Timeline of World War II (1941)

January

• 1: Accounting of the previous night's bombing of London reveals that the Old Bailey, the Guildhall, and eight churches by Christopher Wren were destroyed or badly damaged.

• 2: German bombers, perhaps off course, bomb Irish Free State for the second night in a row.
• 2–4: Bardia is bombed by British bombers and bombarded by naval vessels off shore.
• 3: RAF bombers attack Bremen and the Kiel Canal in Germany. The Kiel Canal Bridge suffers a direct hit and collapses on Finnish ship Yrsa.
• 5: Operation Compass: Australian troops of XIII Corps capture Italian-held Bardia and 45,000 Italian prisoners are taken.

• 6: The Greeks advance towards Klisura Pass.
• 7: British and Commonwealth offensive in North Africa nears Tobruk; the airport is taken.
• 10: Lend-Lease introduced into the U.S. Congress.

• 11: In London, 57 people are killed and 69 injured when a German bomb lands outside the Bank of England, demolishing the Underground station below and leaving a 120-foot crater.
• 12: Operation Compass: British and Australian troops of XIII Corps prepare for the assault on Italian-held Tobruk.
• 13: Heavy Luftwaffe night raid on Plymouth.
• 14: First use of "V for Victory" by Victor de Laveleye on the BBC's Belgian service, Radio Belgique.
• 15: The rivalry between Chinese Nationalists and Chinese Communists becomes more evident; large numbers of the latter are forced to give up their arms, reluctantly of course.
• 16: British forces start the first attacks of their East African counter-offensive, on Italian-held Ethiopia, from Kenya.

• 17: The Battle of Ko Chang ended in a decisive victory for the Vichy French naval forces during the Franco-Thai War.

• 18: Air raids on Malta are increasing in focus and intensity.
• 19: The 4th and 5th Indian Divisions continue the British counter-offensive in East Africa, attacking Italian-held Eritrea from the Sudan.

• 21: Operation Compass: British and Australian troops of XIII Corps complete capture of Italian-held Tobruk.

• 23: HMS Illustrious, heavily damaged, leaves Malta for repairs in Alexandria.

• 24: British forces in Kenya continue the East African counter-offensive, attacking Italian Somaliland.
• 29: Death of the Greek dictator, Ioannis Metaxas.
• 30: British forces in North Africa take Derna; 100 miles west of Tobruk.
• 31: Indian 4th Division flanks and then captures Agordat, Eritrea, Italian East Africa. 1,000 Italian troops and 43 field guns are captured.

  February

• 1: Admiral Husband Kimmel is appointed the Commander of the US Navy in the Pacific.
• 3: Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel is appointed head of "German Army troops in Africa." This unit is later to be officially designated as the "Afrika Korps."

• 7: Operation Compass: After several days of desperate fighting, a flying column of XIII Corps called Combe Force cuts off the retreating Italian 10th Army during the Battle of Beda Fomm. The Italians are unable to break through the small blocking force and the British accept the surrender of roughly 130,000 Italians in and to the south of Benghazi.
• 8: US House of Representatives passes the Lend-Lease bill.
• 9: Mussolini is informed that German reinforcements are on the way to North Africa.

• 10: Malta's critical period: now through [|March], it is under heavy daily attack.
• 11: Elements of the Afrika Korps start to arrive in Tripoli, Tripolitania.

• 14: Rommel arrives in Tripoli.

• 15: Deportation of Austrian Jews to ghettos in Poland begins.
• 19: The start of the "three nights Blitz" of Swansea, South Wales. Over these three nights of intensive bombing, Swansea town centre is almost completely obliterated.
• 20: German and British troops confront each other for the first time in North Africa—at El Agheila in western Libya.
• 21: German forces move through Bulgaria toward the Greek front.
• 24: German U-boat offensive in the Atlantic is now increasingly successful.

• 25: The British submarine Upright sinks the Italian cruiser Armando Diaz in one of the numerous sea battles in the North African campaign.

• 28: RAF planes bomb Asmara, Eritrea.

  March

• 1: Hitler gives orders for the expansion of Auschwitz prison camp, to be run by Commandant Rudolf Höss.

• 4: British commandos carry out attack on oil facilities at Narvik in Norway.

• 7: First British troops land in Greece, at Piraeus.
• 8: Another bombing of London, notable because Buckingham Palace is hit.
• 9: The Italian Spring Offensive in the Albanian front begins.
• 10: British and Italian troops meet in a brief conflict in Eritrea.

• 11: United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Lend Lease Act allowing Britain, China, and other Allied nations to purchase military equipment and to defer payment until after the war.
• 12: German Panzers arrive in North Africa providing heavy armour for the first major German offensive.
• 13: The Luftwaffe strikes with a large force at Glasgow and the shipping industry along the River Clyde.
• 17: Huge convoy losses in mid-Atlantic this week.

• 19: Worst bombing of London so far this year, with heavy damage from incendiary bombs; Plymouth and Bristol are bombed again.
• 20: The Italian Spring Offensive is called off, after heavy losses and virtually no progress.
• 21: The Yugoslav cabinet resigns in protest against Prince Paul's pact with the Nazis. Street demonstration occurs, expressive of a deep dislike for Germany.
• 24: Rommel attacks and reoccupies El Agheila, Libya in his first offensive. The British retreat and within three weeks are driven back to Egypt.
• 25: Italian MTMs of the Decima MAS sink the heavy cruiser, a large tanker, another tanker and a cargo ship in Suda Bay, Crete.
• 27: Crown Prince Peter becomes Peter II of Yugoslavia and takes control of Yugoslavia after an army coup overthrows the pro-German government of the Prince Regent.

• 31: The Afrika Korps continues the German offensive in North Africa; Mersa Brega, north of El Agheila, is taken.

  April

• 1: British retreat after the losses at El Agheila, Libya. Rommel is surprised, then decides to continue his offensive.

• 2: After taking Agedabia, Rommel decides to take all of Libya and moves his troops toward Benghazi. All of Cyrenaic seems ready for the taking.
• 3: A pro-Axis government is installed in Iraq.

• 4: Rommel is now about 200 miles east of El Agheila, heading for Tobruk and Egypt.

• 6: Forces of Germany, Hungary, and Italy, moving through Romania and Hungary, initiate the invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece.

• 7: The Luftwaffe begins a two-day assault on Belgrade, Yugoslavia; Hitler is infuriated by the Yugoslav resistance.
• 8: The Germans take Salonika, Greece.
• 10: Greenland is occupied by the United States. With the approval of a "free Denmark", the US will build naval and air bases as counters to the U-boat war.

• 11: Though still a "neutral" nation, the United States begins sea patrols in the North Atlantic.

• 12: Belgrade, Yugoslavia, surrenders.

• 13: Malta is bombed again; it continues to be a thorn in the side of German supply movements in the Mediterranean.

• 14: Rommel attacks Tobruk, but is forced to turn back. Other attacks, also failures, occur on the 16th and 30th.

• 15: British destroyers intercept an Afrika Korps convoy and sink all five transports and the three covering Italian destroyers.
• 16: A heavy Luftwaffe raid on Belfast, Northern Ireland.

• 17: Yugoslavia surrenders. A government in exile is formed in London. King Peter escapes to Greece.
• 18: Greek Prime Minister Alexandros Koryzis commits suicide; the British plan the major evacuation of Greece.

• 19: London suffers one of the heaviest air raids in the war; St. Paul's is mildly damaged but remains closed; other Wren churches are heavily damaged or destroyed.
• 21: With their retreat cut off by the German advance, 223,000 Greek soldiers of the Greek army in Albania surrender.
• 22: The British, both military and civilian, begin to evacuate Greece.
• 23: Greek government is evacuated to Crete, which Churchill is determined to defend.
• 24: British and Australian forces evacuate from Greece to Crete and Egypt.

• 25: Rommel wins an important victory at Halfaya Pass, close to the Egyptian border.

• 26: Rommel attacks the Gazala defence line and crosses into Egypt; Tobruk continues to hold however.
• 27: Athens is occupied by German troops. Greece surrenders.

• 30: Rommel is ordered to cease attacks on Tobruk after another failure.

May

• 1: Seven nights of bombing of Liverpool by the Luftwaffe begins, resulting in widespread destruction.
• 2: British forces at RAF Habbaniya launch pre-emptive air strikes against Iraqi forces besieging them and the Anglo-Iraqi War begins.
• 3: British forces in Ethiopia begin the investment of Amba Alagi where Italian forces under the Duke of Aosta have taken up defensive positions.
• 4: Belfast, Northern Ireland, experiences another heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe.
• 5: Five years from the day he was forced to flee, Emperor Haile Selassie enters Addis Ababa, his capital, in triumph.
• 6: With much of the Iraqi air force destroyed and facing regular bombardment themselves, the Iraqi ground forces besieging RAF Habbaniya withdraw.

• 7: Between Habbaniya and Fallujah, two Iraqi columns are caught in the open and attacked by roughly forty British aircraft; the Iraqis suffer heavy casualties.
• 8: Heavy convoy losses in the Atlantic continue; however, one U-boat is captured by the British navy and another copy of the "Enigma" machine is discovered and saved. It will help to turn the fortunes in the Atlantic battle.

• 9: A Japanese brokered peace treaty signed in Tokyo ends the French-Thai War.
• 10: Rudolf Hess is captured in Scotland after bailing out of his plane; his self-appointed mission was to make peace with the United Kingdom.

• 12: The RAF bombs several German cities, including Hamburg, Emden, and Berlin.

• 13: Yugoslav Army Colonel Draža Mihailović summons up the "Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland" which mostly consists of Serbs, but also includes Slovenes, Bosnians, and Croats. Mihailović treks from Bosnia to Ravna Gora in central Serbia, and issues an uprising call promising a struggle against the occupiers and the restoration of the Yugoslavian Monarchy. At this point, Josip Broz Tito and the Yugoslav Partisans are aligned with the Soviet Union, which is still friendly with Germany.

• 14: The RAF is authorized to act against German aircraft in Syria and on Vichy French airfields.
• 15: First Civilian Public Service camp opens for conscientious objectors in the United States.
• 16: Rommel defeats a counter-attack, "Brevity", at Halfaya Pass. The two sides trade alternating control of Fort Capuzzo and Halfaya Pass.
• 17: British forces in the Habbaniya area advance on Iraqi-held Fallujah and, in five days fighting, push the Iraqis out.
• 18: The Duke of Aosta, Viceroy of Italian East Africa, surrenders his forces at Amba Alagi.
• 20: German paratroopers land on Crete; the battle for Crete will continue for seven days.

• 21: The US merchantman is sunk by. The incident startles the nation, and President Roosevelt shortly announces an "unlimited national emergency."

• 22: Iraqi forces unsuccessfully counter-attack the British forces in Fallujah and are rebuffed.
• 23: German dictator Adolf Hitler issues "Führer Directive No. 30" in support of "The Arab Freedom Movement in the Middle East", his "natural ally against England."
• 24: British battlecruiser is sunk by a powerful salvo from German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic.

• 26: In the North Atlantic, Royal Navy Fairey Swordfish aircraft from the carrier fatally cripple the in torpedo attack.
• 27: The German battleship is sunk in the North Atlantic by the Royal Navy, after evasive tactics, and a damaged steering system which forced it into an endless series of circular movements.

• 28: British and Commonwealth forces begin to evacuate Crete.

• 29: Members of the German military mission flee Iraq.
• 30: Rashid Ali and his supporters flee Iraq.
• 31: Heavy Luftwaffe bombing on neutral Ireland's capital; numerous civilian casualties.

June

• 1: Commonwealth forces complete the withdrawal from Crete.

• 2: Tuskegee Airmen begin with the formation of the 99th Fighter Squadron.
• 4: Kaiser William II, former German Emperor, dies in exile in the Netherlands.
• 6: More British fighter planes are delivered to Malta; Luftwaffe attacks continue.
• 8: Vichy French-controlled Syria and Lebanon are invaded by Australian, British, Free French, and Indian forces.
• 9: Finland initiates mobilisation, preparations against possible attack of Soviet aggressor.

• 10: Assab, the last Italian-held port in East Africa, falls.
• 13: The Australians continue to fight through the Vichy French defenses and advance towards Beirut, winning the Battle of Jezzine.

• 14: All German and Italian assets in the United States are frozen.

• 15: British Operation Battleaxe attempts and fails to relieve the Siege of Tobruk. The British are heavily defeated at Halfaya Pass nicknamed "Hell-fire pass".
• 16: All German and Italian consulates in the United States are ordered closed and their staffs to leave the country by [|July] 10.
• 20: Under the directives of the United States Department of War, the bulk of the personnel of what had been known as the United States Army Air Corps up to this date are brought into what becomes the United States Army Air Forces from this date forward, with General Henry H. Arnold as its first commander. As part of the reorganization, General Headquarters Air Force is renamed Air Force Combat Command; the new Army Air Forces organization consists of Air Force Combat Command, with the existing logistics and training element retaining the older "United States Army Air Corps" designation.

• 22: Germany invades the Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa, a three-pronged operation aimed at Leningrad, Moscow, and the southern oil fields of the Caucasus, ending the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Romania invades south-western border areas of the Soviet Union in Europe on the side of Germany.

• 23: In the late evening, Hitler first arrives at his headquarters at Rastenburg, East Prussia, codenamed "Wolf's Lair". Between this date and [|November] 20, 1944, Hitler will have spent 800 days at Wolf's Lair.

• 24: German forces enter Vilnius. Lithuanian militia men go on shooting spree, killing dozens of Jews on the streets, with civilian spectators cheering them on. The Germans kidnap 60 Jewish "hostages" and 30 Poles. Only 6 return.
• 25: The Soviet Union bombs Helsinki. Finland pronounces a state of war between Finland and Soviet Union. Continuation war is started.
• 26: Hungary and Slovakia declare war on the Soviet Union.
• 27: The occupation of Lithuania starts officially.
• 28: Italian-occupied Albania declares war on the Soviet Union.

• 29: Finnish and German troops begin Operation Arctic Fox against the Soviet Union.

July

• 1: General Auchinleck takes over from General Wavell in North Africa.

• 2: Ponary massacre killings begin, with the shooting of Soviet POWs captured during Operation Barbarossa, which began two weeks earlier, and with the deportation of hundreds of Jews from Vilnius to Soviet dug fuel tank pits near the Ponariai suburb of Vilnius, where they are shot or buried alive. Reports by survivors are accepted as hallucinations. The mass deportations and shooting of Jews continued until 1943.

• 3: Stalin announces a "scorched earth policy".

• 4: Mass murder of Polish scientists and writers, committed by German troops in captured Polish city of Lwów.

• 5: British Government rules out possibility of negotiated peace with Nazi Germany.

• 7: British and Canadian troops in Iceland are replaced by Americans.
• 8: Yugoslavia, a country formed by the Versailles treaty, is dissolved by the Axis into its component parts; especially important will be Croatia, with a pro-Axis government.

• 9: Vitebsk is captured; this opens the battle of Smolensk, an important communications centre, considered by the German high command to be "the gateway to Moscow."
• 10: The occupation of Latvia starts officially. Guderian's Panzers take Minsk; the Germans advance farther into Ukraine.

• 12: The Vichy French surrender in Syria.

• 13: Montenegro starts an uprising against the Axis Powers shortly after the Royalists in Serbia begin theirs. Questionable Communist plans instigate parallel uprising and civil war.
• 15: The Red Army starts a counter-attack against the Wehrmacht near Leningrad.

• 16: German Panzers under Guderian reach Smolensk, increasing the risk to Moscow.
• 17: Luftwaffe air attacks on Malta continue.
• 19: The "V-sign", displayed most notably by Churchill, is unofficially adopted as the Allied signal, along with the motif of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
• 20: Heinrich Himmler visits Soviet POWs near Minsk and Lublin and decides to build the concentration camp near Lublin known as Majdanek concentration camp.
• 21: The Luftwaffe strikes heavily at Moscow.
• 26: In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.

• 28: Japanese troops occupy southern French Indochina. The Vichy French colonial government is allowed by the Japanese to continue to administer Vietnam. French repression continues. The Vichy French also agree to the occupation by the Japanese of bases in Indochina.

• 31: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."

August

• 1: The US announces an oil embargo against "aggressors."

• 2: All civilian radios in Norway confiscated by the German occupation.

• 5: German armies trap Red Army forces in Smolensk pocket and take 300,000 soldiers; Orel is taken.
• 6: Germans take Smolensk.

• 9: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet at NS Argentia, Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter is created, signed, and released to the world press.
• 11: Malta is relieved by a convoy.

• 12: Hitler, against the advice of his generals, shifts some forces from the Moscow front to Leningrad and the Crimean offensives.
• 18: Adolf Hitler orders a temporary halt to Nazi Germany's systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and handicapped due to protests. However, graduates of the Action T4 operation were then transferred to concentration camps, where they continued in their trade.
• 20: German 250th Infantry Division, nicknamed "Blue Division" and consisted of Spanish volunteers, was formed and began to move to Poland.
• 22: German forces close in on Leningrad; the citizens continue improvising fortifications.
• 25: British and Soviet troops invade Iran to save the Abadan oilfields and the important railways and routes to Soviet Union for the supply of war material.
• 27: German U-boat U-570, being forced to surface off Iceland is captured by the British Royal Navy and is later put into combat service as HMS Graph.
• 28: German forces with the help of Estonian volunteers take Tallinn from Soviets.
• 30: The Shetland bus, a clandestine special operations group that made a permanent link between Shetland, Scotland and German-occupied Norway, begins operations.
• 31: The first signs appear that a Leningrad "siege" is beginning.

September

• 1: With the assistance of Finnish armies in the north, Leningrad is now completely cut off.

• 3: Murder of all 3,700 residents of the old Jewish quarter in Vilnius begins at the Ponary death site along with 10 members of the Judenrat. First written testimony of occurrences at Ponary by a survivor.

• 4: becomes the first United States warship fired upon by a German U-boat in the war, even though the United States is a neutral power. Tension heightens between the two nations as a result. The U.S. is now committed to convoy duties between the Western Hemisphere and Europe.
• 5: Germany occupies Estonia.
• 6: 6,000 Jews shot at Ponary, a day after the order to form the Vilna Ghetto was issued.
• 7: Berlin is heavily hit by RAF bombers.
• 8: Siege of Leningrad begins – a reasonable date to start measuring "the 900 days." German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad; Stalin orders the Volga Germans deported to Siberia.
• 10: German armies now have Kiev completely surrounded.
• 11: Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Navy to shoot on sight if any ship or convoy is threatened.
• 15: "Self-government" of Estonia, headed by Hjalmar Mäe, is appointed by German military administration.

• 16: Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran is forced to resign in favour of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran under pressure from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.
• 19: German capture of Kiev is now formal. The Red Army forces have suffered many casualties in defending this chief city in Soviet Ukraine.
• 26: The U.S. Naval Command orders an all-out war on Axis shipping in American waters.
• 27: The first "Liberty Ship", the SS Patrick Henry is launched. Liberty Ships will prove to be major parts of the Allied supply system.
• 27: The National Liberation Front is founded in Greece.
• 28: German SS troops kill over 30,000 Jews at Babi Yar on the outskirts of Kiev, Soviet Ukraine, in response to sabotage efforts which the Germans attributed to local Jews.
• 28–29: The Drama Uprising against the Bulgarian occupation in northern Greece begins. It is swiftly put down, with about 3,000 people executed as reprisals.

  October

• 1: Majdanek concentration camp and later to become extermination camp is opened.

• 2: Operation Typhoon – German "Central" forces begin an all-out offensive against Moscow. Leading the defense of the capital is General Georgi Zhukov, already a Hero of Soviet Union for his command in the conflict against the Japanese in the Russian Far East and at Leningrad.
• 3: Mahatma Gandhi urges his followers to begin a passive resistance against British rule in India.
• 7: Heavy RAF night bombings of Berlin, the Ruhr, and Cologne, but with heavy losses.
• 8: In their invasion of the southern Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol. However, there are signs that the invasion is beginning to bog down as rainy weather creates muddy roads for both tanks and men.
• 10: German armies encircle about 660,000 Red Army troops near Vyasma ; some make a glowing prediction of the end of the war.
• 12: delivers a squadron of Hurricane fighter planes to Malta.

• 13: Germans attempt another drive toward Moscow as the once muddy ground hardens.
• 14: Temperatures fall further on the Moscow front; heavy snows follow and immobilize German tanks.
• 15: The Germans drive on Moscow.
• 16: Soviet Union government begins move eastward to Samara, a city on the Volga, but Joseph Stalin remains in Moscow. The citizens of Moscow frantically build tank traps and other fortifications for the coming siege.

• 17: The destroyer is torpedoed and damaged by near Iceland, killing eleven sailors. They are the first American military casualties of the war.

• 18: Red Army troop reinforcements arrive in Moscow from Siberia; Stalin is assured that the Japanese will not attack the USSR from the East.

• 19: An official "state of siege" is announced in Moscow; the city is placed under martial law.
• 19: German-occupied Luxembourg is declared "Judenrein".
• 20: Lt. Col. Karl Hotz, the German commander in Nantes, is killed by Resistance; 50 hostages are shot in reprisal. The incident will become a model for future occupation policies.
• 21: New Zealand troops land in Egypt and take over Fort Capuzzo.

• 22: Odessa massacre begins and continues for two days. 25,000 to 34,000 Jews are led in a long procession and are shot and killed in an antitank ditch, or burnt alive after being crowded into four buildings.

• 24: In Ukraine, the important mining and industrial centre of Kharkov falls to the German Army Group South forces.

• 27: German Army Group South forces reach Sevastopol in the Crimea, but the tanks of the "Northern" forces are slowed or stopped entirely by mud.
• 28: Bolekhiv first aktion massacre – 1,000 of the leading Jews rounded up by list, tortured, and on the following day 800 of the surviving Jews, were shot or buried alive at a nearby forest. The re-discovered atrocities and testimony in 1996 lead to Patrick Desbois's research on the German method of "One Bullet, One Jew" extermination in 1941 and 1942.
• 29: Vilna Ghetto II liquidated. 2,500 Jews killed.
• 30: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.
• 31: The destroyer is torpedoed by Erich Topp's near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It is the first loss of an American "neutral warship."

  November

• 1: President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces that the U.S. Coast Guard will now be under the direction of the U.S. Navy, a transition of authority usually reserved only for wartime.
• 2: Political conflict in Yugoslavia as leftists under Tito are in competition with the more conservative Serbs under Draža Mihailović.
• 3: Germans take Kursk.

• 6: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule. He states that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, that the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers and that Soviet victory was near.
• 7: Heavy RAF night bombings of Berlin, the Ruhr, and Cologne, but with heavy losses.
• 9: Force K, including the light cruisers and and destroyers and, sank 7 merchant ships, a tanker, and 1 destroyer during the Battle of the Duisburg Convoy.
• 12: Battle of Moscow – Temperatures around Moscow drop to minus 12 °C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.

• 13: Germans start a new offensive against Moscow as the muddy ground freezes again.

• 15: The Germans drive on Moscow.
• 17: Joseph Grew, the United States ambassador to Japan, cables the State Department that Japan had plans to launch an attack against Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

• 18: Operation Crusader: British Commonwealth and other Allied troops cross into Libya and at least temporarily relieve the Siege of Tobruk.
• 19: Australian light cruiser and the sink each other off the coast of Western Australia. All 648 crewmen are lost on HMAS Sydney.
• 21: Battle of Rostov – Rostov-on-Don, an important hub on the southern front, is taken by the Germans.
• 22: Britain issues an ultimatum to Finland to end war with the Soviet Union or face war with the Allies.

• 23: Rommel's attack continues around Sidi Rezegh; Allied losses continue to rise.

• 24: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French.

• 25: sinks the British battleship while covering Mediterranean convoys.
• 26: A Japanese attack fleet of 33 warships and auxiliary craft, including six aircraft carriers, sails from northern Japan for the Hawaiian Islands.

• 28: Battle of Rostov – Rostov-on-Don is recaptured by the Red Army.

[|December]

• 1: Malta marks its 1,000th bombing raid.

• 2: Prime Minister Tojo rejects "peace feelers" from the US.

• 3: Conscription in the United Kingdom now includes all men between 18 and 50. Women will not be neglected since they will serve in fire brigades and in women's auxiliary groups.
• 3: General strike begins among native mine-workers in the Belgian Congo.
• 3: Vilna Ghetto 'Criminal Aktion' begins, continued the next day. 157 Jews are killed at Ponary.
• 4: The temperature on the Moscow front falls to −31 °F. German attacks are failing.
• 4: Japanese naval and army forces continue to move toward Pearl Harbor and South-east Asia.
• 5: Germans call off the attack on Moscow, now 11 miles away; the USSR counter-attacks during a heavy blizzard.
• 6: The United Kingdom declares war on Finland.

• 7: Japan launches an attack on Pearl Harbor, declares war on the United States and the United Kingdom and invades Thailand and British Malaya and launches aerial attacks against Guam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Shanghai, Singapore and Wake Island. Canada declares war on Japan. Australia declares war on Japan.

• 8: The United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and New Zealand declare war on Japan.

• 9: China officially declares war on Japan, although a de facto state of war has existed between the two countries since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 7, 1937. China also declares war on Germany and Italy. Australia officially declares war on Japan. South Africa declares war on Japan, regarded as if at war from eight December 1941.
• 9: Striking miners of the Union Minière at Elizabethville in the Belgian Congo are fired on by Belgian colonial forces during negotiations, killing an estimated 70 people.
• 10: British battlecruiser and battleship are sunk in a Japanese air attack in the South China Sea.
• 11: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. The United States reciprocates and declares war on Germany and Italy.

• 12: Japanese landings on the southern Philippine Islands—Samar, Jolo, Mindanao.

• 13: Bulgaria and Hungary declare war on the United States and the United Kingdom, the United States and the United Kingdom reciprocate and declare war on Bulgaria and Hungary.

• 14: The British cruiser is sunk by off Alexandria, beginning a series of naval defeats for the Allies.
• 15: Italian "human torpedoes" damage two British battleships, and in Alexandria harbour.

• 16: Rommel orders a withdrawal all the way to El Agheila, where he had begun in March. He awaits reinforcements of men and tanks.

• 17: Battle of Sevastopol begins.
• 18: Japanese troops land on Hong Kong Island.
• 19: Hitler becomes Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the German Army.

• 20: The battle for Wake Island continues with several Japanese ships sunk or damaged.

• 21: The suffering of besieged Leningrad continues; it is estimated that about 3,000 are dying each day of starvation and various diseases.

• 22: The Japanese land at Lingayan Gulf, on the northern part of Luzon in the Philippines.

• 23: A second Japanese landing attempt on Wake Island is successful, and the American garrison surrenders after hours of fighting.

• 24: In the Philippines, American forces retreat into Bataan Peninsula.

• 25: Hong Kong surrenders to Japan.

• 27: British and Norwegian Commandos raid the Norwegian port of Vågsøy, causing Hitler to reinforce the garrison and defences.
• 28: Japanese paratroopers land on Sumatra.