21–22 January – Battle of Tobruk: Australian and British forces attack and capture Tobruk (Libya) from the Italians.
31 January – German spy Josef Jakobs parachutes into the village of Ramsey, Cambridgeshire; he breaks his ankle on landing and is immediately arrested.[3]
12 February – Reserve Constable Albert Alexander, a patient at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, becomes the first person treated with penicillin intravenously, by Howard Florey’s team. He reacts positively but there is insufficient supply of the drug to reverse his terminal infection. A successful treatment is achieved during May.[5]
19 February – "Three nights' Blitz" over Swansea, South Wales, begins. 230 are killed and 409 injured.
13 March – Clydebank Blitz: bombing of Clydebank. 528 people die, 617 more are seriously injured, and hundreds more are injured by blast debris. Another 35,000 people are made homeless.
18 April – heaviest air-raid of the year on London.[7]
21 April – Greece capitulates. British troops withdraw to Crete.
May
The Ministry of Information issues more than 14 million copies of a leaflet Beating the Invader, with a preface from Churchill, giving advice on what to do "if invasion comes".[12]
26 May – in the North Atlantic, Fairey Swordfishbiplanes from the carrier HMS Ark Royal fatally cripple the German battleship Bismarck in torpedo attack.
May – Emergency Work (Merchant Navy) Order requires merchant seamen to serve for the duration, establishes a Merchant Navy Reserve Pool of labour, and guarantees a wage (which will continue in the event of shipwreck).[15]
RAF pilot Douglas Bader taken prisoner by the Germans after a mid-air collision over France.[4]
12 August – Dudley, which suffered 10 fatalities in a landmine attack in November last year, suffers five more fatalities when a second landmine is dropped in the town.
27 November – Tobruk is relieved by the Eighth Army (which has controlled British and other Allied ground forces in the Western Desert from September) in Operation Crusader.
18 December – National Service (No. 2) Act comes into effect: All men and women aged 18–60 are now liable to some form of national service, including military service for men under 51 and unmarried women between 20 and 30. The first military registration of 18½-year-olds takes place. The schedule of reserved occupations is abandoned.[7]
↑ "Josef Jakobs". Stephen's Study Room: British Military & Criminal History in the period 1900 to 1999. Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 22 March 2012.
↑ Howlett, Peter (1994). "The Wartime Economy, 1939–1945". In Floud, Roderick; McCloskey, Deirdre (eds.). The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, Volume 3: 1939–1992. Cambridge University Press. pp.15–16. ISBN978-0-521-42522-3.
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