Posted on 04/08/2012 5:48:32 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/apr42/f08apr42.htm
Axis planes bomb Malta
Wednesday, April 8, 1942 www.onwar.com
Axis bombing of the harbor at MaltaIn the Mediterranean... At Malta, intense bombing by Axis air forces continues in an attempt to defeat the island. Its importance lies in the ability to disrupt the Axis convoys to North Africa, as both an airfield for attacking planes and a safe harbor for British ships. Food and supplies are short on the island and British supply convoys have been unable to bring either into Malta in large quantities for months.
In the Philippines... Overwhelmed by numbers and short of food and equipment, the American and Filipino forces remaining on the Bataan peninsula are ordered to destroy their equipment prior to a surrender.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
April 8th, 1942 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Harry L Hopkins, Special Assistant to President Franklin D Roosevelt, and General George C Marshall, US Army Chief of Staff, arrive in London for talks with British service and supply chiefs concerning the integration of US and British manpower and war production for action in Europe. General Marshall urges an offensive in the west to relieve pressure upon the USSR and promises a constant flow of US troops, including many air units, to the UK. (Jack McKillop)
NORTH SEA: Four RAF Bomber Command Bostons fly a sweep off the Dutch coast during the day without loss. A ship is bombed but not hit. (Jack McKillop)
FRANCE: During the night of the 8th/9th, seven of 13 RAF Bomber Command Wellingtons dispatched bomb the port area at Le Havre and one bombs the port area at Cherbourg. (Jack McKillop)
Paris: Avenue de Versailles. Corporal Schweitzer is severely wounded.
NETHERLANDS: Three RAF Bomber Command Blenheims attack Eindhoven, Haamstede, Leeuwarden and Schipol Airfields during the night of the 8th/9th. (Jack McKillop)
GERMANY: During the night of the 8th/9th, 272 RAF Bomber Command bombers (177 Wellingtons, 41 Hampdens, 22 Stirlings, 13 Manchesters, 12 Halifaxes and seven Lancasters) are dispatched to bomb the Blohm and Voss submarine shipyards at Hamburg. Icing and electrical storms are encountered and only 175 bombers hit the targets with the loss of four Wellingtons and a Manchester. Overall, the raid is a failure; 17 people are killed and 119 injured. Other targets bombed are: three bomb Heligoland, two bomb Emden and individual aircraft attack Cuxhaven, Norden and Bremen. Bremen reports a load of incendiaries dropped very accurately on the Vulkan shipyard where four U-boats and several surrounding buildings are damaged by fire. (Jack McKillop)
German and Italian aircraft bomb MALTA in what will be the heaviest raid of the war against this beleaguered outpost in the Mediterranean.
ARCTIC OCEAN: Soviet submarine “Sch-421” of the Polar fleet and White Sea Flotilla - damaged by a mine in 336 degrees out from the German post on Svirhold, close to Cape Nordcap. It was later sunk by a torpedo of K 22. It was all observed by the minesweeper M 35. (Torstein and Sergey Anisimov) (69)
INDIA: A USAAF cargo plane makes the first flight over “The Hump,” the 22,000-foot (6706 meters) high Himalayan mountain range that separates India and China. During the next four years, more than 650,000 tons (589 670 metric tonnes) of supplies will be flown over the Hump to Kunming, China. More than 450 planes will crash during the airlift, giving the route over the mountains the nickname “The Aluminium Trail.” (Jack McKillop)
CHINA: The first supplies are flown in over “the Hump” - the Himalayas - from India.
BURMA: Pilots of the 1st and 3d Fighter Squadrons, American Volunteer Group (AVG, aka, “The Flying Tigers”) shoot down 12 Japanese fighters near Loiwing Airdrome in northern Burma during the afternoon. (Jack McKillop)
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: On Bataan, the II Corps disintegrates completely under sustained Japanese attacks from the ground and air. The Japanese soon discover gaps in the Alangan River line held by the U.S. 31st Infantry and 803d Engineer Battalion; the Philippine Scouts’ 57th Infantry, 26th Cavalry and 14th Engineer Battalion; and Philippine Constabulary troops, and stream southward at will. In a final effort to stem the enemy advance, the Provisional Coast Artillery Brigade (Antiaircraft), serving as infantrymen, forms a weak line just north of Cabcaben, but other units ordered to extend this line are unable to do so. Major General Edward King, Commanding General Luzon Force, decides to surrender his troops and orders equipment destroyed during the night of the 8th/9th. Of the 78,000 men of the Luzon Force, about 2,000 succeed in escaping to Corregidor Island in Manila Bay. (Jack McKillop)
Submarine USS Seadragon (SS-194) delivers food to Corregidor, and evacuates the final increment of naval radio and communications intelligence people. (Jack McKillop)
The air echelons of the 3d, 17th and 20th Pursuit Squadrons (Interceptor), 24th Pursuit Group (Interceptor), and the 21st and 34th Pursuit Squadrons (Interceptor), 35th Pursuit Group (Interceptor) based on Bataan begin operating from Del Monte Field on Mindanao with whatever aircraft are left. (Jack McKillop)
EAST INDIES: Japanese forces landed and occupied, without a fight, the town of Djailolo on Halmahera Island. (Jack McKillop)
TERRITORY OF HAWAII: At 1200 hours, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6), with the heavy cruisers USS Salt Lake City (CA-25) and Northampton (CA-26), four destroyers, and the oiler USS Sabine (AO-25), sortie from Pearl Harbor to rendezvous with the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) which is carrying USAAF B-25s to attack Japan. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: The USAAF’s V Air Support Command, which was activated on 1 September 1941 to support the Armored Force, is redesignated 9th Air Force with headquarters at New Orleans AAB, Louisiana. (Jack McKillop)
The War Production Board accelerated the transformation of the nation’s economy by ordering a halt to all production that was not deemed necessary to the war. The War Production Board’s mandate quickly took hold; at the peak of the war, the military utilized nearly half of the nation’s production and services. Far from causing fiscal woe, World War II proved to be a great boon to the economy: unemployment, which had climbed up to 14 percent in 1940, all but evaporated, while the gross national product doubled by the close of the war. (Jack McKillop)
Harry L Hopkins, Special Assistant to President Franklin D Roosevelt, and General George C Marshall, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, arrive in London, England, for talks with British service and supply chiefs concerning the integration of U.S. and British manpower and war production for action in Europe. General Marshall urges an offensive in the west to relieve pressure upon the U.S.S.R. and promises a constant flow of U.S. troops, including many air units, to the U.K. (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Three unarmed U.S. merchant tankers are torpedoed by German submarines off the East Coast of the U.S.: (1) U-160 attacks a ship bound from Corpus Christi, Texas, to New York City, about 65 miles (105 kilometres) southeast of Beaufort, South Carolina, but she manages to reach Hampton Roads, Virginia, under her own power. One man of her 33-man crew is lost in the attack. (2) U-123 sinks the second ship, which is en route from Port Arthur, Texas, to Providence, Rhode Island, about 53 miles (85 kilometres) east of Brunswick, Georgia. (3) U-123 then proceeds to sink the third ship about 85 miles (137 kilometres) east of Brunswick, Georgia. (Jack McKillop)
I think Wainwright saw the writing on the wall though. One the 8th of April he sent Colonels Irwin and Galbraith to King's headquarters to try and arrange the movement of battalions of the 45th I.D. to help stiffen the defenses on Corregidor. Unfortunately the men became snarled on the jammed roads and never made it to Mariveles to embark.
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