World War II Database

• Home
• » Events
• » WW2 Timeline
• » 23 Jul 1942

• General Maximilian von Weichs was appointed to command Armeegruppe B, relieving General Fedor von Bock. ww2dbase [Maximilian von Weichs | TH]
• Adam Czerniaków passed away. ww2dbase [Adam Czerniaków | CPC]
• Indian troops launched an attack on Deir el Shein near El Alamein, Egypt in failure. ww2dbase [First Battle of El Alamein | CPC]
• Martin Bormann relayed Adolf Hitler's orders to Alfred Rosenberg, noting that the Slavic population in occupied Eastern Europe were to be nothing more than laborers of Germany, thus they did not need to be fed more food than absolutely necessary, and they were not to be educated. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Italian transport Rosolino Pilo, escorted by two destroyers and two smaller vessels, safely arrived at Benghazi, Libya after a three-day trip from Brindisi, Italy. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German submarine U-129 sank US ship Onondaga 5 miles north of Cayo Guillermo, Cuba at 2222 hours; 20 were killed, 14 survived. ww2dbase [Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico Campaigns | CPC]
• German submarine U-752 sank British ship Garmula 200 miles southwest of Freetown, British West Africa; 21 were killed, 67 survived. ww2dbase [Second Happy Time | CPC]

• Douglas MacArthur arrived at Brisbane, Australia. ww2dbase [Douglas MacArthur | CPC]

• Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa of the Japanese 8th Fleet based at Rabaul, New Britain, Bismarck Archipelago repeated his 21 Jul 1942 request for more destroyers. ww2dbase [Gunichi Mikawa | CPC]

• Japanese troops engaged troops of the Papuan Infantry Battalion at Awala, Australian Papua on the Kokoda Trail. ww2dbase [New Guinea-Papua Campaign, Phase 2 | CPC]

• Barbers Point Naval Air Station: First movies for all personnel, in mess hall. ww2dbase [Barbers Point Naval Air Station | DS]

• Treblinka Concentration Camp in Poland began mass extermination by gassing. Its first prisoners would be Jews recently deported from the ghetto in Warsaw. 700,000 would be killed within the following one year. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Treblinka Concentration Camp | CPC]

• Führer Directive Number 45 was issued, ordering Operation Brunswick, the capture of the Caucasus region; Armeegruppe A would move through Maikop and Grozny to the Black Sea and Armeegruppe B would take Stalingrad on the drive to Astrakhan. Meanwhile, in southern Russia, German 13th Panzer Division, German 22nd Panzer Division, and Czechoslovakian Mobile Slovak Division captured the Kommolomny Bridge over the Don River at Rostov-on-Don. ww2dbase [Caucasus Campaign | TH, CPC]
• Aleksandr Vasilevsky was named a representative of the Soviet Stavka at Stalingrad, Russia. ww2dbase [Aleksandr Vasilevsky | CPC]

• The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Washington DC, United States, fearful that the completion of the Japanese airfield on Guadacanal in the Solomon Islands might signal a renewed enemy advance in the South Pacific that could threaten US aid to New Zealand and Australia, agreed to Marine deployments to secure the lines of communication (Operation Watchtower). ww2dbase [Guadalcanal Campaign | AC]

23 Jul 1942 Interactive Map