1940
FDR appoints former Republicans to counter isolationists:
- Henry Stimson as Secretary of Army
- Frank Knox as Secretary of Navy
- They join Hull, Morgenthau, and Hopkins as the “war cabinet”
Both Houses of Parliament meet in secret session to discuss Home Defense.
German troops capture Lyons and the vital port of Brest in Brittany. French envoys drive behind German lines to receive armistice terms. Italian forces begins an offensive along the Riviera coast into France.
The RAF bomb Rouen airfield.
The German heavy cruiser Gneisenau is damaged by a torpedo from the British submarine Clyde.
1941
President Roosevelt, in a message to Congress, denounces the sinking of the American merchant ship Robin Moor by U-69 as ‘an act of piracy’.
US Army Air Forces established under Maj. Gen. Henry H. (“Hap”) Arnold (formerly the Army Air Corps).
1942
Fort Lenin in Sevastopol falls to the Germans.
Declaring that “icicles sprouted in Hell today,” the director of the Erie Railroad announces the company will pay its shareholders a dividend for the first time in seventy years. The fifty-cents-a-share payoff is possible largely because of profits earned from transporting troops and war material.
1943
The RAF institutes ‘shuttle bombing’ runs, with planes leaving England, bombing Germany, reloading in North Africa, bombing Italy and the returning to England begin, with 60 RAF bombers attacking the radar works at Friedrichshafen.
The British announce a five-day U-boat attack on the Atlantic convoys and claim that 97% of ships survived.
1944
U.S. troops attack the outer defenses of Cherbourg.
Eighth Army take Perugia as its advance North continues.
The Red Army captures Viipuri on the Soviet-Finnish border.
The Japanese retreat from Imphal in Manipur towards the Burmese frontier.
Vice Admiral Marc Mitchner, commander of the U.S. Task Force 58, orders all lights on his ships turned on to help guide his carrier-based pilots back from the Battle of the Philippine Sea. The greatest aircraft carrier duel.
1945
Australians troops land at Lutong on Sarawak and gain 25 miles to the Seria oilfields.