Chronology of World War II

September 1942

Wednesday, September 2


Air Operations, CBI

23rd Fighter Group P-40s attack barges and junks near Poyang Lake, rail targets and warehouses at Hua Yuan, a train on the Wuchang Peninsula and the airfield at Nanchang, all targets in China. The P-40s also shoot down 2 Ki-23 'Oscar' fighters near Nanchang and Singtze at 1810 hours.

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Air Operations, Egypt

  • 12th Medium Bomb Group B-25s attack Luftwaffe landing grounds, and in support of the RAF, attack German Army troops and vehicles around Alam-el-Halfa.
  • 57th Fighter Group P-40s escort and support RAF missions against German Army positions.
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Air Operations, Europe

  • An FW-200 Condor is shot down over Iceland by US fighters.
  • Soviet planes bomb Warsaw.
BOMBER COMMAND
Daylight Ops:
  • 8 Bostons in low-level pairs to Holland and Belgium; 6 Mosquitos individually to Germany; targets successfully attacked include Ghent, Ijmuiden, Sluiskil, Cologne, Essen and Osnabrück.
    • No losses.
Evening Ops:
  • 200 aircraft of 5 types to Karlsruhe.
  • Pathfinders are accurate and raid is successful; 200 fires estimated burning at the same time; photos show much residential damage and some industrial; report from the ground says 73 people killed.
    • 4 Wellingtons, 2 Lancasters, 1 Halifax and 1 Stirling are lost.
Minor Ops:
  • 3 aircraft lay mines in the Frisians with no loss.
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Air Operations, Libya

USAMEAF B-24s attack the port of Tobruk.

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Air Operations, New Guinea

5th Air Force P-400s bomb and strafe Japanese ground troops at Kokoda and Alola in the Owen Stanley Mountains.

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Air Operations, Solomons

Marine F4Fs are credited with downing 3 G4M 'Bettys' and 4 A6M Zeros while intercepting a noon-hour attack by 18 'Bettys' and 22 Zeros.

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"

Baltic Sea

U-222 sinks after a collison with U-boat U-626.

U-222

ClassType VIIC
CO Kapitänleutnant Rolf von Jessen
Location Baltic, off Danzig
Cause Collision
Casualties 42
Survivors 4
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Eastern Front

Troops of 11th Army and 17th Army advance near Novorossiysk. Other German and Rumanian troops cross the Kerch strait from the Crimea, so that Novorossiysk is threatened from the west as well as from the north. 1st Pzr Army is approaching Grozny but its progress is slow.

SOUTHERN SECTOR

The LI Corps and the XLVIII Panzer Corps push into the Pitomnik area but find the bulk of the 62nd and 64th Armies has pulled out. German pressure at Stalingrad forces the 62nd and 64th Armies back closer to the city. Paulus has acted too slowly to trap the Soviet forces on the steppe.

In the Caucasus, the 17th Army enters the northern suburbs of Novorossiysk but is involved in bitter street fighting with the 47th Army. Ott's LII Corps crossed the Terek in force as it advances upon Grozny, supporting the III Panzer Corps. A substantial bridgehead is secured, threatening Maslennikov's left flank.

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Germany, Home Front

The German High Command threatens to put all British prisoners captured at Dieppe in chains, as a reprisal for alleged ill-treatment of German PoWs in Britain.

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New Guinea

The Australian advance in the southern part of Milne Bay, at the eastern end of the island, but inland they are unable to withstand Japanese pressure in the direction of Port Moresby. During the night the Japanese Army is reinforced by 1,000 more men from Rabaul who land at Busabua.

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North Africa

Rommel gives orders for a staged withdrawal back to the start line of El Taqa-Bab el Qattara expecting a British counteroffensive. Montgomery, however and probably quite correctly, refuses to follow up with his own armor.

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Occupied Poland

The Nazis are 'clearing' the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto. Over 50,000 Jews have been killed by poison gas or sent to concentration camps. The SS, a fanatical Nazi military and security organization, is chiefly responsible for Nazi persecution of the Jews and others deemed to be ideological or racial enemies of the Third Reich.

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On 30 August 1942, the Japanese ordered the 20,100 prisoners of war in Changi Jail, Singapore, to sign an undertaking not to escape. The POWs refused and they were crowded into Selerang Barracks (which had accommodation for 120) until they signed under duress on 4 September. The photograph shows the crowded Barrack Square during what became known as the ‘Selerang Incident’.

The Selerang Incident


The Selerang Incident

Pacific

The US submarine Guardfish (SS-217) sinks the Japanese merchant cargo ship Teikyu Maru (2332t) 13 miles southeast of Chikyi Mizaki, Hokkaido, Japan.

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[September 1st - September 3rd]