Operation Bowery sees British Spitfires delivered to Malta, quickly refuel, and take flight again. The action was the turning point in the air battle over Malta that had been going on for months. On this day, in fact, in the Battle of Malta, an Italian bombing mission on Malta sustained heavy losses and daytime raids on Malta ceased.
Spitfire being readied to take off from the USS Wasp.
The mission was the successor to one which had only recently taken place, in which all of the Spitfires had been destroyed on the ground immediately after landing in Malta.
On the same day, 60 P40s were launched from the USS Ranger to take up station at Accra in Ghana.
P40s on the USS Wasp.
This is an aspect of a truly world war that we don't consider. Probably even many people who are highly literate on the history of the Second World War don't know that the United States Army Air Corp stationed fighters in a West African nation, or rather British colony, but it did. These no doubt served principally as a deterrant to German submraines operating off of the South Atlantic coast, but also as a deterrant to the threat of Vichy operations in Africa.
Churchill, on the occasion of the second anniversary of his taking office as Prime Minister, declared that if the Germans used poison gas against the Soviets, the United Kingdom would regard it as having been used against it.
In spite of the fear that the Germans would use poison gas, they in fact never did, and the only incident of combat theater gas deaths during the war came when the Luftwaffe hit a ship of the US Navy off of Italy later in the war which was carrying a supply of poison gas.
Sarah Sundin notes on her blog the following:
Today in World War II History—May 10, 1942: Assembly center for Japanese-Americans opens at Stockton, CA. US celebrates Mother’s Day.
Noting that it was Mothers Day for 1942, she also had this interesting poster on her blog:
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