9 February 1942

UNITED KINGDOM: Soap rationing comes into force today as the British government cuts supplies by 20% in order to save imported oils and fats for food rations. Despite elaborate efforts to keep the soap rationing plans secret - government communiqués referred to nutmegs - some London chemists reported a run on soap before the official announcement. People will be entitled to four ounces of household soap, or two ounces of toilet soap, soap flakes or chips per person per month. Emergency measures might have to be taken for workers in "dirty" trades.

The Pacific War Council, composed of representatives from the U.K., Australia, Netherlands East Indies, and New Zealand, is formed in London.

Scotland: Gnr J. T. Etherington (911161) celebrates his 21st birthday in Glasgow where he is stationed.

INDIA: Chiang Kai-shek arrives to urge nationalists to join the fight against Japan.

SINGAPORE: After a series of huge artillery barrages, Japanese assault troops succeeded in crossing the Johore Strait last night and stormed the mangrove-fringed north-west shore of Singapore Island itself. General Tomoyuki Yamashita concentrated the weight of all three of his divisions on the long, thinly-held line manned by the two brigades of the Australian 8th Division.

Early reports indicate that the Australians have been thrown back by the overwhelming weight of the hordes of Japanese who charged their positions with bayonets. By dawn, the Japanese were pouring through a massive gap in the line and Tengah airfield, the initial objective of the Japanese assault, fallen to the enemy. Within a few hours, more than 4,000 Japanese troops came ashore in assault craft. Tanks and infantry are being ferried across on rafts. It is estimated that 30,000 Japanese have been successfully landed on Singapore.

The assault by the Japanese 5th and 18th Divisions came after arguments to build stronger defences were resisted by some senior British commanders as damaging to local morale. Also rejected were plans to concentrate defences on the north-west shore; more were sent to the north-east shore and then bypassed by Japan's move. Despite this, some Australian battalions held firm all day. Then, surprised by the speed of enemy attacks, commanders ordered premature retreats.

Survey ship Herald, which had been damaged in an air raid, is abandoned and scuttled in dockyard at Singapore. Raised by the Japanese and recommissioned as Heiyo, she is mined and sunk in the Java Sea on 14 November 1944. (Alex Gordon)(108)

Although reinforcements are sent to the West Area from other sectors, the Japanese reach Tengah airfield. Beginning at 2100 hours, the Japanese 4th Guards Regiment lands in the area just west of the causeway. Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, General Office Commanding Malaya Command, orders the garrison to defend the southern part of the island, where Singapore town, Kalang airdrome, the reservoirs, and supply depots are located. The Far East War Council meets for the last time.

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: In the I Corps area on Bataan, Japanese remnants from Little Pocket are destroyed while seeking to escape. 1st Division, Philippine Army, is now free to join in the battle against Big Pocket, which is being compressed and from which the Japanese are trying to escape. In the South Sector, the 2d Battalion, 57th Infantry, Philippine Scouts, replaces the 3d Battalion in the center of the line in the Anyasan-Silaiim region and makes limited progress against the Japanese.
The Japanese get radio station KZRH in Manila on the air again, and broadcast propaganda to the embattled American and Filipino forces, playing American songs to make GIs feel homesick, including "Waiting for Ships That Never Came in."

NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: Celebes: Japan occupies Makassar. About 8,000 Japanese troops land near Makassar City and south of Makassar at Jeneponto on Celebes Island. They immediately head for Makassar City, where they capture a bridge and the Dutch troops who were guarding the bridge. A company of native soldiers opens fire on the Japanese causing casualties and in reprisal, the Japanese tie the Dutch soldiers in groups of three and throw them from the bridge into the water to drown.
A flight of three USAAF 5th Air Force A-24 Dauntlesses, nine P-40s and an LB-30 Liberator guide, on a flight from Australia to Java, arrives over Koepang Airdrome on Timor and finds the base closed by weather. The LB-30 returns to Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, but the A-24s and P-40s must land. All nine P-40s are destroyed while attempting to land and the three A-24s are shot up by Dutch AA gunners. One A-24 continues to Java tomorrow but the other two must return to Australia for repairs.
Japanese aircraft bomb Batavia, Surabaya, and Malang, Java.

Submarines USS Saury and Porpoise departed Surabaya for their second war patrol.

PACIFIC OCEAN: Submarine USS Trout (SS-202) torpedoes and sinks a Japanese gunboat 53 miles (85 kilometres) off Keelung, Formosa.

MIDWAY ISLAND: Japanese submarine HIJMS I-69 shells Sand Island with its 100mm deck gun. It is strafed and damaged by a USMC F2A Buffalo of Marine Fighting Squadron Two Hundred Twenty One (VMF 221)

BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Four destroyers from Rabaul land troops of the Japanese 144th Infantry at Gasmata, a coastal town on southern New Britain Island.

TERRITORY OF HAWAII:12 USAAF 7th Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses are detached and released to the USN’s Commander-in-Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC); they will cover the advance of Task Force Eleven (TF 11) (Vice Admiral Wilson Brown Jr.) into the South Pacific.

U.S.A.: The Screen Actors Guild rejects General Hershey's plan to defer movie stars that was announced yesterday.

78th Pursuit Group (Interceptor) and its three subordinate units, the 82d, 83d and 84th Pursuit Squadrons (Interceptor), USAAF are activated at Baer Field, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The 85,000 ton French passenger liner SS Normandie, built in 1931 and regarded by many as the most elegant ocean liner ever built, burns and sinks in New York Harbor during its conversion to a USN transport to be named Lafayette (AP-53). When France surrendered to the Germans in June 1940 and the puppet Vichy regime was installed, the Normandie was in dock at New York City. The US Navy immediately placed it in "protective custody," since the U.S. government did not want a ship of such size and speed to fall into the hands of the Germans, which it certainly would if it returned to France; the Navy took control of the ship shortly after Pearl Harbor. While undergoing conversion to a transport, a welder accidentally set fire to a pile of flammable life preservers with his torch, and by early the next morning the ship lay capsized in the harbour, a gutted wreck. Salvage from this ship will be auctioned in July 1945. It almost certainly was some sort of carelessness that caused the fire, but it was not the fire that sank the ship. Tied up with only some ballast in her hull while she was being converted, it was the vast amount of firehose water that flooded upper compartments but had no way out, and gradually overweighted the balance and tipped her over. (Jack McKillop and Dave Shirlaw)
On this day, Congress pushes ahead standard time for the United States by one hour in each time zone, imposing daylight saving time--called at the time "war time."

SS Tolosa (master Harald N. Kruse) disappeared on route from Kingston to Chester with her 22 men crew (16 Norwegians, 2 Swedes, 2 Danes, 1 American, 1 Briton). Believed sunk by U-108.

At 0538, the unescorted Anna Knudsen was torpedoed by U-586 northwest of Scotland, but kept afloat by her crew and arrived safely in Britain.

At 0034, U-654 fired three single torpedoes at convoy ON-60. Just as a hit on corvette FFL Alysse (ex-HMS Alyssum) was observed, a second explosion took place beyond. A freighter of 7000 grt stopped and was later attacked with a coup de grâce by the U-boat, but missed.

At 2020, the Empire Fusilier (Master William Reid), dispersed from convoy ON-60, was torpedoed and sunk by U-85 southeast of St. John's, Newfoundland. Nine crewmembers were lost. The master, 31 crewmembers and six gunners were picked up by corvette HMCS Barrie and landed at Halifax.