WHAT ALL HAPPENED FEBRUARY TO DECEMBER 1942
Find out what all happened February to December 1942

World War II: Imperial Japanese Navy midget submarines begin a series of attacks on Sydney, Australia. (31. May 1942)

World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Japanese Imperial Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships. (8. May 1942)

World War II: Japanese air forces bomb Calcutta, India. (20. December 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)

Mexico enters World War II on the side of the Allies. (22. May 1942)

Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland. (17. March 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: Fall of Singapore. Following an assault by Japanese forces, the British General Arthur Percival surrenders. About 80,000 Indian, United Kingdom and Australian soldiers become prisoners of war, the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. (15. February 1942)

World War II: Battle of the Atlantic – German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to the effective American convoy system. (19. July 1942)

World War II: Battle of Midway. U.S. Navy dive bombers sink the Japanese cruiser Mikuma and four Japanese carriers. (6. June 1942)

Malta received the George Cross for its gallantry. The George Cross was given by King George VI himself and is now an emblem on the Maltese national flag. (14. April 1942)

World War II: Australian and US forces inflict a significant defeat upon the Japanese at the Battle of Milne Bay. (7. September 1942)

World War II: Ocean Liner RMS Queen Mary accidentally rams and sinks her own escort ship, HMS Curacoa, off the coast of Ireland. (2. October 1942)

World War II: second day of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. A Japanese naval transport convoy headed towards Guadalcanal is turned-back by an Allied air attack, losing one destroyer and one transport sunk, and one light cruiser heavily damaged. (25. August 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: During the Battle of the Java Sea, an allied strike force is defeated by a Japanese task force in the Java Sea in the Dutch East Indies. (27. February 1942)

World War II: Battle of Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea. (25. August 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)

Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first World War II flying ace. (20. February 1942)

World War II: Tobruk falls to Italian and German forces. (21. June 1942)