Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food Read Free

Italy declare war on the United States.
12 December: Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels appeals for winter clothing for German troops on the eastern front.
14 December: Siam formally allies itself with Japan. German troops begin to withdraw from the area around Moscow.
15 December: Stalin orders Soviet government to return to Moscow.
16 December: Japanese land on Borneo.
22 December: Japanese land on the Philippines.
December–January 1942: Arcadia conference between Churchill and Roosevelt in Washington – sets up the Combined Food Board and the Combined Shipping Adjustments Board.
1942
Famine in northern Nigeria and Tanganyika. British West African Cocoa Control Board becomes West African Produce Control Board.
January: Wannsee Conference. British allow shipments of wheat through the blockade into Greece.
5 January: American and Filipino troops withdraw to Bataan Peninsula.
12 January: Japan declares war on the Dutch East Indies. US introduces coffee rationing.
23 January: Japanese land at Rabaul, New Britain, and on Bougainville Island, the Solomons.
25 January: Japanese begin landing troops at Lae, New Guinea.
February: Oliver Lyttelton appointed British Minister of Production. Germans retreat from Kaluga.
February–December: Belzec extermination camp functions.
15 February: British garrison at Singapore surrenders to Japanese.
28 February: Japanese land on Java.
February–March: Japanese massacre Malayan Chinese community.
March: Hitler gives orders for soldiers coming home on leave from the occupied territories to bring food parcels. US interns Japanese-Americans.
8 March: Japanese capture Rangoon, Burma.
14 March: US troops begin arriving in Australia in force.
21 March: Fritz Sauckel appointed General Plenipotentiary for Labour Mobilization.
30 March: Allies divide Pacific theatre into the South-West Pacific (the Philippines, New Guinea, Bismarck Archipelago and Dutch East Indies) under General MacArthur and the South and Central Pacific Ocean Command under Admiral Nimitz.
April: German bread, meat and fat rations reduced. British make National Wholemeal Flour compulsory. Regular relief shipments begin arriving in Greece.
8 April: US delegation led by General George Marshall arrives in Britain to discuss US–British strategy on the opening of a Second Front against Germany.
9 April: US–Filipino forces on Bataan Peninsula, Philippines, surrender to the Japanese.
29 April: Japanese close Burma Road to China.
May: British withdraw from Burma. Battle of the Coral Sea.
10 May: all US–Filipino forces on the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.
15 May: US introduces petrol rationing.
21 May: Herbert Backe appointed Acting Minister of Food and Agriculture.
May–October 1943: Sobibor extermination camp functions.
June: Lord Swinton appointed British Resident Minister in West Africa. Maximum charge of 5 s . imposed on restaurant meals in Britain.
July: Australia introduces tea rationing. First Battle of El Alamein.
21 July: Japanese force to attack Port Moresby lands at Buna, New Guinea.
23 July: transports begin taking Jews from Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka.
July–October 1943: Treblinka extermination camp functions.
August: Compulsory Native Labour Act passed in Southern Rhodesia. Quit India Movement. The Australians agree to divert meat from Britain to feed US troops in Pacific and in return US agrees to increase meat exports to Britain. Japanese Food Control Act.
5 August: Göring meets with the Gauleiters of the Reich, who complain about ration cuts.
6 August: Göring meets with the leaders of the occupied territories and demands more food for Germany.
7 August: US troops land on Guadalcanal.
8 August: US marines capture Henderson airfield on Guadalcanal.
26 August: Japanese begin to advance up the Kokoda Trail, New Guinea.
September: ten more gas chambers built at Treblinka, six more built at Sobibor.
September–July 1944: Auschwitz functions as an extermination camp.
1 September: Battle of Stalingrad