Malta's George Cross - April 1942

The War in Dorset - April 1942

Work commenced on building a Landing Craft base for the Commandos at Ham Common, Poole (officially commissioned as HMS Turtle in October 1942).

On 2^nd April an American B-17 Flying Fortress bomber made an emergency landing next to the Baker’s Arms pub at Lytchett Matravers. That night, bombing in Weymouth killed 20 and injured 56 people.

Winston Churchill visited the Lulworth Ranges on 6^th April to inspect the new ‘Churchill’ tanks and on 9th April a new master station for the radio direction of RAF bombers from Southern Britain was erected on Bulbarrow Hill, in central Dorset.  On 17^th April a flight over Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch managed to use the new ground-mapping radar (developed by the Purbeck-based Telecommunications Research establishment) to distinguish the towns without vision. This enabled bombing though clouds or at night.

20th April brought bomb attacks in Hamworthy, Poole and in Swanage, where there was considerable damage.

In April 1942 Mountbatten’s Combined Operations began to plan for an Allied landing at Dieppe (see August 1942). A scheme for the landing of 12 divisions around Le Havre had been put forward in late 1941. The scheme was to be tested in Operation Rutter, a division sized raid on a German held port on the French Channel to be held for at least two tides while effecting the greatest amount of destruction of enemy facilities and defences before withdrawing. It was hoped this would divert troops from the beleaguered Russian front and was supported by the Americans eager for an offensive in the West and under pressure to concentrate their efforts in the Pacific against the Japanese. The scheme became the disastrous Operation Jubilee - 4,384 of the 6,000 Allied troops that landed were killed, wounded or missing, the Royal Navy lost 550 men and 34 ships and the RAF lost 106 planes in their largest single-day air battle of the war.

Combined Operations were also engaged in Operation Myrmidon in April 1942. This commando led raid on the Ardour Estuary in southern France planned to land 3,000 troops to disrupt road and rail transport between Spain and France.  However, the vanguard encountered a sandbar barrier and the raid was called off on the 5^th April after a month sailing off the coast of France disguised as Spanish merchant ships.

(From ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004, ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980,  The History Learning Site and Wikipedia.)

 

1st Air Landing Reconnaissance:

In April the 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron was still based at Shaw House, Newbury, Berkshire. Their war diary mentions a platoon demonstration inspected by the Corps Commander on 1^st April but not the critical visit to 1 Airborne Division on 12^th April 1942 by Winston Churchill. He was shown a demonstration of gliders and parachute troops dropping, including 12 Whitbys and 9 Hectors, each towing a Hotspur Glider. Following this demonstration Churchill increased the number of discarded bombers to be placed at the disposal of the Airborne Corps.

Meanwhile the squadron continued their training - at  Shrewton Aerodrome on 6^th April, at Abingdon aerodrome on the 10^th and on the Imber Ranges of Salisbury Plain on the 13^th.  The right wing historian, Sir Charles Petrie, was called in to give them a lecture, ‘Why we are at war’, on the 9^th April.  

(From the War Diary of 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron, WO166/6955 National Archives at Kew, ‘Airborne Forces’ by Lt-Col T.B.H. Otway, D.S.O. London: Imperial War Museum, 1990 and Paradata  – the living history of The Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces.)

See the next Chapter of Chotie Darling, Air Landing, for further information from the war diary for April.

Dick joined 1st Air Landing Reconnaissance on 20th April 1942.

 

1^st April 1942 - Japanese begin landing in Dutch (West) New Guinea. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

5th April 1942 – Japanese attack on the Royal Navy's base at Colombo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Although the bulk of the fleet escaped the heavy cruisers HMS Dorsetshire and Cornwall, the armed merchant cruiser Hector and the destroyer Tenedos were sunk. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

9^th April 1942 – the 76,000 American and Filipino forces on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines finally surrender to the Japanese (only the fortress island of Corregidor was still held by the Allies).  More than 7,000 of the prisoners die on a forced march (‘the Bataan Death March’) while hundreds of Filipino officers are massacred. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

Mahatma Gandhi arrested by the British in India.

 

11^th April 1942 – in the smallest Commando raid of the war, Operation JV, two men paddled a canoe into Boulogne Harbour to stick a limpet mine on a German tanker and withdraw unseen. (From Wikipedia)

 

15th April 1942 - Malta was awarded the George Cross for "heroism and devotion" by King George VI for its key role in attacking the German supply line to Libya, despite a constant siege. The Maltese people stood up to more than 2,000 bombing raids and constant shortages for over twelve months and did not surrender. (From WW2-net Timelines)

 

18^th April 1942 – first Allied air raid on Japan by 16 US bombers from the aircraft carrier Hornet. The success of the ‘Doolittle raid’ (named after its leader, Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle) raid on Tokyo, was an important boost to American morale.

The US eastern coast was ordered to black-out its light at night to reduce the success of U-boats attacking convoys at night. (From WW2-net Timelines)

The Allied Headquarters of the Southwest Pacific theatre were established in Melbourne (and moved to Brisbane on 20^th July 1942). (From WW2-net Timelines)

 

End of Part 1 The Blue Cockade