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Originally Posted by Kapitän
Started new career in August 2019 to commemorate the beginning of WWII, 80 years before ...
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Saturday, 7 March 1942 - Lorient
£11,000,000 worth of oil installations of Burmah Oil Company in southern Burma near Rangoon are destroyed as British retreat from the city, preventing Japanese capture; this destruction will result in 20 years of High Court litigation after the war.
British and Indian troops on Christmas Island mistake the latest heavy naval bombardment as a precursor to an invasion and hoist white flags to indicate surrender. The warships depart, however, and the troops lower the white flags and send British flags back up poles.
A number of Go 242 glider transports arrive at Faßberg, Germany and join the Luftwaffe III./KG 4.
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Started new career in August 2019 to commemorate the beginning of WWII, 80 years before ...
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Sunday, 8 March 1942 - Lorient
Construction of the Alaska-Canadian Highway begins by the US Army.
US Army troops relieve the US 1st Marine Brigade (Provisional) at Reykjavik, Iceland.
Tirpitz and escorting destroyers gets as close as 60 miles from Allied convoy PQ-12 but poor weather prevents the Germans from realizing this fact. German destroyer Friedrich Ihn, however, does catch sight of old Russian coal-burning merchant ship Izhora, a straggler of the convoy, and promptly sinks her at 1715 hours. In the evening, Admiral Otto Ciliax turns his fleet back toward its home port.
The RAF dispatch 211 bombers to attack Essen, Germany, some equipped with the new GEE navigational system. The results are less than hoped fory as "only" a few homes and a church are destroyed, killing 29 civilians, while the industrial centers, the primary targets, are untouched.
An annoyed Winston Churchill, not satisfied with Cairo's reasons for not attacking at Gazala, summons the British C-in-C Middle East back to London, to "confer with him about the situation".
Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita, flying in a submarine-based (submarine I-25) E14Y aircraft, conducts a photographic reconnaissance mission over Wellington harbor in New Zealand.
Dutch troops at Bandoeng, Java, Dutch East Indies surrender at the Isola Hotel in Lembang, between Dutch General Jacob J. Pesman and Japanese Colonel Toshishige Shoji. In the afternoon, Dutch Governor Tjarda Van Starkenborgh Stachouwer, General Hein Ter Poorten, and Major General Jacob Pesman surrender all Dutch forces on Java to Japanese General Hitoshi Imamura.