WHAT ALL HAPPENED APRIL TO OCTOBER 1942
Find out what all happened April to October 1942

World War II: the Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me 262 using its jet engines for the first time. (18. July 1942)

Holocaust in Chortkiav, western Ukraine: At 2.30 am the German Schutzpolizei starts driving Jews out of their houses, divides them into groups of 120, packs them in freight cars and deports 2000 to Belzec death camp. 500 of the sick and children are murdered on the spot. (26. August 1942)

World War II: The Battle of Gazala takes place. (26. May 1942)

Holocaust: Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv): the government of Vichy France orders the mass arrest of 13,152 Jews who are held at the Winter Velodrome in Paris before deportation to Auschwitz. (16. July 1942)

The Holocaust: Kazimierz Piechowski and three others, dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, steal an SS staff car and escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp. (20. June 1942)

World War II: In the aftermath of the Battle of the Coral Sea, Task Force 16 heads to Pearl Harbor. (19. May 1942)

World War II: Nazis burn the Czech village of Lidice in reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich. (10. June 1942)

World War II: A Japanese floatplane drops incendiary bombs on Oregon. (9. September 1942)

Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra record Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", the best-selling Christmas single in history. (29. May 1942)

World War II: In Operation Anthropoid, Reinhard Heydrich is fatally wounded in Prague; he dies of his injuries eight days later. (27. May 1942)

World War II: Japanese forces begin an assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula. (3. April 1942)

World War II: The Battle for Henderson Field begins during the Guadalcanal Campaign and ends on October 26. (23. October 1942)

The last day of the October Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps forces withdraw back across the Matanikau River after destroying most of the Imperial Japanese Army's 4th Infantry Regiment. (9. October 1942)

World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into the Soviet Union. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so are to be immediately executed. (28. July 1942)

Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the "Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse. (6. July 1942)

Benxihu Colliery accident in Manchukuo leaves 1549 Chinese miners dead. (26. April 1942)

On the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Nazis send over 1,000 Jews of Pidhaytsi (west Ukraine) to Belzec extermination camp. (21. September 1942)

All 12 passengers and crewmen aboard an American Airlines DC-3 airliner are killed when it is struck by a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber near Palm Springs, California. Amongst the victims is award-winning composer and songwriter Ralph Rainger ("Thanks for the Memory", "Love in Bloom", "Blue Hawaii"). (23. October 1942)

Spaceflight: The first successful launch of a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. It is the first man-made object to reach space. (3. October 1942)

World War II: Gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebel in the Cocos Islands Mutiny. Their mutiny is crushed and three of them are executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War. (8. May 1942)