The War in Dorset - February 1942
Part of Hurn aerodrome was modified to accommodate gliders and tow air-craft for air landings. (From ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004).
See also The Small Scale raiding Force and The Bruneval Raid.
February 1942 – The German Navy changes the Enigma settings for its signals leaving the British code-breakers at Bletchley Park unable to decipher communications. This had disastrous consequences in 1942 as Admiral Döbitz’s ‘wolf-packs’ of U-boat submarines were able to hunt out Allied shipping in the Atlantic untracked. It would be 10 months before the code-breakers could break the new settings they nicknamed ‘Shark’.
February 1942 – soap, tinned tomatoes and peas now rationed.
1st February 1942 - Quisling formed a puppet government in Norway (from WW2-net Timelines).
7th February 1942 - Japanese artillery fire on Singapore across the Jahore Strait and 20,000 Japanese troops begin to land on the north-west shore of the island. The city, and ships full of evacuees, were heavily bombed. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)
11th to 13th February 1942 - the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the cruiser Prinz Eugen, escorted by destroyers and torpedo boats, escaped the Allies blockade at Brest and attacks in the Channel to reach safe harbour in Germany.
15th February 1942 – The military commander of Singapore, Lt.General Arthur Percival, surrenders the Island to Japan (and then escapes to Sumatra). On 17th February the Japanese military police begin rounding up the Chinese community and thousands are executed. The British and Australians were taken as prisoners of war to work on the notorious Burma railway where many died. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)
19th February 1942 – Japanese aircraft attack the port of Darwin in northern Australia.
The Japanese Navy wins the Battle of Lumbok Strait and land on Bali.
President Roosevelt authorises the transfer of Germans, Italians and Japanese-Americans living in coastal Pacific areas to internment camps. Homes and possessions were taken from those interned.
22nd February 1942 – Bruneval Raid parachutists, commandos and the Navy were training off the Dorset coast for retrieval from the beach below the German radar station. They encountered considerable problems including parachutists getting stuck in a coastal defence minefield. Practising off Redcliff Point near Weymouth in Dorset, one of the landing craft collecting the raiders became grounded offshore but the raid had to go ahead over the next few days to coincide with an approach on the rising tide under a full moon. (From ‘The Bruneval Raid – stealing Hitler’s radar’ by George Millar, Cassell 1974 and ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004)
The operation was organised from Combined Operations headquarters at Anderson Manor, near Poole and may have involved Trooper R.K. Williams of Intelligence in some minor role?
23rd February 1942 - Air Marshal Arthur (Bomber) Harris was appointed Commander-in-Chief of British Bomber Command.
The Australian Prime Minister Curtin, orders all Australian Divisions to return home to defend Australia (from WW2-net Timelines).
27th February 1942 - The Battle of the Java Sea begins between Japan and the Allies. On 28th February the Japanese landed on Java.
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