January 1:
Twenty-six Allied countries signed the Declaration by United Nations during the Arcadia Conference.
January 2:
Manila is captured by Japanese forces. They also take Cavite naval base, and the American and Filipino troops continue the retreat into Bataan.
January 5:
The beginning of a major Red Army offensive under General Zhukov.
January 6:
The British advance continues to El Agheila, on the western edge of Libya.
January 21:
Rommel's Afrika Korps begins a surprise counter-offensive at El Agheila; his troops, with new reinforcements and tanks, capture Agedabia, then push north to Beda Fomm.
February 11:
The "Channel Dash" - The German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, rush out of Brest through the English Channel to northern ports, including Wilhelmshaven, Germany; the British naval units fail to sink any of them. USS Saratoga is torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-6 480 miles southwest of Pearl Harbor.
February 27:
Battle of the Java Sea - Under a Dutch Rear Admiral Karl Doorman, the combined forces lose 2 light cruisers and 3 destroyers. The USS Langley is attacked by nine Japanese Betty bombers in the Java Sea, damaged and later scuttled to prevent capture.
February 28:
Japanese land forces invade Java.
March 28:
The RAF sends a raid against Lübeck, destroying over 30% of the city, and 80% of the medieval centre. Hitler is outraged. British commandos launch Operation Chariot, a raid on the port at Saint Nazaire, France. HMS Campbeltown, filled with explosives on a time-delay fuse, rams the dock gates and commandos destroy other parts of the naval service area. The port is completely destroyed and does not resume service till 1947; however, around two-thirds of the raiding forces are lost.
April 3:
Japanese forces begin an all-out assault on United States and Filipino troops in Bataan. Sustained Japanese air attacks on Mandalay in Burma. A modified type XVI U-boat leaves from Germany to Japan with another exsperimental creature on board.
April 8:
Heavy RAF bombing of Hamburg. American forces are strained for one last offensive on Bataan. With the withdrawal of HMS Penelope from Malta, Force K in Malta comes to a close.
April 9:
The Japanese Navy launches an air raid on Trincomalee in Ceylon; Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and Royal Australian Navy destroyer HMAS Vampire are sunk off the country's east coast. Bataan falls to the Japanese. The "Bataan Death March" begins, as the captives are taken off to detention camps in the north. Corregidor, in the middle of Manila Bay, remains a final point of resistance.
April 18:
Doolittle Raid on Nagoya, Tokyo and Yokohama. Jimmy Doolittle's B-25s take off from USS Hornet. The raids are a great boost of morale for Americans whose diet has been mostly bad news. The Eastern Sea Frontier, the United States Navy operational command in charge of the East Coast of the United States, somewhat belatedly forces a blackout along the East Coast. This deprives U-boat commanders of background illumination, but provides only a very little relief from U-boat attack; as the nights grow shorter more U-boat attacks are occurring in daylight hours.
April 20: General Dobbie, Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of Malta, sends a message to Winston Churchill saying "it is obvious that the very worst may happen if we cannot replenish our vital needs, especially flour and ammunition, and that very soon...." Churchill concludes from this and other "disturbing news" that Dobbie is not capable enough for such an important job, and decides to replace him with Lord Gort. USS Wasp delivers 47 Spitfire Mk. V fighters of No. 603 Squadron RAF to Malta; the planes are destroyed, mostly on the ground, by intense Axis air raids before they can affect the course of battle.
