WWII On This Day: February 19

MV Neptuna explodes and oil-storage tanks burn during the first Japanese raid on Darwin, 19 February 1942; HMAS Deloraine is in the foreground. Royal Australian Navy Historical Collection / Australian War Memorial 128108 · Public domain Source

February 19, 1942 · 10:00 The Fall of the Southern Empires

Darwin Is Bombed

Japanese carrier and land-based aircraft struck Darwin on 19 February, attacking the harbour, shipping and airfields supporting the reinforcement route between Australia and the East Indies. The Australian War Memorial campaign entry records 252 Allied service personnel and civilians killed, while other counts differ slightly according to category. Darwin belonged directly to the Java campaign. Aircraft, crews and shipping moving north needed the base, and the Allies were trying to sustain the East Indies from Australia at the same time that Japan was extending air power toward those routes. After…

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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

February 19, 1942 · 22:00 The Fall of the Southern Empires

The Fight in Badoeng Strait

Doorman’s force attacked Japanese shipping in Badoeng Strait on the night of 19–20 February in an attempt to disrupt the Bali operation. The fighting was confused and divided into separate encounters, and Allied ships failed to undo the Japanese lodgement on the island. The action foreshadowed the larger problem Doorman would face a week later. A multinational force was being assembled from ships with different communications and recent battle experience, often without secure air reconnaissance, and ordered to strike invasion forces before the landings became irreversible. Each unsuccessful interception left…

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Flying Officer T. Blackham and members of his No. 50 Squadron Lancaster crew at RAF Skellingthorpe on 19 February 1944, before that night's Bomber Command operation. Bellamy W (F/O), Royal Air Force official photographer / Imperial War Museums, CH 12209 · Public domain Source

February 19, 1944 · 23:00 Big Week and Air Superiority

Bomber Command attacks Leipzig on the eve of Big Week

On the night of 19–20 February Bomber Command sent a major force to Leipzig. The raid preceded the formal opening of Operation Argument by hours and belongs on the page as a prelude rather than as the first day of Big Week. The night offensive and the American daylight campaign were not identical operations. Bomber Command had its own targeting, navigation and loss problems, while the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces were preparing a concentrated attack on the aircraft-production system by day. Their proximity nevertheless mattered to German defence. Aircraft,…

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Churchill tanks of 34th Tank Brigade at the start of the Reichswald battle, 9 February 1945. — Churchill tanks of 34th Tank Brigade at the start of the Reichswald battle, 9 February 1945 · Imperial War Museums B 14422 · IWM Non-Commercial Licence · Source

February 19, 1945 The Rhineland Battles

Goch

The town was ringed with an outer and an inner anti-tank ditch. 214th Brigade established seven crossings of the outer ditch in the night of 17 to 18 February under machine-gun fire, and the Highland Division came in from the south. Bomb rubble stopped the tanks, so it was cleared by infantry street by street. The garrison commander surrendered on the 19th and fighting south of the Niers went on for another two days.

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