1940
The 16th Australian Brigade marches through the streets of Sydney.
Britain requisitions all merchant ships for war effort.
1941
Free French lead Tuareg and Tibesti tribesmen from Chad to destroy Italian air base at Murzuk, Libya, having crossed 468km of desert.
German-born singer-actress Marlene Dietrich becomes US citizen.
1942
The Red Army captures Kaluga to the southwest of Moscow.
Chiang Kai-shek is appointed as Supreme allied commander in China.
Japanese begin pre-invasion air attacks on the major British naval and air base of Rabaul in the Bismarcks in the South Pacific.
1943
The Japanese Navy orders the evacuation of Guadalcanal by the end of the month.
Polish resistance attacks Germans in Czestochowa but fail, 251 killed.
Earl Warren inaugurated for first of three terms as California governor, but declines to have ceremony due to war.
1944
The Germans announce the mobilization of school children for war work.
Church authorities at the Abbey of Monte Cassino give Luftwaffe permission to remove artwork to Germany.
Fascist northern Italy seizes Jewish assets and forbids Jews from owning land or stock.
The Soviet 27th Army took Bila Tserkva southwest of Kiev.
The Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front pushed Erich von Manstein’s Army Group South back beyond the pre-war Polish border at Sarny.
The U.S. Fifth Army attacked the southern end of the Gustav Line along a 10-mile front.
1945
The USA issue’s its casualty figures to 21st December 1944 as 135,323 killed, 362,824 wounded, 75,844 missing and 64,148 captured.
In Burma, British secure Akyab Island; Burma is now secured from Akyab to Mandalay, and north of the Irrawaddy River.
The American escort carrier USS Ommaney Bay was severely damaged in the Sulu Sea by a Japanese kamikaze attack. The ship was abandoned and then scuttled by a torpedo from the destroyer USS Burns.