April 19th, 1942 (SUNDAY)
BURMA: The Chinese Expeditionary Force holds Twingon, near Yenangyaung, enabling over 7,000 Allied troops of the 1st Burmese Division to escape the Japanese.
The Chinese soldiers who met the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers put their blue caps on their rifle butts and waved them in the air, so that the British would not think they were Japanese. The Japanese saw them do it and did the same. They killed a score of Inniskillings that way.
The Chinese Nationalists, of General Sun Li-jen's division, had been fighting to the east of the British "Burcorps" troops, defending the Burma Road that carries supplies to Chiang Kai-shek's army. When most of "Burcorps" found itself trapped by the Japanese forces, Sun's division fought its way through and enabled the beleaguered Britons to escape. However they lose all of their tanks and much of their artillery and motorised transport. They have very little left to defend Mandalay, Lashio and the Burma Road and northern Burma.
CHINA: American missionary John Morrison Birch, comes across Colonel James H. Doolittle and members of his squadron who have just completed their air-raid on Tokyo. This accidental meeting behind enemy lines proved to be the rescue the airmen had hoped for. With his encyclopaedic knowledge of the language, customs, and geography of China, Birch was able to convey Doolittle and crew member of several of the other American bombers to safety in free China.
Birch, an American Baptist missionary has been serving in China since 1940.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: The Japanese have completed their conquest of Cebu Island and encounter little organized opposition on nearby islands.
AUSTRALIA: All radios in the northern port of Darwin are silent. The reason for this is that on a previous night, a weak signal, using a three month old coastwatcher code, from a coastwatcher who had not been heard from for some time, had been picked up at the radio listening station at HQ Northern Territory Force in Darwin. All commercial and military radios have been told to stay off the air. About a month had passed since the last of the Allied Pacific bases had fallen and the Allies believed that the Japanese had uncontested control of their new empire; apart from some guerrilla resistance in the Philippines. Tonight the signal is received again:
this time more clearly but the listeners in Darwin were sceptical, suspecting
a Japanese ruse; they demanded proof of identity from the signallers, a
transcript of the message follows.
Darwin; Do you know George Parker (the coastwatcher)
Signaller; Yes, he is with us
Darwin; what rank is he?
Signaller; Captain
Darwin; Is he there? Bring him to the transmitter. What is your wife's name
George? Parker; Joan Darwin; What is the street number of your house? Parker; 94
A coastwatcher officer in Darwin, knew from set procedures that this was Parker and that he was not a prisoner. Darwin HQ was satisfied and asked for a report. The response was completely unexpected and secured a place in Australian military history.*
"The Timor force is intact and still fighting; badly need boots, quinine, money and ammunition."
Members of "Sparrow Force" the 2/2 Independent Company AIF, and survivors from the 2/40th Battalion, 22nd Brigade, 8th Division AIF along with local East Timorese guerrillas had taken to the mountains of East Timor and were holding salient about 100km long, anchored on the sea at each end with the town of Dilli in the centre. After 61 days of isolation, during which they had followed orders and continued to fight; contact with the outside world had finally been re-established. The message set in motion an effort to support and supply the men. (William L. Howard)(188, 189, 190, 191)
U.S.A.: Lieutenant Ronald Reagan, a reserve Cavalry officer, is called to active duty.Washington: Roosevelt tells the White House press corps that the Doolittle raiders came from the mythical land of Shangri-La.
Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau asks Americans to spend 10 percent of their income on war savings bonds.
CARIBBEAN SEA: German submarine U-130 uses its deck gun to bombard Royal Dutch Shell refineries at Ballen Bay on Curacao in the Netherlands West Indies.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Armed U.S. freighter Steel Maker is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-136 west of Bermuda. "I am sorry to have to sink you and do this to you," one German officer says apologetically after the enemy has questioned the survivors about the ship, its cargo, and destination, "but this is war." He promises to send Steel Maker's position to enable the Americans to be rescued. The last survivor is picked up on 18 May.