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February 13th, 1942

FRANCE: During the night of the 13-14th, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 28 bombers to Le Havre but they encounter icing and thick cloud and only meagre bombing results were claimed. There are no losses. (Jack McKillop)

GERMANY: Operation Sealion is formally cancelled. This is the plan for the cross channel invasion of England. While postponed many times, this cancellation makes it final.

During the night of the 13-14th, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 39 bombers to Cologne and 18 to Aachen but all encountered icing and thick cloud and only meager bombing results were claimed. There are no losses. (Jack McKillop)
Admiral Erich Raeder, head of the German Navy, brings a new plan to Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Raeder proposes that the Germans drive through Libya, into Egypt, and keep on going through Iraq, Iran, and all the way to India, thus drying up Britain’s oil supply, hooking up with the Japanese, and winning the war. To do so, the German will have to divert more resources to the Mediterranean, starting with massive supplies to North Africa. To do that, the Germans will have to invade Malta. Hitler orders the Luftwaffe’s Air Fleet 2 to hammer Malta and knock out its airfields and will to resist. General Erwin Rommel, commanding the Afrika Korps, who will lead the drive to India, thinks it’s a great idea. (Jack McKillop)

U-482 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.S.R.: The Soviet winter offensive continue to meet increasing German resistance. Despite this, the Soviet spearhead has reached Belorussia. (Jack McKillop)

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Submarine HMS Tempest is depth charged for 7 hours by Italian gunboat Circe and has to be scuttled in the Gulf of Taranto at 39 11N 17 47E with 39 casualties. 24 survive. The scuttled submarine sinks just after the Italians secure a towrope. (Alex Gordon)(108)

SINGAPORE: After escaping from the fall of Singapore, river gunboat HMS Scorpion is sunk by gunfire from IJN destroyers in the Banka Strait off Berhala Island, Sumatra. Little is known about her fate but it is believed that there might have been 20 survivors. (Alex Gordon)(108)

The 85,000-man British army is now penned inside a 28-mile (45 kilometer)-long perimeter surrounding Singapore City. The Japanese main thrusts are against the western part of the South Area. British forward units pull back during the night of the 13-14th, to cover the Alexandra area, where the main ordnance depot and ammunition magazine are located. The Japanese seize or damage most of the reservoirs, leaving the city with only seven days supply of water. Allied forces are in full retreat, with hordes of deserters causing chaos. Troops on duty have had barely an hour’s sleep in days, and are exhausted. The famed 15-inch (38,1 cm) guns have been destroyed or captured. Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, General Officer Commanding Malaya Command, signals General Sir Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command, that he doesn’t think he can fight for more than two days. Wavell orders Percival to fight on. Meanwhile, the advancing Japanese themselves are desperately short on ammunition, and General YAMASHITA Tomoyoki commanding the 25th Army, is down to his last rounds. All remaining British shipping, small ships and other light craft, sail from Singapore during the night of the 13-14th. Some personnel are withdrawn in these vessels among them Rear Admiral, Malaya, and Air Officer Commanding, Far East. (Jack McKillop)
British officers take time to court-martial one of their own, New Zealand-born Captain Patrick Heenan of the Indian Army, on a charge of treason. Heenan is charged with leaving RAF supplies intact on bases as British troops retreated, enabling advancing Japanese air units to take advantage of them. He has also given information about Malaya’s defenses to the Japanese for years. Heenan is convicted and executed by firing squad at sundown. (Jack McKillop)

Ugaki speaks in his diary: “Enormous numbers of transports have been sailing to the south from Singapore in the last few days, escorted by a fair number of cruisers and destroyers. The British have experienced evacuations at Norway, Dunkirk, or at Crete in Greece... In spite of our fairly big air strength, attacks against these vessels seem to be rather mild.” (Ed Miller)

NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: On Java, Lieutenant General John Lavarack, General Officer Commanding 1st Australian Army, tells General Sir Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief American-British-Dutch-Australian Command, the he has drafted a recommendation that the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) should not be landed in the East Indies. Wavell asks him to wait until tomorrow until he can prepare a recommendation and then both are forwarded to the Combined Chiefs of Staff and the British and Australian War Offices. Wavell also suggests that there were “advantages in diverting one or both divisions of the AIF to Burma or Australia.” (Jack McKillop)
An RAF reconnaissance plane sights a large concentration of Japanese shipping north of Bangka Island, at the same time many boats, full of British and Australian troops, were fleeing Singapore and found themselves among the enemy vessels. The launch carrying Rear-Admiral Spooner, Rear Admiral, Malaya, and Air Vice-Marshal Pulford, Air Officer Commanding, Far East, is driven ashore on a small uninhabited island north of Bangka Island. Two months later disease and starvation forced the survivors to surrender; the two flag officers were not among them and are never seen again. (Jack McKillop)

Submarine USS Seadragon ends her first war patrol at Surabaya. Due to the continuous Japanese air raids on this Dutch base she left for Tjilatjap 21 Feb 1942. Later she was ordered to Fremantle where she arrived Mar 1942.
Submarine USS Salmon ended her first war patrol at Tjilatjap, Java.

Submarine USS Sturgeon ends her second war patrol at Surabaya. Due to the Japanese air attacks on that base she departed for Tjilatjap shortly afterwards.

(Dave Shirlaw)

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Japanese dive bombers raid the Bataan peninsula, killing their own men by mistake.

On Bataan, the I Corps, after searching entire area of Big Pocket without finding any live Japanese, turns its full attention to the salient, Upper Pocket, in the main line of resistance. Elements released from the Big Pocket assault force join in the battle. In the South Sector, troops complete destruction of Japanese troops in the Silaiim area. (Jack McKillop)

PHOENIX ISLANDS: Chartered U.S. passenger ship SS President Taylor, transporting 900 Army troops to occupy Canton Island, runs aground on a reef off her destination, and becomes stranded. (Jack McKillop)

TERRITORY OF HAWAII: Pearl Harbor: The superstitious Admiral Halsey refuses to take Task Force 13 out as scheduled; renumbered Task Force 16, it will sail tomorrow.

CANADA and U.S.A.: The governments of the two countries approve the construction of a U.S. Military Highway through Canada to Alaska. (Jack McKillop)

CANADA: Patrol vessel HMCS Seiner commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.A.: A Congressional subcommittee recommends immediate evacuation of all Japanese-Americans from strategic areas on the West Coast. The US Army has already drawn up plans to move the Japanese-Americans east of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. They send a letter to Roosevelt in which they recommend the “immediate evacuation of all persons of Japanese lineage” aliens and citizens alike from the entire strategic area of California, Washington, and Oregon. (Jack McKillop and Scott Peterson) More...

Japanese sub I-17 shells oil depot at Goleta, California, to no effect. (Patrick Holscher)
USS PC-555 and PC-562 laid down.

USS PC-552 launched.

USS YMS-113 launched. (Dave Shirlaw)