Real time Discusion thread

Western Desert Campaign

The HQ of the Australian 9th Division is established at Tripoli.

Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau, Commander in Chief Heeresgruppe Sud, dies of a stroke while returning to Germany.

Reichenau was a habitual cross-country runner and suffered a stroke after a routine run in cold weather on 14 January 1942.[10] He then sustained severe head injuries when the flight carrying him back to Leipzig for medical attention crashed on landing in Lemberg. Whether he died from his stroke or from injuries sustained in the crash is unknown.[11] He was replaced at Army Group South by Fedor von Bock and given a state funeral.[12][13] 

MALAYA

After fierce battles to defend road-blocks in the Muar/Yong Penang area, only 850 out of 4,500 Allied troops escape.

MALAYA

Bitter fighting continues in the Muar-Yong Peng area. The 53d Brigade of the British 18th Division, under command of the Indian 11th Division, takes responsibility for the strategic positions west of Yong Peng, a defile and a bridge, but loses them. The Muar force (Indian 45th Brigade and two Australian battalions), now isolated, is ordered to withdraw; HQ of the Indian 45th Brigade is bombed and most of the senior officers are killed and an Australian takes command of the brigade.

East Force is formed consisting of the Australian 22nd Brigade, 2/17th Dogra Battalion and the Jat Battalion.

With Japanese troops 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Singapore island, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill cables his top commander on the spot, General Archibald Lord Wavell, General Officer Commanding Australian-British- Dutch-American (ABDA) Command, South West Pacific, to ask what sort of defenses the island has. Wavell's answer, "There are neither plans nor fortifications to defend the north side of this impregnable fortress." Churchill is staggered, and orders what Wavell has been pushing for, digging entrenchments. The defenders of Singapore react by hiring local labor to dig trenches...then waste five days arguing over how much overtime pay they should get.

Churchill orders Wavell and Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, General Officer Commanding Malaya, to fight to the last man, and refuse to surrender. Wavell is happy to comply, but Singapore's immense 15-inch guns face the ocean...not the north, where the Japanese armies are.

Flying their single-wing, Fokker Eindecker figher planes, the German Imperial Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte) continued to dominate the skies over Britain and France. Fitted with synchronized Parabellum MG14 machine guns that allowed them to fire through their propellers, German flyers routinely defeated British and French foes in reconnaissance planes. Their Fokker monoplanes were designed on pre-war French racing models, and were consequently both fast and maneuverable, though in fact they were so responsive to changes in pitch and yaw that they were quite a danger to new flyers, and their roll-handling was rather poor.With the Fokker Eindecker came the first generation of German aces, like Max Immelman, and Kurt Wintgens, who racked up kills despite needing eyeglasses, and Oswald Boelcke, the inventor of modern fighter tactics. Watching from the ground, Winston Churchill wrote letters home urging the British government to concentrate on creating a stronger Royal Flying Corps able to cope with its German competitors.

Though it was bitterly contested, Parliament passed the Military Service Act on January 27, obliging single and un-widowed men under the age between 18 and 45 to enroll in military service. Those who required exceptions were required to apply for them before March 2. Soon the requirements would extend to married men, and then older ones too - in an attrition war, the nation that could put the last man into uniform would win, and so Britain was forced to adopt the conscription system of its neighbors. Though the first conscripts would not be ready for the offensives of summer 1916 (this would be the job for Kitchener’s volunteers), they would be on hand to fill in the gaps afterwards.