World War II As It Happened
A MaritimeQuest Daily Event Special Presentation
Saturday, January 3, 1942
Day 856

January 3, 1942: Front page of the News and Chronicle, London, England.
(Click on the image for a readable version.)
 
Note the report in column 5: "We Sink Three Submarines"
(This time the report was true, albeit, the events happened in December. The three submarines were U-75, U-79 and Ammiraglio Caracciolo, sunk on Dec. 28, 23 and 11 respectively.)


January 3, 1942: Front page of The Daily Mail, Hull, England.
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January 3, 1942: Front page of The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Mercury, Leeds, England.
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January 3, 1942: Front page of the Western Mail and South Wales News, Cardiff, Wales.
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Note the report in column 4: "Another Nazi General May Be Sacked"
(Generaloberst Paul Nikolaus von Falkenhorst was not removed from his post until Dec. 1944. He was sentenced to death at Nürnberg, but the sentence was comunted to 20 years in prison, but like many ex-Nazi officers, he was released due to "bad health" in July of 1953. His "bad health" finally killed him on June 18, 1968, almost 15 years after his release from prison.)


January 3, 1942: Front page of the Post and Journal, Aberdeen, Scotland.
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Note the report in column 4: "Brauchitsch Retuens?"
(The report was pure speculation and it was wrong. Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Brauchitsch, Oberbefehlschaber des Heers [Commander-in-Chief of the German Army] was relieved of his command by Adolf Hitler on Dec. 19, 1941. He never returned to active service. He was dismissed so that he [Hitler] could assume role of C-in-C of the Army. Brauchitsch was arrested post-war and died while awaiting trial.)


January 3, 1942: Front page of The Examiner, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia.
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January 3, 1942: Front page of The Sydney Sun, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
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January 3, 1942: Front page of The Telegraph, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
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January 3, 1942: Front page of The Lethbridge Herald, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
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January 3, 1942: Front page of the Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
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January 3, 1942: Front page of the Biddeford Daily Journal, Biddeford, Maine.
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January 3, 1942: Front page of The Evening Star, Washington, D.C.
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Note the report in column 6: "British Acknoledge Loss Of Cruiser and 3 Other Warships"
(The Admiralty announces the loss of HM warships Neptune, Kandahar, both sunk by mines. They did not mention that HMS Aurora and HMS Penelope had both been damaged in the same minefield. They also admit to the loss of HMS Audacity and HMS Stanley, sunk by U-boats while escorting convoy HG-76. Note how in the body of the report Audacity is described as an "auxiliary warship" rather than an escort carrier, which it was. The casualty figures for these losses were pretty high.
Neptune: 764 (only 1 survivor picked up by the Italians.)
Kandahar: 73.
Stanley; 136.
Audacity: 73.

The Germans lost three U-boats in the attack on convoy HG-76, these were not the U-boats mentioned in other reports. U-131, U-434 and U-574. The first two were sunk while trying to attack the convoy while U-574 was sunk soon after sinking HMS Stanley. Casualty figures for the U-boats was far less than those of the Royal Navy.
U-131: 0
U-434: 2
U-574: 2)
Also note the report in column 7: Jap Distance Flyer Killed in Malaya"
(Masaaki Iinuma, who made a record flight from Tokyo to London in 1937, in a plane called Kamikaze, reportedly died of wounds in Malaya. In reality, he accidentally walked into a propeller blade at Phnom Penh.)


January 3, 1942: Front page of The Evening Gazette, Xenia, Ohio.
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January 3, 1942: Front page of The Port Arthur News, Port Arthur, Texas.
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January 3, 1942: Front page of the Tucson Daily Citizen, Tucson, Arizona.
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January 3, 1942: Front page of The Bakersfield Californian, Bakersfield, California.
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January 3, 1942: Front page of the Teltower Kreisblatt, Kreis Teltow, Brandenburg, Germany.
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1. Japaner in Manila einmarschiert.
(Japanese invaded Manila.)


January 3, 1942: Front page of the Völkischer Beobachter, the official newspaper of the NSDAP.
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1. Wichtigster USA.-Stützpunkt in Ostasien gefallen.
(Most important US base in East Asia fallen.)
2. Japaner in Manila einmarschiert.
(Japanese invaded Manila.)
Historical note: On this day Adolf HItler, in a conversation with Japanese Ambassador Baron Oshima gives his opinions about the Battle of the Atlantic. He laments that while the United States can build as many ships as they want to, they will have difficulty finding crews for them for because ".merchant shipping will be sunk without warning with the intention of killing as many of the crew as possible. Once it gets around that most of the crew are lost when the ships are sunk, the Americans will have great difficulty enlisting new people. The training of seagoing personnel takes a long time. We are fighting for our very existence and cannot therefore take a humanitarian viewpoint. For this reason I must give the order that since foreign seamen cannot be taken prisoner, and in most cases this is not possible on the open sea, the U-Boats are to surface after torpedoing and shoot up the lifeboats."



   
Page published January 3, 2023