February 23rd, 1942 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: 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 refuelling at Colombo, Ceylon.
HQ of the USAAF’s VIII Bomber Command is established at Daws Hill Lodge,
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England; Major General Ira C Eaker assumes
command.
Minesweeper HMS Rattlesnake launched.
Corvette HMS Godetia commissioned.
NORTH SEA: Submarine HMS Trident (Cmdr. Sladen) sights KMS Prinz Eugen and fires three torpedoes, one of which hits aft, damaging Prinz Eugen's rudder and blowing away 30 feet of her stern. She is taken into Lo Fjord at Drontheim, and temporary repairs (including the fitting of two jury rudders) is completed by the beginning of May (1942). (Alex Gordon)
FRANCE: Paris: Stülpnagel has a farewell tea in the Paris Talleyrand with Ernst Jünger. Jünger describes him "In him, delicacy, grace, suppleness, are oddly mixed, suggesting a ballet master, with features like wooden guignol, melancholy and maniacal. He had sent for about the question of hostages, because he was most concerned that the record in the future be accurate. Beside, the question is the only one which has to do with his departure. Seen from the outside, he displays the grand proconsular power of someone in his position, and there is no way of learning the secret history of the quarrels and intrigues within the palace walls. The story is filled out with the struggle against the embassy and the Nazi party in France, the latter slowly gaining ground, without the Army High Command lending its support to the general." Stülpnagel goes on to say that the campaign in Russia is taking an unexpected turn and he considered that Germany's tactical interests lay in securing its empire with the minimum of force. (1)GERMANY: During the night of the 23-24th RAF Bomber Command dispatches 23 Hampdens on minelaying mission off Wilhelmshaven and Heligoland. One aircraft lost.
U.S.S.R.: Soviet troops capture Dorogobuzh on the Dniepr River. German reports that day say that a partisan camp of more than 500 men armed with heavy machine guns and anti-tank guns, is located east of Minsk. In the Cherven region, partisans "have strict orders not to start any action, only to attack and destroy German search parties."
ITALY: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini delivers a speech in Rome stating, "We call bread bread and wine wine, and when the enemy wins a battle it is useless and ridiculous to seek, as the English do in their incomparable hypocrisy, to deny or diminish it."
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: U class submarine P.38 is depth charged and sunk by Italian
surface units North of Tripoli.
Submarine HMS P-38 left Malta on 16 February 1942 to intercept a convoy
off Tripoli. By today she is in position as the convoy hove into view. Amongst
the convoy was the Italian torpedo boat Circe. At 0800 Circe reported a contact
with a submarine and that she turned in to attack. A periscope was sighted but
was quickly replaced by bubbles as the submarine dived realizing it had been
spotted. At 1050 after a flurry of attacks P-38 rose stern first out of the
water, her propellers turning wildly, before crashing back beneath the waves. A
large patch of oil appeared on the surface as well as debris, clear evidence of
the submarine’s destruction. (Alex Gordon)(108)
MIDDLE EAST: General Claude Auchinleck, Commander in Chief Middle East Command, revises the plans for defence of the Northern Front, instructing the British Ninth and Tenth Armies to impose maximum delay on the enemy in the event of Axis offensive.
BURMA: Rangoon: The demolition today of a key bridge across the broad Sittang river in southern Burma has resulted in heavy loss to the 17th Indian Division which was fighting against Japanese troops advancing towards Rangoon.
Unfortunately, Japanese intelligence overheard the radioed order to withdraw and moved swiftly cross-country to the bridge.
The 17th Division held its ground at the bridge as engineers prepared to destroy the only escape route. If the Japanese should capture the bridge, Rangoon would be at their mercy.
The charges were detonated at dawn (0530 hours), cutting off the British and Indian troops of the 16th and 46th Brigades on the east side of the river, but preventing the Japanese from using it. All who could be spared from fighting off the Japanese began improvising rafts. Amid chaos and confusion, hundreds of men threw away their arms, equipment and clothing and plunged into the river which became a mass of bobbing heads. Many were swept away and drowned. 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.
NETHERLANDS 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 guerrilla force. This guerrilla 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.
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 American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command and later the Allied Air Forces.
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Six USAAF
B-17 Flying Fortress 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.
U.S.A.: Shells fall on the US mainland for
the first time in the war. Japanese submarine HIJMS I-17
fires 25 rounds of 5.5-inch (14 cm) shells from a range of 2,500 yards (2286
meters) at the Bankline Oil Refinery at Ellwood, California, 12 miles (19
kilometres) 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."
(From President Roosevelt's February 23rd fireside chat):
"Immediately after this war started, the Japanese forces moved down on either side of the Philippines to numerous points south of them -- thereby completely encircling the (Islands) Philippines from north, and south, and east and west.
"It is that complete encirclement, with control of the air by Japanese land-based aircraft, which has prevented us from sending substantial reinforcements of men and material to the gallant defenders of the Philippines. For forty years it has always been our strategy -- a strategy born of necessity -- that in the event of a full-scale attack on the Islands by Japan, we should fight a delaying action, attempting to retire slowly into Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor.
"We knew that the war as a whole would have to be fought and won by a process of attrition against Japan itself. We knew all along that, with our greater resources, we could ultimately out-build Japan and ultimately overwhelm her on sea, and on land and in the air. We knew that, to obtain our objective, many varieties of operations would be necessary in areas other than the Philippines.
"Now nothing that has occurred in the past two months has caused us to revise this basic strategy of necessity -- except that the defence put up by General MacArthur has magnificently exceeded the previous estimates of endurance, and he and his men are gaining eternal glory therefore.
" MacArthur's army of Filipinos and Americans, and the forces of the United Nations in China, in Burma and the Netherlands East Indies, are all together fulfilling the same essential task. They are making Japan pay an increasingly terrible price for her ambitious attempts to seize control of the whole (Atlantic) Asiatic world. Every Japanese transport sunk off Java is one less transport that they can use to carry reinforcements to their army opposing General MacArthur in Luzon.
"It has been said that Japanese gains in the Philippines were made possible only by the success of their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. I tell you that this is not so.
"Even if the attack had not been made your map will show that it would have been a hopeless operation for us to send the Fleet to the Philippines through thousands of miles of ocean, while all those island bases were under the sole control of the Japanese.
"The consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbor -- serious as they were -- have been wildly exaggerated in other ways. And these exaggerations come originally from Axis propagandists; but they have been repeated, I regret to say, by Americans in and out of public life."
(Tim Lanzendörfer)
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.
Destroyer USS Converse laid down.
CARIBBEAN SEA: At 0643, the unescorted armed US merchant ship SS Lihue was torpedoed by U-161 about 275 miles west of Martinique. One torpedo struck on the port side forward of the #1 hold. About 15 minutes later, the U-boat surfaced and fired a few shots from its deck gun until the armed guards returned fire with her armament of one 3in, four .50cal and two .30cal guns, forcing the U-boat to submerge. The ship then evaded two torpedoes at 1839 and 1854; the U-boat ceased the attack, because U-161 thought that the Lihue was a U-boat trap. But after the unsuccessful attack in the evening, the crew of eight officers, 28 crewmen and nine armed guards abandoned ship in two lifeboats and three rafts. They were all picked up four hours later by the British steam tanker British Governor, after a US Navy aircraft had directed the ship to the lifeboats. A salvage party from AMC HMCS Prince Henry boarded Lihue in an attempt to save her, but the ship sank on 26 February while being towed to St Lucia by minesweeper USS Partridge
An unarmed tanker Sun is torpedoed by U-502 about 54 miles (87 kilometres) north of Aruba, and although initially abandoned is reboarded. She is ultimately repaired and returned to service; there are no casualties among the 36-man crew.
Motor tanker Thalia torpedoed and sunk by U-502.
SS Lennox (1,904 GRT), Canada Steamships Line bulk canaller was sunk in position 09.15N, 058.30W, in the Caribbean off British Guyana by U-129. She was on route from Paramaribo, Dutch Guyana, to Trinidad with a load of bauxite for transshipment. Two men were lost from her crew of 20 men. The merchantman SS Athelril rescued the survivors.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Steam tanker WD Anderson torpedoed and sunk by U-504 at 27.09N, 79.56W. The sole survivor apparently spotted the torpedo coming for the ship, dove into the sea and swam away as the ship exploded behind him.