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WWII On This Day: February 20

What happened on February 20 during World War II? This date brings together 3 events from 1942 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

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

Japan Invades Timor

Japanese forces landed on Timor on 20 February, attacking both the Dutch and Portuguese parts of the island and the Allied forces that had moved there to protect the air route north of Australia. The landing widened the southern edge of the Japanese advance just after Darwin had been bombed. For the Allies, Timor had value as an airfield and staging position linking Australia to the East Indies. Its loss did not end resistance on the island, but it further reduced the number of forward bases through which Java could…

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1944
AGO Flugzeugwerke at Oschersleben under attack on 20 February 1944, the opening day of Big Week.
AGO Flugzeugwerke at Oschersleben under attack on 20 February 1944, the opening day of Big Week. U.S. Air Force photo 342-FH-3A22203-69508AC / National Archives, NAID 204906481 · Public domain in the United States Source
The Combined Bomber Offensive

Big Week begins

The Eighth Air Force opened six days of concentrated attacks against aircraft factories, supported by escort fighters and joined by the Fifteenth Air Force and RAF attacks. The bombing forced dispersal and interrupted output. The sustained air battles and fighter losses were at least as important as the physical damage to factories.

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AGO Flugzeugwerke at Oschersleben under attack on 20 February 1944, one of the aircraft-industry targets struck on Big Week's opening day.
AGO Flugzeugwerke at Oschersleben under attack on 20 February 1944, one of the aircraft-industry targets struck on Big Week's opening day. U.S. Air Force photo 342-FH-3A22203-69508AC / National Archives, NAID 204906481 · Public domain in the United States Source
Big Week and Air Superiority

Argument opens with the Eighth's first thousand-bomber dispatch

On 20 February Eighth Air Force dispatched just over a thousand heavy bombers against aircraft-industry targets across Germany, supported by more than eight hundred fighters. Oschersleben, Leipzig, Bernburg and other centres were attacked through weather that had made the launch decision difficult. The industrial objective was direct: damage assembly plants, components and the infrastructure that sustained fighter production. The operation also forced the Luftwaffe to decide whether and where to intercept a bomber force whose escorts could now penetrate far beyond the 1943 fighter boundary. Twenty-one Eighth Air Force heavy…

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