April 2nd, 1942 (THURSDAY)
EUROPE: For Jews, today is the first day of Passover, the festival of freedom and liberation from slavery. But this year there is nothing to celebrate. The German plan to destroy the Jews is getting into its stride.
The first of a new type of death camp at Belzec in Poland, has disposed of over 20,000 Jews since it opened on 16 March. Deportees arrive, up to 2,000 at a time, crammed into sealed goods wagons, at a railway siding in the camp. The hardship of the journey itself has already killed the weakest. The guards greet the survivors with dogs and whips. They confiscate the meagre belongings the Jews have brought with them. The healthiest hundred or so are picked out to live in the camp as forced labourers. The rest, including all the women and children must take a "shower".
Herded into what seems to be a shower block, the Jews strip. They only realise their fate when the "shower-room" door is locked shut and the deadly exhaust fumes fill the air.
The custom-built gas chambers and high-powered incinerators have a kill capacity of 15,000 people a day. Similar installations at Majdanek, Treblinka, Auschwitz and Sobibor are due to be completed later this month with a combined capacity to murder over 100,000 people a day. Efficiency is a watchword of the new system. If everything is working smoothly, the camps can process a human being into a handful of ashes within two hours of arrival.
UNITED KINGDOM: London: The first women to be conscientious objectors since the order directing women into national service came into force have been tried by tribunal. One Salvation Army worker was allowed her appeal after telling the court that she worked in canteens and looked after air-raid shelters. "It would be difficult to find a job in which she would be more useful," said the judge. Several appeals were disallowed. The public gallery applauded when a women of 21 said she would rather go to prison than do war work.
Prime Minister Winston
Churchill receives a letter from U.S.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt stating
that his foreign affairs advisor, Harry Hopkins, and General George S. Marshall,
Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, will be travelling to London. Roosevelt also says that
“They will submit to you a plan which I hope will be received with enthusiasm by
Russia.” The plan is for a Second Front in Europe. The plan has been prepared by
Major General Dwight D Eisenhower.
The USN’s Task Force Thirty Nine (TF 39) comprised of the battleship USS
Washington (BB 56), the aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-7), heavy cruisers USS
Tuscaloosa (CA-45) and Wichita and eight destroyers, arrives at Scapa Flow in
the Orkney Islands.
FRANCE: RAF Bomber Command flies three missions during the night of the 2nd/3rd: (1) 40 Wellingtons and ten Stirlings are dispatched to bomb an armaments factory in the Paris suburb of Poissy; 44 aircraft bomb the target and one Wellington is lost: (2) 26 of 49 aircraft dispatched bomb the port area at Le Havre without loss; and (3) 23 Hampdens and seven Wellingtons lay mines in Quiberon Bay with the loss on a Hampden and a Wellington.
MALTA: Luftwaffe General Albert Kesselring's Luftflotte 2 commences massive bombing of Malta, to neutralize the British island. The heavy bombing depletes Malta-based bombers and submarines, enabling more supply convoys to reach Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps.
INDIA: 10th Air Force B-17s are dispatched to attack Rangoon, Burma. The mission is aborted when 1 B-17 crashes on takeoff, killing the entire crew, and the other returns to base with mechanical troubles.
CHINA: Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek gives Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, Commanding General American Army Forces, China, Burma and India and Chief of Staff of the Chinese Army, a new executive officer, General Lo Cho-Ying, who is mature and experienced. Stilwell and Lo hurry back down to the disintegrating Burma front.
BURMA: Japan takes the port of Akyab, and the British Burma Corps abandons Prome.
INDIAN OCEAN: Vice Admiral Sir James Somerville, Commander of the British Eastern Fleet, changes course for Addu Atoll with the main part of his fleet. Two heavy cruisers are detached, (1) HMS Dorsetshire is sent to Colombo, Ceylon, to resume an interrupted refit and (2) HMS Cornwall is sent to escort convoy SU-4 bound for Aden. The aircraft carrier HMS Hermes with Australian destroyer HMAS Vampire is detached to return to Trincomalee, Ceylon.
Andaman Islands: USAAF B-17s bomb the Japanese fleet. The 10th Air Force flies its first combat mission; the mission is lead by Major General Lewis H Brereton, Commanding General 10th Air Force. Two B-17 Flying Fortresses and an LB-30 Liberator attack shipping during the night of 2/3 April and claim hits on a cruiser and a transport; 2 B-17's are damaged by AA and fighters, but all return to base.
U.S.A.: The
aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) and escorting vessels, sail from San
Francisco, California, with 16 USAAF B-25 Mitchells of the Doolittle attack
group on her deck; Hornet’s aircraft are in the hanger deck. That afternoon,
Captain Marc Mitscher informs his men of their mission: a bombing raid on
Japan.
The U.S. Army begins the mass evacuation of all people of Japanese ancestry
from the Pacific Coast.
Glenn Miller and his orchestra record "American Patrol" for Victor Records.
The jitterbug tune became one of Miller’s most requested hits.
The USAAF changes the designation of Observation Aircraft ("O") being delivered to Liaison Aircraft ("L") resulting in the following changes: Stinson O-49 Vigilant redesignated L-1; Taylorcraft O-57 Grasshopper redesignated L-2; Aeronca O-58 Grasshopper redesignated L-3; Piper O-59 Cub redesignated L-4; Stinson O-62 Sentinel redesignated L-5; and Interstate O-63 redesignated L-6.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Two
unarmed U.S. merchant ships are shelled by German submarines off the U.S. East
Coast: (1) U-123 attacks a
tanker about 55 miles (89 kilometres) southeast of Morehead City, North
Carolina; a motor torpedo (PT) boat arrives forcing the sub to leave the area
and the ship is towed to Morehead City; (2)
U-552 shells a freighter about
30 miles (48 kilometres) off the coast of Virginia and 60 miles (97 kilometres)
northeast of Virginia Beach, Virginia; only three of the 25 crew aboard the
freighter survive .