Friday, May 22, 1942 Mexico Declares War on the Axis.

Today in World War II History—May 22, 1942: Mexico declares war on Germany, Japan, and Italy after many ships are lost to German U-boats. United Steel Workers of America is formed.

So notes Sarah Sundin on her blog.

Something little noted by most historians today, the Mexican declaration of war was significant to the United States, as it ended up releasing forces stationed on the border, which included two cavalry regiments from the Texas National Guard.  The US had frankly been concerned about what side of the war Mexico would favor, with the single part state favoring strong central rule and having a wing that favored fascism.  Having said that, the sympathies of the ruling party, the PRI, fell more heavily on the left, and indeed Mexico had teetered on the edge of outright Communism for a time during the 1930s.  A change in leadership in 1940 brought in Manuel Ávila Camacho, the last general to serve as President of Mexico, who was a political moderate.

Camacho took a much more conciliatory view towards relations with the United States than his predecessors since the revolution, even though he had been an officer in revolutionary armies since 1914.  Perhaps ironically, his opponent in the 1940 Mexican election was the retired right wing Mexican officer Juan Andreu Almazán, who traveled to the United States thereafter to seek support from the Roosevelt Administration for an intended revolution against Camacho.  In this context, the US actually did favor Almazán over Camacho.  Almazán's friendship with far right figures in the United States however doomed any support from the US.

In addition to starting the repair of relations with the US, Camacho, who was a practicing Catholic, ended the official PRI suppression of the Catholic Church.

Mexico would play a small role in the war militarily, but strategically its location made a difference to the allies in regard to shipping and control of the seas.  Additionally, the Bracero Program brought Mexican farm laborers in, in a shift in US agricultural practices, that became more or less permanent.

Mexican fighter pilot and maintenance crew of the 201st Fighter Squadron.

In terms of combat units, Mexico contributed a fighter squadron, equipped with US aircraft, in the fight against Japan.  15,000 Mexican nationals joined the American armed forces, something that's rarely noted.

Also on this day, Pan Am initiated the use of corrugated cardboard cartons for cargo, a massive weight saving innovation.

Sparrow Force on Timor ambushes a patrol led by the Japanese "Tiger of Singapore", who was leading the patrol mounted on a white horse.  He was killed.

Friday, February 20, 1942. Action in the Pacific

Sarah Sundin's daily blog on the Second World War has an entire series of really interesting items in it for this day. Well worth reviewing,  which you can do here:

February 20, 1942: First US Eighth Air Force officers arrive in England. Japanese land on Portuguese East Timor and Dutch West Timor in the East Indies.

Among those items is Navy pilot Edward O'Hare being credited with shooting down five Japanese aircraft within six minutes on this day in 1942, a feat which secured him the Congressional Medial of Honor. 

The aircraft that O'Hare struck were Japanese Betty bombers headed towards the USS Lexington which was off of Bougainville.  In reality, O'Hare shot down only three aircraft, rather than the six he thought he had, or the five he was credited with,although he so disrupted their attack that he prevented it from being a success.  One of the stricken Japanese bombers did attempt to fly into the Lexington, so four were in fact lost during the raid.

The heroic O'Hare was killed in combat in November, 1943.

Sundin also reports that the first advance party of the U.S. 8th Air Force arrived in the United Kingdom.

The 8th, of course, would go on to figure enormously in the US strategic bombing campaign over Germany.

Sundin also notes that the vast majority of Norwegian teachers, on this day, refused an order to become fascists, leading to some of them enduing up in concentration camps.

The Battle of Badung Strait ended in a Japanese victory, with the Japanese navy driving off a much larger combined Allied task force.   

The Japanese landed forces on Portuguese Timor and took the airfield.  Portugal wasn't in the war and was now enduring its second Timorese occupation, as the British and Australians had occupied it first to prevent it from being attacked by the Japanese.  The Portuguese protested the occupation without success.

Portuguese Timor was in the midst of an interesting transition at the time.  The Portuguese government had just turned education over to the Catholic Church, and as a result, the educational fortunes of the population were improving.  During the Japanese occupation of Timor the distinction between Portuguese and Dutch Timor were ignored, fairly obviously, but the Portuguese reasserted their possession in 1945 and would maintain it until 1975.  The region was then invaded, following the political turmoil in Portugal of that period, by Indonesia, but in 2002 it gained independence.  It's own independence movement can trace its origin to the improved educational lot of the population that started in 1941.

The Japanese also attacked Koepang in Dutch Timor on the same day, logically enough as it was all one island. The action was unusual in that it featured Japanese paratroopers who landed to take an airfield, but who were successfully repulsed by Australian troops.  Japan did have paratroopers but they received little use during the war, and were in fact mostly only used in the early stages of the war in the Pacific.

German U-boats started raiding ships off of the Lesser Antilles.  The Italian submarine Torelli participated with them.

The Hakim of Bahrain, Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa, died on this day in 1942.  Under his administration, which commenced in 1932, oil exploration in the country commenced.  Bahrain was a British protectorate at the time, something that had come about as the ruling family needed outside support due to their unstable position in the country.