1939
SEPTEMBER 1939
German Codes - The
British Code & Cipher School moved to Bletchley Park,
England, the site of its magnificent successes breaking
the German
Enigma codes through
the
'Ultra' programme .
The school built on the work of Polish and later French
code-breakers. By April 1940 the first low level
Luftwaffe codes were being deciphered. Many months
followed before comparable progress was made with Naval
codes.
OCTOBER 1939
Americas - The Pan-American
Conference established
a 300-mile plus security zone off the coasts of the
Americas within which all hostile action by the
belligerent powers was forbidden.
NOVEMBER 1939
United States - The
Neutrality
Act
was amended to allow the supply of arms
to belligerents on a 'cash and carry' basis. At the same
time American shipping was banned from the war zones.
1940
MARCH 1940
Canadian Politics -
William
MacKenzie King, Prime
Minister of Canada was reelected by a massive majority in support of
the government's war policies.
APRIL 1940
Atomic Bomb - Just
as the phoney war ended in Europe (it never
existed at sea) the end of the war was foreshadowed when
the British government established the Maud Committee to
oversee nuclear research. Similar steps had already been taken in
the United States, all of which eventually led to an
operational atomic bomb.
German Codes - The
Bletchley Park Ultra programme
was now
decoding some Luftwaffe low-level Enigma codes, partly
because of poor German security procedures. There was
little evidence the hard-won information influenced the
war over the next two violent months.
MAY 1940
British Politics -
Following a 10th May House of Commons debate on the
Norwegian campaign, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
resigned and Winston Churchill assumed leadership.
JUNE 1940
German Codes - 'Ultra'
was now breaking the Luftwaffe Enigma
codes with some regularity, and early in the month had
its first major breakthrough when supporting evidence for
the Knickebein
navigation aid for
bombers was obtained. Army codes were more secure because
of the greater use of land lines for communications, and
the Naval ones were not penetrated until mid-1941.
AUGUST 1940
Royal Navy Codes - These
were changed and for the first time RN operational
signals were secure
from German interception and decoding. It was another
three years before the convoy codes were made safe from the German
SEPTEMBER 1940
United States -
After months of negotiations, a "Ships-for-Bases" agreement was announced on the 5th
for the transfer of 50 old but valuable US destroyers to
the Royal Navy in exchange for British bases in
Newfoundland, Bermuda, the West lndies and British
Guiana. The first of the "flushdeckers" arrived
in Britain towards the end of the month.
Battle
of the Atlantic - The German decoding B-Service
was
instrumental in directing U-boats
to convoys.
Axis Powers -
Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact in Berlin on the 27th. They agreed
to jointly oppose any country joining the Allies at war -
by which they meant the United States.
NOVEMBER 1940
United States - Franklin D.
Roosevelt was elected
to an unprecedented third term of office as President of
the United States.
1941
MARCH 1941
United States - The
Lend-Lease
Bill
was passed into law.
Britain and her Allies would be able to receive American
arms and supplies without immediate payment.
Battle of Cape Matapan - As ships of
the Mediterranean
Fleet covered troop movements to Greece, 'Ultra'
intelligence
was received
reporting the sailing of an Italian battlefleet with one
battleship, six heavy and two light cruisers plus
destroyers to attack the convoy routes. In the battle
that followed, one Italian battleship was damaged and
three heavy cruisers and two destroyers sunk for the loss
of one Royal Navy aircraft.
Eastern Europe and
Balkans - Bulgaria joined the Tripartite Pact on the 1st March and German troops
marched in. As of now, only Yugoslavia in the
Balkans retained national independence for a few days
more. On the 25th Yugoslavia joined the Tripartite Pact, but two days later an anti-Nazi
coup toppled the Government.
MAY 1941
Capture of "U.110" and the
German Enigma - South
of Iceland, "U.110" attacked Liverpool-out
convoy OB318. Blown to the surface by depth charges from
corvette "Aubretia" on the 9th,
"U-110's" crew abandoned ship, but she failed
to go down. A boarding party from destroyer
"Bulldog", led by Sub-Lt Balme, managed to get
aboard. In a matter of hours they transferred to safety
"U-110's" entire Enigma package - coding machine,
code books, rotor settings and charts. The priceless Enigma material
represented one of the greatest intelligence coup ever
and a major naval victory in its own right.
"U-110's" capture was far and away the most
successful of the attempts to capture Enigma codes. In
the March 1941 raid on the Norwegian Lofoten Islands,
spare coding
rotors were found.
Then two days before the "U-110" triumph, a
cruiser force tried to capture the weather trawler
"Munchen" off Iceland. At the end of the coming
June a similar operation was mounted against the
"Lauenberg". In both cases useful papers were taken but the real breakthrough
only came with "U-110".
Germany - Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy, flew to Britain
on his self-appointed peace mission. He was imprisoned in
Britain and disowned by Germany
JUNE 1941
Atomic Bomb - The
report on nuclear research by the Maud Committee led to
the setting up of a development programme by Imperial
Chemical Industries. Code named 'Tube Alloys', it oversaw
both
atomic bomb and reactor work.
AUGUST 1941
Anglo-US Talks -
Winston Churchill crossed the Atlantic in battleship
"Prince of Wales" to meet President Roosevelt
off Argentia, Newfoundland between the 9th and 12th.
Together they drafted the Atlantic Charter setting out their aims for war and
peace. This was signed by Britain, the United States and
13 Allied governments in September.
OCTOBER 1941
Japan - War
Minister Gen Tojo
became Japanese Prime Minister.
Australia
- The Country Party of former Prime Minister Robert
Menzies who resigned earlier in August fell from power. John Curtin and the Labour Party took over.
1942
JANUARY 1942
Arcadia Conference -
In late December and early January, Winston Churchill and
President Roosevelt with their Chiefs of Staff met in
Washington DC. They agreed to the setting up of a
Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee and to the defeat of
Germany as the first priority. On 1st January the United Nations Pact embodying the principles of the
Atlantic Charter was signed in Washington by 26
countries.
War Crimes - The 'Final Solution' for the extermination of all
European Jews was presented to Hitler. As large-scale
transportation got underway, a number of main camps,
including Auschwitz, were prepared for this foul work. By
war's end, 6,000,000 men, women and children had been
killed.
Allied Command,
SE Asia - Early in the month, Gen Wavell
was appointed to command ABDA
(American, British, Dutch, Australian) forces responsible
for holding Malaya and the Dutch East Indies.
FEBRUARY 1942
Battle
of the Atlantic - The
Royal Navy suffered a major setback when U-boats in the
Atlantic changed from the Enigma 'Hydra' code to 'Triton'. This was not
broken until December 1942 - a ten month delay.
JUNE 1942
Anglo-US Talks -
Winston Churchill flew to Washington DC for another
series of meetings with President Roosevelt. They agreed
to share nuclear research and concentrate the work in the United States.
The resulting 'Manhattan Project'
was
put under military control in
September 1942. Agreement did not come so easily on the
question of where to open a Second Front in 1942. The
Americans wanted to land in France to take pressure off
the Russians, but the British considered this impossible
at present and proposed the invasion of French North
Africa. The President did not come to accept this until
July. Planning then started on what became Operation
'Torch'.
Czechoslovakia - Reinhard Heydrich, German 'Protector' of
Czechoslovakia died from wounds sustained in an
assassination attempt in May. In part reprisal, the
village of Lidice was wiped out and its people murdered.
Battle
of Midway - On the
4th/5th in a close run battle, four Japanese carriers - "AKAGI", "HIRYU", "KAGA" and "SORYU" went down. The US "YORKTOWN"
was
badly damaged and finished off by a
Japanese submarine on the 7th. The Japanese forces
retreated, Midway was spared, and the Allies had their
first major strategic victory of World War 2. The
American Navy's successful dispositions were helped by
the breaking of the Japanese naval codes
DECEMBER 1942
Atomic Bomb - The
world's first atomic reactor went critical at Chicago University. By now
problems had arisen over the sharing of the US work with
Britain.
1943
JANUARY 1943
Air War
- RAF Bomber Command by night and increasingly the USAAF
by day mounted a growing attack on Germany and occupied
Europe. As agreed at the Casablanca Conference, U-boat bases and their production centres would be major targets in 1943.
Casablanca Conference -
Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt with
their Chiefs of Staff met for this important conference.
Major areas for discussion included the European invasion in
1944, landings in Sicily and Italy after the Tunisian
campaign, the bombing of Germany and the continuation of
the war in Burma and the Pacific. Losses due to U-boats
and the shortage of shipping proved to be significant
constraints on Allied plans. At this time the two Allied
leaders announced a policy of unconditional surrender of the
Axis powers.
APRIL 1943
War Crimes - The
site of the massacre of Polish officers was found at Katyn near Smolensk: the Russians and
Germans accused each other of the atrocity. In Poland
itself the surviving Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up against the Germans. SS
troops were called in and by May the struggle was over.
Those Jews not killed in the fighting were sent to extermination camps.
'The Man Who Never
Was'- Submarine "Seraph" released the body
of a supposed Royal Marine officer into the sea off
Spain. His false identity and papers helped to persuade the Germans
that the next Allied blows would fall on Sardinia and
Greece as well as Sicily.
Japanese Navy - Adm
Yamamoto, Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet was
killed when his aircraft was ambushed and shot down over
Bougainville in the northern Solomons. His travel plans
were known in advance through decoded intercepts. Since
1940 the American code-breakers had been able to read the Japanese 'Purple'
diplomatic and command ciphers.
MAY 1943
Anglo-US Talks -
Winston Churchill travelled in the troopship "Queen
Mary together with 5,000 German POWs for the Trident Conference, the third major meeting in
Washington DC. The invasion of Sicily had now been agreed
and he pressed for follow-up landings in Italy. The
cross-Channel invasion of Europe continued to be a major
topic of discussion and D-day was set for May 1944.
The Dambusters' Raid
- On the night of the 16th/17th, Wg Cdr Guy Gibson leds
No 617 Squadron in the famous raid on the Ruhr dams. Two
dams were breached by Barnes Wallis' bouncing bombs, but the damage to German industry
was not great.
JUNE 1943
Battle
of the Atlantic - The Royal Navy finally changed the British convoy
codes and made them
secure against the work of the German B-Service. In
contrast, the British 'Ultra' work was fully integrated
into the Admiralty U-boat Tracking Room, and an almost
complete picture of German Navy and U-boat operations was
available.
AUGUST 1943
Canada
- Prime Minister MacKenzie King of Canada hosted the Quebec Conference "Quadrant' series of meetings
in the middle of the month to discuss Allied strategy.
Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt agreed the
outline plans for 'Overlord' - the main invasion of
Europe - including the use of 'Mulberry' harbours, and to an American being the
supreme commander. In the Far East, a South East Asia
Command was to be set up with Adm Mountbatten as supreme
commander and a second Chindit operation mounted in
Burma. Agreement was also reached on the sharing of nuclear research.
Aerospace
War - On the night of the 17th the RAF inflicted
damage on the German rocket research establishment at Peenemunde on the
Baltic coast.
Australia
- John
Curtin was re-elected
Prime Minister and the Labour Party returned to power.
NOVEMBER 1943
Cairo and
Teheran Conferences - On their way to Teheran to meet
Marshal Stalin, Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt
first stopped over at Cairo to discuss operations in Burma and China
with Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek. Arriving at Teheran on the 28th, the agenda included
the Allied invasion of Normandy and southern France, and
Russia's agreement to declare war on Japan once the
Germans were defeated.
Burma
- Under Adm Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia,
Gen Slim's 14th Army prepared for a major offensive into
northern Burma from the area of Kohima and lmphal in
India. Throughout the rest of the war, Adm Mountbatten's
plans to prosecute the campaign even more vigorously in
South East Asia were continually frustrated by his lack
of amphibious
capability.
1944
FEBRUARY 1944
Norway - Norwegian
resistance fighters sank a cargo of heavy water bound for
Germany for nuclear research.
MAY 1944
Aerospace War - A V-2 rocket crashed near Warsaw and resistance
groups managed to arrange for the parts to be
successfully airlifted to Britain.
JUNE 1944
Normandy Invasion -
Partly because of elaborate deception plans, partly because of poor weather,
both strategic and tactical surprise was achieved.
Aerospace War - On
the 13th the first V-1 flying bomb landed on London at the start of a
three-month campaign against southeast England. Amongst
the weapons shortly used against them was Britain's first jet
fighter, the Gloster
Meteor. By then Germany's Me262 jet fighter-bomber had been in action against Allied
bombers.
JULY 1944
International
Conferences - Two major conferences were held in the
United States, starting in July with monetary and
financial affairs at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire,
leading to the setting up of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF)
and the International Bank for Reconstruction &
Development. In August, talks started at Dumbarton Oaks
just outside Washington DC, on the establishment of the United Nations
Organisation (UNO).
Germany - In the 20th July Bomb Plot, a device left by Col von
Stauffenberg in Hitlers East Prussia headquarters
only injured him slightly. In revenge many died and Field
Marshal Rommel, implicated in the attempt on Hitler's
life was forced to commit suicide in October 1944.
Japan - The fall of
Guam and Tinian in the Marianas to US forces had
political consequences. Gen Tojo's government resigned, but a cabinet
apparently just as committed to continuing the war came
to power.
SEPTEMBER 1944
Canada - At the
second Quebec
Conference, Prime
Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt reviewed the
progress of the war. They agreed the British Pacific
Fleet will serve under American Command.
Atomic Bomb - Far
across North America in the southwest, the massive atomic bomb
programme approached
its climax at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Although
intelligence reports suggested Germany had made little
progress with nuclear research, the by-now mainly
American work continued and a B-29 Flying Superfortress bomber unit was formed to train for the
dropping of this awesome and untried weapon.
Aerospace War - It
was only when Canadian First Army overran the V-1 buzz-bomb sites that London and the
southeast of England saw the last one land. By then
nearly 10,000 launchings of the sub-sonic pilotless
"cruise missile" had inflicted 25,000 dead and
wounded civilian casualties. Then on the 8th the first
supersonic V-2 rocket hit London in a deadly campaign that lasted
for over six months, and against which there was no
defence.
NOVEMBER 1944
United States - Franklin D.
Roosevelt was re-elected
President for an unprecedented fourth time. Harry S
Truman joins him as Vice President.
DECEMBER 1944
Greece -
Disagreements with the Greek communist movement EAM/ELAS
over the future government of the country led to fighting
and the declaration of martial law. By month's end the
fighting startED to die down as proposals for the
setting-up of a regency were announced. The troubles were
not over until February 1945, and trouble flareD again
with the outbreak of civil war in 1946.
1945
FEBRUARY 1945
Yalta Conference -
For a week early in the month, Prime Minister Churchill,
President Roosevelt and Generalissimo Stalin met at Yalta in the Crimea. With the Russians
advancing through Eastern Europe and agreement on the
future frontiers of Poland and the division of Germany
into four occupation zones, the shape of much of post-war Europe
was determined. Stalin
agreeD to declare war on Japan once the war in the west
was over.
MARCH 1945
Aerospace War - As
the V-weapon
attack on Antwerp
continued, the last V-2 landed on London on the 27th, by
which time 1,000 rockets had killed and wounded nearly
10,000 people in southeast England.
APRIL 1945
United States - Franklin Roosevelt died in America on the 12th and
Vice President Truman was sworn in as President of the
United States. Britain and especially Winston Churchill
lost a great friend who did so much to bolster the
country at a time when the British Empire stood alone and
many Americans were staunchly isolationist. Harry Truman was
soon faced with the decision
whether or not to use the A-bomb.
International
Conference - Starting towards the end of the
month, San Francisco hosted an international conference
to draw up the constitution of the United Nations
Organisation. 50 countries signed the UN Charter on 26 June.
Western Front - In
their advance, the Allies over-ran Belsen, Buchenwald and
Dachau revealing to the world the full horror of the Nazi
regime. The Russians had also captured concentration camps in the east.
End of the German
Surface Fleet - When Germany surrendered, only three
cruisers survived. Of these "Prinz Eugen" was
used in A-bomb trials in the Pacific and "Leipzig"
scuttled in the North Sea in 1946 loaded with poison gas
munitions.
Italy -
Throughout the campaign Italian partisans had waged a
bloody war behind German lines. Near Lake Como on the
28th, Benito
Mussolini and his
mistress were captured and executed.
Germany - As the
month drew to a close, Heinrich Himmler tried to surrender to Britain and
the United States through Swedish intermediaries, but
anything short of unconditional surrender was refused. On
the 29th in his Berlin bunker, Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun and nominated Grand-Adm Karl
Doenitz as his
successor. Next day Hitler and his wife committed suicide
and Doenitz became Fuehrer on 1st May.
JULY 1945
Atomic Bomb - The
world's first A-bomb was successfully exploded at
Alamogordo, New Mexico on the 16th July in Operation
'Trinity'.
Potsdam Conference -
In the second half of the month, the heads of the three
great powers met at Potsdam outside Berlin to continue
discussing the future of Europe and final defeat of Japan. By the end of
the conference only Stalin remained of the original three
major Allied leaders who had met in the past. Accompanied
by President Truman of the United States for the first
time, Winston Churchill was only there at the start. On
the 26th the Potsdam Declaration was broadcast, demanding
the unconditional surrender of Japan.
British Politics
- Winston
Churchill's
Conservative Party was swept from power and the Labour
Party under Clement Attlee took over the reins of the wartime
Coalition Government. The new Prime Minister travelled to
Potsdam for the rest of the conference.
Australia - Prime
Minister John Curtin failed to see the end of the war, dying on
the 5th after an illness. Acting PM, Joseph Chiffley,
succeeded him.
AUGUST 1945
6th - B-29
Superfortress "Enola Gay", flying from Tinian
dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
The equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT killed 80,000
people.
9th - The second A-bomb was detonated over Nagasaki and over 40,000 people died.