WW2 was a global conflict that raged from September 1939 to August 1945; almost six long years.
The change of seasons brought with it changes in the pace of the war. Spring generally meant new offensives, while winter could mean stalemate or a winter offensive - such as those made by the Russians on the eastern front, or the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardenne.
British battleship ‘Royal Oak’ is sunk at Scapa Flow by a German U-boat at the cost of 810 lives on 14th October 1939
1 October 1938: German troops begin occupation of the Sudentenland in Czechoslovakia
2 October 1942: The first US jet aircraft, the Bell XP-59 Airacomet makes its first flight
3 October 1944: US troops cross the River Wurm, and establish a bridgehead across the Siegfried Line
4 October 1943: German troops take the Mediterranean island of Cos
5 October 1939: Hitler makes a tour of the conquered city of Warsaw in Poland.
6 October 1944: US President Roosevelt agrees to remove General Stilwell from the post of Chief of Staff to Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek
7 October 1942: US President Roosevelt announces that a commission will be set up after the war to judge those guilty of war crimes
8 October 1944: US troops begin a pincer operation as they move in on the city
9 October 1944: US forces bombard Marcus Island in the Philippines
10 October 1943: German U-boat mines the entrance to the Panama Canal
11 October 1942: Battle of Cape Esperance, off Guadalcanal
12 October 1944: British Special Forces capture Athens airfield. Hilter announces Operation Sealion postponed until April 1941
13 October 1943: Italy declares war on Germany
14 October 1939: British battleship ‘Royal Oak’ is sunk at Scapa Flow by a German U-boat at the cost of 810 lives
15 October 1945: Vichy leader Pierre Laval is executed
16 October 1943: The US Ninth Army Air Force is formed to provide tactical protection for the Eighth Airforce’s bombing raids
17 October 1942: The Allied invasion fleet bound for the Operation Torch landings in N.Africa begins to assemble in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland
18 October 1940: Jews are formally banned from public service, industry, the media and positions of authority in Vichy France
19 October 1943: Civilians rise up against their Japanese oppressors, causing savage reprisals at Jesselton, Borneo
20 October 1943: The UN War Crimes Commission is formed
21 October 1940: Liverpool suffers its 200th air raid of the war
22 October 1942: US airborne General Mark Clark lands in Algeria for secret talks with pro-Allied officers of the Vichy forces
23 October 1943: British 8th Army ‘Desert Rats’ opens an offensive against Rommel’s Afrika Corps at El Alamein, N.Africa
24 October 1945: Vidkun Quisling, former head of the Norwegian puppet government is executed in Oslo
25 October 1940: British battleship ‘Prince of Wales’ leaves for Singapore to be the flagship of the Far East Fleet
26 October 1942: US forces on Guadalcanal report that they only have 29 servicable aircraft left in operation
27 October 1944: British troops capture Tilburg, Holland
28 October 1943: Butter rationing is introduced in New Zealand
29 October 1944: Russian leader Stalin orders the seizure of Budapest regardless of cost
30 October 1944: The gas-chambers at Aushwitz concentration camp are closed down
31 October 1940: The Battle of Britain ends
This month in WW2
Chonicle of the Second World War; Longman
On this day...
& other sources
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