydock at Saint-Nazaire, France.
French politician Pierre Laval warns Chief of State Philippe Pétain that it is important to cooperate with the Germans to avoid Berlin from appointing a Nazi Party Gauleiter for Vichy France.
Winston Churchill tells politicians of the rival Conservative Party 'It now seems very likely that we and our allies cannot lose this war, except through our own fault'.
British bombers (104 Wellington and 11 Stirling) attack Essen, Germany, destroying two homes and killing six civilians; 11 bombers are lost in this attack. During this night and into the first hours of the next day, Major Egmont Prinz zur Lippe-Weißenfeld of the Night Fighter Wing, shoots down four British bombers in his Me110, increasing his victories to 21.
British destroyer HMS Legion (G 74), already damaged from an air raid two days prior, is hit again and brakes in two at her moorings at Valetta Grand Harbour, Malta; both halves of the ship are re-floated but declared a loss and are towed out of the harbour to deep water and scuttled; 11 are killed in this attack. The 5,415-ton British motor vessel Pampas is hit by multiple bombs in the air raid and sinks at her moorings. The empty freighter Talabot is sunk as well. British submarine HMS P39 sitting alongside a jetty in Grand Harbour when German aircraft launch the attack; the submarine is seriously damaged and while she does not sink, due to the efforts of the crew, it is decided that she is too badly damaged to be worth repairing; she is towed to Kalkara and beached.
Admiral Sir James Somerville, who had commanded the force that had sunk the Bismark in the previous year, takes commanded of the British Eastern Fleet, hoisting his flag in the battleship HMS Warspite at Trincomalee, Ceylon.
Japanese aircraft bomb Corregidor, Philippine Islands, knocking out power for freezers containing 24,000 pounds of carabao meat.