World War II calendar
What happened on February 27 during World War II? This date brings together 2 events from 1942, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.
The Crimean Front resumed its offensive from the narrow Kerch Peninsula with three armies. Repeated attacks through March and early April gained little ground and consumed men and equipment in a confined battle space. Stavka ordered stronger defensive preparations as the offensive stalled. The front remained densely deployed near the forward line when Eleventh Army prepared its May counterstroke.
Continue in Sevastopol and the Crimea →
Rear-Admiral Karel Doorman took the ABDA striking force into the Java Sea on 27 February to find and attack the Japanese invasion convoys. Dutch, American, British and Australian ships fought through repeated contacts without the air reconnaissance or common communications needed to give the force a clear picture of the enemy. Doorman’s object was the transports, because destroying or dispersing them offered the only chance of preventing the invasion from becoming a land campaign on Java. Japanese escorts kept the Allied column away from that objective and struck it with…
Continue in The Fall of the Southern Empires →
