1942
The Man Who Came To Dinner starring - Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Monty Woolley and Jimmy Durante - premiered in New York.
Manila was captured by Japanese forces. They also took Cavite naval base and the American and Filipino troops continued the retreat into Bataan.
John Edward Thaw born in Gorton, Manchester.
Leslie Hiscott's The Seventh Survivor - starring Austin Trevor, Linden Travers and John Stuart - premiered.
Japanese troops landed at Brunei Bay in Borneo.
The Soviet Winter counter-offensive came to a halt, after having pushed the exhausted and freezing German Army back over one hundred miles from Moscow. Operation Barbarossa had failed.
Stephen William Hawking born in Oxford. Anthony Robin Ellis born in Ipswich.
All Through The Night starring Humphrey Bogart, Conrad Veidt and Kaaren Verne was released.
The Battle of Kuala Lumpur was fought, with the city falling to the Japanese. Clarence Anicholas Clemons born in Norfolk, Virginia.
In North Africa, the British took Sallum after a fifty six-day siege when the Germans ran out of ammunition.
Representatives of nine governments in exile signed an agreement in London declaring that one of their principal war aims would be to ensure that those responsible for war crimes would be brought to justice. In the United States, the Sikorsky R-Four helicopter had its first flight. Heinkel test pilot Helmut Schenck became the first person to escape from an aircraft using an ejection seat when his control surfaces iced up and became inoperative. Carol Cleveland born in London.
British forces conducted Operation Postmaster on the Spanish island of Fernando Po. The Arcadia Conference concluded.
Mahatma Gandhi named Jawaharlal Nehru as his successor. German submarine U-123 surfaced so close to New York Harbour that the rides at Coney Island could be seen silhouetted against the evening sky. Captain Reinhard Hardegen expected the US East coast to be blacked out after more than a month at war and was surprised to see the glow in the sky from Manhattan's lights.
TWA Flight Three crashed into a cliff on Potosi Mountain in Nevada shortly after take-off during a passenger flight to Burbank. All nineteen passengers and three crew aboard were killed, including the actress Carole Lombard and her mother. Winston Churchill becomes the first head of state to cross the Atlantic Ocean by plane, following the First Washington Conference with Franklin Roosevelt.
Cassius Marcellus Clay born in Louisville, Kentucky. The last Axis troops at Halfaya Pass surrendered. Erwin Rommel had now lost a third of his forces during Operation Crusader.
Michael Patrick Smith born in Salisbury.
Various Nazi officials at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin decided that the 'final solution to the Jewish problem' was to be genocide, whereby Jews in German-occupied territories would be deported to Poland and systematically murdered in extermination camps. The Japanese bombed Singapore as their troops approached the city.
Rommel's Afrika Korps began a surprise counter-offensive at El Agheila; his troops, with new reinforcements and tanks, captured Agedabia, then pushed North to Beda Fomm.
Brian Croucher born in Surrey.
The Battle of Balikpapan ended in a Japanese victory on land but a tactical Allied victory at sea. Robert Sidaway born in Wolverhampton.
Eusébio da Silva Ferreira born in Lourenço Marques, Mozambique. The Kholm Pocket was formed when German troops were encircled by The Red Army South of Leningrad.
The first American soldiers to land in the European theatre of operations disembarked at Belfast.
German and Italian forces recaptured Benghazi. Sullivan's Travels starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake and directed by Preston Sturges was released.
The first episode of Desert Island Discs broadcast on The Forces Programme Network.
Hitler spoke at the Berlin Sportpalast and threatened the Jews of the world with 'annihilation'; he also blamed the failure of the German offensive in Soviet Union on 'the weather.' Bridget Brice born in Birmingham. Ray Taylor's Treat 'Em Rough - starring Eddie Albert, Peggy Moran and William Frawley - premiered.
The fall of Malaya. The retreating British set off two explosions destroying the Johor–Singapore Causeway. Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman born in Northwood.
Terence Graham Parry Jones born in Colwyn Bay. Vidkun Quisling took office as Minister President of Norway. Neil Ritchie ordered a general withdrawal of British forces to the Gazala Line to avoid being encircled. The Germans switched their naval codes from Hydra to the more complex Triton.
Graham William Nash born in Blackpool. Kings Row - starring Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings and Ronald Reagan and Lance Comfort's Hatter's Castle - starring Robert Newton, Deborah Kerr, James Mason and Emlyn Williams - premiered.
The Ministry of War Production was created and Lord Beaverbrook was appointed its first head.
Rommel halted his counteroffensive near Gazala. In a little over two weeks his forces had retaken almost all the ground that the British Eighth Army had taken at the end of 1941. Alan Leonard Hunt born in Battersea.
The Battle for Singapore began with the Battle of Sarimbun Beach.
Carol Joan Klein born in New York. John Nicholas Finch born in Caterham, Surrey.
Soap rationing began in Britain.
Michael Curtiz's Captains Of The Clouds - starring James Cagney - premiered.
Peter Halsten Thorkelson born in Washington. Carole Ann Jones born in New York. Simon Micawber Prebble born in Croydon. Jacqueline Clarke born in Buckinghamshire.
The Japanese invasion of Sumatra began. The Battle of Bilin River began in Burma. The Air Ministry issued the Area Bombing Directive, ordering the RAF to attack the German industrial workforce and the morale of the German populace through bombing German cities and their civilian inhabitants. 'Blues in the Night' by Woody Herman & His Orchestra topped the Billboard singles charts.
The fall of Singapore to the Japanese, the most disastrous defeat in British military history. The Ernst Lubitsch-directed To Be Or Not To Be - starring Carole Lombard, Jack Benny and Robert Stack - premiered in Los Angeles.
Japanese soldiers committed the Bangka Island massacre. Ann Curthoys born in Clevedon, Somerset. Patricia Maynard born in Sheffield. Maclean Rogers' Gert & Daisy's Weekend - starring Elsie Waters, Doris Waters, Iris Vandeleur, Elizabeth Hunt and John Slater - premiered.
The Sook Ching Operation commenced as Japanese occupiers in Singapore began to massacre perceived hostile elements among the Chinese.
Japanese aircraft attacked Darwin, in Australia's Northern Territory. The town was lightly defended and the Japanese inflicted heavy losses. The Burmese capital of Mandalay was bombed by the Japanese for the first time. Stafford Cripps became Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal. George Stevens's Woman Of The Year - starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy - premiered.
The British Seventh Armoured Brigade arrived in Rangoon harbour.
President Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur to evacuate the Philippines as American defence of the nation collapsed.
The Bombardment of Ellwood occurred when a Japanese submarine shelled coastal targets near Santa Barbara. Sir Arthur Harris took over as Commander-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command. Sheila Anne Syme Gash born in Lincoln.
Paul Pond born in Portsmouth.
The so-called 'Battle of Los Angeles' took place in the early morning hours when an anti-aircraft artillery barrage was fired into the night sky. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox called the incident 'a false alarm' but offered no other information.
German battleship Gneisenau was bombed and heavily damaged in the drydock at Kiel by RAF bombers. The Academy Awards were held in Los Angeles. How Green Was My Valley won Best Picture and its director, John Ford, won his third Oscar for Best Director.
Aimi Anne Sheila MacDonald born in Glasgow.
Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones born in Cheltenham.
Oswald Mitchell's Bob's Your Uncle - starring Albert Modley, Jean Colin and Wally Patch - premiered.
Caroline Dimont born in Willersey, Gloucestershire.
Charles Geoffrey Hayes born in Stockport.
Jo Graham's Always In My Heart - starring Kay Francis and Walter Huston - premiered. Rita Tushingham born in Liverpool.
Cecil B De Mille's Reap The Wild Wind - starring Ray Milland, John Wayne, Paulette Goddard and Susan Heyward - premiered.
Stephen Yardley born in Harrogate.
Michael Hugh Johnson born in Fulmer, Buckinghamshire.
The RAF bombed Lübeck, destroying over thirty per cent of the city. British commandos launched Operation Chariot, a raid on the port at Saint Nazaire. HMS Campbeltown, filled with explosives on a time-delay fuse, rammed the dock gates and commandos destroyed other parts of the naval service area. The port was completely destroyed and did not resume service till 1947; round two-thirds of the raiding forces were lost. George Formby's 'Frank On His Tank'/'Katy-Did, Katy-Didn't' released.
Julie Kemp born in Heywood, Lancashire.
Roshan Seth born in Patna, India. Lance Comfort's Those Kids In Town - starring Percy Marmont, Ronald Shiner, Charles Victor and, ni their film debuts, Harry Folwer and George Cole - premiered.
Zoltan Korda's adaptation of Jungle Book - starring Sabu - premiered.
Anita Pallenberg born in Rome.
Bataan fell to the Japanese. The 'Bataan Death March' began, as the captives were taken off to detention camps in the North.
Myra Frances born in Hastings.
Malta was awarded The George Cross by King George VI for 'heroism and devotion.'
Hilary Pritchard born in the Isle Of Man.
David John Bradley born in York.
The Doolittle Raid on Nagoya, Tokyo and Yokohama. Jimmy Doolittle's B-25s took off from the USS Hornet. The raids wre a great boost of morale to Americans whose recent news has been mostly bad. Sam Wood's Kings Row - starring Ann Sheridan and Robert Cummings - premiered.
Alan Price born in Fatfield, County Durham. Sally Smith born in Godalming.
Annabel Leventon born in Hertfordshire.
Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur released. Denis Lill born in Hamilron, New Zealand.
The beginning of so-called 'Baedeker Raids' by the Luftwaffe on English historic provincial towns like Exeter, Bath, Norwich and York allegedly in revenge for the bombing of Lübeck; attacks continued sporadically until 6 June.
John Morley Shrapnel born in Birmingham. George Schnéevoigt's Tordenskjold Går I Land - starring Ingeborg Brams, Angelo Bruun, Rasmus Christiansen, Aage Foss and Hans Kurt - premiered.
John Michael Brearley born in Harrow. Ilona Jeannette Rodgers born in Harrogate.
Henri Alex Kanner born in Bagnères-de-Luchon, France.
Dilys Rhys Jones born in Fulmer Chase, Buckinghamshire.
The Radio Doctor, Charles Hill made his first BBC radio broadcast on The Home Services' The Kitchen Front giving health care advice to listeners.
Pamela Ann Clements born in Harrow On The Hill.
This Above All - starring Tyrone Power and Joan Fontaine - premiered. Anthony Royce Mills born in Tetbury, Gloucestershire.
Prentis Hancock born in Glasgow.
Paul Matthews born in Leeds.
Victor Fleming's Tortilla Flats - starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr - premiered.
Barbara Parkins born in Vancouver. Cavan Spencer Kendall McCarthy born in Edinburgh.
Beth Jane Porter born in New York.
Uta Levka born in Cottbus, Germany.
Reinhard Heydrich, head of Reich Security, was fatally injured in Prague during Operation Anthropoid by Czechoslovak soldiers.
Michael Curtiz's biopic of George M Cohen, Yankee Doodle Dandy - starring James Cagney, Joan Leslie and Walter Huston - premiered.
The 'Thousand Bomber Raid' on Cologne.
Rommel's latest desert offensive stalled well short of Tobruk, due to resistance by British First and Seventh Armoured Divisions partially equipped with the new American Sherman tanks. The Gang Show broadcast on The Forces Programme.
The Battle of Midway began. Anita Madeleine Harris born in Midsomer Norton, Somerset.
William Wyler's Mrs Miniver - starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon - premiered. Werner Heisenberg was summoned to report to Albert Speer, Germany's Minister of Armaments, on the prospects for converting the Uranverein's research toward developing nuclear weapons. During the meeting, Heisenberg told Speer that an atomic bomb could not be built before 1945, because it would require significant monetary resources and personnel.
At Gazala, British forces of the Eighth Army commanded by General Ritchie launched a major counter-attack against Rommel's forces.
Elizabeth Counsell born in Windsor.
The Nazis burned the Czech village of Lidice as reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.
Helen Margaret Stronach born in Oldham.
Suzan Maxine Farmer born in Maidstone.
James Paul McCartney born in Liverpool. The Manhattan Project is started, the beginning of a scientific approach to the development of nuclear weapons. Winston Churchill arrived in Washington for meetings with President Roosevelt. George Formby's 'Got To Get Your Photo In The Press'/'Mister Wu's An Air Raid Warden Now' released.
The Afrika Korps recaptured Tobruk.
Charles Frend's The Foreman Went To France - starring Clifford Evans, Tommy Trinder, Constance Cummings and Gordon Jackson - premiered.
Brian T James born in Romford.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London to assume the post of Commander of Allied Forces in Europe.
Patricia Ann Brake born in Bath.
Convoy PQ17 set sail from Iceland; only eleven of thirty seven ships survived the voyage to Arkhangelsk. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing - starring Godfrey Tearle, Eric Portman, Hugh Williams, Bernard Miles, Hugh Burden, Emrys Jones, Googie Withers and Pamela Brown - premiered.
Case Blue, the German plan to capture Stalingrad and the Soviet Union oil fields in the Caucasus, began.
Antony Leslie Vogel born in London.
The first Battle of El Alamein began. Sevastopol fell to the Germans meaning the end of Red Army resistance in the Crimea.
Ribbentrop broadcast in the Home Service's Black Gallery strand, produced and presented by Wolf Rilla and written by the author, astrology and propoganda writer Louis De Wohl.
Books & The Writer reviewed outstanding books published during the second quarter of 1942, by EM Forster. The Master of Balliol, Doctor AD Lindsay, gave the final talk in the series Books That Made History, Marx - Founder Of Capitalism. The Post Bag, an operetta in one act, written by Alfred Percival Graves, broadcast.
Chloe Ashcroft born in London.
Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons - starring Joseph Cotton and Agnes Moorhead - premiered.
Sam Wood's The Pride Of The Yankees - starring Gary Cooper - premiered.
The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me 262 V3 third prototype using only its jet engines for the first time.
German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz ordered the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coastal positions in response to an increasingly effective American convoy system.
The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto began. Treblinka extermination camp, was opened in Poland.
The former England test cricketer and football international Andy Ducat died during a game at Lord's of an apparent heart attack whilst playing in a wartime match between teams from his unit of the Home Guard from Surrey against another from Sussex. In a cricket career which began in 1906, he scored twenty three thousand runs in four hundred and twenty nine matches. He played in only one test, against Australia at Headingley in 1921 when he opened with Wally Hardinge, another of the select group of double internationals. Ducat's successful football career included spells with Southend United, Woolwich Arsenal, Aston Villa (with whom he won the FA Cup in 1920) and Fulham. He played six times for England between 1910 and 1920. Following his reitremen from sport in 1931, he became a respected journalist with the Daily Sketch. George Formby's 'Andy The Handy Man'/'They Laughed When I Started To Play' released.
Judy Huxtable born in Surrey.
Oscar James born in Trinidad.
A heavy RAF incendiary attack on Hamburg occurred. Barbara Gillian Ferris born in London.
Maclean Rogers' Gert & Daisy Clean Up - starring Elsie Waters, Doris Waters, Iris Vandeleur, Elizabeth Hunt and Toni Edgar-Bruce - premiered.
Holiday Inn - starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire - premiered.
John Bryans born in London.
Operation Watchtower began the Guadalcanal Campaign as American forces invaded Gavutu, Guadalcanal, Tulagi and Tanambogo in the Solomon Islands. Alfred Werker's A-Haunting We Will Go - starring Laurel and Hardy - premiered.
Wake Island - starring Brian Donlevy - premiered.
General Bernard Montgomery was appointed commander of the Eighth Army. Disney's Bambi premiered.
Maurice Elvey's Salute John Citizen - starring Edward Rigby, Stanley Holloway, George Robey, Mabel Constanduros, Peggy Cummings and Jimmy Hanley - premiered.
John Spurley Challis born in Bristol. Philippa Gail born in Bishop's Stortford.
The first US Army Air Forces B-17 heavy bomber raid in Europe, targeting the Sotteville railroad yards at Rouen.
Operation Jubilee, a raid by British and Canadian forces on Dieppe ended in disaster.
George Stevens's The Talk Of The Town - starring Cary Grant Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman - premiered.
The Pied Piper - starring Monty Woolley, Anne Baxter, Roddy McDowell and Otto Preminger - premiered.
Michael B Emyrs Jones born in Pontypridd.
The first episode of the long-running March Of The Movies - created by Harry Alan Towers and presented by Charles Maxwell - broadcast on The Forces Programme.
Imogen Hassall born in Woking.
Marshal Georgii Zhukov was appointed to the command of the Stalingrad defence.
ncendiary bombs dropped by a Japanese seaplane caused a forest fire in Oregon.
The Battle of Alam Halfa, a few miles South of El Alamein began. This would be Rommel's last attempt to break through the Allied lines in Egypt.
Suzanne Roquette born in Weimar, Germany.
The formation of Thirty Assault Unit, a British Commando unit, was authorised under the auspices of the Director of Naval Intelligence. Known initially as the Special Intelligence Unit, it comprised thirty three (Royal Marines) Troop, Thirty Four (Army) Troop, Thirty Five (Royal Air Force) Troop and Thirty Six (Royal Navy) Troop. One of the key figures involved in its organisation was Commander Ian Fleming. The unit was, reportedly,modelled on a German group headed by Otto Skorzeny, who had undertaken similar activities in the Battle of Crete. According to some - unconfirmed - accounts, the unit was already in existence and had deployed for the first time during the Dieppe Raid, in an unsuccessful attempt to capture an Enigma machine and related materiel. Because of their subsequent successes in Sicily and Italy, Thirty AU became greatly trusted by naval intelligence.
Leslie Groves was appointed director of what became known as The Manhattan Project. He selected Robert Oppenheimer to head the project's secret weapons laboratory. This choice surprised many, because Oppenheimer had left-wing political views and no record as a leader of large projects. Groves was concerned by the fact that Oppenheimer did not have a Nobel Prize and might not have had the prestige to direct fellow scientists. Groves, however, was impressed by Oppenheimer's singular grasp of the practical aspects of the project and by the breadth of his knowledge. By November, the Los Alamos site when the atomic bomb would be developed was under construction.
John Huston's Across The Pacific - starring Humphrey Bogart and Henry Koster's Between Us Girls - starring Diana Barrymore, Robert Cummings and Kay Francis - premiered.
Australian and US forces defeated the Japanese at Milne Bay, Papua, the first outright defeat for Japanese land forces in the Pacific War.
Norman Taurog's A Yank At Eton - starring Mickey Rooney - premiered.
John Ford's documentary The Battle Of Midway premiered.
Noël Coward's In Which We Serve - starring Bernard Miles, Celia Johnson, John Mills, Michael Wilding and featuring the film debut of Richard Attenborough - premiered.
John Rawlins' Sherlock Holmes & The Voice Of Terror - starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Evelyn Ankers, Reginald Denny and Thomas Gomez - premiered.
The first episode of CS Lewis's Christian Behaviour broadcast on The Forces Network.
Clare Tracy Compton Pelissier born in London.
General Rommel left North Africa for medical treatment in Germany.
My Sister Eileen - starring Rosalind Russell and Janet Blair - premiered.
The War Against Mrs Hadley - starring Fay Bainter - premiered.
Ian David McShane born in Blackburn.
The first successful launch of the A4-rocket at Peenemünde, the first man-made object to reach space.
Britt-Marie Eklund born in Stockholm.
Petronella Barker born in Sittingbourne, Kent.
The first episode of The Forces Programme's The RAF Takes The Air - featuring Richard Murdoch and Arthur Askey and created by Harry Alan Towers - broadcast.
Busby Berkeley's For Me & My Girl - starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly - premiered.
Irving Rapper's Now, Voyager - starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains - premiered.
The start of the Second Battle of El Alamein.
Robert William Hoskins born in Bury St Edmunds.
British sailors - not American ones as Hollywood subsequently claimed - boarded the German submarine U-559 as it sank in the Mediterranean and retrieved its Enigma machine and codebooks. René Clair's I Married A Witch - starring Veronica Lake and Fredric March - premiered.
The Second Battle of El Alamein effectively ended with Erwin Rommel ordering German forces to retreat in the face of pressure from General Montgomery's Eighth Army. It has been claimed that at least a small part of the Allies victory was due to the work of Middle East Campaign Camouflage Directorate and some of the diversionary tactics devised by the stage magician Jasper Maskelyne. Doubts, however, has subsequently been raised about the extent to which Maskelyne exaggerated, post-war, the extent of his contributions.
In the aftermath of victory at El Alamein, Churchill claimed: 'This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.'
Michael Curtiz's Casablanca - starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson - premiered in Los Angeles.
A climactic naval battle near Guadalcanal between Japanese and American naval forces.
The British Eighth Army recaptured Tobruk. At the Battle of Guadalcanal aviators from the USS Enterprise sank the Japanese battleship Hiei. The USS Juneau was sunk with much of its crew, including the five Sullivan brothers.
Joanna Jane Salmon born in London.
Karin MacCarthy born in Sutton.
At Stalingrad, Soviet Union forces under General Zhukov launched Operation Uranus aimed to encircle the Germans in the city and cut off their vitals.
Jane Katherine Lumb born in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.
William Connolly born in Glasgow.
Operation Harling: a team of British SOE agents, together with over two hundred Greek guerrillas blew up the Gorgopotamos railway bridge, in one of the war's biggest and most successful sabotage acts. Edward Cline's Private Buckeroo - starring Harry James, Patty Andrews, Maxene Andrews, Laverne Andrews, Jennifer Holt and Peggy Ryan - premiered.
At Toulon, the French navy scuttled its ships (most notably Dunkerque and Strasbourg) and submarines to keep them out of German hands; the French had declined another option, to join the Allied fleets in North African waters. Leo McCarey's Once Upon A Honeymoon - starring Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers and William Beaudine's The Living Ghost - starring James Dunn and Joan Woodbury - premiered.
The Corsican Brothers - starring Douglas Fairbanks Jnr - premiered.
Michael Francis Craze born in Newquay.
The Beveridge Report published, laying the foundations for the post-war Welfare State.
Lynn Farleigh born in Bristol.
Mister Cropper's Conscience broadcast. Henry King's The Black Swan - starring Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara and Roy Boulting's Thunder Rock - starring Michael Redgrave, Barbara Mullen, James Mason and Lilli Palmer - premiered. Jennifer Jones born in Marylebone.
Jacques Tourneur's Cat People premiered.
James Hanley and Brigid Mass's Shadows Before Sunrise broadcast. Patricia Shakesby born in Cottingham, East Yorkshire.
Alberto Cavalcanti's adaptation of Graham Greene's Went The Day Well? - starring Leslie Banks, Mervyn Johns and Basil Sydney - premiered. William Stewart born in Liverpool.
Dry Rot: And How To Prevent It and Eustace Holden's Gentleman John broadcast.
Mary Essex's If It Were Silence broadcast.
Douglas Clevedon's adaptation of An Odd Freak broadcast.
Anna Carteret born in Bangalore, India.
Hamish Wilson born in Glasgow. Howard John Brenton born in Portsmouth.
Jennifer Mary Hilary born in Frimley.
Isobel Anne Black born in Edinburgh. Geoffrey Davies born in Leeds.
Rommel abandoned El Agheila and retreated to Tripoli.
Mervyn LeRoy's Random Harvest - starring Ronald Colman and Greer Garson - premiered.
The Germans began a retreat from the Caucasus.
Arthur John Oates born in Bermondsey.
James Dyrenforth's Moonshine & Splash broadcast on The Home Service.
Norman Corwin's The Plot To Overthrow Christmas and Wynford Vaughan Thomas's Christmas Post broadcast on The Home Service. John Rawlins's Arabian Nights and Roy William Neil's Sherlock Holmes & The Secret Weaoin - starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce and Lionel Atwill - premiered.
An adaptation of Edgar Wallace's The Case Of The Frightened Lady broadcast on The Home Service.
Salute To The Civil Defence Services broadcast. Ciaran Anne Magdalene Madden born in Colchester.
SL Bensusan's Moon Over The Marsh broadcast.
James Stephens's Julia Elizabeth and Lynn Doyle's A Wild-Goose Chase broadcast in The Home Service's Two Plays strand.
Stephane Grapelly featured on Starlight.
In the Battle of the Barents Sea, the British won a strategic victory, leading Hitler to largely abandon the use of surface raiders in favour of U-boats.
The Man Who Came To Dinner starring - Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Monty Woolley and Jimmy Durante - premiered in New York.
Manila was captured by Japanese forces. They also took Cavite naval base and the American and Filipino troops continued the retreat into Bataan.
John Edward Thaw born in Gorton, Manchester.
Japanese troops landed at Brunei Bay in Borneo.
The Soviet Winter counter-offensive came to a halt, after having pushed the exhausted and freezing German Army back over one hundred miles from Moscow. Operation Barbarossa had failed.
Stephen William Hawking born in Oxford. Anthony Robin Ellis born in Ipswich.
All Through The Night starring Humphrey Bogart, Conrad Veidt and Kaaren Verne was released.
The Battle of Kuala Lumpur was fought, with the city falling to the Japanese. Clarence Anicholas Clemons born in Norfolk, Virginia.
In North Africa, the British took Sallum after a fifty six-day siege when the Germans ran out of ammunition.
Representatives of nine governments in exile signed an agreement in London declaring that one of their principal war aims would be to ensure that those responsible for war crimes would be brought to justice. In the United States, the Sikorsky R-Four helicopter had its first flight. Heinkel test pilot Helmut Schenck became the first person to escape from an aircraft using an ejection seat when his control surfaces iced up and became inoperative. Carol Cleveland born in London.
British forces conducted Operation Postmaster on the Spanish island of Fernando Po. The Arcadia Conference concluded.
Mahatma Gandhi named Jawaharlal Nehru as his successor. German submarine U-123 surfaced so close to New York Harbour that the rides at Coney Island could be seen silhouetted against the evening sky. Captain Reinhard Hardegen expected the US East coast to be blacked out after more than a month at war and was surprised to see the glow in the sky from Manhattan's lights.
TWA Flight Three crashed into a cliff on Potosi Mountain in Nevada shortly after take-off during a passenger flight to Burbank. All nineteen passengers and three crew aboard were killed, including the actress Carole Lombard and her mother. Winston Churchill becomes the first head of state to cross the Atlantic Ocean by plane, following the First Washington Conference with Franklin Roosevelt.
Cassius Marcellus Clay born in Louisville, Kentucky. The last Axis troops at Halfaya Pass surrendered. Erwin Rommel had now lost a third of his forces during Operation Crusader.
Michael Patrick Smith born in Salisbury.
Rommel's Afrika Korps began a surprise counter-offensive at El Agheila; his troops, with new reinforcements and tanks, captured Agedabia, then pushed North to Beda Fomm.
Brian Croucher born in Surrey.
The Battle of Balikpapan ended in a Japanese victory on land but a tactical Allied victory at sea. Robert Sidaway born in Wolverhampton.
Eusébio da Silva Ferreira born in Lourenço Marques, Mozambique. The Kholm Pocket was formed when German troops were encircled by The Red Army South of Leningrad.
The first American soldiers to land in the European theatre of operations disembarked at Belfast.
German and Italian forces recaptured Benghazi. Sullivan's Travels starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake and directed by Preston Sturges was released.
The first episode of Desert Island Discs broadcast on The Forces Programme Network.
Hitler spoke at the Berlin Sportpalast and threatened the Jews of the world with 'annihilation'; he also blamed the failure of the German offensive in Soviet Union on 'the weather.' Bridget Brice born in Birmingham. Ray Taylor's Treat 'Em Rough - starring Eddie Albert, Peggy Moran and William Frawley - premiered. The fall of Malaya. The retreating British set off two explosions destroying the Johor–Singapore Causeway. Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman born in Northwood.
Terence Graham Parry Jones born in Colwyn Bay. Vidkun Quisling took office as Minister President of Norway. Neil Ritchie ordered a general withdrawal of British forces to the Gazala Line to avoid being encircled. The Germans switched their naval codes from Hydra to the more complex Triton.
Graham William Nash born in Blackpool. Kings Row - starring Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings and Ronald Reagan and Lance Comfort's Hatter's Castle - starring Robert Newton, Deborah Kerr, James Mason and Emlyn Williams - premiered.
The Ministry of War Production was created and Lord Beaverbrook was appointed its first head.
Rommel halted his counteroffensive near Gazala. In a little over two weeks his forces had retaken almost all the ground that the British Eighth Army had taken at the end of 1941. Alan Leonard Hunt born in Battersea.
The Battle for Singapore began with the Battle of Sarimbun Beach.
Carol Joan Klein born in New York. John Nicholas Finch born in Caterham, Surrey.
Soap rationing began in Britain.
Michael Curtiz's Captains Of The Clouds - starring James Cagney - premiered.
Peter Halsten Thorkelson born in Washington. Carole Ann Jones born in New York. Simon Micawber Prebble born in Croydon. Jacqueline Clarke born in Buckinghamshire.
The Japanese invasion of Sumatra began. The Battle of Bilin River began in Burma. The Air Ministry issued the Area Bombing Directive, ordering the RAF to attack the German industrial workforce and the morale of the German populace through bombing German cities and their civilian inhabitants. 'Blues in the Night' by Woody Herman & His Orchestra topped the Billboard singles charts.
The fall of Singapore to the Japanese, the most disastrous defeat in British military history. The Ernst Lubitsch-directed To Be Or Not To Be - starring Carole Lombard, Jack Benny and Robert Stack - premiered in Los Angeles.
The Sook Ching Operation commenced as Japanese occupiers in Singapore began to massacre perceived hostile elements among the Chinese.
Japanese aircraft attacked Darwin, in Australia's Northern Territory. The town was lightly defended and the Japanese inflicted heavy losses. The Burmese capital of Mandalay was bombed by the Japanese for the first time. Stafford Cripps became Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal. George Stevens's Woman Of The Year - starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy - premiered.
The British Seventh Armoured Brigade arrived in Rangoon harbour.
President Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur to evacuate the Philippines as American defence of the nation collapsed.
The Bombardment of Ellwood occurred when a Japanese submarine shelled coastal targets near Santa Barbara. Sir Arthur Harris took over as Commander-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command. Sheila Anne Syme Gash born in Lincoln.
Paul Pond born in Portsmouth.
The so-called 'Battle of Los Angeles' took place in the early morning hours when an anti-aircraft artillery barrage was fired into the night sky. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox called the incident 'a false alarm' but offered no other information.
German battleship Gneisenau was bombed and heavily damaged in the drydock at Kiel by RAF bombers. The Academy Awards were held in Los Angeles. How Green Was My Valley won Best Picture and its director, John Ford, won his third Oscar for Best Director.
Aimi Anne Sheila MacDonald born in Glasgow.
Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones born in Cheltenham.
Oswald Mitchell's Bob's Your Uncle - starring Albert Modley, Jean Colin and Wally Patch - premiered.
Caroline Dimont born in Willersey, Gloucestershire.
Charles Geoffrey Hayes born in Stockport.
Jo Graham's Always In My Heart - starring Kay Francis and Walter Huston - premiered. Rita Tushingham born in Liverpool.
Cecil B De Mille's Reap The Wild Wind - starring Ray Milland, John Wayne, Paulette Goddard and Susan Heyward - premiered.
Stephen Yardley born in Harrogate.
Michael Hugh Johnson born in Fulmer, Buckinghamshire.
The RAF bombed Lübeck, destroying over thirty per cent of the city. British commandos launched Operation Chariot, a raid on the port at Saint Nazaire. HMS Campbeltown, filled with explosives on a time-delay fuse, rammed the dock gates and commandos destroyed other parts of the naval service area. The port was completely destroyed and did not resume service till 1947; round two-thirds of the raiding forces were lost. George Formby's 'Frank On His Tank'/'Katy-Did, Katy-Didn't' released.
Julie Kemp born in Heywood, Lancashire.
Roshan Seth born in Patna, India. Lance Comfort's Those Kids In Town - starring Percy Marmont, Ronald Shiner, Charles Victor and, ni their film debuts, Harry Folwer and George Cole - premiered.
Zoltan Korda's adaptation of Jungle Book - starring Sabu - premiered.
Anita Pallenberg born in Rome.
Bataan fell to the Japanese. The 'Bataan Death March' began, as the captives were taken off to detention camps in the North.
Myra Frances born in Hastings.
Malta was awarded The George Cross by King George VI for 'heroism and devotion.'
Hilary Pritchard born in the Isle Of Man.
David John Bradley born in York.
The Doolittle Raid on Nagoya, Tokyo and Yokohama. Jimmy Doolittle's B-25s took off from the USS Hornet. The raids wre a great boost of morale to Americans whose recent news has been mostly bad. Sam Wood's Kings Row - starring Ann Sheridan and Robert Cummings - premiered.
Alan Price born in Fatfield, County Durham. Sally Smith born in Godalming.
Annabel Leventon born in Hertfordshire.
The beginning of so-called 'Baedeker Raids' by the Luftwaffe on English historic provincial towns like Exeter, Bath, Norwich and York allegedly in revenge for the bombing of Lübeck; attacks continued sporadically until 6 June.
John Morley Shrapnel born in Birmingham. George Schnéevoigt's Tordenskjold Går I Land - starring Ingeborg Brams, Angelo Bruun, Rasmus Christiansen, Aage Foss and Hans Kurt - premiered.
John Michael Brearley born in Harrow. Ilona Jeannette Rodgers born in Harrogate.
Henri Alex Kanner born in Bagnères-de-Luchon, France.
Dilys Rhys Jones born in Fulmer Chase, Buckinghamshire.
The Radio Doctor, Charles Hill made his first BBC radio broadcast on The Home Services' The Kitchen Front giving health care advice to listeners.
Pamela Ann Clements born in Harrow On The Hill.
This Above All - starring Tyrone Power and Joan Fontaine - premiered. Anthony Royce Mills born in Tetbury, Gloucestershire.
Prentis Hancock born in Glasgow.
Paul Matthews born in Leeds.
Victor Fleming's Tortilla Flats - starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr - premiered.
Barbara Parkins born in Vancouver. Cavan Spencer Kendall McCarthy born in Edinburgh.
Beth Jane Porter born in New York.
Uta Levka born in Cottbus, Germany.
Reinhard Heydrich, head of Reich Security, was fatally injured in Prague during Operation Anthropoid by Czechoslovak soldiers.
Michael Curtiz's biopic of George M Cohen, Yankee Doodle Dandy - starring James Cagney, Joan Leslie and Walter Huston - premiered.
The 'Thousand Bomber Raid' on Cologne.
Rommel's latest desert offensive stalled well short of Tobruk, due to resistance by British First and Seventh Armoured Divisions partially equipped with the new American Sherman tanks. The Gang Show broadcast on The Forces Programme.
The Battle of Midway began. Anita Madeleine Harris born in Midsomer Norton, Somerset.
William Wyler's Mrs Miniver - starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon - premiered. Werner Heisenberg was summoned to report to Albert Speer, Germany's Minister of Armaments, on the prospects for converting the Uranverein's research toward developing nuclear weapons. During the meeting, Heisenberg told Speer that an atomic bomb could not be built before 1945, because it would require significant monetary resources and personnel.
At Gazala, British forces of the Eighth Army commanded by General Ritchie launched a major counter-attack against Rommel's forces.
Elizabeth Counsell born in Windsor.
The Nazis burned the Czech village of Lidice as reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.
Helen Margaret Stronach born in Oldham.
Suzan Maxine Farmer born in Maidstone.
James Paul McCartney born in Liverpool. The Manhattan Project is started, the beginning of a scientific approach to the development of nuclear weapons. Winston Churchill arrived in Washington for meetings with President Roosevelt. George Formby's 'Got To Get Your Photo In The Press'/'Mister Wu's An Air Raid Warden Now' released.
The Afrika Korps recaptured Tobruk.
Charles Frend's The Foreman Went To France - starring Clifford Evans, Tommy Trinder, Constance Cummings and Gordon Jackson - premiered.
Brian T James born in Romford.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London to assume the post of Commander of Allied Forces in Europe.
Patricia Ann Brake born in Bath.
Convoy PQ17 set sail from Iceland; only eleven of thirty seven ships survived the voyage to Arkhangelsk. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing - starring Godfrey Tearle, Eric Portman, Hugh Williams, Bernard Miles, Hugh Burden, Emrys Jones, Googie Withers and Pamela Brown - premiered.
Case Blue, the German plan to capture Stalingrad and the Soviet Union oil fields in the Caucasus, began.
Antony Leslie Vogel born in London.
The first Battle of El Alamein began. Sevastopol fell to the Germans meaning the end of Red Army resistance in the Crimea.
Ribbentrop broadcast in the Home Service's Black Gallery strand, produced and presented by Wolf Rilla and written by the author, astrology and propoganda writer Louis De Wohl.
Books & The Writer reviewed outstanding books published during the second quarter of 1942, by EM Forster. The Master of Balliol, Doctor AD Lindsay, gave the final talk in the series Books That Made History, Marx - Founder Of Capitalism. The Post Bag, an operetta in one act, written by Alfred Percival Graves, broadcast.
Chloe Ashcroft born in London.
Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons - starring Joseph Cotton and Agnes Moorhead - premiered.
Sam Wood's The Pride Of The Yankees - starring Gary Cooper - premiered.
The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me 262 V3 third prototype using only its jet engines for the first time.
German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz ordered the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coastal positions in response to an increasingly effective American convoy system.The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto began. Treblinka extermination camp, was opened in Poland.
The former England test cricketer and football international Andy Ducat died during a game at Lord's of an apparent heart attack whilst playing in a wartime match between teams from his unit of the Home Guard from Surrey against another from Sussex. In a cricket career which began in 1906, he scored twenty three thousand runs in four hundred and twenty nine matches. He played in only one test, against Australia at Headingley in 1921 when he opened with Wally Hardinge, another of the select group of double internationals. Ducat's successful football career included spells with Southend United, Woolwich Arsenal, Aston Villa (with whom he won the FA Cup in 1920) and Fulham. He played six times for England between 1910 and 1920. Following his reitremen from sport in 1931, he became a respected journalist with the Daily Sketch. George Formby's 'Andy The Handy Man'/'They Laughed When I Started To Play' released.
Judy Huxtable born in Surrey.
Oscar James born in Trinidad.
A heavy RAF incendiary attack on Hamburg occurred. Barbara Gillian Ferris born in London.
Maclean Rogers' Gert & Daisy Clean Up - starring Elsie Waters, Doris Waters, Iris Vandeleur, Elizabeth Hunt and Toni Edgar-Bruce - premiered.
Holiday Inn - starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire - premiered.
John Bryans born in London.
Operation Watchtower began the Guadalcanal Campaign as American forces invaded Gavutu, Guadalcanal, Tulagi and Tanambogo in the Solomon Islands. Alfred Werker's A-Haunting We Will Go - starring Laurel and Hardy - premiered.
Wake Island - starring Brian Donlevy - premiered.
General Bernard Montgomery was appointed commander of the Eighth Army. Disney's Bambi premiered.
Maurice Elvey's Salute John Citizen - starring Edward Rigby, Stanley Holloway, George Robey, Mabel Constanduros, Peggy Cummings and Jimmy Hanley - premiered.
John Spurley Challis born in Bristol. Philippa Gail born in Bishop's Stortford.
The first US Army Air Forces B-17 heavy bomber raid in Europe, targeting the Sotteville railroad yards at Rouen.
Operation Jubilee, a raid by British and Canadian forces on Dieppe ended in disaster.
George Stevens's The Talk Of The Town - starring Cary Grant Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman - premiered.
The Pied Piper - starring Monty Woolley, Anne Baxter, Roddy McDowell and Otto Preminger - premiered.
The first episode of the long-running March Of The Movies - created by Harry Alan Towers and presented by Charles Maxwell - broadcast on The Forces Programme.
Imogen Hassall born in Woking.
Marshal Georgii Zhukov was appointed to the command of the Stalingrad defence.
ncendiary bombs dropped by a Japanese seaplane caused a forest fire in Oregon.
The Battle of Alam Halfa, a few miles South of El Alamein began. This would be Rommel's last attempt to break through the Allied lines in Egypt.
Suzanne Roquette born in Weimar, Germany.
The formation of Thirty Assault Unit, a British Commando unit, was authorised under the auspices of the Director of Naval Intelligence. Known initially as the Special Intelligence Unit, it comprised thirty three (Royal Marines) Troop, Thirty Four (Army) Troop, Thirty Five (Royal Air Force) Troop and Thirty Six (Royal Navy) Troop. One of the key figures involved in its organisation was Commander Ian Fleming. The unit was, reportedly,modelled on a German group headed by Otto Skorzeny, who had undertaken similar activities in the Battle of Crete. According to some - unconfirmed - accounts, the unit was already in existence and had deployed for the first time during the Dieppe Raid, in an unsuccessful attempt to capture an Enigma machine and related materiel. Because of their subsequent successes in Sicily and Italy, Thirty AU became greatly trusted by naval intelligence.
Leslie Groves was appointed director of what became known as The Manhattan Project. He selected Robert Oppenheimer to head the project's secret weapons laboratory. This choice surprised many, because Oppenheimer had left-wing political views and no record as a leader of large projects. Groves was concerned by the fact that Oppenheimer did not have a Nobel Prize and might not have had the prestige to direct fellow scientists. Groves, however, was impressed by Oppenheimer's singular grasp of the practical aspects of the project and by the breadth of his knowledge. By November, the Los Alamos site when the atomic bomb would be developed was under construction.
John Huston's Across The Pacific - starring Humphrey Bogart and Henry Koster's Between Us Girls - starring Diana Barrymore, Robert Cummings and Kay Francis - premiered.
Australian and US forces defeated the Japanese at Milne Bay, Papua, the first outright defeat for Japanese land forces in the Pacific War.
Norman Taurog's A Yank At Eton - starring Mickey Rooney - premiered.
John Ford's documentary The Battle Of Midway premiered.
Noël Coward's In Which We Serve - starring Bernard Miles, Celia Johnson, John Mills, Michael Wilding and featuring the film debut of Richard Attenborough - premiered.
John Rawlins' Sherlock Holmes & The Voice Of Terror - starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Evelyn Ankers, Reginald Denny and Thomas Gomez - premiered.
The first episode of CS Lewis's Christian Behaviour broadcast on The Forces Network.
Clare Tracy Compton Pelissier born in London.
General Rommel left North Africa for medical treatment in Germany.
My Sister Eileen - starring Rosalind Russell and Janet Blair - premiered.
The War Against Mrs Hadley - starring Fay Bainter - premiered.
Ian David McShane born in Blackburn.
The first successful launch of the A4-rocket at Peenemünde, the first man-made object to reach space.
Britt-Marie Eklund born in Stockholm.
Petronella Barker born in Sittingbourne, Kent.
The first episode of The Forces Programme's The RAF Takes The Air - featuring Richard Murdoch and Arthur Askey and created by Harry Alan Towers - broadcast.
Busby Berkeley's For Me & My Girl - starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly - premiered.
Irving Rapper's Now, Voyager - starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains - premiered.
The start of the Second Battle of El Alamein.
Robert William Hoskins born in Bury St Edmunds.
British sailors - not American ones as Hollywood subsequently claimed - boarded the German submarine U-559 as it sank in the Mediterranean and retrieved its Enigma machine and codebooks. René Clair's I Married A Witch - starring Veronica Lake and Fredric March - premiered.
The Second Battle of El Alamein effectively ended with Erwin Rommel ordering German forces to retreat in the face of pressure from General Montgomery's Eighth Army. It has been claimed that at least a small part of the Allies victory was due to the work of Middle East Campaign Camouflage Directorate and some of the diversionary tactics devised by the stage magician Jasper Maskelyne. Doubts, however, has subsequently been raised about the extent to which Maskelyne exaggerated, post-war, the extent of his contributions.
In the aftermath of victory at El Alamein, Churchill claimed: 'This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.'
Michael Curtiz's Casablanca - starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson - premiered in Los Angeles.
A climactic naval battle near Guadalcanal between Japanese and American naval forces.The British Eighth Army recaptured Tobruk. At the Battle of Guadalcanal aviators from the USS Enterprise sank the Japanese battleship Hiei. The USS Juneau was sunk with much of its crew, including the five Sullivan brothers.
Joanna Jane Salmon born in London.
Karin MacCarthy born in Sutton.
At Stalingrad, Soviet Union forces under General Zhukov launched Operation Uranus aimed to encircle the Germans in the city and cut off their vitals.
Jane Katherine Lumb born in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.
William Connolly born in Glasgow.
Operation Harling: a team of British SOE agents, together with over two hundred Greek guerrillas blew up the Gorgopotamos railway bridge, in one of the war's biggest and most successful sabotage acts. Edward Cline's Private Buckeroo - starring Harry James, Patty Andrews, Maxene Andrews, Laverne Andrews, Jennifer Holt and Peggy Ryan - premiered.
At Toulon, the French navy scuttled its ships (most notably Dunkerque and Strasbourg) and submarines to keep them out of German hands; the French had declined another option, to join the Allied fleets in North African waters. Leo McCarey's Once Upon A Honeymoon - starring Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers and William Beaudine's The Living Ghost - starring James Dunn and Joan Woodbury - premiered.
The Corsican Brothers - starring Douglas Fairbanks Jnr - premiered.
Michael Francis Craze born in Newquay.
The Beveridge Report published, laying the foundations for the post-war Welfare State.
Lynn Farleigh born in Bristol.
Mister Cropper's Conscience broadcast. Henry King's The Black Swan - starring Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara and Roy Boulting's Thunder Rock - starring Michael Redgrave, Barbara Mullen, James Mason and Lilli Palmer - premiered. Jennifer Jones born in Marylebone.
Jacques Tourneur's Cat People premiered.
James Hanley and Brigid Mass's Shadows Before Sunrise broadcast. Patricia Shakesby born in Cottingham, East Yorkshire.
Alberto Cavalcanti's adaptation of Graham Greene's Went The Day Well? - starring Leslie Banks, Mervyn Johns and Basil Sydney - premiered. William Stewart born in Liverpool.
Dry Rot: And How To Prevent It and Eustace Holden's Gentleman John broadcast.
Mary Essex's If It Were Silence broadcast.
Douglas Clevedon's adaptation of An Odd Freak broadcast.
Anna Carteret born in Bangalore, India.
Jennifer Mary Hilary born in Frimley.
Isobel Anne Black born in Edinburgh. Geoffrey Davies born in Leeds.
Rommel abandoned El Agheila and retreated to Tripoli.
Mervyn LeRoy's Random Harvest - starring Ronald Colman and Greer Garson - premiered.
The Germans began a retreat from the Caucasus.
Arthur John Oates born in Bermondsey.
James Dyrenforth's Moonshine & Splash broadcast on The Home Service.
Norman Corwin's The Plot To Overthrow Christmas and Wynford Vaughan Thomas's Christmas Post broadcast on The Home Service. John Rawlins's Arabian Nights and Roy William Neil's Sherlock Holmes & The Secret Weaoin - starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce and Lionel Atwill - premiered.
An adaptation of Edgar Wallace's The Case Of The Frightened Lady broadcast on The Home Service.
Salute To The Civil Defence Services broadcast. Ciaran Anne Magdalene Madden born in Colchester.
SL Bensusan's Moon Over The Marsh broadcast.
James Stephens's Julia Elizabeth and Lynn Doyle's A Wild-Goose Chase broadcast in The Home Service's Two Plays strand.
Stephane Grapelly featured on Starlight.
In the Battle of the Barents Sea, the British won a strategic victory, leading Hitler to largely abandon the use of surface raiders in favour of U-boats.
