Air Operations - Europe

12 Bostons attack a parachute factory in Calais and the railway stations at St Omer with no losses.

Air Operations, New Guinea

8th Pursuit Group P-39s shoot down 4 A6M Zeros in a couple of seperate actions near the Port Moresby/Seven Mile Drome between 0750 and 0845 hours.

Atlantic

The destroyer Punjabi is sunk after colliding with the battleship King George V. The latter suffers damage from exploding depth charges.

Burma

Mandalay(5/2?) falls to the Japanese 18th and 56th Divisions and Monywa to the 33rd Division as British forces find their left flank totally exposed. The Allies are now retreating, with the Chinese 6th Army heading for the Chinese province of Yunnan. Units of the 5th and 66th Armies withdraw to Yunnan or northern Burma.

Damage in Mandalay

Japanese Troops Marching through a Captured Town

Eastern Front

In the siege of Sebastopol May Day celebrations and demonstrations are held despite German air raids and artillery fire. During the period from May through November of 1942 448,694 civilians will be evacuated from Leningrad by boat across Lake Ladoga.

The XXXIX Panzer Corps begins a counterattack aimed at relieving the long encircled garrison at Kholm.

Siege of Leningrad, 1 May 1942. Women of the city militia on duty on a roof as air raid spotters.

City Militia Women Spotters

The Demyansk Operation has cost the Soviet forces 88,908 killed and 156,603 wounded.

Service personnel and civilians clear up debris on a heavily bomb-damaged street in Valletta, Malta on 1 May 1942

Clearing Debris in Velletta, Malta

Mediterranean

During the next two days 2 U-boats are sunk while attempting to disrupt the 'Tobruk Ferry'.

"The Fat Lady" Neosho (AO-23), right, refuels the carrier Yorktown (CV-5), left, in the Coral Sea, May 1, 1942.

Oiler Neosho Re-Fueling the Yorktown

Pacific

• The US submarine Grenadier (SS-210) mistakenly torpedoes and sinks the Soviet merchant ship Angarstroi about 90 miles west-southwest of Nagasaki, Japan.
• The US submarine Triton (SS-201) torpedoes and sinks the Japanese army cargo ship Calcutta Maru (5339t) about 180 miles north-northwest of Formosa.

Philippines

More Japanese forces have landed on Mindanao and fighting is therefore heavy. Corregidor is bombed and shelled.

Soviet Union, Home Front

Stalin's Order of the Day calls for total effort in order to achieve victory in 1942. Workers at the Stalin Metal Plant at Kuznetsk and the Kirov Tank Works pledge themselves to achieve unprecedented production targets. This example is followed throughout the Soviet Union. It is called the 'Socialist Emulation Campaign'.