January 3rd, 1942 (SATURDAY)
FRANCE: During the night of 3/4 January, 14 RAF Bomber Command Wellingtons and four Stirlings attack the German fleet at Brest; one Wellington is lost.
NETHERLANDS: During the night of 3/4 January, RAF Bomber Command dispatches ten Hampdens on minelaying mission in the Frisian Islands; one aircraft is lost.
GERMANY: U-488 is laid down.
MALAYA: General Wavell is appointed to command the ABDA command with orders to hold the Malay Barrier.
The Indian 11th Division completes a withdrawal to the Slim River line. Because of the threat to communications in western Malaya, the Kuantan force on the east coast, which had previously been ordered to hold the airdrome until 10 January, begins fighting a withdrawal at once. Newly formed and poorly trained the Indian 45th Brigade, reinforced, and an Indian Pioneer battalion (a labour unit) arrive at Singapore and concentrate in southern Malaya.
Lt-Col. Arthur Edward Cumming (1896-1971), 2d Battalion, 12th Frontier Force Regt., Indian Army, led, despite wounds, two daring actions to cover a British withdrawal. The Japanese make a furious attack on the battalion near Kuantan and penetrate the position. Colonel Cumming, with a small party of men immediately leads a counter-attack and although all his men became casualties and he himself had two bayonet wounds in the stomach he manages to restore the situation sufficiently for the major portion of the battalion and its vehicles to be withdrawn. Later he drives a carrier under very heavy fire, collecting isolated detachments of his men and is again wounded. His gallant actions helped the brigade to withdraw safely. He later achieves the rank of Brigadier. (Victoria Cross)
EAST INDIES: In British Borneo, the Japanese invade Labuan Island, in Brunei Bay, without opposition. From there, a detachment moves to mainland at Mempakul, thence to Weston on foot, and from Weston to Beaufort by rail.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: On Luzon, the Japanese continue determined attacks on the western flank of the Porac-Guagua line, where the 21st Division (Philippine Army) succeeds in halting them below Pio; the Japanese exert strong pressure on the eastern flank in the vicinity of Guagua.
U.S.A.: Washington: U.S. President Franklin D Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston S Churchill announce the creation of a unified command in the Southwest Pacific, with British General Sir Archibald P Wavell as supreme commander of American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) forces in that area. General Wavell is directed (1) to hold the Malay Barrier (the line Malay Peninsula-Sumatra-Java-Northern Australia) and operate as far beyond the barrier as possible in order to check the Japanese advance; (2) hold Burma and Australia; (3) restore communications with the Philippine Islands through the Netherlands East Indies; and (4) maintain communications within the theatre. Above all, Wavell's forces, mostly Australians and British, are to hold Australia and Burma. In another move, Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek is named Commander in Chief of Allied Forces in China. The Arcadia Conference makes Chiang Kai-shek, a Chinese leader, the leader of Allied troops stationed in and a round China. (John Nicholas)
Military planners come to the realization that it will be impossible to reinforce the Philippine Islands and the troops in those islands are doomed. When told of this, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson notes, "There are times when men must die."