Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food (87 page)

1 September: Germany invades Poland.

3 September: Britain, India, Australia, New Zealand and France declare war on Germany.

September: British troops begin to land in France.

1939–1940

Germans evict Poles from their homes in the Warthegau and deport them to the General Government.

1940

8 January: Britain introduces food rationing (butter, sugar and bacon).

March: Britain rations meat.

April: Lord Woolton appointed British Minister of Food.

10 April: Denmark surrenders to Germany.

10 May: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns and is replaced by Winston Churchill.

15 May: British butter ration reduced from 8 to 4 ounces a week. Holland surrenders to Germany.

27 May: British sugar ration reduced from 12 to 8 ounces a week.

28 May: Belgium surrenders to Germany.

30 May–3 June: evacuation of British and French soldiers from Dunkirk.

June: British government subsidizes milk for nursing mothers and children under 5. Japanese close Yunnan rail link between China and French Indo-China, capture Chinese town of Yichang and begin blockade of Nationalist China.

10 June: Italy enters the war and launches attack on British in North and East Africa. Norway surrenders to Germany.

25 June: France surrenders to Germany.

26 June: US imposes embargo on shipments of scrap metal to Japan.

30 June: German occupation of the Channel Islands begins.

July: British parliament passes Colonial Development and Welfare Act.

17 July: Germany announces total blockade of Britain by sea and air.

27 July: Japanese government announces plans for the creation of a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

29 July: German weekly bread ration cut by 600 grams.

July–September: Battle of Britain.

10 August: Churchill announces total blockade of Germany and occupied countries.

29 August: Japan stations troops in northern Indo-China.

September: British launch counter-offensive against Italians in East Africa.

September–December: Germans begin Saybusch action as part of the General Plan for the East.

September–May 1941: the Blitz.

16 September: US brings in the draft.

27 September: Germany, Italy and Japan sign Tripartite Pact.

28 October: Italy invades Greece.

29 October: conscription begins in the US.

1941

British set up West African Cocoa Control Board.

January: co-operation between Chinese Nationalists and communists ends. Nationalists blockade communist China.

6 January: President Roosevelt makes his ‘four freedoms’ speech to Congress.

February: Rommel’s Afrika korps arrives in North Africa.

March: British meat ration cut to 1
s
. a week (about 1 lb). British set up Army Catering Corps. Churchill sets up the Battle of the Atlantic Committee.

11 March: US House of Representatives passes Lend-Lease Bill.

April: Japanese government introduces food rationing and military ration halved to 660 grams of rice a day.

16 April: first lend-lease food shipments arrive in Britain from America.

May: British withdraw from Burma. Germans, Italians and Bulgarians occupy Greece. Hunger Plan discussed at a meeting of German State Secretaries. German cereal ration cut by 125 grams. US Food and Nutrition Board publishes table of Recommended Daily Allowances.

18 May: Italy surrenders to British in East Africa.

Summer–April 1942: Greek famine.

June: German weekly meat ration cut by 400 grams.

1 June: Allied forces on Crete surrender to the Germans.

6 June: Hitler announces Barbarossa decree.

22 June: Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.

July: Oliver Lyttelton appointed as Minister of State in the Middle East.

23 July: Japan occupies the whole of Indo-China.

August: German campaign against the Soviet Jews intensifies and the
Einsatzgruppen
begin to murder women and children.

1 August: US places embargo on oil exports to Japan.

September: Averell Harriman visits Moscow to negotiate with Stalin over Allied assistance in the fight against Germany.

15 September: siege of Leningrad begins.

19 September: German forces capture Kiev.

29 and 30 September: German authorities claim the massacre of Jews in Kiev has eased the food and housing situation.

October: Germans impose a blockade on the city of Kiev.

16 October: Soviet government and diplomatic corps evacuate Moscow for Kuibyshev, Stalin stays in Moscow.

18 October: General Tojo replaces Prince Konoe as Japanese Prime Minister.

24 October: German forces capture Kharkov.

4 November: German civil administration introduces food rations for Soviet urban population.

6 November: lend-lease aid introduced for Soviet Union.

December: Robert Jackson appointed head of Middle East Supply Centre. British government introduces vitamin scheme. Japanese advance into Burma.

December–April 1943: Chelmno extermination camp functions.

7 December: Japanese attack Pearl Harbor and US bases in Hawaii, Wake Island, Midway and the Philippines. Japanese invade Malaya, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

8 December: the United States, Britain and the Dominions declare war on Japan.

11 December: Germany and 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.