Joseph Stalin published a message on International Workers' Day in which he stated that the Soviet Union was fighting a "patriotic war of liberation" and had no aim of "seizing foreign countries" or "conquering foreign peoples."[2]
The British destroyer Punjabi sank in the Greenland Sea after a collision with the battleship King George in foggy conditions.
German destroyers Hermann Schoemann, Z24 and Z25 attacked the damaged British cruiser Edinburgh off Bear Island. Edinburgh was struck by a torpedo and sunk but not before damaging Hermann Schoemann so severely that she was scuttled.[4]
German submarine U-573 entered port at Cartagena, Spain for repairs after being severely damaged on April 29 by depth charges from RAF Lockheed Hudsons. Spanish authorities granted U-573 a three-month period for repairs despite protests from the British embassy.
Japanese seaplane carrier Mizuho sank off Omaezaki the day after being torpedoed by the submarine USS Drum.[5]
The Polish submarine Jastrząb was sunk in the Barents Sea by friendly fire.
The American patrol yacht USS Cythera was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of North Carolina by the German submarine U-402.
Diego Suarez in northern Madagascar surrendered to the British.[3]
In the Battle of the Coral Sea, Japanese aircraft carrier Shōhō and the American destroyer Sims were sunk, while the American oiler Neosho was crippled by bombing and had to be scuttled four days later.
German submarines U-519 and U-621 were commissioned.
The Battle of the Coral Sea ended in Japanese tactical victory but Allied strategic victory. The aircraft carrier USS Lexington was scuttled due to battle damage.
Japanese forces took the northern Burmese city of Myitkyina.[7]
The British submarine Olympus was sunk by a mine off Malta.
The Allies executed Operation Bowery, a repeat of the earlier Operation Calendar delivering Supermarine Spitfire fighter planes to Malta. This time, the newly arrived fighters got back into the air quickly before an air raid could destroy them.
Winston Churchill gave a radio broadcast on the second anniversary of his being appointed British Prime Minister. Churchill warned the Germans that "we shall treat the unprovoked use of poison gas against our Russian ally exactly as if it were used against ourselves and if we are satisfied that this new outrage has been committed by Hitler we will use our great and growing air superiority in the West to carry gas warfare on the largest possible scale far and wide against military objectives in Germany. It is thus for Hitler to choose whether he wishes to add this additional horror to aerial warfare."[12]
The British hospital ship Ramb IV was bombed and sunk off Alexandria by the Luftwaffe.
Action of 13 May 1942: Motor Torpedo Boats of the Royal Navy attempted to stop the German auxiliary cruiser Stier from reaching Gironde, France. Although Stier made it through the English channel, two German torpedo boats were sunk with one British MTB lost in return.
British forces withdrawing from Burma reached Tamu.[10]
U.S. intelligence partially decoded a Japanese message indicating that a large force was preparing to invade "AF". Cryptanalyst Joseph Rochefort suspected that AF represented Midway Island, but officials in Washington believed it stood for the Aleutians. The matter was settled by planting an easily readable message from Midway saying that their desalination plant had broken down. When a Japanese message was then transmitted reporting that "AF" was short of water, Rochefort's belief was confirmed.[13]
The first seventeen U.S. states put gasoline rationing into effect after it became apparent that voluntary rationing was insufficient.[15]
The British cruiser HMS Trinidad of convoy PQ 13 was bombed and damaged in the Atlantic Ocean by Junkers Ju 88 aircraft of the Luftwaffe and had to be scuttled.
The Philippine city of Bacolod was occupied by the Japanese.[18]
Allied convoy PQ 16 departed Iceland for the Soviet Union.
The Mexican oil tanker Faja de Oro was torpedoed and sunk in the Gulf of Mexico by German submarine U-106. This incident along with the Potrero del Llano sinking on the 14th provided a casus belli for Mexico to declare war on the Axis.
German submarines U-197 and U-623 were commissioned.
Mexico declared war on Germany, Italy and Japan.[8]
Townsville Mutiny: About 600 African-American servicemen mutinied in Townsville, Australia in reaction to being regularly subjected to racial abuse by some of their white officers. At least one person was killed and Australian troops were called in to roadblock the rioters.
Soviet submarine L-21 was sunk by German aircraft at Leningrad. The sub would be raised and returned to service.
A 15-minute test blackout centered on Detroit was held starting at 10 p.m., with neighboring communities such as Pontiac and Windsor, Ontario also participating. It was the largest blackout in the Midwestern United States up to that time.[24]
Hideki Tojo addressed the Japanese Diet, reviewing the state of the war and encouraging India to attain independence by rising up against British and American forces.[26]
Died:Chen Duxiu, 62, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party
The Second Battle of Kharkov ended in Axis victory. When the Izium pocket was destroyed, the Soviet 6th and 57th Armies as well as the 21st Tank Corps were completely annihilated.[20]
Italian opera singer Ezio Pinza was released from Ellis Island after being held since March on suspicion of being an enemy alien.[23]
InOperation Millennium, the British conducted a thousand-plane bombing raid on Cologne targeting the city's chemical and machine tool industries. Almost 1,500 tons of bombs were dropped in 90 minutes, killing 469 people and leaving 45,000 homeless.[28]
28 of the original 35 merchant ships of Allied convoy PQ 16 arrived at Murmansk. Eight of them went on to Archangelsk and arrived there June 1.
Fred Korematsu was arrested on a street corner in San Leandro, California after being identified as being of Japanese ancestry, despite plastic surgery on his eyelids in an attempt to pass for Caucasian. The legality of his internment would be taken all the way to the Supreme Court in the landmark case Korematsu v. United States.[29]
^Cogan, Frances B. (2000). Captured: The Japanese Internment of American Civilians in the Philippines, 1941–1945. University of Georgia Press. p. 84. ISBN978-0-8203-4352-5.
^Seidel, Michael (2003). Ted Williams: A Baseball Life. University of Nebraska Press. p. 124. ISBN978-0-8032-9308-3.
^ abForczyk, Robert (24 February 2014). Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front 1941–1942: Schwerpunkt. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military. pp. 186–187. ISBN978-1-78159-008-9.
^Wachsmann, Nikolaus (2015). KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 415.
