St. Nazaire, France, March 21st, 1942
The destroyer Ouragan was rammed into the Normandie dock as French and British commandos attacked the port. It would prove a costly operation, out of nearly 400 men only a quarter would manage to escape, to join the French resistance with the rest ether killed or captured but the dock, the largest in continental Europe would be knocked out of operation for the duration of the war.
Thessaloniki, Greece, March 25th, 1942
Relations between the Christian and Jewish communities of the city had been mixed in the three decades since the liberation of the city in 1912, further exacerbated by politics, the Christians tended to be dominated by the Venizelists, while the Jews voted mostly anti-Venizelist. But no divide would be seen today as the students of the Aristotle University, the university, established in 1938, had been closed down by the Bulgarian occupation authorities the previous year with its professors trying to keep it clandestinely operating under the guise of giving lectures, gathered in the arch of Galerius, raised Greek flags and begun marching towards Liberty square to celebrate Greek independence day. They would soon be joined not exactly spontaneously, by members of the Aris, Herakles and Maccabi sports clubs joining them. By the time the demonstration reached Aristotle square at about half the distance the demonstration was in the tens of thousands and the demonstrators clashing with the occupation troops. The Bulgarian occupation troops were not shy to open fire in the demonstration indiscriminately. Armed members of the resistance returned the favour while others used petrol bombs and rocks. By the time the demonstrators did finally cease three days later, killed demonstrators numbered in the dozens and wounded in the hundreds, in what had been the largest demonstration of occupied Europe with over 120,000 participating.
Piraeus, March 28th, 1942
150 Centaur and Stuart tanks start unloading. In the aftermath of the fall of Tripoli, the allies were for once having a surplus of tanks available. Tripoli was limited to a port capacity of only 1500t a day after the port facilities had been repaired. British engineers were busily expanding it, while New Zealand railway troops had already repaired the Libyan railroad from Tripoli to Zuara since late February and was now pushing it westwards and over 3 km a day, it was estimated it would reach Mareth by the end of April. But still only 4 divisions, two of them armoured and two armoured brigades, fewer than 100,000 men and about 800 tanks could be kept in supply in southern Tunisia. Thus the 50th Infantry Division and the 1st armoured brigade had been transferred to the Syrian front instead while but the Greeks and the French in Syria were getting a lot more tanks much faster than initially expected. Enough for the Greeks to fully convert their II Cavalry Division to armour, an understrength one but still armoured, and the French to rebuild their armoured brigade which had suffered heavy casualties in earlier combat.
Near Ceylon, Indian Ocean, April 5th, 1942
Six Fairey Albacore had been launched from HMS Ark Royal to search for the Japanese fleet in the late afternoon. Two had actually found the Japanese a little before sunset. Zeros from the Hiriu had shot down both of them but not before they could report back. The three carriers of Force A under admiral Somerville, HMS Ark Royal, HMS Indomitable and HMS Formidable, begun launching aircraft to attack. If all went well the attack would reach the Japanese after dark had fallen when the Albacores could attack under radar guidance and the fearsome Japanese fighters could not intercept them...
Near Ceylon, Indian Ocean, April 6th, 1942
Between them the three British carriers had launched no less than 60 torpedo bombers out of the 76 they nominally carried in the night. They had scored 8 hits, hitting Akagi with 5 torpedoes and Kirishima with 3. Both ships had been sunk and then Somerville had run off to the west as soon as he had recovered his aircraft. Now it was Nagumo's turn. The early searches managed to find only HMS Hermes which had been sunk in short order. Only in the afternoon, had Force A, the British main force been detected and attacked, with the Japanese hitting and sinking Ark Royal. And then with night approaching Nagumo had ordered his carriers to retreat instead on pressing home the attack fearing a repeat of the previous night. The Japanese Indian ocean raid was over. The British had undeniably suffered the heavier casualties with 8 warships, including 2 aircraft carriers and 2 heavy cruisers, and 24 merchant ships sunk while their fleet would retreat to Diego Suarez in the aftermath. But while the Japanese had lost only a single carrier and a battleship they could afford the losses when fighting the two largest naval powers on Earth rather less well...
Bataan, April 9th, 1942
The American and Filipino defenders were finally forced to surrender. Thousands of prisoners would be massacred by the Japanese over the following weeks. General Douglas MacArthur was not among the captured as he had been spirited out of Bataan the previous month.
Arachthos river, Epirus, April 13th, 1942
Over the previous month the I and IX Greek infantry divisions and the headquarters of the Greek A Corps, under the recently promoted general Alexakis, had been shifted to Epirus, just as the Crete division was shifted back from Smyrna to Thessaly. General Papagos, the commander of the Greek Epirus Army Section, by now had 5 divisions and almost 140,000 men, to 6 divisions and about 120,000 men of the Italian 9th army. The Greeks attacked. Arachthos would be crossed the same day and the Italians pushed out of Arta, four days later.
Spercheios river, Greece, April 15th, 1942
The two Greek armoured cavalry divisions, hit the 7th Bulgarian Infantry division. The allies had insufficient forces for a large scale offensive in Thessaly, particularly since the Bulgarian army in Thessaly had been reinforced with captured French and Belgian artillery and arms over the past few months and had grown in numbers to slightly over 216,000 men but Pangalos wanted to tie down the Axis forces from reinforcing Epirus. As for the Bulgarian division in the receiving end of nearly 400 tanks...
East of Japan, April 18th, 1942
B-25 bombers begun taking off from USS Enterprise. Six hours later the bombers would attack Tokyo, the first time a foreign force attacked Japanese soil since the 19th century. Damage would be negligible and none of the aircraft would be recovered, the crews would bail out over China instead. But the psychological effects on the Japanese and the effort part by the Japanese to defend about possible future raids far exceeded the actual damage of the raid.
Vyazma, April 20th, 1942
The Soviet counter-attack, the last in the Soviet winter counteroffensive came to a halt after nearly three months of heavy fighting. The Germans had been pushed back from Moscow, even though the German Army Group Centre strongly held a salient at Vyazma from which Moscow could still be threatened. But German plans for the year aimed elsewhere...
Tunisia, April 21st, 1942
The 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions, rebuild over the previous three months to a force of 36,000 men and over 250 tanks struck west. General Juin's Army of Algeria had nearly three times as many men but lacked anti-tank guns and and had fewer than half as many tanks, mostly obsolete Renault D2s with a mere 23 Somua S35s somewhat comparable to the German tanks. General Rommel's plan was, at least on paper, simple. First destroy or severely defeat Juin's army while the British 8th army was held in the strongly fortified Mareth line, then switch east and defeat O'Connor in turn. Whether it would succeed was a different question.
Athens, April 23rd, 1942
Athanasios Souliotis was hardly new to spy work, he had been running Greek spy networks since the Macedonian struggle a had been a close friend of Ion Dragoumis since then. Thus he had made a natural choice to head DYPL the Greek Information Agency Directorate when Dragoumis had come to power. The Thessaloniki independence day demonstrations, while of great propaganda value had concerned him, due to the heavy involvement of the communist controlled People's Liberation Front. On paper the communists were working with the rest of the resistance. In practice "Ares Makedon", or Thanasis Klaras, in command of the armed wing of the PLF was very capable and a loose cannon... if one assumed that Zachariadis in Athens despite what he said officially minded. He couldn't quite attack the communist resistance. But he most certainly could support yet more the non-communist resistance and form an umbrella organization under which all resistance groups would operate, bringing up the pressure on the communists to cooperate. And thus the Greek Forces of the Interior would be born...
Mareth, April 26th, 1942
The British 8th army sprang to the attack. Normally O'Connor would had waited for more but he needed to relieve the pressure on the French in the west, the French were contesting the ground much harder than the Germans had expected but were taking very heavy casualties in the process. O'Connor had slightly fewer men, 94,000 to 99,000 but had over 800 tanks, three times as many as the defenders. Then the defensive line in Mareth was heavily fortified...
The destroyer Ouragan was rammed into the Normandie dock as French and British commandos attacked the port. It would prove a costly operation, out of nearly 400 men only a quarter would manage to escape, to join the French resistance with the rest ether killed or captured but the dock, the largest in continental Europe would be knocked out of operation for the duration of the war.
Thessaloniki, Greece, March 25th, 1942
Relations between the Christian and Jewish communities of the city had been mixed in the three decades since the liberation of the city in 1912, further exacerbated by politics, the Christians tended to be dominated by the Venizelists, while the Jews voted mostly anti-Venizelist. But no divide would be seen today as the students of the Aristotle University, the university, established in 1938, had been closed down by the Bulgarian occupation authorities the previous year with its professors trying to keep it clandestinely operating under the guise of giving lectures, gathered in the arch of Galerius, raised Greek flags and begun marching towards Liberty square to celebrate Greek independence day. They would soon be joined not exactly spontaneously, by members of the Aris, Herakles and Maccabi sports clubs joining them. By the time the demonstration reached Aristotle square at about half the distance the demonstration was in the tens of thousands and the demonstrators clashing with the occupation troops. The Bulgarian occupation troops were not shy to open fire in the demonstration indiscriminately. Armed members of the resistance returned the favour while others used petrol bombs and rocks. By the time the demonstrators did finally cease three days later, killed demonstrators numbered in the dozens and wounded in the hundreds, in what had been the largest demonstration of occupied Europe with over 120,000 participating.
Piraeus, March 28th, 1942
150 Centaur and Stuart tanks start unloading. In the aftermath of the fall of Tripoli, the allies were for once having a surplus of tanks available. Tripoli was limited to a port capacity of only 1500t a day after the port facilities had been repaired. British engineers were busily expanding it, while New Zealand railway troops had already repaired the Libyan railroad from Tripoli to Zuara since late February and was now pushing it westwards and over 3 km a day, it was estimated it would reach Mareth by the end of April. But still only 4 divisions, two of them armoured and two armoured brigades, fewer than 100,000 men and about 800 tanks could be kept in supply in southern Tunisia. Thus the 50th Infantry Division and the 1st armoured brigade had been transferred to the Syrian front instead while but the Greeks and the French in Syria were getting a lot more tanks much faster than initially expected. Enough for the Greeks to fully convert their II Cavalry Division to armour, an understrength one but still armoured, and the French to rebuild their armoured brigade which had suffered heavy casualties in earlier combat.
Near Ceylon, Indian Ocean, April 5th, 1942
Six Fairey Albacore had been launched from HMS Ark Royal to search for the Japanese fleet in the late afternoon. Two had actually found the Japanese a little before sunset. Zeros from the Hiriu had shot down both of them but not before they could report back. The three carriers of Force A under admiral Somerville, HMS Ark Royal, HMS Indomitable and HMS Formidable, begun launching aircraft to attack. If all went well the attack would reach the Japanese after dark had fallen when the Albacores could attack under radar guidance and the fearsome Japanese fighters could not intercept them...
Near Ceylon, Indian Ocean, April 6th, 1942
Between them the three British carriers had launched no less than 60 torpedo bombers out of the 76 they nominally carried in the night. They had scored 8 hits, hitting Akagi with 5 torpedoes and Kirishima with 3. Both ships had been sunk and then Somerville had run off to the west as soon as he had recovered his aircraft. Now it was Nagumo's turn. The early searches managed to find only HMS Hermes which had been sunk in short order. Only in the afternoon, had Force A, the British main force been detected and attacked, with the Japanese hitting and sinking Ark Royal. And then with night approaching Nagumo had ordered his carriers to retreat instead on pressing home the attack fearing a repeat of the previous night. The Japanese Indian ocean raid was over. The British had undeniably suffered the heavier casualties with 8 warships, including 2 aircraft carriers and 2 heavy cruisers, and 24 merchant ships sunk while their fleet would retreat to Diego Suarez in the aftermath. But while the Japanese had lost only a single carrier and a battleship they could afford the losses when fighting the two largest naval powers on Earth rather less well...
Bataan, April 9th, 1942
The American and Filipino defenders were finally forced to surrender. Thousands of prisoners would be massacred by the Japanese over the following weeks. General Douglas MacArthur was not among the captured as he had been spirited out of Bataan the previous month.
Arachthos river, Epirus, April 13th, 1942
Over the previous month the I and IX Greek infantry divisions and the headquarters of the Greek A Corps, under the recently promoted general Alexakis, had been shifted to Epirus, just as the Crete division was shifted back from Smyrna to Thessaly. General Papagos, the commander of the Greek Epirus Army Section, by now had 5 divisions and almost 140,000 men, to 6 divisions and about 120,000 men of the Italian 9th army. The Greeks attacked. Arachthos would be crossed the same day and the Italians pushed out of Arta, four days later.
Spercheios river, Greece, April 15th, 1942
The two Greek armoured cavalry divisions, hit the 7th Bulgarian Infantry division. The allies had insufficient forces for a large scale offensive in Thessaly, particularly since the Bulgarian army in Thessaly had been reinforced with captured French and Belgian artillery and arms over the past few months and had grown in numbers to slightly over 216,000 men but Pangalos wanted to tie down the Axis forces from reinforcing Epirus. As for the Bulgarian division in the receiving end of nearly 400 tanks...
East of Japan, April 18th, 1942
B-25 bombers begun taking off from USS Enterprise. Six hours later the bombers would attack Tokyo, the first time a foreign force attacked Japanese soil since the 19th century. Damage would be negligible and none of the aircraft would be recovered, the crews would bail out over China instead. But the psychological effects on the Japanese and the effort part by the Japanese to defend about possible future raids far exceeded the actual damage of the raid.
Vyazma, April 20th, 1942
The Soviet counter-attack, the last in the Soviet winter counteroffensive came to a halt after nearly three months of heavy fighting. The Germans had been pushed back from Moscow, even though the German Army Group Centre strongly held a salient at Vyazma from which Moscow could still be threatened. But German plans for the year aimed elsewhere...
Tunisia, April 21st, 1942
The 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions, rebuild over the previous three months to a force of 36,000 men and over 250 tanks struck west. General Juin's Army of Algeria had nearly three times as many men but lacked anti-tank guns and and had fewer than half as many tanks, mostly obsolete Renault D2s with a mere 23 Somua S35s somewhat comparable to the German tanks. General Rommel's plan was, at least on paper, simple. First destroy or severely defeat Juin's army while the British 8th army was held in the strongly fortified Mareth line, then switch east and defeat O'Connor in turn. Whether it would succeed was a different question.
Athens, April 23rd, 1942
Athanasios Souliotis was hardly new to spy work, he had been running Greek spy networks since the Macedonian struggle a had been a close friend of Ion Dragoumis since then. Thus he had made a natural choice to head DYPL the Greek Information Agency Directorate when Dragoumis had come to power. The Thessaloniki independence day demonstrations, while of great propaganda value had concerned him, due to the heavy involvement of the communist controlled People's Liberation Front. On paper the communists were working with the rest of the resistance. In practice "Ares Makedon", or Thanasis Klaras, in command of the armed wing of the PLF was very capable and a loose cannon... if one assumed that Zachariadis in Athens despite what he said officially minded. He couldn't quite attack the communist resistance. But he most certainly could support yet more the non-communist resistance and form an umbrella organization under which all resistance groups would operate, bringing up the pressure on the communists to cooperate. And thus the Greek Forces of the Interior would be born...
Mareth, April 26th, 1942
The British 8th army sprang to the attack. Normally O'Connor would had waited for more but he needed to relieve the pressure on the French in the west, the French were contesting the ground much harder than the Germans had expected but were taking very heavy casualties in the process. O'Connor had slightly fewer men, 94,000 to 99,000 but had over 800 tanks, three times as many as the defenders. Then the defensive line in Mareth was heavily fortified...
