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Curated playlist

Conflicts in 1942

  • Battle of Alam el HalfaMontgomery knew Rommel's attack plan before the Battle of Alam el Halfa began. Ultra intercepts told him.
  • Battle of YenangyaungAt Yenangyaung in April 1942, a Chinese regiment set out to rescue almost 7,000 encircled British soldiers.
  • Battle of GazalaRommel used a decoy attack at Gazala, then swung his tanks south around the British line by night.
  • Operation MoAllied commanders already knew Japan's Port Moresby invasion force was coming.
  • Second Battle of El AlameinA thousand guns opened fire at once at El Alamein on October 23, 1942. A 13-day battle had begun.
  • Continuation WarFinland fought beside Nazi Germany but insisted it was not an ally. Its leaders said "co-belligerent" instead.
  • Fall of SingaporeIn February 1942, Britain surrendered Singapore with 85,000 soldiers to a Japanese force about a third that size.
  • First Battle of El AlameinThe First Battle of El Alamein was fought at a railway station with no value of its own.
  • North African campaignGerman commanders in North Africa read a US attaché's secret reports.
  • Operation TorchOperation Torch landed Allied troops in 1942 without knowing if French defenders would fight.
  • Doolittle RaidThe Doolittle Raid sent 16 Army bombers off a Navy carrier, though no pilot had ever launched from one.
  • Indian Ocean raidBritish codebreakers knew Japan's carriers were coming to Ceylon in April 1942.
  • Malayan campaignJapanese troops helped win the Malayan campaign by taking bicycles from civilians.
  • Operation PedestalIn Operation Pedestal, a radio-controlled bomber aimed at a carrier failed and hit a mountain in Algeria.
  • Operation UranusA Soviet general once wrote to Stalin asking him to cancel Operation Uranus. Stalin refused.
  • Battle of Buna–GonaThe Battle of Buna–Gona ended with evidence that starving Japanese defenders had eaten their own dead.
  • Case BlueSoviet forces had Germany's 1942 summer plans in hand, but Stalin thought they were a trick.
  • Operation MarsWas Operation Mars a real Soviet offensive or a costly diversion to protect Stalingrad? Historians still disagree.
  • Siege of Sevastopol (1941–1942)By July 1942, only eleven buildings were undamaged in Sevastopol. The siege lasted 250 days.
  • Guadalcanal campaignTwo Japanese battleships fired 973 shells at Henderson Field, yet planes flew from it the next day.
  • Battle of Changsha (1941–1942)Some Japanese soldiers at Changsha carried only 10 to 15 bullets each. Their army had prepared food for only five days.
  • Battle of MadagascarBritish forces landed on Madagascar on the 5th of May 1942 to stop Japan from getting there first.
  • Battle of the Coral SeaIn the Battle of the Coral Sea, the fleets never saw each other. Carrier planes did all the fighting in May 1942.
  • Dutch East Indies campaignJapan attacked Pearl Harbor to clear the way to Dutch East Indies oil. Japan produced under 10% of its oil needs.
  • Kokoda Track campaignAt one point in 1942, Japanese forces stood within 32 km of Port Moresby on the Kokoda Track.
  • Siege of LeningradBesieged Leningrad played a symphony on the day Hitler had picked for a victory banquet. It was aimed at enemy lines.
  • World War II in YugoslaviaYugoslavia's army surrendered in eleven days in April 1941. The war that followed lasted four more years.
  • Battle of the Kerch PeninsulaSoviet troops landing at Kerch in December 1941 had fishing trawlers and whaleboats, not landing craft.
  • Crimean campaignThe German siege of Sevastopol in Crimea lasted 250 days before the city surrendered.
  • Second Battle of KharkovA Soviet offensive at Kharkov in May 1942 ended with more than 250,000 troops trapped.
  • World War IIHistorians still disagree about the day World War II began. Most choose 1 September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland.
  • Siege of Malta (World War II)Malta began World War II with six obsolete biplane fighters. It still survived more than two years of siege.
  • Battle of Rabaul (1942)Before dawn on January 23, 1942, about 5,000 Japanese troops landed at Rabaul. Roughly 1,400 Australians held it.
  • Bombing of ChongqingChina's wartime capital, Chongqing, endured 268 air raids over nearly seven years.
  • Dieppe RaidThe Dieppe Raid was over within ten hours of the landing. Of 6,086 men who landed, 3,623 were dead, wounded or captured.
  • Winter campaign of 1941–1942Soviet troops retook Tikhvin, Klin and Rostov in 1941 but failed to trap German units. The Germans pulled back in order.

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