This day in the war in the Pacific 65 years ago.

[syscom3]

EAST INDIES: Three 5th Air Force B-17's on an antishipping damage a transport and a merchant cargo vessel. Ten 5th Air Force A-24 Dauntlesses arrive at a new auxiliary airstrip at Modjokjerto, Java.

FIJI ISLANDS: The Anzac Squadron is formed at Suva on Viti Levu Island. This naval force is composed of heavy cruisers HMAS Australia and USS Chicago, the light cruisers HMNZS Achilles and HMNZS Leander, and the destroyers USS Lamson and USS Perkins.

HAWAII: The battleship USS Nevada is refloated in Pearl Harbor. Even though struck by a torpedo and possible up to three bombs, she got underway on 7 December 1941, the only battleship that did. While attempting to leave the harbor, she was hit again and fearing she might sink in the channel and block it, she was beached at Hospital Point. Nevada receives temporary repairs at Pearl Harbor and then sails for Puget Sound, Washington, for complete repairs.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: On Bataan, the I Corps regains an important trail junction unopposed. In the South Sector, the Japanese try desperately to escape from Silaiim Point; they break through the Philippine line, but are overtaken as they push north toward the Silaiim River and are forced steadily toward the sea.

SINGAPORE: The Japanese attack strongly at several points and make further gains. During the night of the12-13th, beach defense forces on the eastern and southeastern coasts are withdrawn to strengthen the defense perimeter around the town of Singapore. The Allied supply situation is deteriorating rapidly. Singapore is in chaos, covered with smoke, full of 500,000 refugees, with military deserters wrecking liquor shops, stealing cars from showrooms, and attacking food shops. Many civilians and deserters board ships of all sorts pulling out of Singapore in a desperate evacuation, which in turn are attacked by Japanese aircraft.

U.S.: The Air Force Combat Command activates the 10th Air Force at Patterson Field, Dayton, Ohio. This unit is intended to serve in India and control all USAAF units in China, Burma and India.
The USAAF places a second production order for 410 Northrop P-61s.

 

[syscom3]

CANADA and U.S.: The governments of the two countries approve the construction of a U.S. Military Highway through Canada to Alaska.

EAST INDIES: On Java, Lieutenant General John Lavarack, General Officer Commanding 1st Australian Army, tells General Sir Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief ABDA Command, the he has drafted a recommendation that the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) should not be landed in the East Indies. Wavell asks him to wait until tomorrow until he can prepare a recommendation and then both are forwarded to the Combined Chiefs of Staff and the British and Australian War Offices. Wavell also suggests that there were "advantages in diverting one or both divisions of the AIF to Burma or Australia."
An RAF reconnaissance plane sights a large concentration of Japanese shipping north of Bangka Island, at the same time many boats, full of British and Australian troops, were fleeing Singapore and found themselves among the enemy vessels. The launch carrying Rear-Admiral Spooner, Rear Admiral, Malaya, and Air Vice-Marshal Pulford, Air Officer Commanding, Far East, is driven ashore on a small uninhabited island north of Bangka Island. Two months later disease and starvation forced the survivors to surrender; the two flag officers were not among them and are never seen again.

HAWAII: The superstitious Admiral Halsey refuses to take Task Force 13 out of Pearl Harbor, as scheduled; the renumbered Task Force 16 will sail tomorrow.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: On Bataan, the I Corps, after searching entire area of Big Pocket without finding any live Japanese, turns its full attention to the salient, Upper Pocket, in the main line of resistance. Elements released from the Big Pocket assault force join in the battle. In the South Sector, troops complete destruction of Japanese troops in the Silaiim area.

PHOENIX ISLANDS: Chartered U.S. passenger ship SS President Taylor, transporting 900 Army troops to occupy Canton Island, runs aground on a reef off her destination, and becomes stranded.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): Air echelon of the 88th Reconnaissance Squadron, 7th BG (Heavy), arrives at Nandi Airport on Fiji from Hawaii with B-17's. The ground echelon is enroute from Australia to India.

SINGAPORE:. The 85,000-man British army is now penned inside a 28-mile long perimeter surrounding Singapore City. The Japanese main thrusts are against the western part of the South Area. British forward units pull back during the night of the 13-14th, to cover the Alexandra area, where the main ordnance depot and ammunition magazine are located. The Japanese seize or damage most of the reservoirs, leaving the city with only seven days supply of water.Allied forces are in full retreat, with hordes of deserters causing chaos. Troops on duty have had barely an hour's sleep in days, and are exhausted. The famed 15-inch guns have been destroyed or captured.
Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, General Officer Commanding Malaya Command, signals General Sir Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief ABDA Command, that he doesn't think he can fight for more than two days. Wavell orders Percival to fight on.
Meanwhile, the advancing Japanese themselves are desperately short on ammunition, and General Yamashita Tomoyoki commanding the 25th Army, is down to his last rounds. All remaining British shipping, small ships and other light craft, sail from Singapore during the night of the 13-14th. Some personnel are withdrawn in these vessels among them Rear Admiral, Malaya, and Air Officer Commanding, Far East. British officers take time to court-martial one of their own, New Zealand-born Captain Patrick Heenan of the Indian Army, on a charge of treason. Heenan is charged with leaving RAF supplies intact on bases as British troops retreated, enabling advancing Japanese air units to take advantage of them. He has also given information about Malaya's defenses to the Japanese for years. Heenan is convicted and executed by firing squad at sundown.

U.S.: A Congressional subcommittee recommends immediate evacuation of all Japanese-Americans from strategic areas on the West Coast. The US Army has already drawn up plans to move the Japanese-Americans east of California's Sierra Nevada mountains.

 

[syscom3]

EAST INDIES: The Japanese invade Sumatra. At 0800 hours, Japanese bombers attack Palembang I airdrome followed by fighters which strafe the airfield and provide cover for by 34 Kawasaki Ki-56, Army Type 1 Freight Transports (export version of the Lockheed Model 14 later given the Allied Code Name "Thalia") carrying paratroopers. The first drop of 260 paratroopers was over the airdrome and the second drop of 100 paratroopers was over an oil refinery nearby. The airfield was defended by about 150 British AA troops, 110 Dutch soldiers and 60 RAF ground crew. The Japanese attack the airdrome all day, suffering 80 percent
casualties, but are unable to capture it.
The Japanese capture the refinery but it is later taken by Dutch troops from Palembang II airdrome which the Japanese did not know existed. The Allied troops attempt to destroy the oil refinery but only the oil storage tanks are set ablaze. During ensuing Allied air attacks on the Japanese invasion convoy, RAF Blenheims bomb and sink a merchant ship off Palembang.
On Java, Vice Admiral Conrad E. L. Helfrich of the Royal Netherlands Navy succeeds Admiral Thomas C. Hart USN as commander of the ABDA Combined Naval Striking Force.
ABDAFloat orders a task force (Rear Admiral Karel Doorman, RNN) to proceed and attack the Japanese Palembang-bound expeditionary force. As Doorman's ships, heavy cruiser HMS Exeter, light cruisers HMAS Hobart, HNMS De Ruyter, HNMS Java and HNMS Tromp and ten destroyers heads toward its objective, destroyer HNMS Van Ghent runs aground on a reef north of Banka Island; irreparably damaged, she is scuttled and sister
ship HNMS Banckert takes off the crew.
The small vessel SS Vyner Brooke, carrying about 300 civilians escaping from Singapore, is bombed and sunk off Banka Island. Passengers include 65 nurses of the 2/13th Australian General Hospital; 22 of them survive as a group and reached Radjik Beach in a boat.

PACIFIC: Japanese submarine HIJMS I-23 is last reported south of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii. She is not heard from again, and her fate is unknown.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: On Bataan, the I Corps further reduces the Japanese salient in the main line of resistance, which is now about half its original size.
On Mindanao, submarine USS Sargo delivers one million rounds of 30-caliber ammunition to Polloc Harbor and evacuates 24 USAAF ground crewmen of the 14th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy).
Meanwhile, submarine USS Swordfish torpedoes and sinks a Japanese transport off Davao.

SINGAPORE: The city is surrounded by the Japanese 18th Division in the west, the 5th Division in the northwest and the Guards Division to the north and northeast. The Japanese burst into Alexandra Hospital and bayonet a number of the staff and patients, including one patient lying on the operating table. They then herd 150 into a bungalow and execute them tomorrow.
General Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief ABDA Command, signals Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, General Officer Commanding Malaya Command, to fight on in Singapore, but adds it would "be wrong to enforce needless slaughter." If it is no longer possible to resist, "I give you discretion to cease resistance.. .Whatever happens I thank you for gallant efforts of last few days." Brigadier Ivan Simson tells Percival that there's only enough water for 48 hours. "While there's water," Percival says, "We fight on." Supplies of food and ammunition are also dwindling rapidly.

WAKE ISLAND: A B-17 of the 7th Air Force based in Hawaii flies a photo reconnaissance mission over the island.

U.S.: "This Is War!," a 30-minute 13-week anti-fascist radio series, debuts this Saturday night at 1900 hours Eastern Time. This is the only radio series to air on all four networks, The Blue Network, CBS, Mutual and NBC. The program features such Hollywood stars as James Stewart, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Tyrone Power in shows that promote the Army, Navy, and Air Force and help Americans understand themselves and the enemy.
Director Frank Capra is called up for duty with the Army Signal Corps.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: U.S. Army transport USAT Meigs, U.S. freighters SS Mauna Loa and SS Portmar, and Australian coaster Tulagi, escorted by heavy cruiser USS Houston, destroyer USS Peary and Australian corvettes HMAS Swan and HMAS Warrego sail from Darwin, Northern Territory, for Koepang, Timor, Netherlands East Indies. The convoy is carrying the Australian 214 Pioneer Battalion and the U.S. 148th Field Artillery Regiment (75mm Gun) (Truck-Drawn) (less the 2d Battalion), to reinforce Allied troops on Timor. (The 148th is an Idaho National Guard unit inducted in September 1940.) The units are to secure Penfoie airdrome, the only staging point on Timor for flights to Java.

BURMA: The Indian 17th Division begins a withdrawal behind the Bilin River line, the 46th Brigade abandoning Thaton. The Japanese follow closely and try to outflank division.

EAST INDIES: On Sumatra, the Japanese invasion fleet enters the mouth of the Musi River near Palembang, and unloads troops of the 229th Regiment despite repeated and costly attacks by aircraft from Palembang II airdrome. The troops advance to Palembang capturing the town and relieving the paratroopers that jumped yesterday. Dutch and RAF personnel withdraw from Palembang, where the demolition of refineries is only partially completed. British personnel holding landing grounds in central and north Sumatra are ordered to the west coast for withdrawal to Java.
Late in the day, the first ship of the convoy carrying the Australian Imperial Force's 7th Division from the Middle East arrives at Oosthaven in southern Sumatra in the fast liner SS Orcades. The 3400 troops on the ship are the 2/3Machine Gun Battalion, the 2/2 Pioneer Battalion and supporting troops. On learning of the surrender of Palembang, Lieutenant General John Lavarack, General Officer Commanding 1st Australian Army, persuades General Sir Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief ABDA Command, to allow the troops to proceed to Batavia on Java. Having proceeded through Gaspar Strait to the north of Banka Island and failed to contact the Japanese force (which has already reached Banka Strait), the ABDA striking force (Rear Admiral Karel Doorman, RNN) is attacked by Japanese naval land attack planes of Genzan, Mihoro, and Kanoya Kokutais (Naval Air Corps) as well as carrier-based aircraft from the carrier HIJMS Ryujo. The Australian light cruiser HMAS Hobart is straddled, while near misses damage U.S. destroyers USS Barker and USS Bulmer, which will need to retire to Australia for repairs.
Five 5th Air Force B-17's on an antishipping strike claim hits on a Japanese cruiser and another ship.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: In the II Corps area on Bataan, the Japanese attack in limited strength to ease pressure against troops withdrawing northward from the I Corps sector. The I Corps continues to make steady progress against salient in the main line of resistance.

SINGAPORE: In Singapore City, there is almost no water, food reserves are only sufficient for a few days, and the only fuel left is in the tanks of vehicles. Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, General Officer Commanding Malaya Command tells his officers that he has permission to surrender and he sends two emissaries to the Japanese lines with a Union Jack and white flag to ask for a cease fire at 1600 hours.
General Yamashita Tomoyuki, commander of the 25th Army, replies by note which is characteristically blunt. No terms, no discussion of terms, no cease fire, until Percival has "signed on the dotted line." The note is a bluff; the Japanese are nearly out of supplies and ammunition but he hopes to intimidate the British into surrender. Exhausted, drenched with sweat, Percival walks to the Ford Motor Factory to meet his conqueror. Percival signs the surrender document at 1810 hours and the Japanese shelling
stops at 2030 hours. The Malayan campaign lasted 70-days during which the Japanese had advanced 650 miles. The Allied defenders numbered 138,708: 67,340 Indians; 38,496 British; 18,490 Australians; and 14,382 local volunteer troops. More than 130,000 troops become POWs.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: On Guadalcanal, Martin Clemens, appointed as His Majesty's Commissioner for Guadalcanal (and Coastwatcher for the Royal Australian Navy's Islands Coastwatching Service), takes up his duties at the Aola station. Armed with a simple and easily-broken Playfair code, and a 100-pound transmitter and receiver, Clemens' job is to report all hostile ship movements in the sound north of the island. His radio, which requires 12 to 16 men to carry when it has to be moved, can transmit 400 miles by voice and 600 miles using Morse Code.
While he awaits the Japanese advance, Clemens handles tribal disputes, judges cases, and raises the Union Jack over his home every morning.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: After reviewing all of the recommendations and cables, the Australian Chiefs of Staff recommend that "if possible, all Australian forces now under order to transfer to the Far East from the Middle East should be diverted to Australia."

EAST INDIES: The withdrawal of British personnel and operational aircraft from Sumatra to Java is completed; much equipment is left behind at Oesthaven.
At sunrise on Radjik Beach on Banka Island, there are nearly 100 people, including children and wounded, survivors of the sinking of the small freighter SS Vyner Brooke on 14 February. An officer from the ship explains that since there is no food, no help for the injured and no chance of escape, they should give themselves up to the Japanese. He agrees to walk to Muntok, a town on the northwest of the island, and contact the Japanese. While he is away Matron Irene Drummond, the most senior of 22 Australian nurses on the beach, suggests that the civilian women and children should start off walking towards Muntok. At mid-morning the ship's officer returns with about 20 Japanese soldiers. Having separated the men from the women prisoners, the Japanese divide the men into two groups, and march them along the beach and behind a headland.
The nurses hear a quick succession of shots before the Japanese soldiers return, sit down in front of the women and clean their bayonets and rifles. A Japanese officer, smaller and more "nattily" dressed than his men, instructs the nurses to walk from the palm-fringed beach into the sea until they are waist deep in the waves. A couple of soldiers shove those who are slow to respond. Twenty-two nurses and one civilian woman walk into the waves, leaving ten or twelve stretcher cases on the beach. Fully aware of their fate, the nurses put on a brave face. Their matron, Irene Drummond, calls out: "Chin up, girls. I'm proud of you and I love you all." At that point the Japanese fire.
One of the nurses, Vivian Bullwinkel, later describes what happens next: they "started firing up and down the line with a machine gun. ... They just swept up and down the line and the girls fell one after the other. I was towards the end of the line and a bullet got me in the left loin and went straight through and came out towards the front. The force of it knocked me over into the water and there I lay. I did not lose consciousness. The waves brought me back on to the edge of the water. I lay there ten minutes and everything seemed quiet. I sat up and looked around and there was no sign of anybody. Then I got up and went up in the jungle and lay down and either slept or was unconscious for a couple of days."
After shooting the nurses, the Japanese bayonet the wounded; over 80 people are killed on the beach that day. Of the 65 Australian nurses aboard the SS Vyner Brooke, 12 are presumed drowned, 21 are shot and killed, 31 had landed on different parts of the island and survived and Nurse Bullwinkel, who survived the massacre, is captured ten days later and survives the war as a POW.

JAPAN: Japanese Prime Minister Tojo speaks to the Japanese Diet. He speaks of "a new order of co-existance and co-prosperity on ethical principles in Greater East Asia."

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: On Bataan, the I Corps reduces the salient in the main line of resistance to an area 75 by 100 yards.
In the South Sector, Japanese remnants from Salaiim Point, attempting to escape northward, are detected about 7 miles from the point and destroyed in two-day fight. In the Manila Bay area, the Japanese destroy a section of pipeline on the Cavite shore through which Fort Frank on Carabao Island receives fresh water. A distillation plant is put into operation at Fort Frank.

SINGAPORE: The Japanese flag is hoisted above the former British governor's residence in Singapore.

TIMOR SEA: Japanese planes bomb the U.S. Timor bound convoy, escorted by heavy cruiser USS Houston and destroyer USS Peary; U.S. Army transport USAT Miegs and a U.S. freighter are damaged by near-misses. On board the latter, one crewman is killed; of the 500 troops embarked, one is killed and 18 wounded. USS Houston's heavy antiaircraft fire saves the convoy from destruction, but the imminent fall of Timor results in the recall of the convoy and its routing back to Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

 

[syscom3]

ALASKA (11th Air Force): Colonel Lidnel R Dunlap arrives from the ZI and becomes Commanding Officer of the 11th Air Force.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): The air echeon of the 88th Reconnaissance Squadron, 7th BG (Heavy), departs Nandi Airport, Fiji from Australia with B-17's. The ground echelon is enroute Australia to India.

USN - The Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet authorized removal of athwartships hangar deck catapults from Wasp, Yorktown, Enterprise, and Hornet.

AUSTRALIA: The Australian Prime Minister, John Curtin, cables British and New Zealand government officials requesting that all Australian troops then in transit or about to sail for the East Indies be diverted to Australia, and that the 9th Division and other Australian Imperial Force units in the Middle East be recalled at an early date.

BURMA: The Japanese maintain pressure against the Indian 17th Division along the Bilin River and continue outflanking attempts.

EAST INDIES: Eight USAAF 5th Air Force P-40s stage through Batavia Airdrome on Java to mount a low-level bombing and strafing attack against Japanese shipping at Palembang, Sumatra. The P-40s are attacked by Japanese fighters before they reach the target and the pilots of five aircraft jettison their bombs to defend themselves. The P-40 pilots claim five Japanese aircraft and three of the P-40 pilots are able to release their bombs among a group of landing barges. No P-40s are lost.
On Sumatra, about 2,500 RAF airmen, 1,890 British troops, 700 Dutch soldiers and some 1,000 civilian refugees had embarked in twelve various sized vessels at Oosthaven and escape the island.

JAPAN: Off Japan, the submarine USS Triton torpedoes and sinks Japanese gunboat No. 5 Shin'yo Maru off Nagasaki.

MIDDLE EAST: General Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander in Chief Middle East Command, is ordered to release two more divisions for action in the Far East, the British 70th and the Australian 9th. The Australian 9th Division is subsequently allowed to remain in Middle East.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: On Bataan, the I Corps completely restores the main line of resistance without opposition as the Japanese continues to withdraw.

SINGAPORE: Singapore is renamed Shonan [Light of the South] by the Japanese.

SOCIETY ISLANDS: In the Society Islands which are located in the western portion of French Polynesia, Task Force 5614 with almost 5,000 troops arrives at Bora-Bora Island. This force consists of the 102d Infantry Regiment (minus the 3d Battalion), the 198th Coast Artillery Regiment (Antiaircraft) and the Bobcat Detachment of the First Naval Construction Battalion. This is the first operational deployment of the Seabees. Borabora is to be used as a refueling base to support the Southern
Lifeline to Australia.

 

[syscom3]

Today is the 65th anniversary of the naval Battle of the Badung Straight. A Japanese victory anyway you look at it. Again the ABDA is plagued by bad luck!

BALI: During the day a small Japanese Navy convoy under Rear-Admiral Kubo Kyuji flying his flag on the light cruiser Nagara, with seven destroyers (Hatsushimo, Nenohi, Wakaba, Asashio, Oshio, Arashio, and Michishio), escorted the transports Sasego Maru and Sagami Maru to Bali, where they landed one reinforced battalion of IJA troops to capture seize the airfield there.
Throughout the day Kubo's force was subjected to a large number of air attacks by US and Dutch aircraft. However, despite glowing reports of damage, only one hit was scored on Sagami Maru, temporarily disabling her engines. As dusk approached, Kubo began withdrawing his force in three elements. His flagship, with Hatsushimo, Nenohi, and Wakaba sortieed immediately. Sasego Maru, escorted by Arashio and Michishio followed some time later at a much slower speed, while Sagami Maru, under the protective eyes of Oshio and Asashio would leave as soon as temporary repairs were completed. When the Japanese convoy force had been sighted on 17 February by ABDA search planes, the sighting could not have come at a worse time.
The Allied warships of ABDA's Combined Striking Force had just returned from a sortie and had been forced to separate to several Dutch ports for fuel and maintenance. None the less, Eskadercommandant Karel Willem Frederick Marie Doorman, KM immediately issued orders for all of his available ships to sortie. His hastily worked out plan was to see a sustained attack in three waves. First, in would be Doorman's main force, consisting of the Dutch light cruisers De Ruyter and Java and three destroyers, the Dutch Piet Hein along with USS Pope and USS John D. Ford.
The second wave would be composed of four American Destroyers, USS Stewart, USS Parrott, USS John D. Edwards, and USS Pillsbury supported by the Dutch light cruiser Tromp.
The third wave was composed of seven Dutch motor torpedo boats, TM-4, TM-5, TM-7, TM-9, TM-10, TM-11, and TM-12. Doorman hoped for great things as, for the first time in the campaign, the Allied forces would be numerically and qualitatively superior to the Japanese. In the event, the Battle of Badung Strait could not have gone much worse. By 2220,when Doorman arrived, the only Japanese ships in the immediate area were the damaged Sagami Maru, and her two escorts. In a very confusing action, the Dutch cruisers steamed merrily through the strait seeing little, only Java engaging, albeit briefly. However, his trailing destroyers found themselves in a regular brawl form which only two emerged, Piet Hein being disabled by gunfire and then sunk by a torpedo from Asashio. meanwhile, the other Japanese forces turned about to offer support to their colleagues. Following in roughly two hours later the US destroyers, supported by Tromp, found themselves in an old fashioned gunfight, first with Asashio and Oshio, and then with Michishio and Arashio.
Again, the results did not favor the Allies. Tromp, battered by 18 shells by the time the action was over, would have to leave the campaign for Australian dockyard at Sydney. However, the US destroyers earned some measure of revenge, knocking about Oshio and plastering Michishio, which which went dead in the water with her entire powerplant "hors de combat". She had to suffer the indignity of being towed home and was not fully repaired until October.
The finishing touches on this less than spectacular affair were applied by the Ducth MTBs, which sailed straight through the center of the Strait without seeing a thing! Thus ended the Combined Striking Force's best opportunity to inflict some real damage on the Japanese Navy.

BURMA: Japanese forces cross the Bilin river, and Britain orders Rangoon, Burma to be evacuated.

AUSTRALIA: U.S. Major General George H. Brett, acting in his capacity as deputy commander of the ABDA Command, cables the U.S. War Department with his assessment that the only way to save Java is to mount an immediate ground and air offensive in Burma and China. Therefore, he orders Major General Lewis H. Brereton, Commanding General 5th Air Force, to travel to India to oversee the building of an air force there. Brett also advises that an American buildup in Australia should be implemented at once.

EAST INDIES: A British volunteer party from Batavia, Java, sails to Oosthaven, Sumatra, retrieved valuable aircraft spares and technical stores and destroyed what was left, including the harbor facilities without interference from the Japanese.
The air echelon of the USAAF 5th Air Force' 91st Bombardment Squadron (Light), begins operating from Malang, Java, with A-24 Dauntlesses; the ground echelon is on Bataan, Luzon, Philippine Islands.
Against the wishes of Lieutenant General John Lavarack, General Officer Commanding I Australian Corps, General Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief ABDA Command, orders the Australian Imperial Force troops on the fast passenger liner SS Orcades to disembark at Batavia, Java. The next day, Wavell informs Australian Prime
Minister John Curtin that these troops are need for airfield defense and are being disembarked.
5th Air Force P-40 pilots attack nine Japanese bombers over Soerabaja, Java, shooting down six of the bombers for the loss of one P-40. Three Japanese fighters are also shot down in separate engagements over Soerabaja.

SINGAPORE: British and Australian POWs are forced to sweep the streets, while Japanese newsreel cameras roll, showing Western weakness. Singapore is re-named "Shonan," meaning "Bright South," and Japanese troops start removing British statues, signs, and memorials.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: Carrier planes from Japanese carriers raid Darwin, Australia.
The attack was carried out by 188 aircraft - 36 fighters, 71 level bombers and 81 dive bombers from KAGA, AKAGI, HIRYU and SORYU. This was equivalent to the force that attacked Pearl Harbor. A second attack was carried out by 54 medium bombers from Kendari in the Celebes. The attack began just before 1000 when fighters strafed the ships in the harbour and shot down the few defending American fighters. The level bombers followed, concentrating on the port and town while dive bombers attacked the ships. In ten minutes Darwin ceased to be an operational port.
The wharf was destroyed and the merchant vessels NEPTUNA and BAROSSA damaged. The destroyer USS PEARY was caught running for the open sea, her magazines exploded and she sank with heavy loss of life, her guns still in action. The US transports MEIGS and MAUNA LOA were sunk as was the tanker BRITISH MOTORIST and the Australian transport ZEALANDIA. Transports PORTMAR and TULAGI were holed and beached. An attack by dive bombers on the wharf hit NEPTUNA again and her cargo of depth charges exploded, shaking the town and killing 45. BAROSSA was burnt out and beached. The RAN vessels in the harbour fought back desperately but only the sloops SWAN and WARREGO possessed anything like an adequate AA armament. Especially vulnerable was the corvette KATOOMBA sitting high and dry in a floating dry dock. She forced at least one attacker to turn away. The depot ship PLATYPUS was damaged by near misses which sank the lugger MAVIE alongside. Strafing aircraft caused fatal casualties on the boom defence vessels KARA KARA and KANGAROO and the auxiliary GUNBAR. The hospital ship MANUNDA, despite her clear markings, was bombed and heavily damaged with 12 dead and 58 wounded.
North of Darwin two merchant vessels, DON ISIDRO and FLORENCE B, were destroyed. There was also heavy damage and loss of life in the town and at the airfield.
The medium bombers attacked at midday concentrating on the airfield and causing further damage. The attack was considered then, and many Australians still
believe, to presage a Japanese attack on Australia. It was however simply intended to neutralise Darwin as a base from where Allied forces might operate against the Japanese invasion of the Eastern Netherlands Indies. In this it was outstandingly successful.
TO AMPLIFY: The four Japanese carriers launched 189 aircraft and the attack began at approximately 0910 hours. The attacking force consisted of: 81 B5N2 "Kate" Carrier Attack Bombers, 73 D3A1, "Val" Carrier Bombers, and 36 A6M2, "Zero" carrier fighters The medium bombers are G4M1 "Betty" attack bombers
Additional U.S. ships involved were: The seaplane tender (destroyer) USS William B. Preston which is damaged. The freighter SS Portmar which is damaged and beached. The freighter SS Admiral Halstead with a cargo of drummed gasoline, is damaged. The freighter SS Florence D., under charter to the US Army and carrying a cargo of ammunition, rescues the 8-man crew of a Patrol Squadron Twenty Two PBY off the north coast of Australia. The ship is later attacked and sunk by Japanese carrier based aircraft; the survivors are rescued by the minesweeper HMAS Warrnambool and the mission boat St. Francis. The Philippine motorship MS Don Isidro, which was chartered by the US Army to run supplies to Corregidor, is sunk off the NW coast of Bathurst Island and the survivors are also rescued by the minesweeper HMAS Warrnambool.

BURMA: The Indian 17th Division continues to defend the Bilin River line throughout the day but is ordered to fall back after dark. Mandalay receives its first enemy air attack.

CANADA: The Canadian Parliament votes to introduce military conscription.

NEI: In the Netherlands East Indies, Japanese forces land on Bali. As the Japanese Bali occupation force under Rear Admiral Kubo Kyuji retires, a naval battle ensues as an Allied naval force consisting of three cruisers and accompanying destroyers under Rear Admiral Karel W.F.M. Doorman, Royal Netherlands Navy (RNN), attacks in Badoeng Strait. The USN destroyer USS Stewart (DD-224) is damaged by gunfire from IJN destroyers HIJMS Oshio and HIJMS Asashio. The RNN destroyer HNMS Piet Hien is sunk; 30 of her survivors find a motor whaleboat jettisoned by USN destroyer USS John D. Ford (DD-228) and proceed unaided to Java. RNN light cruisers HNMS Java and HNMS Tromp are damaged by Japanese gunfire while IJN destroyers HIJMS Ushio and HIJMS Michisio are damaged by Allied gunfire.
USAAF A-24 Dauntlesses, with P-40 escort, and B-17's operating out of Malang, Madioen, and Jogjakarta Airfields, Java, attack vessels landing troops on Bali; the attacks, carried out during the afternoon of 19 February and throughout the morning of 20 February, claim considerable damage to vessels but fail to halt the landings; P-40s, based at Singosari Airfield on Java, shoot down or turn back several bombers sweeping west over Java. The loss of Denpasar Airfield on Bali, which the Japanese begin using immediately, completes the Japanese encirclement of Java.

PACIFIC: In the central Pacific, USN Aviation Chief Machinist's Mate Harold F. Dixon (Naval Aviation Pilot) and his two-man crew of a TBD Devastator of Torpedo Squadron Six (VT-6), whose plane ditched due to fuel exhaustion on 16 January, reach the Danger Islands in the Western Northern Cook Islands having spent 34 days at sea in their rubber boat. Dixon was flying TBD-1 Bu.Aer. 0355 coded T-14. His crew was Anthony J. Pastula, AOM2c and Gene D. Aldrich, RM3c. They have subsisted on occasional fish speared with a pocket knife, two birds, and rain water. While the straight line distance traveled measures 450 miles , the estimated track is approximately 1,200 miles. Dixon is awarded the Navy Cross for heroism, leadership, and resourcefulness.

U.S.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas "as deemed necessary or desirable." The military in turn defines the entire West Coast, home to the majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry or citizenship, as a military area. By June, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were relocated to remote internment camps built by the U.S. military in scattered locations around the country. For the next two and a half years, many of these Japanese Americans endured extremely difficult living conditions and poor treatment by their military guards.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower is appointed as Chief of the War Plans Division for the US Army.

 

[syscom3]

PACIFIC OCEAN AREA (POA, 7th Air Force): 19th Pursuit Squadron, 18th Pursuit Group, transfers from Wheeler Field to Bellows Field, Territory of Hawaii wtih P-40's.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): Air echelon of 17th Bombardment Squadron, 27th BG, begins a movement from Brisbane to Batchelor with A-24s. Ground echelon is on Bataan. Detachment of the 22d Bombardment Squadron and air echelon of 88th Reconnaissance Squadron, 7th BG (Heavy), arrive at Townsville from Fiji with B-17's. The detachment of the 22d is under control of the USN. Ground echelon of the 22d is at Jogjakarta, Java; ground echelon of 88th is enroute from Australia to India.

AUSTRALIA: A massive aerial onslaught by a Japanese naval task force yesterday shattered the northern Australian port of Darwin. Some of the 188 attacking aircraft were from four of the aircraft carriers that took part in the Pearl Harbor raid, plus land-based bombers operating from Celebes. The raid has temporarily wrecked Darwin's war potential and has sunk many ships, including the USS PEARY, and killed 243 people.
There was chaos and a little panic when the enemy action was interpreted as the prelude to an invasion. But this was clearly not the aim of the Japanese, whose apparent intention was to shatter the morale of Australia, which is fast becoming a rallying point against Japan's expansion. In the wake of the Japanese carrier strike the day before, Darwin, Northern Territory, is abandoned as an Allied naval base. RAF and USAAF air operations from the field outside the port, however, will continue.

BISMARK ISLANDS, NEW BRITAIN: The carrier, USS Lexington attacks Rabaul, New Britian.Note: While she tried to attack Rabaul, she encountered aerial resistance and abandoned the attempt.
Amplifying the above:Task Force 11 (TF 11) built around USS Lexington, with Carrier Air Group Three aboard, is attacked by Japanese Navy land-based aircraft as it approaches Rabaul on New Britain Island. Because of these attacks, the proposed mission against Rabaul is canceled and TF11 begins withdrawing. Fighting Squadron Three, equipped with Grumman F4F Wildcats, has a busy day:
Between 1112 and 1202 hours, VF-3 pilots shoot down two four-engined patrol bombers. At approximately 1700 hours, VF-3 pilots intercept nine "Betty" medium bombers approaching the Lexington and shoot down four of them. The remaining five miss the carrier and flee. As the F4Fs chase the "Bettys," another nine-plane element attacks the Lexington. Airborne at this time is Lt.(jg) Edward H. "Butch" O'Hare and he proceeds to shoot down five of the Bettys, and possibly a sixth, over Bougainville Island in the Solomons between 1705 and 1730 hours becoming the US's first ace-in-a-day. O'Hare is subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor for this action.
Other "Bettys" also attack and eight of nine are shot down by VF-3 pilots and the rear gunner in a Scouting Squadron Two SBD Dauntless. US casualties are two F4Fs and one pilot.
Although the US raid on Rabaul is canceled, the loss of so many Japanese aircraft forces them to postpone the seizure of several positions in New Guinea.

BURMA: The Indian 17th Division begins withdrawal behind the Sittang River, the 48th Brigade leading.

NEI: Early in the morning, Japanese aircraft of the Tainan Air Group land at the intact den Passar Airfield on Bali and begin operations. The Japanese land at Dili in Portugese (East) Timor during the night of the 18-19th. In December 1941, 155 Australian troops of the of the 2/2 Independent Company and 260 Dutch troops had landed at Dili. One Australian platoon was at Dili Airfield. By daylight, the Japanese had occupied part of the airfield and forced the Australians to retreat. In one incident four Australian prisoners had been forced to march some distance with their hands tied behind their backs, pushed into a drainage ditch beside the road and shot. Three were killed and when the survivor moved he was bayoneted. When he again regained conscientiousness, he found his hands free and wristwatch gone. He crawled away and was found by local natives who returned him to Australian lines.
The Japanese also landed at Koepang in Dutch (West Timor) in the early morning. The Australian Imperial Force 2/40th Battalion and a coast artillery battery had been deployed to West Timor in December to defend the Bay of Koepang and Penfoie Airdrome. Japanese aircraft attacked Penfui Airfield and then dropped paratroopers of the Yokosuka 3rd Special Naval Landing Force to capture it. Again, the Japanese outnumbered the Allied forces and overwhelmed them.
On Java, three Australian battalions, designated "Blackforce, " are tasked with defending five airfields. The destroyer USS Stewart, damaged by shellfire in the Battle of Badoeng Strait the previous night, suffers further damage when, improperly shored and placed on blocks, she rolls on her port side in a Dutch floating drydock at
Surabaya.
During the morning, 5th Air Force aircraft based in Java attack the Japanese transports landing troops on Bali. B-17's attack in three waves and 17 A-24 Dauntlesses, escorted by 16 P-40s, attack six ships in Lombok Strait; they claim five hits on a cruiser (there were none) with the loss of two A-24s. Two P-40s are also shot down and three others are lost when they run out of fuel or crashing on landing. Late in the morning, five Japanese fighters based on den Pasar Airdrome on Bali attack Singosari Airdrome on Java and destroy three of five B-17s waiting to takeoff.
Off Bali, contact was made with two Japanese destroyers and a transport just past midnight on 19-20 by ABDA naval forces including the destroyers USS Parrott and the Piet Hein. The ensuing fight, left the Dutch destroyer Piet Hein at the bottom of the sea and the Japanese destroyer Michishio dead in the water. The USS Parrott struck ground in the treacherous shoal water, but was able to churn herself free and retire with the rest of the force to Surabaya.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: In the Manila Bay area, the Japanese artillery bombardment of fortified islands reaches peak intensity.
The submarine USS Swordfish embarks Philippine President Manuel Quezon, his wife and two children, Vice President Sergio Osmea, and other Philippine government officials off Mariveles. Quezon was carried to Mindanao and attempted to remain in the Philippines. MacArthur quietly arranged for him to be kept under close escort as he did not trust Quezon not to try to cut a deal for neutralization of the Philippines with the Japanese. Quezon and Osmea were eventually carried to Australia and thence to the US. Quezon died in the US but Osmea went ashore at Leyte and resumed his duties as Philippine President as the US cleared the Archipelago. Quezon's reluctance in 1942 to leave the Philippines might have resulted from the knowledge that he was dying from tuberculosis and that he would have preferred to die in the Philippines.

U.S.: The Combined Chiefs of Staff announces that Allied forces on Java will not be evacuated under any circumstances.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: After the government confirmed its decision that all Australian Imperial Force troops should be returned to Australia instead of serving in Java, Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee, Chief of the Australian General Staff, cables General Sir Archibald Wavell, ABDA Command, that Lieutenant General John Lavarack, General Officer Commanding I Australian Corps, and his staff should be evacuated from Java as soon as possible. Sturdee also urges Wavell to evacuate the Australian troops that disembarked from the SS Orcades at Batavia, Java, on 18 February.

BURMA: Burma is removed from the jurisdiction of the ABDA Command. The British 7th Armoured Brigade arrives at Rangoon from the Middle East and is soon committed on the Pegu front. The Indian 17th Division continues toward Sittang bridge near Mokpalin with the Japanese in close pursuit.
American Volunteer Group "The Flying Tigers" and RAF pilots mistakenly attack a column of Indian troops northeast of Rangoon, killing 160 and destroying or damaging scores of vehicles.

EAST CHINA SEA: The submarine USS Triton sinks a Japanese merchant cargo vessel 60 miles S of Quelpart Island.

EAST INDIES: Major General George H Brett, Deputy Commanding General ABDA Command informs the U.S. War Department of his decision to evacuate the 5th Air Force and other US troops from Java.
On Java, USAAF 5th Air Force bombers based in Java bases fly about 20 strikes, usually in two and three aircraft elements, against shipping in the Java Sea and against targets on Bali from this date through 1 March. Eleven strikes are complete failures; the remainder, although causing some damage to vessels and airfield facilities, fail to deter the invasion of Java. During the morning, 5th Air Force P-40 pilots shoot down five Mitsubishi A6M, Carrier Fighters
On Java, General Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief ABDA Command, warns British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that the Japanese will soon complete the conquest of the Netherlands East Indies and capture nearly 100,000 Dutch, British, Australian and U. S. troops.
On Dutch West Timor, the Australians begin an attack on the village of Babau at 0530 hours; by the end of the day, the Australian have occupied it.

INDIA: Chiang Kai-shek makes a broadcast asking the people to support China and the Allies in their war against Japan.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A lull settles over the entire front on Bataan as both sides dig in and prepare for further action. The Japanese have completed their withdrawal from I Corps area; diversionary forces employed against II Corps are ordered back to the Balanga area.
The U.S. War Department orders General Douglas MacArthur, Commanding General U.S. Army Forces, Far East (USAFFE), to move his headquarters to Mindanao Island and then go to Australia to take command of Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific. MacArthur threatens to resign his commission and join the Bataan defense forces as a volunteer, but his advisers talk him out of it.
The blockade runner Elcano brings 1,000 tons of food to Corregidor. This is enough to feed Bataan for four days.

THAILAND: During the early afternoon, pilots of the 1st Fighter Squadron, "The Flying Tigers" attack Tak Airdrome at Rahaeng and destroy two bombers and a fighter.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: Five Allied ships leave Fremantle, Western Australia, with 69 USAAF P-40s, motor vehicles and U.S. Army troops destined for India. Two ships of the convoy are the seaplane tender USS Langley, carrying 32 assembled P-40s, and the merchant ship SS Sea Witch, carrying 27 crated fighters; these two ships are destined for Tjilatjap, Java.
The Australian Prime Minister, John Curtin, blocks Churchill's plan to send Australian troops to Burma.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): Air echelon of 17th Bombardment Squadron, 27th BG, arrives at Batchelor from Brisbane, Australia with A-24s. Ground echelon is on Bataan.

BURMA: The Japanese open a strong attacks against two brigades of the Indian 17th Division east of the Sittang River in the Mokpalin area before a withdrawal through the Sittang bridge bottleneck can be accomplished. In a murderous, daylong fight, the Gurkhas hold the bridge, allowing other Allied units to escape to the river's west bank. The Sitting River is the last barrier before Rangoon.

EAST INDIES: On Java, Japanese aircraft destroy five 5th Air Force bombers on the ground, four B-17's at Pasirian Airdrome and an LB-30 Liberator at Jogjakarta Airdrome.
On Bali, 5th Air Force bombers attack de Pasar Airdrome and destroy Japanese aircraft on the ground.

MALAYSIA: Parit Sulong: About 145 Australian troops, trapped by a Japanese roadblock trying to break through swamp and jungle to reach British lines. Before setting off, they leave their wounded at the roadside, "lying huddled around trees, smoking calmly, unafraid."The Japanese capture the men and shoot them. More and more still...."

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: Submarine USS Swordfish disembarks Philippine President Manuel Quezon and his party at San Jose, Panay, to continue their journey out of the archipelago.

U.S.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur, Commanding General U.S. Army Forces, Far East (USAFFE), to leave the Philippines.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: Major General Lewis H Brereton, Commanding General USAAF 5th Air Force, departs for India after issuing an order terminating HQ 5th Air Force. Until 3 September 1942, units of the 5th Air Force will be initially under control of the ABDA Command and later the Allied Air Forces.

BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Six B-17's fly their first mission against Rabaul on New Britain Island. Operating out of Townsville, Queensland, Australia, the force suffers mechanical trouble and runs into bad weather and only one B-17 manages to bomb the target. After this mission, the 12 B-17s at Townsville are placed under the operational control of the RAAF.

BURMA: Violent fighting for the Sittang River bridgehead continues. The Indian 17th Division destroys Sittang bridge at 0530 hour to prevent the Japanese from using it, although the 16th and 46th Brigades are still east of the river. Remnants of these brigades eventually cross in small craft or by swimming but all of their heavy equipment is lost. The battle of the Sittang bridgehead is disastrous for the Indian 17th Division; they can only muster 80 officers and 3,404 enlisted men, of whom only 1,420 still have their rifles and the 46th Brigade must be broken up to provide replacements.
In Rangoon, British authorities move to push supplies up to China or destroy them on the spot to prevent the Japanese from seizing them. Exploding fuel tanks and ammunition dumps tell yet another story of Allied failure against the Japanese. The British send the 7th Armoured Brigade to Rangoon to try and restore the situation.

EAST INDIES: The Japanese report that the conquest of Ambon Island is complete.
On Dutch West Timor, the Australian 2/40th Battalion surrenders to the Japanese after four days of fighting. The battalion had run out of food and water and 132 men were ill or seriously wounded.
On Portuguese East Timor, the Australian 2/2 Independent Company begins to reorganize and deploy as a guerilla force. This guerilla warfare continued until January 1943.
On Java, Allied forces begin an evacuation of the island. Major General George H. Brett, deputy commander of the ABDA Command, flies from Java, which is in imminent danger, to Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

U.K.: Prime Minister Winston Churchill informs Australian Prime Minister John Curtin that the convoy carrying the Australian 6th and 7th Divisions will proceed to Australian after refueling at Colombo, Ceylon.

USA: The Japanese submarine I-17 bombards an oil refinery in Santa Barbara, U.S.: Japanese submarine HIJMS I-17 fires 25 rounds of 5.5-inch shells from a range of 2,500 yards at the Bankline Oil Refinery at Ellwood, California, 12 miles west of Santa Barbara. One shell makes a direct hit of the rigging causing minor damage.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was giving a fireside radio chat to the nation at the time of the attack above; the purpose was to calm fears that the attack on Pearl Harbor has left the country defenseless. Quoting Revolutionary War firebrand Thomas Paine, he says "these are the times that try men's souls," and adds "tyranny, like hell is not easily conquered."
Three days ago, the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) announced that no Allied forces would be evacuated from Java. Today, the CCS orders General Sir Archibald Wavell, Command in Chief ABDA Command, to move his headquarters from Java to Australia.
A Master Mutual Aid Agreement is signed between Australia, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S.
The USN's Bureau of Aeronautics outlines a comprehensive program which became the basis for the wartime expansion of pilot training. In place of the existing seven months course, the new program required 11 months for pilots of single or twin-engine aircraft and 12 months for four-engine pilots, and is divided into three months at Induction Centers, three months in Primary, three months in Intermediate and two or three months in Operational Training, depending on the type aircraft used.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: U.S. Major General Lewis Brereton and his staff depart Melbourne, Victoria, for India aboard two heavy bombers. Brereton will command the 10th Air Force in India.

EAST INDIES: The evacuation of Java continues with all USAAF heavy bombers ordered to fly to Australia or other bases within range.
Japanese aircraft attack the advance depot at Bandoeng and destroy three USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses on the ground.
The first definite indication that the Japanese invasion of Java is imminent is a report, received today, of a large fleet of enemy transports with a strong escort, heading southward in the Strait of Makassar.

HAWAII: The Japanese submarine HIJMS I-9 launches a Yokosuka E14Y1, Navy Type 0 Small Reconnaissance Seaplane, to reconnoiter Pearl Harbor.

WAKE ISLAND: Beginning at 0710 hours, the USN's Task Force Sixteen (Vice Admiral William F. Halsey Jr.) raids Wake Island to destroy Japanese installations there.
SBD Dauntlesses and TBD Devastators of Bombing Squadron Six, Scouting Squadron Six and Torpedo Squadron Six from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and SOC-1 Seagulls of Cruiser Scouting Squadron Five from heavy cruisers USS Northampton and USS Salt Lake City bomb installations in the atoll. The bombardment unit consisting of USS Northampton and USS Salt Lake City and destroyers USS Balch and USS Maury (Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance) shells the atoll.
Combined efforts of USS Enterprise's planes (bombing and strafing) and ships' gunfire sink two guardboats and two Kawanishi H6K4, Navy Type 97 Flying Boats on the water; F4F Wildcat pilots of Fighting Squadron Six later shoot down a third H6K4 near Wake at about 0830 hours. Fortunately, the bombing and shelling of Wake harms none of the American marines, sailors and construction workers too badly wounded to have been evacuated in the initial increment of POWs, and the civilian workmen retained on the island to continue work on defenses. One SBD of VS 6 is lost, however, and its crew taken prisoner.

INDIA: Major General Joseph Stilwell, Commanding General American Army Forces, China, Burma, and India, arrives at Karachi from the U.S.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: The submarine USS Swordfish embarks U.S. High Commissioner to the Philippine Islands Francis B. Sayre and his party of 12, plus five sailors, off Manila Bay. Their original destination is Surabaya, Java, but because of the deteriorating situation on Java, they are taken to Fremantle, Western Australia.

U.S.: The Voice of America shortwave radio station broadcasts for the first time with the words, "The Voice of America speaks. ... we shall speak to you about America and the war. The news may be good or bad, but we shall tell you the truth." Its first programs are in German.
The USN's Bureau of Aeronautics issues a contract for television equipment, including camera, transmitter, and receiver, that is capable of airborne operation. Such equipment promises to be useful both in transmitting instrument readings obtained from radio-controlled
structural flight tests, and in providing target and guidance information necessary should radio-controlled aircraft be converted to offensive weapons.
The US gun manufacturers stop production of 12 gauge shotguns for civilian consumption as they converted to war production.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: Arriving at Brisbane, Queensland, from the U.S. are three USAAF bombardment groups (one light and two medium), with their assigned 12 squadrons, in addition to a pursuit squadron. Two of the groups will enter combat in April.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): Arriving at Brisbane from the US are: HQ 3d BG and 8th, 13th, 89th and 90th Bombardment Squadrons with A-20's; first mission is in Apr. HQ 22nd BG (Medium), 2d, 19th and 33d Bombardment Squadrons (Medium) and 18th Reconnaissance Squadron (Medium) with B-26's; first mission is in Apr. HQ 38th BG (Medium) and 15th Reconnaissance Squadron (Medium) and 69th, 70th and 71st Bombardment Squadrons (Medium) with B-26's; first mission is Jun; air echelon of 69th and 70th remain in the US until May/Jun. 39th Pursuit Squadron (Interceptor), 35th Pursuit Squadron (Interceptor), with P-39's; first mission is 2 Jun.

BURMA: The Japanese are infiltrating into the Pegu Yomas mountain range through a gap of some 30-40 miles that exists between the Burma 1st Division at Nyaunglebin and the Indian 17th Division at Pegu, threatening the Rangoon-Mandalay road.
Pilots of the AVG shoot down three "Nates" over Rangoon at 1200 hours. At 1700 hours, the AVG pilots shoot down 23 Japanese Army fighters and an Army bomber over Rangoon.

NETHERLAND EAST INDIES: On Java, General Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief, ABDA Command, closes his HQ and departs for Australia. The ABDA Command is dissolved effective 0900 hours and the defense of Java is left to Dutch General Ter Poorten. The Dutch are to be assisted by British, Australian and American detachments.
Wavell resumes his previous command, Commander in Chief India.
On Java, the Australian Blackforce is concentrated around Buitenzorg, about 40 miles south of Batavia. The U.S. 2d Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment (75mm Gun) (Truck-Drawn) is attached to Blackforce. (The 131st was a Texas National Guard unit inducted into Federal service on 25 November 1940.)
Japanese destroyers land a small force on Bawean Island, 85 miles north of Surabaja, and set up a radio station.
A Dutch PBY Catalina spots Japanese transports moving to invade Java. At 1125 hours, all available Allied cruisers and destroyers are ordered to join Admiral Doorman's Eastern Striking Force at Surabaja, Java. The cruisers HMS Exeter and HMAS Perth with destroyers HMS Jupiter, HMS Electra and HMS Encounter sail from Batavia to Surabaja. Without waiting for the arrival of the British reinforcements, Admiral Doorman sails with the heavy cruiser USS Houston, the Dutch light cruisers HNMS De Ruyter and HNMS Java and seven destroyers from Surabaja at dusk. He carries out a sweep to the east along the coast of Madoera Island in the hope of intercepting the Japanese transports reported near Bawean Island. No contact is made however and the Allied force return the next morning to Surabaja where it is joined by the British detachment from Batavia. From then onwards the Eastern Striking Force became known as the Combined Striking Force, under the command of Dutch Rear-Admiral Karel Doorman. One of the problems faced by this force is that each Navy uses their own standards that are not compatible, e.g., signalmen must grapple with four different types of flag codes.

INDIA: U.S. Major General Joseph Stilwell is promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General, AUS, and confers with GHQ, India, at New Delhi.

U.S.: Reports of unidentified aircraft approaching Los Angeles, California, from the ocean during the night of the 24th-25th result in the city being blacked out from 0227 to 0721 hours. During the "Battle of Los Angeles," some 1,400 rounds of 3-inch antiaircraft ammunition is fired against various "targets." Later the US Army will conclude that the "battle" had been touched off by one to five unidentified aircraft, but the USN will maintain there was no reason for the firing.
The War Production Board bans the use of rubber thread in brassieres, girdles and corsets for the duration of the war.
Thousands of American residents of Japanese descent are being forcibly moved from the west coast to internment camps in inland states. More than 112,000 people are being ordered into buses and lorries, often at gunpoint - whether or not they are American born or naturalised
citizens. Such is anti-Japanese hysteria in the United States since the attack on Pearl Harbor that most civil rights campaigners have turned a blind eye to the mass evacuation.
All 3,000 Japanese -American residents of Terminal Island, Los Angeles, have been given three days in which to leave. The decision is a response both to fears on the part of the army and navy that the Japanese might help a Japanese invasion and to pressure from the public and politicians. Since the attack on Pearl Harbor seven Japanese have been murdered by vigilantes. One US Senator has called for all Japanese, whether citizens or not to be placed in "concentration camps". Similar scenes are taking place in western Canada. Men are being parted from their families and placed in labour camps.
In the U.S., the U.S. Coast Guard assumes responsibility for U.S. port security.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: The Japanese submarine HIJMS I-25 launches a Yokosuka E14Y1, Navy Type 0 "Glen" Small Reconnaissance Seaplane, to fly a reconnaissance mission over Melbourne, Victoria.

BURMA: Hard fighting is developing in the Waw area, northeast of Pegu, as the Japanese continue infiltration westward from the Sittang River to threaten the rail link between Rangoon and Mandalay, Burma.
Pilots of the AVG shoot down one Japanese Army bomber and 19 "Nate"'s over Rangoon between 0800 and 1200 hours.

CANADA: Prime Minister MacKenzie King orders the evacuation of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the coastal regions of British Columbia.

EAST INDIES: Submarine USS S-38 bombards the Japanese radio station on enemy-occupied Bawean Island, that had been set up the previous day.
During the late morning, the Japanese Eastern Invasion Force headed for Java from Borneo was found again in the Makassar Strait, by a Dutch Dornier flying boat which shadowed them for several hours. The Dornier then carried out an attack on the destroyer HIJMS Amatsukaze, releasing only one bomb which fell about 500 yards ahead of its intended target. This attack was followed by two USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses dropping their six bombs from 13000 feet. Two of the bombs fell some 500 yards short of the destroyer HIJMS Hatsukaze.
At 1830 hours, Admiral Doorman's Combined Striking Force sets sail from Soerabaja, Java, to carry out a night attack on 30 Japanese transports, escorted by two cruisers and five destroyers, which had been sighted shortly before 1200 hours about 200 miles to the north-northeast heading west by south at 10 knots. The striking force consists of heavy cruisers HMS Exeter and USS Houston, light cruisers HMAS Perth and HNMS De Ruyter and Java, and destroyers HMS Electra, Encounter and Jupiter, HNMS Kortenaer, and Witte de With, and USS Alden, John D. Edwards, John D. Ford and Paul Jones.
The force sets course to the eastward so as to sweep along the north coast of Madoera Island where a landing was thought possible. If no enemy were sighted they intended to sweep back to the west and search the Bight of Toeban. Doorman had originally considered a sweep to the north and northeast, but had decided that, without reconnaissance aircraft, there was a better chance of intercepting the enemy by crossing his line of advance close to his probable landing points.
At 2200 hours, the light cruisers HMAS Hobart and HMS Dragon and Danae sail from Batavia, Java, to search for the Japanese invasion convoy sailing towards the island from the west; the ships return at 1300 hours tomorrow having found nothing.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A Japanese amphibious force, consisting of an infantry battalion and a field artillery battery, sails from Olongapo, Luzon, for Mindoro Island.

 

[syscom3]

BAY OF BENGAL: Japan raids the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal.

EAST INDIES: U.S. freighter SS Sea Witch delivers 27 crated USAAF P-40s to Tjilatjap, Java, but the planes will be destroyed on the docks to deny their use by the Japanese.
9 Japanese bombers flying from Kendari find the seaplane tender USS Langley in route to Tjilatjap. After 5 hits, the Langley is scuttled and survivors are rescued by the 2 destroyer escort. The Langley was ferrying 32 P-40 fighters for the defense of Java.

INDIA: General Archibald Wavell arrives in New Delhi from Java and assumes his post as Commander in Chief India.

JAVA SEA: Allied air and naval units try to stop a convoy of some 80 Japanese ships approaching Java from the northeast. All available USAAF B-17's, A-24 Dauntlesses, P-40s and LB-30 Liberators are put into the air but achieve only insignificant results. USS Whipple and USS Edsall departed Tjilatjap to rendezvous with Langley off the south coast of Java.Making contact at 0629, the destroyers took up screening positions to escort the vulnerable Langley carrying a load of aircraft to bolster the sagging defenses of Java into Tjilatjap.
At 1150, lookouts spotted nine high-level bombers approaching from the east. Four minutes later, a stick of bombs splashed around Langley clearly the object of Japanese attention. During a second attack shortly after noon, all three ships put up brisk antiaircraft fire. At 1212, the Japanese, undaunted by Langley's evasive maneuvers, struck hard. A stick of bombs fell on or near the former aircraft carrier and set her afire.
Langley was abandoned at 1325, and Whipple proceeded close aboard to rescue survivors, using two of the destroyer's life rafts, a cargo net slung over the side, and a number of lines trailed over the side. Staying some 25 yards off the sinking seaplane tender Whipple picked up some 308 men from Langley's crew and embarked Army personnel for the vital P-40 fighters carried on the doomed ship's abbreviated flight deck.
At 1358, the task at hand completed, Whipple backed off and stood out to destroy the derelict, opening fire at 1429 with her 4-inch main battery. After nine rounds of 4-inch and two torpedoes, Langley settled lower and lower but refused stubbornly to sink. Soon orders arrived directing Whipple and her sister ship to clear the area prior to any more bombing attacks. Whipple accordingly vacated the vicinity and subsequently rendezvoused with Pecos in the lee of Christmas Island to transfer the Army pilots to the oiler.

Dutch Admiral Karel Doorman leads a combined Dutch, British and US fleet against the Japanese forces arrayed for the invasion of Java. He has at his command cruisers De Ruyter, HMS Exter, HMAS Perth, Java and USS Houston. Escorting this force are 6 British and 5 US destroyers.
The Japanese forces for the Battle of the Java Sea is commanded by Rear Admiral Takeo Takagi with heavy cruisers Nachi and Haguro, 1 light cruiser and 7 destroyers. The battle begins at 4:00 pm. For the first hour the Japanese destroyers are unsuccessful with their torpedos and gunfire from their cruisers is ineffective. Likewise the ABDA force is ineffective. Exeter is struck and loses power shortly after 5:00 pm. Dutch destroyer Korteneer sinks from a torpedo hit, which struck during the manuvering after the hit on Exter. The action during the next 4 hours is uneventful. Maneuvering to avoid the light of flares from Japanese aircraft the British destroyer Jupiter hits an Allied mine and sinks. Then at 10:00 pm as the two fleets run parallel a wide spread of Japanese torpedos strike Java and De Ruyter sinking both.

Amplifying the above with a specific timeline:
4.12pm: Fleets sight each other
4.16pm: apanese open fire
4.17pm: Exter opens fire
4.18pm: Houston opens fire
4.25pm: Perth opens fire on Japanese 4th Destroyer Flotilla
4.30pm: 1st Japanese torpedo attack 34 launched, no hits
4.31pm: DeRuyter hit in boiler room by 8-in shell, a dude, no damage
4.32pm: Japanese make smoke.
5.14pm: Exter hit in boiler room by an 8-in shell from Nachi. six of eight boilers are put out of action. The ship hauls out of line, and the following ships interpret this as a formal manoeuvre and follow.
5.15pm: Japanese make second torpedo attack, 68 launched, one hit on the Kortenaer,
5.15pm: Kortenaer blows up, capsizes and sinks.
5.25pm: Perth and the British destroyer cover the withdrawal of Exter with a torpedo attack through the smoke.
5.30pm: Electra is hit by Japanese gunfire, and left dead in the water.
5.25pm: Exter withdraws, escorted by Witte de With.
5.30pm: Japanese continue to fire over the smoke, with aerial spotters.
5.40pm: The Fleets resight each other. 19,500 yard distant.
5.45pm: Japanese cruiser Haguro, hit by Perth. destroyer Asagumo is also left dead in the water.
5.50pm: Third Japanese torpedo attack, 24 are launch for no result.
6.00pm: Electra rolls over and sinks.
6.00pm: T.H. Binford, commander of the USN destroyer division makes a torpedo attack which scores no hits, while Doorman retires with the rest of the fleet.
6.30pm: contact lost.
7.27pm: Fleets find each other at a range of 9,000 yards.
7.33pm: Houston opens fire.
7.34pm: Japanese launch fourth torpedo attack, 4 only torpedos, no hits
7.40pm: contact lost
9.00pm: The American destroyers, with no torpedos left, broke off and headed for Surabaya to refuel.
9.25pm: Jupiter hits a mine, and is left dead in the water.
10.00pm: The fleet finds the survivors of Kortenaer in the water and Encounter picks up 113 men and returns to Surabaya.
10.55pm: Two Japanese cruisers close with the fleet.
11.00pm: Japanese launch 5th torpedo attack twelve are launched. DeRuyter and Java are both hit multiple times
11.00pm: DeRuyter and Java both blow up and sink.
11.15pm: Waller, aboard Perth assumes command and retires. Perth and Houston make good their escape to Tanjong Priok The other ships, Exter, Witte De With, Encounter and the four US Destroyers arrive at Surabaya.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A Japanese force consisting of an infantry battalion and a field artillery battery lands at Calapan on northeastern Mindora Island, and the town and airfield are overrun. No effort is made to secure the rest of the island. The Japanese blockade about the Philippines is thus tightened.

U.S.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an executive order authorizing the creation of the Joint Mexican-U.S. Defense Commission.

 

[syscom3]

BURMA: British Imperial forces fall back on Pegu from Payagyi and Waw in anticipation of a general withdrawal. Japanese are only 50 miles north of Rangoon.

EAST INDIES: The light cruisers HMS Danae and Dragon and HMAS Hobart which have been operating from Batavia, Java, sail shortly after midnight accompanied by a Dutch destroyer to sweep north from Batavia with orders, if contact with the Japanese Western Invasion Force were not made by 0430 hours, to abandon the search and proceed to Trincomalee, Ceylon, via the Sunda Strait. The sweep was really no more than a demonstration, since to keep the small and hopelessly outnumbered force in the west Java Sea would have been suicidal. No enemy was encountered by the time laid down, and the force withdrew as ordered and finally arrived at Colombo, Ceylon, on the 5 March.
The heavy cruiser USS Houston, with her No. 3 turret disabled and low on ammunition, and the light cruiser HMAS Perth, survivors of last night's Battle of the Java Sea, arrive back in Batavia, at 1400 hours. After refueling, they depart at 1930 hours intending to pass through the Sunda Strait to Tjilatjap, Java. Unknown to the Allies, part of the Japanese Western Invasion Force was being landed in Bantam Bay, 40 miles west of Batavia.
Shortly after 2300 hours, the two ships, rounding a headland, accidentally encounter the Japanese transport force and escorting ships (Rear Admiral Takeo Takagi) in Banten Bay, Java, and engage.
The heavy cruiser HMS Exeter, whose boiler rooms had been damaged yesterday, makes repairs at Surabaya, Java, and, accompanied by destroyers HMS Encounter and USS Pope, sails in the evening for Ceylon. Soon after leaving Surabaya, the three ships are spotted by Japanese aircraft.
Of all the Allied ships which took part in the Battle of the Java Sea only four American destroyers survived, USS Alden, John D. Ford, Paul Jones and John D. Edwards, which had been detached to Surabaya and ordered to rearm in Australia. They sailed under cover of darkness on the night of the 28th, passed through Bali Strait and made a short contact with a force of three Japanese destroyers patrolling in the southern leg of Bali Island. The American ships returned fire after the Japanese ships engaged. At the end they increased the speed to 27 knots and arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia, on 4 March without any further incident. At 2330 hours, the transports carrying the Japanese 16th Army anchor in Bantam Bay and prepare to land the Japanese Army troops.
Near Christmas Island, the USS Whipple with the USS Edsel begin transferring USS Langley crew members [rescued 2 days before] to the oiler USS Pecos, and completing the task by 0800. While one destroyer transferred personnel, the other circled and maintained an antisubmarine screen. When the job of transferring survivors from the lost seaplane tender had been completed, the two destroyers parted company with the oiler. Changing course in anticipation of orders to retire from Java, Whipple prepared to send a message relative to these orders when the destroyer's chief radioman heard a call for help over the radio from Pecos, then under attack by Japanese bombers near Christmas Island. Whipple sped to the scene to render assistance if possible.
Throughout the afternoon, as the destroyer closed the oiler, all hands on board prepared knotted lines and cargo nets for use in picking up survivors. Whipple went to general quarters at 1922 when she sighted several small lights off both bows. Whipple slowly closed and began picking up survivors of Pecos. After interrupting the proceedings to conduct an unsuccessful attack on a submarine lurking in the area, she returned to the task and continued the search until she had received 231 men from the oiler.

INDIAN OCEAN: British Overseas Airways Corp. (BOAC) Short S-23 C-Class Empire Boat, msn S-842, registered G-AETZ is shot down by Japanese fighters while it is en route from Tjilatjap, Java, and Broome, Western Australia.

JAPAN: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander of the Combined Fleet, issues Navy Directive No. 60, which states that the Japanese Navy is to consider Soviet ships as "absolutely neutral."

NEW GUINEA - Japanese bombers and fighters hit Port Moresby: Jackson Drome and Anti-Aircraft gun pits. Houses in town burning, 130 bombs dropped, 10 wounded, one seriously. At about 10:00am, six A6M2 Zeros of the 4th Koktai led by Harutoshi Okamoto took off from Lakunai to attack Port Moresby. After testing their guns on the SS Pruth, they lined up and strafed PBY Catalinas at Napa Napa at almost sea level. A24-3 and A24-6 sank on their moorings. George Nancarrow, electrician, was killed. Barney Ross, fitter, was creased by a bullet. The RAAF had established a lewis 7.7mm machine gun to cover over the slipway area, manned by the orderly room staff from a gun position dug in the hill behind the area. Jim Preston and his mates did a good job protecting A24-2 (under repair on the slipway). One Zero, A6M2 Zero flown by Lt. Nagatoma wash hit by machine gun fire from a Lewis gun and crashed into Bootless Bay, after he bailed out and was captured. Nagatomo became the first Japanese POW taken in Australian territory during the war. He was badly burnt and taken to hospital, the to Australia to Corwa POW Camp.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: Japanese submarine HIJMS I-25 launches a Yokosuka E14Y1, Navy Type 0 Small Reconnaissance Seaplane "Glen" to reconnoiter Hobart, Tasmania.

BURMA: The Burma Army's 1st Division covers the concentration of the Chinese 5th Army in the Toungoo area; the Chinese 200th Division of the army, which is already disposed in this area, regains Nyaunglebin and Pyuntaza, on the Rangoon-Mandalay road.
General Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief India, arrives in Burma and orders Rangoon held as long as possible, at least until reinforcements en route, the British 63d Brigade Group, arrive. The Indian 17th Division returns toward Waw, which is to be defended.
General Chennault's "Flying Tigers' move from Rangoon to Magwe in Burma.

CANADA: The Canadian Women's Army Corps is granted full Army status as "a Corps of the Active Militia of Canada."

EAST INDIES: The last heavy bomber mission is flown from Java; the air echelons of three B-17's and an A-24 Dauntless squadron begin a movement back to Australia. Nine of the remaining 13 USAAF P-40s join with six RAAF and four RNAF fighters to attack Japanese landing craft; three P-40s and two pilots are lost. Later, all of the remaining P-40s in Java are destroyed when Japanese fighters strafe Blimbing Airdrome. The air and ground echelons are ordered to return to Australia by any means possible.
Japanese planes bomb Surabaya, Java; destroyer USS Stewart, previously damaged on 19 and 20 February 1942, is damaged again, by a bomb.
The Japanese Western Invasion Force completes the landing of the 2nd Division at Bantam Bay, 40 miles west of Batavia while the 230th Infantry lands at Eretan Wetan, 120 miles to the east. The Eastern Invasion Force lands the 48th Division and the 56th Regimental Group at Kragan, about 80 miles west of Surabaya; the 48th begins advancing on Surabaya while the 56th begins moving across country to Tjilatjap, the seaport on the southwest coast of Java.
The Japanese, now in undisputed control of the air and sea, make rapid progress on the ground on Java. Allied planes based on Java are virtually wiped out, many of them on the ground. After a final effort to stall the enemy by air, surviving air personnel begin assembling in Batavia, the last remaining airfield in Java, for withdrawal to Australia.
Shortly after 2300 hours yesterday, the heavy cruiser USS Houston, with her No. 3 turret disabled and low on ammunition, and the light cruiser HMAS Perth were heading for the Sunda Strait when they rounded a headland in Banten Bay, Java, where the Japanese Western Invasion Force is landing troops. The two cruisers then engage the Japanese in the Battle of Sunda Strait. The cruisers are almost torpedoed as they approach the bay, but evade the nine torpedoes launched by destroyer HIJMS Fubuki. The two cruisers then sink one transport and force three others to beach. A destroyer squadron blocks Sunda Strait, their means of retreat, and large light cruisers HIJMS Mobami and Mikuma stand dangerously near. HMAS Perth sinks at 0025 hours from gunfire and torpedo hits; USS Houston faces the same fate at about 0045 hours.
Of HMAS Perth's complement of 680 men, 352 were killed and about 320 were captured by the Japanese and 105 of these died as POWs. The fate of these two ships was not known by the world for almost nine months, and the full story of her courageous fight was not fully told until after the war was over and her survivors were liberated from prison camps. An hour or two later the Dutch destroyer HNMS Evertsen, which was to have accompanied the HMAS Perth and USS Houston but had been delayed, ran into two enemy destroyers and, after a brief encounter, beached herself in a sinking condition on Sabuko Island off the coast of Sumatra.
The other survivors of the Battle of the Java Sea, the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter having refueled and carried out emergency repairs to her boiler rooms at Surabaja, leaves harbor on the evening of 28 February in company with the destroyer HMS Encounter and USS Pope; the ships have been ordered to Colombo, Ceylon, via the Sunda Strait.
The ships are spotted by Japanese aircraft and at about 1000 hours, they encounter the Japanese heavy cruisers HIJMS Myoko, Ashigara, Haguro and Nachi plus four escorting destroyers. HMS Encounter is sunk first and after 90 minutes, a torpedo from a Japanese destroyers sinks HMS Exeter. USS Pope escapes the cruisers but is located and bombed by floatplanes from seaplane carriers HIJMS Chitose and Mizuho. Damaged by one close-miss, USS Pope is then located by carrier-based aircraft from HIJMS Ryujo and attacked by 12 aircraft shortly before 1200 hours; scuttling is in progress when the cruisers HIJMS Myoko and Ashigara deliver the coup de grace with gunfire and USS Pope sinks about 250 miles north-northwest of Surabaja.
The Japanese Navy is also patrolling south of Java and sinks two other U.S., the destroyer USS Edsall and oiler USS Pecos. USS Edsall is en route from Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean to Tjilatjap, Java, after transferring 177 survivors of the seaplane tender USS Langley to USS Pecos. Edsall is sunk by gunfire of battleships HIJMS Hiei and Kirishima, heavy cruisers HIJMS Tone and Chikuma, and planes from carriers HIJMS Akagi and Soryu; the amount of main battery shells expended in the attempt to sink the U.S. ship amounts to 297 15-inch and 844 eight-inch.
Edsall's five enlisted survivors are subsequently executed at Kendari on Celebes Island. Oiler USS Pecos, with USS Langley survivors on board as well as evacuees from Java, is bombed and sunk by carrier-based bombers from HIJMS Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu, 250 miles south-southeast of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: The Japanese14th Army, during the period 6 January to date, has suffered a severe setback on Luzon and sustained almost 7,000 casualties (2,700 killed and over 4,000 wounded).
Of the 8 P-35As of the 34th Pursuit Sqdn transferred to Bataan on Christmas Day only two are left. These will be destroyed before the Allied surrender to the Japanese in April.

U.K. Concerned with the Japanese naval success, and the possibility of the Japanese establishing a base on Madagascar, Churchill today informs Roosevelt of the British intention to take Diego Suarez, Madagascar's main harbour.

U.S. The owners of the major league baseball clubs consider the question of whether players in the military can play for the clubs if they are on furlough or based near a game site? The owners decide against it.

 

[syscom3]

1942: AUSTRALIA: The government declares war on Thailand.

BURMA: The Japanese continue to infiltrate westward between the Burmese 1st and Indian 17th Divisions and are swinging southwest on Rangoon, bypassing Pegu.

EAST INDIES: The Japanese gain further ground in Java, where the Dutch are continuing to resist; the Japanese claim the capture of Batavia, from which Dutch Government has been forced to move to Bandoeng. Actually, a hastily organized Australian- Dutch- American- British infantry unit commanded by Australian Brigadier Arthur Blackburn, General Officer Commanding Australian Imperial Force Java, stops the Japanese 16th Army's advance on Batavia, the island's capital.
Many ships are scuttled off Java to prevent them from failing into enemy hands but the Japanese Main Body, Southern Force overtakes fleeing Allied ships southwest of Java; heavy cruiser HIJMS Maya and destroyers HIJMS Arashi and Nowaki sink British destroyer HMS Stronghold; heavy cruisers HIJMS Atago and Takao attack what they initially identify as a "Marblehead-class" cruiser and sink her with gunfire; their quarry is actually destroyer USS Pillsbury, which is lost with all hands in the Indian Ocean about 270 miles SSE of Christmas Island.
In Surabaja, three ships are scuttled in drydock, the damaged Dutch destroyers HNMS Witte de With and Banckert and the American destroyer USS Stewart. Stewart had entered the floating drydock on 22 February, however, she was inadequately supported in the dock, and, as the dock rose, the ship fell off the keel blocks onto her side in 12 feet of water bending her propeller shafts and causing further hull damage. With the port under enemy air attack and in danger of falling to the enemy, the ship could not be repaired and demolition charges were set off within the ship, a Japanese bomb hit amidships further damaging her; and, before the port was evacuated on 2 March, the drydock containing her was scuttled. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 25 March 1942 and her name was soon assigned to a new destroyer escort, DE-238.
Later in the war, U.S. pilots began reporting an American warship operating far within enemy waters. The ship had a Japanese bunked funnel but the lines for her four-piper hull were unmistakable. After almost a year under water, Stewart had been raised by the Japanese in February 1943 and commissioned by them on 20 September 1943 as Patrol Boat No. 102. She was armed with two 3-inch guns and operated with the Japanese Southwest Area Fleet on escort duty until arriving at Kure, Japan, for repairs in November 1944. There her AA battery was augmented and she was given a light tripod foremast. She then sailed for the Southwest Pacific, but the American reconquest of the Philippines blocked her way.
On 28 April 1945, still under control of the Southwest Area Fleet, she was bombed and damaged by USAAF aircraft at Mokpo, Korea. She was transferred on 30 April to the control of the Kure Navy District; and, in August 1945, was found by American occupation forces laid up in Hiro Bay near Kure. In an emotional ceremony on 29 October 1945, the old ship was recommissioned as simply DD-224 in the USN at Kure. On the trip home, her engines gave out near Guam, and she arrived at San Francisco in early March 1946 at the end of a tow line. DD-224 was struck from the Navy list on 17 April1946, decommissioned on 23 May 1946, and sunk a day later off San Francisco, California, as a target for aircraft.
At Jogjakarta Airdrome, the last airbase on Java still occupied by the Allies, 260 officers and enlisted men are crammed aboard five B-17's and three LB-30 Liberators for the final flight to Broome, Western Australia.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): 5 B-17's and 3 LB-30's (the last airplane taking off just before midnight) evacuate the last 260 men from Jogjakarta, the last airfield on Java in Allied hands. Japanese ground forces are within 20 miles at this time. Bataan-based P-40's attack shipping in Subic Bay. The pilots claim considerable damage to the ships, but 4 of the few P-40's remaining on Bataan are lost. HQ V Bomber Command ceases operating on Java and ceases to function as an operational unit. HQ 19th Bombardment Group transfers from Singosari, Java to Melbourne, Australia. 2d and 19th Bombardment Squadrons (Medium), 22d BG (Medium), transfer from Brisbane to Ipswich, Australia with B-26's; first mission is in April.

LOMBOK STRAIT: Submarine USS Sailfish torpedoes and sinks Japanese aircraft transport HIJMS Kamogawa Maru about 10 miles off the northeast coast of Bali.

NEW GUINEA: The Japanese Navy begins heavy air strikes against Allied bases in preparation for invasion of the Huon Gulf area.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: Four P-40s based on Bataan attack Japanese ships in Subic Bay, Luzon, with 500-pound bombs sinking an auxiliary submarine chaser. One P-40 is shot down and the other three are destroyed in crash landings.
The rations of the U. S.-Filipino army on Bataan are reduced again, this time to one-quarter of the normal daily food allowance. The trapped troops supplement their diet with horse and water buffalo meat and even lizards. Disease is taking a heavy toll on the 95,000 men on Bataan and Corregidor -- especially malaria, malnutrition and diarrhea. Many men are so weak they can hardly crawl to their foxholes and lift their rifles.
Elsewhere in the Philippines, Japanese warships bombard Cebu and Negros Islands in the central archipelago and Japanese troops land at Zamboanga on Mindanao Island.

U.S.: Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief United States Fleet, proposes that 353 square mile Efate Island in the central New Hebrides Islands be established as a place "from which a step-by-step advance could be made through the New Hebrides, Solomons, and Bismarcks."

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: At 1000 hours local, 12 Japanese Navy fighters strike hard at Broome, Western Australia, where refugees from Java are concentrated. Every aircraft at Broome, two B-17's, two B-24's, two RAAF Hudsons and 12 amphibians, are destroyed.. Two of the dozen flying boats destroyed are two Short S-23 C-Class Empire Boats,
(1) British Overseas Airways Corp. (BOAC), msn S-845, registered G-AEUC and named "Corinna", and RAAF A18-12, msn 849, ex Qantas VH-ABC, named "Coogee". Casualties include 20 USAAF airmen and an estimated 45 Dutch women and children. The airfield at Wyndham, Western Australia, is also attacked.
Japanese fighters returning to their carrier from the raid on Broome shoot down KNILM Douglas DC-3-194B, msn 1937, registered PK-AFV. This is one of the last civilian aircraft to leave Java and is carrying a very valuable consignment of diamonds; there are no survivors.

BURMA: Fighting continues in the Waw-Pyinbon area, northeast of Pegu. The British 63d Brigade Group arrives at Rangoon. Chinese leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek meets General Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief India, in Burma.

EAST INDIES: The Dutch continue a losing battle for Java against superior enemy forces.

INDIAN OCEAN: The gunboat USS Asheville is sunk by gunfire of Japanese destroyers HIJMS Arashi and Nowaki about 355 miles SSE of Tjilatjap, Java. Asheville's sole survivor will perish in a POW camp in 1945.

JAVA SEA: On the evening of 1 March, the submarine USS Perch, CO David A. Hunt, surfaced 30 miles NW of Surabaja, Java, and started in for an attack on the enemy convoy that was landing troops. Two Japanese destroyers attacked and drove her down with a string of depth charges which caused her to bottom at 135 feet. Several more depth charge attacks caused extensive damage, putting the starboard motors out of commission and causing extensive flooding throughout the boat. After repairs, the sub surfaced at 0200 hours on 2 March only to be again driven down by the enemy destroyers. The loss of oil, and air from damaged ballast tanks, convinced the enemy that the sub was breaking up and they went on to look for other kills, allowing USS Perch to surface. With the submarine's decks awash and only one engine in commission, the crew made all possible repairs. During the early morning of 3 March, a test dive was made with almost fatal results. Expert handling and good luck enabled her to surface from that dive; only to be attacked by two enemy cruisers and three destroyers. When the enemy shells commenced to straddle, the commanding officer ordered all hands on deck, and with all possible hull openings open, USS Perch was scuttled. The entire crew of 54 men and five officers were captured by a Japanese
destroyer; all but six men, who died of malnutrition in Japanese POW camps, survived the war.

PACIFIC: After having attacked Wake Island on 24 Feb., Task Force Sixteen built around the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise is en route to attack Marcus Island. SBD Dauntlesses on antisubmarine patrol attack two Japanese submarines but the task force commander, Rear Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, opts to continue the mission.
USN Submarine Operations:
USS SEAWOLF sinks an armed transport at 07-02 N, 125-33E in Davao harbor.
USS TAMBOR sinks a civilian cargo ship at 21-18 N, 108-39E, NW of Hainan Island.
USS FINBACK sinks a sampan at 25-25 N, 126-31 E.0200.
USS HADDOCK sinks a civilian cargo ship at 32-18N, 126-52 E.

U.S.: The War Production Board decrees that suits for men and boys no longer will have trouser cuffs and pleats, vests and patch pockets.