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WWII On This Day: February 18

What happened on February 18 during World War II? This date brings together 3 events from 1940, 1942 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1940
A young survivor of Athenia being passed ashore from the Norwegian rescue vessel Knute Nelson at Galway following the liner’s sinking on 3 September 1939.
Press Agency photographer · Imperial War Museums HU 51014 · IWM Non-Commercial Licence
The Opening Convoy War

U-23 sinks HMS Daring beside convoy HN 12

Kapitänleutnant Otto Kretschmer brings U-23 toward convoy HN 12 during the night and fires at one of the destroyers covering the formation. HMS Daring is hit and breaks apart. The U-boat's own war diary describes a convoy of roughly twenty ships protected by destroyers and a submarine. An escort screen can itself present valuable targets to a boat that gets into a favourable firing position. The convoy continues while other escorts search the area. That is an essential part of convoy doctrine: the merchant formation cannot repeatedly stop or scatter…

Continue in The Opening Convoy War →
1942
Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival and the British surrender party walking to the Ford Motor Factory in Singapore on 15 February 1942.
British official photographer / Imperial War Museums HU 2781 · UK Government public domain · Source
The Fall of the Southern Empires

Bali Opens the Eastern Approach to Java

Japanese forces landed on Bali on 18 February and moved to secure the airfield at Denpasar. The island lay immediately east of Java and gave Japanese aircraft another forward base from which to cover the final approach to the Dutch centre of resistance. The Allied response had to be made quickly because the value of the landing increased once the airfield could operate. Ships sent into the surrounding waters therefore fought under the pressure of time as well as distance. Bali’s capture tightened the eastern side of the Java position…

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1944
Polish and British flags raised over the shattered Monte Cassino monastery after Polish troops entered the ruins on 18 May 1944.
Polish official photographer / Imperial War Museums MH 1680 · UK Government public domain
Cassino and Anzio: The Road to Rome

The Māori Battalion withdraws from Cassino station

Men of the New Zealand 28th (Māori) Battalion seized the Cassino railway station during the night attack on 17–18 February. The position was exposed, and destroyed approaches prevented heavy reinforcement or ammunition supply from reaching it. German counterattacks forced a withdrawal. Indian infantry operating above the town also failed to secure the monastery heights, ending the immediate February offensive.

Continue in Cassino and Anzio: The Road to Rome →