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Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-23-1941
Event Description: (Contributor's Note:This is a continuation of Timeline 2668--Red Tide Part 2:Operation Tunguska.)
In a live radio address from the White House,President Franklin Roosevelt declares that a state of war now exists between the United States and the Soviet Union:"Yesterday,June 22nd,1941,a date which will live in infamy,the British Isles were subjected to sudden and unprovoked attack from the naval,air,and ground forces of Soviet Russia.For the sake of our own liberty it is now vitally necessary that we should intervene on Britain's behalf,for should Stalin succeed in his dastardly aim in subjugating the British people,there can be little doubt that America would be the next target of his malevolent designs."
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-26-1941
Event Description: The Soviets launch a blitzkrieg assault against Allied forces in Belgium,hoping to drive British,French,and Belgian units there into a panicked retreat;to the invaders' surprise,however,the Allied defenses hold firm and within 12 hours the invasion forces are forced to retreat back to Holland in the face of a vigorous British counteroffensive.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-29-1941
Event Description: In his first-ever face-to-face meeting with President Roosevelt,Emperor Hirohito suggests that the China peace accord be expanded to include a mutual defense pact between the United States and Japan.Hirohito has become increasingly worried that the Soviets are about to pull out of the non-aggression pact they signed with Japan just two months earlier,and he is eager to secure American protection from Soviet aggression;Secretary of State Cordell,sharing Hirohito's anxieties about Soviet expansionism in the Far East,strongly recommends that the president accept the emperor's proposal.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-30-1941
Event Description: British troops in Spain launch Operation May Queen,the assault on Madrid.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-2-1941
Event Description: Soviet troops seize the Scottish Highland towns of Thurso and Scourie with only minimal resistance;however,Scapa Flow continues to hold out against the Red Army and there are signs the British may be organizing a counteroffensive against the Soviet invasion force.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-6-1941
Event Description: The United States and Japan sign a mutual defense pact in Washington;in accordance with the terms of the new agreement,the Japanese government will accept a Swiss-backed cease-fire to end the war with China and the US will end its embargo against Japan within three weeks.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-8-1941
Event Description: General Emilio Mola is overthrown by a mixed group of Spanish civilian leaders and anti-Falangist military officers.The new government then extends peace feelers to Britain and France.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-10-1941
Event Description: Allied troops in Holland break through the Warsaw Pact defenses south and west of Amsterdam.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-12-1941
Event Description: Royal Army general Bernard Law Montgomery,chief strategist behind the victorious Allied campaign in the Mediterranean,returns to Britain to assume command of Operation Cromwell,the British offensive to drive the Soviets out of Scotland.His return comes just in the nick time:the Red Army has now reached Fort Augustus and is making preparations for a multi-column thrust on Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-13-1941
Event Description: The new Spanish government signs a treaty officially ending hostilities between Spain and the Allies.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-16-1941
Event Description: General Andrei Vlasov,commander-in-chief of the Soviet occupation forces in Norway,leaves his headquarters in Oslo on the pretext of making an inspection tour of Red Army outposts along the Norwegian border with Sweden.However,he soon gives his NKVD handlers the slip and sneaks across the Swedish border in civilian clothes,then defects to the Allies at the British embassy in Stockholm.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-18-1941
Event Description: An infuriated Joseph Stalin,acting against the advice of his generals and his top diplomats,threatens to invade Sweden if Vlasov is not returned to Soviet custody within 36 hours.The Soviet dictator's ploy backfires in the most disastrous and ironic way possible:less than four hours after Stalin has issued his demand,the Swedish army mobilizes to defend its borders against Soviet attack and the Swedish foreign ministry,abandoning almost a century of neutrality in European affairs,begins negotiations with Britain and the United States to join the Atlantic Charter alliance.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-20-1941
Event Description: Allied troops in Holland begin advancing on Arnhem and capture the Frisian coastal islands of Texel and Vlieland.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-21-1941
Event Description: Germany's new Communist army,the Volkswehr,begins gathering troops and equipment for an attack on Allied bases in northern Franche.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-22-1941
Event Description: Sweden is admitted into the Atlantic Charter.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-23-1941
Event Description: The British begin Operation Cromwell with an attack on the Soviet southern and eastern flanks near Fort Augustus;during the assault RAF fighter J.H. 'Ginger' Lacey sacrifices his life by crashing his badly damaged Spitfire into a Red Army supply convoy to stop a Soviet counteroffensive that otherwise would have cut the British lines in two.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-24-1941
Event Description: The six-day standoff between Moscow and Stockholm ends as Soviet troops invade Sweden;however,instead of the easy conquest the Red Army had been expecting Stalin's forces are handed stinging a stinging defeat as civilian militias band toogether with the Swedish regular army to inflict devastating casualties on the invasion force.An attempt by Soviet bombers to raid the port of Malmo ends in disaster when two-thirds of the attacking planes are shot down by Swedish air defense units.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-25-1941
Event Description: Encouraged by the news of Sweden's success in repulsing the previous day's Soviet invasion,anti-Communist guerrillas in Norway begin an uprising against the Red Army occupation forces in Oslo and Stavanger.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-27-1941
Event Description: The Soviets' already awkward position in Scandanavia becomes even more precarious as Finland joins the Atlantic Charter.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 7-28-1941
Event Description: For the first time since the Third Reich collapsed,London comes under air attack as dive bombers from the carrier Field Marshal Suvorov hit Buckingham Palace,St. Paul's Cathedral,and the Parliament houses in Westminster.That afternoon prime minister Winston Churchill issues a succinct order to the Royal Navy:"Destroy the Suvorov!"
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-1-1941
Event Description: Swedish bombers attack Soviet military targets in and around Trondheim.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-2-1941
Event Description: The largest American expeditionary force ever assembled,comprising 400,000 ground troops and 5,000 combat aircraft,departs for France to bolster Allied defenses in western Europe against the Warsaw Pact.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-4-1941
Event Description: The USS Ranger puts to sea from Norfolk to rendezvous with a US Navy Atlantic fleet task force assisting the British in hunting down the Field Marshal Suvorov.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-6-1941
Event Description: MI6 covert operatives in the Ukraine cable London with the ominous news that the Chernobyl research team is only a year away from successfully achieving a self-sustaining chain reaction at their main reactor unit.This puts the Soviets one step closer to having a working atomic bomb.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-7-1941
Event Description: The USS Ranger and her sister ship Saratoga rendezvous with the main body of the US Atlantic task force.Scout planes are immediately dispatched to look for the Suvorov.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-10-1941
Event Description: The Royal Navy task force hunting the Suvorov receives word from the Saratoga that Saratoga and Ranger scout planes have sighted the Nevsky-class carrier attempting to make its way to the Soviet naval base at Kronstadt.By 6:00 PM London time that evening,British and American naval authorities have given the go-ahead for a full-scale air strike against the Suvorov.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-11-1941
Event Description: The Suvorov comes under attack from American and British dive bombers and torpedo planes just after dawn;the raiders so thoroughly surprise Suvorov's crew that over half her fighter complement is wiped out in the attack's opening minutes.Despite a dogged defense,the Soviet warship is sunk with all hands at 8:23 AM Washington time.That afternoon,Saratoga's captain notifies President Roosevelt of the sinking with the succinct cable message "Scratch one flattop!"
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-12-1941
Event Description: Mexico becomes the first Latin American country to be admitted into the Atlantic Charter.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-14-1941
Event Description: Finland formally declares war on the Soviet Union.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-16-1941
Event Description: 300 Scottish and English civilians are massacred at Fort Augustus by NKVD death squads in retaliation for the assassination by local guerrillas of Red Army marshal Semyon Budenny,commander of Soviet occupation forces in Scotland.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-18-1941
Event Description: Japanese ground troops begin pulling out of mainland China.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-19-1941
Event Description: With the rallying cry of "Let's give it 'em back for Fort Augustus!",Scottish partisans and Allied regular troops assault the Soviet defensive lines near Glasgow.For both sides,the battle will prove to be the bloodiest of the war in Britain;in fact,one Red Army cavalry unit will literally be wiped out to the last man.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-21-1941
Event Description: The new German Communist air force,the Volkisches Luftsheer(People's Air Army),sees combat for the first time as three of its MiG fighter squadrons engage the RAF during an air raid on Soviet military positions in western Denmark.107 bombers are shot down by VLH pilots,with another 41 falling to Soviet fighter squadrons out of Copenhagen.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-23-1941
Event Description: The Red Army begins secretly gathering troops and equipment in Siberia in preparation for an amphibious assault across the Bering Strait against Alaska and Canada;the projected assault,code-named Operation Sitka,is aimed at securing a strategic foothold for an invasion of the US mainland.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-24-1941
Event Description: Three US Army infantry divisions are transferred from Iceland to Scotland to support the Allied assault on the Soviet lines around Glasgow.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-26-1941
Event Description: Soviet Il-4 bombers attack the Scapa Flow naval base;eight British warships,including the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious,are sunk in the bombing.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-28-1941
Event Description: Soviet infantry and armored units breach the Allied defensive lines near Scapa Flow,dealing the British a stunning tactical defeat.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-30-1941
Event Description: Former Japanese war minister Hideki Tojo dies of heart failure;his passing is greeted with relief in some quarters of Japan's political hierarchy,as it was feared he might endanger the new pact with the United States.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 8-31-1941
Event Description: British and Commonwealth forces mount an unsuccessful counterattack against the Soviet troops occupying Scapa Flow.Meanwhile,in Norway NKVD death squads raze Stavanger in revenge for a guerrilla attack the previous night which destroyed the city's main Red Army barracks.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-1-1941
Event Description: The American destroyer USS Reuben James sinks two Soviet submarines off the French coast.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-3-1941
Event Description: Soviet infantry and armored divisions begin advancing on Edinburgh.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-4-1941
Event Description: Stalin comes one step closer to making good on his boast of celebrating May Day 1942 in Trafalgar Square as Soviet armor and infantry divisions force Allied troops near Glasgow;however,Allied defenses around Edinburgh are holding firm with the aid of civilian militias.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-5-1941
Event Description: Intelligence officials from the Japanese and Canadian embassies in Washington meet with OSS director William Donovan for a debriefing on Operation Sitka.During the past 36 hours,new information has come to light suggesting the Soviets plan to supplement their invasion of Alaska and Canada with a southward diversionary attack on the southern island of Hokkaido.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-7-1941
Event Description: Just after 4:30 AM Paris time,French,British,and American forces mount a pre-emptive attack against Warsaw Pact positions along the Franco-German border;the assault was inititated on direct orders from Winston Churchill in order to forestall a feared impending Volkswehr/Red Army invasion of northern France.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-8-1941
Event Description: Andrei Vlasov assumes command of the Russo-American Liberation Brigade,a volunteer corps of anti-Communist Russian emigres organized to support Allied efforts against the Red Army in Europe.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-9-1941
Event Description: Nikita Khrushchev,deputy chief political commissar for the Soviet occupation forces in Norway,is assassinated in Oslo by anti-Communist guerrillas.The assassination marks the beginning of a new wave of partisan attacks being mounted in revenge for the Stavanger massacre.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-10-1941
Event Description: Controversial tank commander General George S. Patton arrives in Cherbourg to take charge of American combat operations in France."We're going to kill those lousy Commie bastards by the truckload."Patton boasts to a British colleague shortly after establishing his new headquarters.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-11-1941
Event Description: NKVD sabotage units plant more than a dozen explosive charges in the basement of New York City's Chrysler Building;although more than half of them fail to detonate,those that do go off manage to start a three-alarm fire that forces FDNY authorities to evacuate the building.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-12-1941
Event Description: Canadian and South African infantry units break through the Soviet right flank near Edinburgh and trap Red Army forces in a steady shrinking pocket just outside Holyrood Castle.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-14-1941
Event Description: The battle for Edinburgh ends as Allied infantry mop up the remnants of the Soviet pocket near Holyrood Castle.When word of the Edinburgh defeat reaches Marshal Zhukov at his headquarters in Berlin,he sacks three of his division commanders on the spot;over the next two days he will have a dozen more senior officers fired or court-martialled and at least one battalion commander will commit suicide.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-15-1941
Event Description: Two battalions of the US Army 3rd Infantry Division clash with elements of the Soviet 8th Guards Army 15 miles west of Fort Augustus.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-16-1941
Event Description: Allied troops land on the coast of Denmark.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-18-1941
Event Description: American dive bombers attack the Soviet battlefront near Glasgow at its two weakest points;that same day the battleships USS New Jersey and HMS Prince of Wales shell the main Soviet naval outpost at Scapa Flow,sinking five warships.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-20-1941
Event Description: Italian prime minister Pietro Badoglio issues an executive decree formally abolishing the Fascist Party.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-22-1941
Event Description: Allied armored units cut the Soviet battlefront near Glasgow in two and trap some 60,000 Red Army troops in an almost completely isolated pocket northwest of the ancient Scottish city.100,000 more Soviet troops begin a panicked retreat towards Fort Augustus.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-24-1941
Event Description: Determined to retain his footholds in Europe at all costs,Stalin issues his famous "Not A Step Back" decree,an order mandating that any Soviet soldier who yields an inch of territory to Allied troops is to be executed for desertion.Many of the Red Army troops in Scotland,however,ignore his order and continue pulling back towards Fort Augustus,their attitude being summed up by a casual remark from a tank corporal:"Stalin can't shoot us all,can he?"
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-26-1941
Event Description: Anti-Communist guerrilla forces in Norway mount a frontal assault on the Soviet occupation forces' Oslo headquarters,destroying 10,000 tons of munitions and 200 pages of files on the Norwegian underground.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-27-1941
Event Description: The Soviet pocket near Glasgow begins to collapse under continuous pressure from Allied ground and air assault.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-28-1941
Event Description: Allied infantry units enter Fort Augustus.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 9-29-1941
Event Description: The US Army Air Corps unveils a new high altitude long-range bomber,the B-29 Superfortress,in an airstrike against Red Army outposts near Aachen.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-1-1941
Event Description: Six British divisions breach the Warsaw Pact defenses around Copenhagen as Soviet forces in Denmark are forced to begin pulling back towards the Danish-German border.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-2-1941
Event Description: In the Netherlands,troops of the US 82nd Airborne Division liberate Eindhoven,opening up a wide path for additional Allied forces to move on Arnhem.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-4-1941
Event Description: Italy,Greece,and Turkey formally join the Atlantic Charter.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-5-1941
Event Description: The last pockets of Soviet resistance in Fort Augustus surrender to the Allies.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-6-1941
Event Description: The NKVD's station chief in Washington cables Moscow in a state of alarm bordering on total panic;the Americans have learned of the Chernobyl project's existence and are collaborating with Ukrainian nationalists to perpetrate acts of sabotage against it.Worse,the US government now has its own atomic bomb program,code-named "the Manhattan Project",which is being conducted in co-operation with a team of British scientists at Bletchey Park.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-7-1941
Event Description: The first advance units of Andrey Vlasov's Russo-American Liberation Brigade are deployed to Britain to support the Allied campaign to retake Scapa Flow.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-9-1941
Event Description: British troops reach the heart of Copenhagen amid heavy Warsaw Pact resistance.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-10-1941
Event Description: British and Canadian infantry capture the last pockets of Soviet resistance near Glasgow.This time,Zhukov himself is the one to lose his command;less than an hour after word of the defeat reaches Moscow,Stalin sacks his former favorite general and appoints Zhukov's personal rival,Ivan Koniev,as new commander-in-chief of Soviet forces in Europe.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-11-1941
Event Description: Allied infantry units and Danish anti-Communist partisans wipe out the last Warsaw Pact holdouts in Copenhagen;at the height of the battle a grenade explosion damages the famous "Little Mermaid" statue near the entrance to Copenhagen's harbor.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-12-1941
Event Description: The last Soviet troops in Scapa Flow surrender to the US Army.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-13-1941
Event Description: The German government-in-exile in London elects former Leipzig mayor Karl Goerdeler as its new chancellor;in his first official act,Goerdeler issues a decree outlawing the Nazi Party.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-14-1941
Event Description: Swedish ski troops,aided by Norwegian guerrillas,launch a surprise offensive against the Soviet occupation base at Trondheim;simultaneously US Army and Marine Corps amphibious landings isolate the Soviet garrison in the Faeroe Islands from outside help.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-15-1941
Event Description: American ground troops in Europe face the Volkswehr for the first time as the Allied thrust into Germany reaches Kaiserslautern.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-17-1941
Event Description: General Mark W. Clark,second-in-command of the US expeditionary force in Europe,reports that the Faeroe Islands are now completely under Allied control;the OSS and its British counterpart,SOE,will set up bases there shortly to ferry vital supplies to the guerrilla forces in Denmark and Norway.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-18-1941
Event Description: Trinity University of Cambridge graduate and suspected Communist sympathizer Kim Philby is arrested by Scotland Yard after papers surface linking him to an NKVD spy ring believed to be trying to infiltrate the British atomic bomb development program.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-19-1941
Event Description: The Soviets put the world's largest battleship,the Empress Catherine,into active service;stationed at Petropavlovsk,the Catherine is thought to be the first in a new line of similar Soviet warships intended to give the Red Navy a firepower advantage over their Japanese and Western adversaries.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-20-1941
Event Description: German journalist and NKVD agent Richard Sorge commits suicide in a Tokyo jail cell just hours before he is scheduled to be indicted on suspicion of passing classified Japanese military documents to the Soviet Union.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-22-1941
Event Description: American,British,and Japanese defense strategists meet in Singapore to map out plans for a full-scale offensive against Soviet forces in Siberia.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-24-1941
Event Description: American troops liberate the Orkney Islands in a lightning offensive that catches local Soviet troops unpreapared;by 10:00 AM London time most of the islands are back in Allied hands,and just after 1:30 PM the last pockets of Soviet resistance on Orkney give themselves up to US infantry units.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-25-1941
Event Description: American,British,and Irish forces overrun the Red Army's Shetland Islands garrison.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-27-1941
Event Description: A combined Japanese-American naval task force gathers at Midway Island with orders to hunt down and sink the Empress Catherine;with war between the Soviet Union and Japan now all but inevitable,the prevailing view among military experts on both sides of the Pacific is that the Soviets will try to use the Catherine to disrupt Western and Japanese commercial shipping.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-28-1941
Event Description: The US Army Air Corp bombs Berlin for the first time as B-29s and B-17s hit Warsaw Pact military and industrial targets at the outer edge of the German capital.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-30-1941
Event Description: Warsaw Pact infantry and armor division engage Allied troops on the outskirts of Rotterdam.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 10-31-1941
Event Description: Swedish regular troops and Norwegian guerrillas mop up the last pockets of Red Army resistance in Narvik;meanwhile,a Finnish air raid on Leningrad seriously damages the city's naval base.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-2-1941
Event Description: The remnants of the Soviet expeditionary force to Scotland begin gathering at Inverness and Aberdeen for evacuation back to Norway.Though officially Radio Moscow refers to it only as a "temporary tactical withdrawal",in reality the Russians are on the brink of their worst military defeat since the Battle of Tsushima Strait during the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese war.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-3-1941
Event Description: Swedish warplanes bomb the Soviet military garrison at Trondheim.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-4-1941
Event Description: US Communist Party general secretary Gus Hall,arrested a week earlier after evidence surfaced tying him to the NKVD's bungled Chrysler Building attack,is indicted in a federal courtroom in Baltimore on treason and conspiracy charges.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-6-1941
Event Description: On the eve of the 24th anniversary of the start of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution,Joseph Stalin delivers a radio address denouncing Andrey Vlasov as "a traitor to the Motherland" and calling for Vlasov's immediate execution the moment he returns to Russian soil.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-8-1941
Event Description: The last Soviet troops in Rotterdam begin pulling out,leaving the responsibility for maintaining Warsaw Pact control of the city in the hands of Volkswehr reserve battalions and a 50% undermanned Polish tank division.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-10-1941
Event Description: The Empress Catherine's sister ship,the Pavel Milyukov,departs the Soviet naval base at Vladivostok on her maiden cruise.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-12-1941
Event Description: American and British troops clear out the last remaining Warsaw Pact troops in Rotterdam;to the south,Soviet forces are driven out of the town of Nijmegen by French armor and infantry.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-13-1941
Event Description: Ivan Kozhedub,the Soviet air force's top-scoring fighter ace since October of 1940,is shot down while leading tactical air strikes against Allied command positions near The Hague;fearful of being lynched by Dutch civilians if they get hold of him,Kozhedub steals a fishing boat and rows it back to Norway.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-16-1941
Event Description: Scout planes are sent out from the carriers Hiryu,Kaga,Enterprise,and Yorktown to look for the Empress Catherine.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-18-1941
Event Description: The last remaining Soviet troops in Scotland depart Aberdeen for Norway,effectively ending Operation Tunguska in failure for the Red Army.In a speech before the House of Commons that afternoon,a jubilant Winston Churchill declares:"We have cut the last traces of the Bolshevik cancer out of the body of England,and soon we will also remove it from continental Europe."
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-21-1941
Event Description: The last Soviet troops in Denmark retreat into Germany;that same day the British seize the German border town of Flensbourg.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-24-1941
Event Description: Allied troops encircle Arnhem,cutting off the Soviets' last avenue of retreat out of the city.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-25-1941
Event Description: Japanese search planes signal the Akagi that they've located the Empress Catherine;the commander of the Japanese naval contingent,Admiral Chuichi Nagumo,then relays the information to American task force commander Admiral William F. Halsey,and by 1300 hours that afternoon the combined Japanese-American squadron is in hot pursuit of the Soviet battlewagon.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-26-1941
Event Description: At 6:04 AM Honolulu time,the Empress Catherine comes under attack from American and Japanese naval and air forces;during the second wave of air strikes an American dive bomber manages to score a direct hit on her bridge,killing the captain and his entire senior staff.By 9:00 AM the Soviet warship is so badly crippled she can't even move her main forward gun turret,and at 9:26 AM salvos from the battleships Yamato and USS Arizona sink the Catherine with all hands on board.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-27-1941
Event Description: Swedish regular forces and Norwegian partisans,backed up by a company of US Army Rangers,begin moving against the Soviet garrison at Trondheim.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 11-29-1941
Event Description: The royal government of Denmark formally re-assumes office and joins the Atlantic Charter;that same day the last pockets of Soviet resistance in Arnhem surrender to the Allies.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-1-1941
Event Description: American,Britsh,and French troops encircle Amsterdam,prompting Soviet and other Warsaw Pact troops to dig in for a long siege.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-3-1941
Event Description: Utrecht is captured by tanks of General Patton's Third Armored Division.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-5-1941
Event Description: Spain,a de facto member of the Atlantic Charter since the collapse of the Falangist regime,officially joins the alliance;Portugal will follow suit two weeks later.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-7-1941
Event Description: The Japanese naval base at Hiroshima is devastated by a surprise attack involving three Nevsky-class aircraft carriers,five destroyers,and the Empress Catherine-class battleship Znamenskaya Square.Some 4,000 Japanese naval personnel are lost in the brutal three-hour assault;in a radio address from the White House,President Roosevelt condemns the Hiroshima raid as "naked barbarism".
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-8-1941
Event Description: Vowing to avenge the previous day's attack,Imperial Army general Tomoyuki Yamashiita prepares an amphibious assault against the Soviet port of Vladivostok.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-11-1941
Event Description: The leader of Norway's main anti-Communist partisan group reports that Trondheim is now completely in Allied hands.At Narvik,US Army engineers begin assembling materials and equipment in preparation for the rebuilding of Stavanger.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-12-1941
Event Description: The Allies begin Operation Torch,the long-awaited assault on the strategic port of Bergen.Three British,five American,one Spanish,two South African,four Canadian,and two Australian divisions storm ashore along five different landing zones while Norwegian partisans attack the Soviets from the rear.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-14-1941
Event Description: Allied forces,led by US 82nd Airborne Division commander General James M. Gavin,begin attacking Soviet positions in and around Amsterdam.General Ivan Chernyakovsky,C-in-C of the beleaguered Soviet forces in Holland,narrowly escapes death when a sniper's bullet misses his head by less than two inches.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-16-1941
Event Description: The Allied campaign in Germany pulls off a major strategic victory as American and British troops,supported by units of the fledgling Deutschen Befreiung Freikorps("German Liberation Volunteer Corps"),seize the industrial city of Dusseldorf.DBF leader Heinz Guiderian,a former high-ranking Wehrmacht general who was unceremoniously kicked out of the service shortly before the Soviets took Berlin,secures the city for the Allies by capturing the local NKVD office at the height of the assault.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-17-1941
Event Description: 10,000 Japanese troops land at the mouth of Vladivostok harbor amid ferocious Soviet resistance.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-19-1941
Event Description: Finnish infantry,armor and cavalry units cross the Soviet border just after 10:00 PM Moscow time in the start of a four-column offensive on Leningrad.Stalin orders the invasion halted at all costs.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-22-1941
Event Description: Dutch partisans liberate the coastal town of Haarlem from the Red Army;meanwhile,a Volkswehr attempt to breach the Allied front lines around Amsterdam is thrown back with severe losses.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-23-1941
Event Description: In a speech broadcast live from Berlin,German Communist dictator Walter Ulbricht denounces the DBF as "thugs and turncoats" and threatens death for any German civilian who co-operates with the insurgent group or with advancing Allied troops.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-25-1941
Event Description: Defying a ban on religious observances by Soviet occupation authorities,Catholic and Protestant clergy in Oslo hold a Christmas Day mass on the grounds of the Norwegian royal palace.To the dismay of the Kremlin,several dozen Soviet troops desert their posts to attend the service.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 12-27-1941
Event Description: Soviet troops in Siberia launch a counterattack against General Yamashiita's invasion force.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-3-1942
Event Description: The Soviet navy's fourth Empress Catherine-class battleship,the Georgi Piekhanov,is launched from its Atlantic base at Murmansk.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-5-1942
Event Description: Cologne is liberated by the British 8th and French 2nd Armies;that same day, the last Soviet soldiers surrender in Amsterdam,marking the beginning of the end of Warsaw Pact control of the Netherlands.In Germany,elements of the US 5th Amry secure Saarbrucken and Karlsruhe while British,Canadian and Danish troops launch an offensive against the port city of Kiel.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-7-1942
Event Description: Finnish troops occupy the city of Petrozayodsk with the aid of dissident Russian and Ukranian soldiers from the city's Red Army garrison.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-8-1942
Event Description: The Finnish drive on Leningrad stalls five miles outside the city as a result of a combination of punishing winter cold and a massive new Soviet artillery bombardment.However,morale remains high among the Finnish forces and two divisions of Swedish cavalry are being sent to the battlefront to help break the logjam.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-10-1942
Event Description: After eight days' fighting,Stuttgart falls to the US 9th Army.This battle has seen the Volkswehr incur its worst casualties yet in a single engagement:of the 200,000 soldiers originally deployed to defend the city,more than 140,000 have been killed or wounded,14,000 captured,and 3,000 reported missing in action.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-11-1942
Event Description: The Swedish air force makes its first bombing raid on Berlin,damaging the city's main Volkisches Luftsheer airfield.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-13-1942
Event Description: An eight-ship Red Navy task force led by the battleship Pavel Milyukov departs Petropavlovsk for a diversionary raid on Japanese coastal defenses on the island of Hokkaido.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-15-1942
Event Description: A Red Army colonel defects to the Allies at General Patton's field headquarters in Belgium and makes a shocking accusation:the NKVD,he claims,is running a series of death camps throughout occupied Europe whose inmates are being systematically executed as,in the words of Joseph Stalin,"class enemies of the Soviet state".
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-17-1942
Event Description: Allied forces liberate Bergen and prepare to attack the Soviet garrison at Oslo;in the Netherlands Maastricht,the last major Dutch city still under Warsaw Pact control,is captured by Australian infantry and tank units.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-18-1942
Event Description: The Pavel Milyukov and three of the warships accompanying her on the Hokkaido raid are torpedoed by Japanese submarines;the remaining vessels,however,manage to slip through Japanese coastal defenses and inflict serious damage on the island's airfields and shore batteries.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-21-1942
Event Description: The first man-made chain reaction in human history takes place in a physics lab at the University of Chicago,giving the Allies a leg up in their efforts to produce a working atomic bomb before the Soviets do.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-22-1942
Event Description: The Soviets launch a counterassault against General Yamashiita's landing force just south of Ussuriysk.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-24-1942
Event Description: The Soviet atomic weapons program suffers a huge setback as Ukrainian nationalist partisans derail a train carrying 45 tons of heavy water intended for Chernobyl.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-26-1942
Event Description: Soviet air force bombers stage a "fire raid" on Tokyo,using more than 20,000 tons of incendiary bombs to deliberately trigger a massive firestorm in the heart of the Japanese capital;nearly 200,000 Japanese civilians are killed.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-28-1942
Event Description: The Allies begin their long-awaited push on Oslo,mounting a five-column westerly thrust toward the Norwegian captial;two other columns are sent northeast on a diversionary offensive against Soviet forces occupying Lillehammer.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-30-1942
Event Description: The Finns and Swedes make a major breakthrough on the Leningrad battlefront,pouring through a gap in the Soviets' left flank to reach the outskirts of the city.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 1-31-1942
Event Description: Elie Wiesel,a young inmate of the NKVD detention camp at Cluj,Romania, escapes and begins his making his way to Turkey;the journey will later be recounted in his postwar autobiography Night.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-1-1942
Event Description: British and Dutch troops capture the port of Wilhelmshaven with only minimal resistance from the Volkswehr;however,Danish forces attempting to secure a foothold at the port of Kiel come under heavy fire and are forced to pull back.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-2-1942
Event Description: The Red Army begins pushing Yamashiita's landing force back towards the outskirts of Vladivostok.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-4-1942
Event Description: 100,000 US Marines under the command of General Lewis "Chesty" Puller execute an "end run" assault on Soviet coastal fortifications at Tromso.The twofold objective of the attack is to relieve some of the pressure on Allied forces driving toward Oslo and secure a bridgehead for future American combat operations against the Soviets in Europe.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-5-1942
Event Description: Fears that the NKVD is using its detention camp network in occupied Europe for mass executions are heightened when OSS deep cover agents in Poland report that one such camp,located near the town of Oswiecim,is putting some of its inmates to death using a poison gas derived from the insecticide compound Zyklon-B.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-8-1942
Event Description: Allied troops reach the outskirts of Lillehammer.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-10-1942
Event Description: Allied troops enter Lillehammer amid ferocious Soviet opposition.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-12-1942
Event Description: The Danish make their second attempt to take Kiel,this time managing to establish a brief foothold in the city's outer neighboorhoods before once again being forced to retreat.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-14-1942
Event Description: The Soviets launch a stinging counterattack against Allied troops at Lillehammer.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-16-1942
Event Description: Italian troops cross the Austrian border and begin attacking Volkswehr positions along the Brenner Pass.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-17-1942
Event Description: The Allies reach the outskirts of Oslo and immediately begin shelling Soviet positions inside the Norwegian capital;that same day Norwegian guerrillas carry out crippling hit-and-run attacks on Red Army positions near Lillehammer.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-18-1942
Event Description: The last pockets of Soviet resistance in Tromso surrender to the US Marines;nearly half of Norway has been liberated from Soviet occupation at this point,and guerrilla activity is weakening Moscow's hold on the rest.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-20-1942
Event Description: US Army Air Corps B-29s and RAF Lancasters stage the first Allied air raid of the war on Warsaw.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-21-1942
Event Description: Italian and British troops begin a major drive on the Austrian city of Innsbruck.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-22-1942
Event Description: General Tomoyuki Yamashiita is severely wounded in a strafing attack on his field headquarters near Vladivostok;his second-in-command,Lt. General Masaharu Homma,assumes temporary leadership of the Japanese forces in Siberia and orders his troops to hold fast against the Red Army.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-23-1942
Event Description: The last remaining Soviet troops in Lillehammer surrender to the Americans;in Oslo,Allied forces reach the heart of the city supported by air strikes from carrier-based US Navy dive bombers.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-25-1942
Event Description: Their morale strengthened by General Homma's confidence,Japanese troops in Siberia mount a second offensive on Ussuriysk,breaking the Soviet lines in two and sending Red Army infantry units in the area into full retreat.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-27-1942
Event Description: The last Soviet soldiers in Oslo surrender to the Allies;that same day a detachment of Canadian combat engineers arrives in Stavanger to assist the Norwegians in rebuilding the ruined city.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 2-28-1942
Event Description: Noted German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun,who has been living in exile in Switzerland since the Third Reich collapsed,is flown to Washington to brief US War Department officials on his proposals for a rocket-powered bomb theoretically capable of hitting targets as much as 1300 miles away.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-1-1942
Event Description: Finnish and Swedish troops reach the heart of Leningrad.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-2-1942
Event Description: The Japanese landing force in Siberia enters the heart of Ussuriysk.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-3-1942
Event Description: The Dutch royal family arrives in Rotterdam to re-assume the government of the Netherlands as the country joins the Atlantic Charter.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-4-1942
Event Description: Japanese troops wipe out the last pockets of Soviet resistance in Ussuriysk.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-5-1942
Event Description: Italian troops,aided by Austrian anti-Communist partisans,occupy the town of Klagenfurt.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-7-1942
Event Description: A federal jury convicts Gus Hall of treason and conspiracy to commit terrorism for his role in the Chrysler Building attack.Reluctant to let Hall become a martyr,President Roosevelt commutes the jury's original death sentence to life imprisonment.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-9-1942
Event Description: British troops and German DBF partisans capture the port of Bremerhaven;to the east,the Danes finally succeed in gaining a foothold near Kiel with the support of a detachment of British Royal Marines.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-10-1942
Event Description: Five miles from Innsbruck,an Italian patrol stumbles on a fenced compound;on further inspection,it is identified as the NKVD's main detention camp for Austria.After a brief firefight,the patrol frees the camp's inmates and is shocked to discover that most of them are malnourished as a results of systematic NKVD efforts to get rid of some of the inmates through deliberate starvation.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-11-1942
Event Description: Simon Wiesenthal,a longtime inmate at the NKVD's Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar,makes his escape just after midnight and begins making his way towards the Allied front lines.As he leaves the camp he makes a pledge to himself to tell the story of the camp guards' atrocities to the first Allied soldier he finds.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-12-1942
Event Description: Italian and British troops enter the outskirts of Innsbruck;further north, US and French armor occupy the German town of Ulm while in the east Italian troops enter the outskirts of the Austrian city of Graz.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-14-1942
Event Description: General Homma's expeditionary force in Siberia captures Korol and advances to the outskirts of Sibircevo.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-17-1942
Event Description: Danish troops liberate the German Baltic island of Rugen and capture the last pockets of Warsaw Pact resistance in Kiel as a division of British Royal Marines prepares to storm Rostock.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-19-1942
Event Description: Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery is awarded the Victoria Cross for his role in Operation Cromwell.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-20-1942
Event Description: Swedish infantry and armor units capture Leningrad's famed Peter and Paul Fortress.For Stalin,who has grown increasingly impatient with Marshal Koniev's inability to stem the Allied advance in Europe,the loss of the fortress is the last straw;that afternoon,the Soviet dictator sacks Koniev and installs General Pavel Rybalko as new C-in-C of the beleaguered Red Army forces in Europe.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-21-1942
Event Description: The last Soviet soldiers in Leningrad surrender to the Allies;5,000 US Marines arrive the next day to aid the Swedes and Finns in securing the historic city.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-23-1942
Event Description: Japanese bombers pound Petropavlovsk.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-24-1942
Event Description: The last Soviet troops in Norway,now numbering less than 2100 men,evacuate Norway under intense Allied naval fire.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-26-1942
Event Description: Japanese forces make their first attempt to enter Sibircevo but are repulsed by fanatical resistance from the city's Red Army outpost.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-29-1942
Event Description: The British eliminate the last strongholds of Warsaw Pact resistance in Rostock.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 3-30-1942
Event Description: Allied field commanders and representatives of the DBF meet in Brussels to begin drafting a campaign plan for a multi-front drive towards Berlin,where the Warsaw Pact is marshalling its ground and air forces for a counteroffensive against Allied troops in Germany.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-2-1942
Event Description: The Yamato is torpedoed by Soviet submarines operating in the waters off Honshu;as the survivors of the attack are attempting to make their way to shore,they are machine-gunned by the crew of the lead sub.The massacre of the Yamato sailors provokes seething outrage among the Japanese people,and in one particularly violent reaction to the massacre civilians storm a POW camp in Kyushu and murder all but a handful of its 327 Soviet inmates.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-3-1942
Event Description: King Haakon VII returns to Norway after nearly two years in exile and is given an enthusiastic welcome on his arrival in Oslo.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-5-1942
Event Description: The Japanese make a second attempt to enter Sibircevo;in Alaska,US and Canadian troops and equipment begin assembling in preparation for an amphibious offensive across the Bering Strait against Soviet positions in northern Siberia.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-7-1942
Event Description: The Georgi Piekhanov sinks a US merchant ship off the coast of Mexico.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-9-1942
Event Description: The last pockets of Soviet resistance in Sibircevo are eliminated by the Japanese.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-10-1942
Event Description: The Georgi Piekhanov shells the Mexican coastal city of Puerto Vallarta,killing 800 and wounding nearly 1100.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-11-1942
Event Description: Simon Wiesenthal reaches the Allied front lines near the town of Koblenz,where he is admitted to a US military hospital to undergo treatment for starvation and dehydration.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-12-1942
Event Description: The provisional government of the independent Republic of Korea,established shortly after the Japanese began pulling out of China,is overthrown in a military coup led by Soviet-backed Marxist agitator Kim Il Sung.Kim immediately proclaims the establishment of a Korean Communist state and pledges to support Stalin in defeating Japan.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-13-1942
Event Description: Danish and British infantry units wrest control of the town of Schwerin from the Warsaw Pact;further west,American forces begin advancing on Hamburg.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-14-1942
Event Description: The Georgi Piekhanov is intercepted by the American battleship USS Nevada while attempting to raid the Panama Canal;in the ensuing gun battle,both warships sustain massive damage,but the Piekhanov comes off much the worse,losing most of its forward gun batteries within less than three hours.At 5:02 US Eastern Daylight Time that afternoon,Piekhanov's captain orders the Soviet battlewagon scuttled and the crew to abandon ship.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-15-1942
Event Description: The Americans reach the outskirts of Hamburg.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-16-1942
Event Description: Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek seals his country's border with Russia to prevent the Soviets from sending troops and equipment south to aid the Communist insurgency in Korea.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-17-1942
Event Description: The Poltava is sunk off the coast of the Philippines by land-based American fighter planes out of Clark Field.General Douglas MacArthur,newly appointed commander-in-chief of US forces in the Far East,hails the sinking as "a body blow that puts us one more step toward landing the knockout punch on Stalin".
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-18-1942
Event Description: Three Spanish infantry divisions are deployed to aid the American struggle to capture Hamburg from the Warsaw Pact.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-19-1942
Event Description: The Felix Dzherzinsky launches a surprise bombing raid on the Swedish port of Malmo just before midnight,sinking more than two dozen Allied warships.However,Dzherzinsky's success comes at a price:at the height of the raid,her first officer is fatally wounded by shrapnel from an Allied anti-aircraft battery and is pronounced dead less than half an hour later.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-21-1942
Event Description: The Americans capture the last pockets of Warsaw Pact resistance in Hamburg,allowing Spanish forces to concentrate on repulsing a Red Army counteroffensive from the southeast.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-22-1942
Event Description: French and British tank units,fighting side-by-side with troops of the DBF's "Werwolf" division,drive the Volkswehr and Red Army out of Bielefeld.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-23-1942
Event Description: Simon Wiesenthal is brought to Washington to debrief OSS and State Department officials on his ordeal at Buchenwald;his testimony confirms the Allies' darkest suspicions about the NKVD's campaign to wipe out so-called "class enemies" in occupied Europe.A transcript of the meeting is immediately rushed to the British Foreign Secretary's office.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-24-1942
Event Description: Peter Ustinov,a British actor of mixed German and Russian descent,begins touring the US to raise funds for the Russo-American Liberation Brigade and the DBF.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-25-1942
Event Description: Two French Communist operatives are arrested in Paris after a thwarted attempt to assassinate French president Leon Blum.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-26-1942
Event Description: General Lewis "Chesty" Puller,USMC,is awarded the Navy Cross for his participation in the Allied landings at Tromso.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-29-1942
Event Description: A joint Swedish-Finnish assault force enters the outskirts of the Soviet Atlantic naval base at Murmansk;the fighting is especially fierce in the village of Severomorsk,where a full NKVD battalion is wiped out to the last man.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 4-30-1942
Event Description: US and French troops enter Munich and begin a drive on Nuremburg;further south, Italian and British units,aided by Austrian anti-Communist guerrillas,start pushing towards Vienna.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-1-1942
Event Description: At the annual Red Square May Day rally and parade in Moscow,a small group of protestors braves the wrath of the NKVD by unfurling a banner in front of the Kremlin that reads 'Stalin,make peace with Roosevelt and Churchill!'The sign is destroyed and the demonstrators arrested in quick order,but the gesture constitutes the first concrete evidence that the tide of public opinion in Russia is starting to turn against the war in Europe.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-2-1942
Event Description: Donald MacLean and Guy Burgess,friends and former classmates of Kim Philby,are arrested in Dublin and extradited back to Britain to stand trial for their involvement in the NKVD's effort to infiltrate Bletchey Park.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-3-1942
Event Description: Swedish and American warplanes flying from the island of Gotland spot the Felix Dherzinzky as it is taking up station off Trondheim for another attack on Allied naval installations;her whereabouts are passed on to the carriers USS Ranger and HMS Formidable and after a fierce battle,the Dzherzinsky is sunk with all hands.Her loss deals a further wounding blow to the Soviets' already seriously impaired naval operations in the Baltic.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-4-1942
Event Description: Overstretched supply lines and torrential spring rains force both Soviet and Allied troops to temporarily suspend all ground combat operations in the Baltic region.Naval and air combat,however,continue unabated as the US Army Air Corps stages its first bombing raid against Moscow and British torpedo boats harass Soviet submarines in the Gulf of Bothnia.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-5-1942
Event Description: 20,000 American combat troops are dispatched to Korea to help the rightful government reclaim power from Kim Il Sung.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-6-1942
Event Description: Japanese troops reach the outskirts of Kirovskiy.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-7-1942
Event Description: The Japanese expeditionary force in Siberia is dealt a setback as Red Army tank units pushing west from Uborka breach the Japanese lines south of Kirovskiy and bring its advance to a dead stop.General Homma immediately cables Tokyo requesting reinforcements.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-8-1942
Event Description: Italian bombers raid Warsaw Pact supply depots north and east of Vienna as the Allies advance to within ten miles of the Austrian capital.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-9-1942
Event Description: Five Hungarian armored divisions enter Austria in an attempt to stop the Allied advance on Vienna.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-10-1942
Event Description: American,British,and French forces begin driving towards Salzburg to relieve some of the pressure on the Allied front near Vienna.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-11-1942
Event Description: 60,000 fresh Japanese troops arrive in Siberia to bolster Homma's lines near Kirovskiy.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-12-1942
Event Description: The Soviet-backed Kim Il Sung dictatorship collapses as US troops enter Seoul and rout the under-equipped Communist forces guarding the heart of the Korean capital.Kim himself barely manages to get out of the city alive.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-13-1942
Event Description: The US Army's 2nd Infantry division reaches the heart of Salzburg amid relentless Warsaw Pact artillery fire.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-14-1942
Event Description: The Red Army launches its last major invasion campaign of the Second World War,Operation Smolensk,as six infantry and four armor divisions make an amphibious landing on Turkey's Black Sea coast.British,Turkish,and Greek troops immediately begin a counterattack,and as a result the invasion force only advances two and a half miles inside the Turkish border.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-15-1942
Event Description: British troops and DBF partisans in Germany occupy Hanover while French armor beats back a Warsaw Pact attempt to recapture Nuremburg.In Austria,Linz falls to the Americans as British and Italian units reach the heart of Vienna.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-16-1942
Event Description: Norway officially joins the Atlantic Charter.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-17-1942
Event Description: The last Warsaw Pact units in Vienna surrender to the Allies;in Germany,French troops at Nuremburg prepare to make an offensive dash at the Czech border.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-18-1942
Event Description: The last Red Army troops in Murmansk surrender to the Finns;plans are then immediately drafted for a thrust on the Soviet Arctic port of Archangel.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-19-1942
Event Description: Allied infantry,cavalry,and armor divisions invade Bulgaria,focusing on the city of Plovdiv and the port of Varna.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-20-1942
Event Description: Lithuania declares its indepedence from the Soviet Union.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-21-1942
Event Description: In Austria,Salzburg falls to the US 9th Army and the Italians repulse a final desperate Warsaw Pact counteroffensive on Vienna;in Germany,French forces cross the Czech border while British troops and DBF partisans liberate Braunschweig.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-22-1942
Event Description: Japanese bombers raid the Siberian industrial city of Magadan.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-23-1942
Event Description: Allied ground troops in Bulgaria reach the outskirts of Plovdiv and advance to within two miles of Varna.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-24-1942
Event Description: Soviet forces near Archangel mount a pre-emptive attack on Allied positions in and around Murmansk;caught off-guard by the sudden flank assault,the Allied armies are forced into a temporary retreat.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-25-1942
Event Description: 10,000 Norwegian ski troops are deployed to Murmansk to help the Allies turn back the Soviet thrust out of Archangel.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-26-1942
Event Description: Inspired by the boldness of the fledging Lithuanian independence movement,nationalists in Latvia overthrow their country's Soviet occupation government and announce their secession from the USSR.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-27-1942
Event Description: Allied armor and infantry capture Varna.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-28-1942
Event Description: Kirovskiy finally falls to the Japanese after 16 days' fighting;the victory is a costly one,however,as more than 300,000 troops have been killed or wounded and 80,000 more are reported missing.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-29-1942
Event Description: Operation Mongoose,an Allied campaign aimed at supporting the uprisings in Latvia and Lithuania,begins as Swedish airborne troops land in Riga and Vilnius;further south,US Marines mount an assault on Kaliningrad and Danzig while British and Canadian forces launch an offensive against the port of Stettin.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-30-1942
Event Description: French and American forces in Austria link up with the British and Italians at the town of St. Polten,putting the country one major step closer to its final liberation from the Warsaw Pact.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 5-31-1942
Event Description: Greek artillery wipes out the last pockets of Warsaw Pact resistance in Plovdiv.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-1-1942
Event Description: Brazil becomes the second Latin American member of the Atlantic Charter.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-2-1942
Event Description: The last pockets of Soviet resistance in Kaliningrad surrender to the US Marines;further east,Estonia declares independence from the USSR as Estonian nationalist guerrilas and Swedish regular troops attack Soviet positions near Tallinn.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-3-1942
Event Description: Swedish troops and Estonian guerillas secure Tallinn and begin pursuing the retreating Soviet forces;in Lithuania,Soviet bombers raid Vilnius,killing 90,000 and injuring 100,000.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-4-1942
Event Description: A dozen B-17s out of Sweden,led by Colonel James H. Doolittle,stage the first American bombing raid on Moscow;the attack inflicts considerable damage on the Soviet capital,with one bomb destroying the main ammunition depot for the city's anti-aircraft guns.An infuriated Stalin fires his three most senior air force generals on the spot,blaming them for not stopping the American bombers from penetrating Soviet airspace.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-5-1942
Event Description: Czech anti-Communist rebels storm the main Red Army garrison at Pilsen,and although they are quickly driven out their uprising gives Allied troops time to reach the outskirts of the city.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-6-1942
Event Description: Four Polish divisions successfully mount an amphibious landing near the Swedish coastal town of Karlskrone;meanwhile,Soviet forces launch a counterattack against US Marines at Danzig.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-7-1942
Event Description: Allied Supreme Headquarters in Brussels gives the final go-ahead for Operation Overlord,the combined Allied/DBF offensive aimed at liberating Berlin and securing bridges for future offensives against Soviet occupation forces in western Poland.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-8-1942
Event Description: Czech Communist armor and infantry units clash with anti-Communist partisans and Italian regular troops near Bratislava;in Poland,British and Canadian forces capture the last remaining Red Army positions in Stettin.
Timeline Number: 2794
Event Date: 6-9-1942
Event Description: Three Norwegian armored battalions are deployed to Sweden to attack the Polish beachhead at Karlskrone.
(Contributor's Note:For a look at events beyond this day,see Timeline 2894--Red Tide Part 4:The Drive To Berlin.)
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