1940: German commandos in Dutch uniforms cross the Dutch border to hold bridges for the advancing German army.

1941: The German raider Penguin is sunk by HMS Cornwall off the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean.

1941: During an attack against convoy OB318, U-110 commanded by Julius Lemp suffers serious damage and is forced to surface and scuttle. Unfortunately for the Germans, the scuttling charges failed to detonate, allowing the British destroyer HMS Bulldog to put across a boarding party and seize an enigma machine and other vital secret material. The British put U-110 under tow, but the damaged U-boat later sinks.

1942: The Battle of the Coral Sea between the Japanese Navy and the U.S. Navy ends.

1942: The aircraft carriers HMS Eagle and USS Wasp fly off Spitfires from positions in the Western Mediterranean to reinforce the air defences of Malta.

1942: The German 11th Army begins its summer offensive in order to clear the Eastern Crimea. The 11th Army has thirteen Infantry, one Panzer, and one Cavalry division. Luftwaffe support is provided by Fliegerkorps 8 and naval support comes from German E-boats and Italian midget submarines, which attack Russian supply ships reinforcing Sevastopol. The Germans hit Gen. D.T. Kozlov's Crimean Front along Feodosiya Bay and crash through the 44th Army's two divisions, relying on Junkers 87 Stukas to do the damage.

1943: Joint Strategic Plan approved at Cairo: South Pacific to the Philippines (MacArthur); China to Hong Kong (Chiang); Central Pacific to Formosa (Nimitz)

1943: British forces withdraw from Buthidaung, just inside Burma.

1944: Eisenhower decides that D-Day will be the 5th June.

1945: The last convoys of German refugees from Eastern Germany arrive in western Baltic ports, ending the largest rescue operation by sea in history. Since the 25th January, a total of 420,000 civilians and wounded soldiers have been evacuated.

1945 : VE-Day (Victory-in-Europe Day). Germany surrenders unconditionally, and the war in Europe ends. The Royal Observer Corps is also stood-down from its war footing and assumes its peacetime role. At this time there were 32,000 observers based at 1,420 posts around the UK.

1945: In deference to the Russians, the surrender ceremony to the western allies at Rheims of the previous day is repeated before Marshall Zhukov and other Soviet generals at Karlshorst, a suburb of Berlin. After radio appeals early in the day for protection against heavy German shelling, the Prague resistance reaches an agreement with the Germans for the capitulation of the city, as the U.S. 4th Armoured Division from the West and Koniev’s troops from the East approach.

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