March 1, 1942

1942Richard Myers, American general^[†]

Richard Bowman "Dick" Myers is a retired United States Air Force general who served as the 15th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As chairman, Myers was the highest ranking uniformed officer of the United States military forces. He also served as the 14th president of Kansas State University from 2016 to 2022.

1942George S. Rentz, American commander (born 1882)^[†]

George Snavely Rentz was a United States Navy chaplain who served during World War I and World War II. For selfless heroism following the loss of USS Houston (CA-30) in the Battle of Sunda Strait, he was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross— the only Navy Chaplain to be so honored during World War II.

1942World War II: Japanese forces land on Java, the main island of the Dutch East Indies, at Merak and Banten Bay (Banten), Eretan Wetan (Indramayu) and Kragan (Rembang).^[†]

The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From August 1910 to September 1945, it included the Japanese archipelago, the Kurils, Karafuto, Korea, and Taiwan. The South Seas Mandate and concessions such as the Kwantung Leased Territory were de jure not internal parts of the empire but dependent territories. In the closing stages of World War II, with Japan defeated alongside the rest of the Axis powers, the formalized surrender was issued on September 2, 1945, in compliance with the Potsdam Declaration of the Allies, and the empire's territory subsequently shrunk to cover only the Japanese archipelago resembling modern Japan.