Henkels & McCoy Timeline: 1942

1942

UNCLE SAM NEEDS EVERYBODY

With the onset of war, the government and the defense industry became the dominant customers of almost all contractors. Henkels & McCoy undertakes confidential government work and installs roads, power lines and cable lines, clears rights-of-way, and places conduits for a series of top secret radar installations along the East Coast (no photos are available of this secret work).
Henkels & McCoy also begins complete Electrical Distribution System work at the United States Naval Training Station in Bainbridge, Maryland, and at the Hunter Manufacturing Co. in Emilie, Pennsylvania.

In 1942, women enter the workforce in

unprecedented numbers as husbands, sweethearts and sons enter the armed forces. Female military police take up guard duty, and "Rosie the Riveter" is very much in evidence in defense and manufacturing plants across the country performing essential work for the war effort. The Andrews Sisters (left) top the charts with a plea for the girls at home to be true to GI Joe: Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (with anyone else but me). Choose your favorite pin-up. Betty Grable's photo (far right) graced many a berth or bunk. This famous pose was staged to conceal a pregnancy from the camera lens.

Professional sports teams' ranks are thinned as players depart for military service. Several novel ideas are adopted to help fans for the duration, including combining depleted teams on a temporary basis. For example, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh combined their football teams, as did other cities. Right: Pete Gray is a one-armed wonder, first playing outfield in the Canadian-American League. In 1945 he will be picked up by the St. Louis Browns. He plays a total of 77 games with a batting average of .218 and 13 RBIs.

January 8
Steven Hawking, theoretical physicist, born in Oxford, England.

January 20
Leading Nazi government ministers and SS officers gather in Wansee, a suburb of Berlin, to discuss the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question", to tally the number of Jews within Europe, including neutral countries and unconquered lands, and how best to resolve the "problem.". The number totals eleven million people. The top secret meeting discusses various ways of winnowing that number to zero.

January
Malaya and the Solomon Islands fall to Japan. Singapore will be invaded and fall the following month, as will the Dutch East Indies. New Guinea will be invaded in March and an invasion of the Philippines is imminent.

February
FDR orders General Douglas A. MacArthur, the Supreme US Army Commander in the Pacific, to leave the Philippines as Japanese forces prepare to capture those islands. "Mac" will reluctantly leave his troops in March, promising, "I shall return." He regroups in Australia. Also in February, the President issues an Executive Order calling for the internment of all Pacific Coast Japanese-Americans. During the war, more than 17,000 Japanese-Americans will volunteer and fight for the US in the European Theater of Operations.

April
US and Filipino forces surrender to Japanese. The infamous Bataan Death March ensues, where captured Allied forces are made to march for 12 days without food or water. Over 1000 souls will perish.

April 18
US bombers raid Tokyo in a daring, morale boosting raid.

May
US forces on Corregidor, Philippines surrender to Japanese. Also in May, the Japanese will complete its capture of Burma and reach India.

May 14
The Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) established. Right: a female Marine from an enlistment poster.

June 14
Battle of Midway. US planes sink four Japanese aircraft carriers. This follows the US victory in the Coral Sea in May, when a Japanese carrier is sunk and two others badly mauled by the US Navy, handing the Japanese their first defeat at US hands. These two stunning victories are later described as a turning point in the Pacific war. Japan will suffer a chronic shortage of experienced pilots for the remainder of the conflict.

October 23
Battle of El Alamein rages in Libya, pitting the British 8th Army and General Bernard Law Montgomery against the German Afrika Korps under Field Marshal
Erwin Rommel (above). "Monty" and the 8th Army
triumph over the "Desert Fox." The outcome of the struggle encouraged Winston Churchill to declare later, that, "We had neither a victory before it nor a defeat after it."

November 8
US forces land in North Africa.

December 1
Ration coupon books for gasoline are distributed in the US, curtailing unnecessary auto use. Right: a Gas Ration Card

Also in 1942:

Bob Hope performs his first official USO tour (United Service Organizations), for troops based in Alaska, with fellow comic Jerry Colonna, singer Frances Langford, and Tony Romano.

Casablanca (coincidentally set in North Africa) is released in theatres. The low-budget film becomes an instant classic, memorable for Humphrey Bogart's performance as hard-boiled café owner Rick Blane and his famous line to piano playing sidekick Dooley Wilson, "Play it, Sam."

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