1939
“Elections” are held in Soviet-occupied Poland now called “Western Byelorussia” and “Western Ukraine.” The USSR confiscates all property including bank accounts, and replaces Polish currency with the ruble. Poles are fired from their jobs and thrown into jail as the NKVD compiles lists for deportation. Factories, hospitals, schools, are dismantled and shipped to the USSR. Polish education and language is phased out; libraries are closed and books burned. Churches are destroyed and priests arrested. Even the wearing of crosses is forbidden. Owning a typewriter is now a crime.
1940
On a convoy in the North Atlantic, Royal Canadian Navy destroyer Margaree collides with freighter Port Fairy in poor visibility, 400 miles west of Ireland. It is the first convoy mission for the destroyer, and 140 lives are lost.
British Ambassador in Moscow Sir Stafford Cripps tries to woo Russians with three-point co-operation plan.
Deportation of 29,000 German Jews from Baden, the Saar, and Alsace-Lorraine into Vichy France.
1941
50 hostages shot in Nantes, France as reprisal for assassination of the German military commander. 50 more to die if the assassin isn’t caught.
German Major shot in Bordeaux 100 arrested, 50 shot immediately.
Russian partisans explode a bomb at Odessa, killing several Romanian and German officers and soldiers. Romanian Dictator Ion Antonescu orders two hundred Russians executed for every officer killed and one hundred Russians executed for every enlisted man killed.
1942
A Royal Proclamation is signed that reduces the British call-up age to 18.
Against fierce Soviet resistance, the 6th Army capture most of the Red October Steelworks and Barricades factories in the northern part of Stalingrad.
SS put down a revolt at Sachsenhausen by a group of Jews about to be sent to Auschwitz.
First transports for Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa, depart Britain (cargo ships).
1943
The Germans publish a plan to kidnap Hitler, which was allegedly drawn up by the Italians.
Operation ‘Corona’ (the jamming of German night-fighter communications) begins during an RAF raid on Kassel.
1944
The Red Army continues its drive west and captures several towns near the Russian German border.
First use of napalm in the Pacific Theater—US fighters drop napalm on oil storage tanks on Ceram Island.
Capt. Alexander Patch III, son of the commanding general of the US Seventh Army, killed in action in France.