Australian soldiers along the Kokoda Trail. For a detailed account, see the source of this photo at http://kokodachallenge.com/history-of-kokoda

By: Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.

Churchill informs Stalin on July 17, 1942, that as a result of the convoy PQ-17 disaster (24 of 35 merchant ships were lost — the worst Allied convoy loss of the war), no further convoys would be sent to northern Russia in the foreseeable future.

The Germans test-fly the Messerschmitt-262 V-3 prototype jet airplane for the first time on July 18. On the Eastern Front, the German 1st Panzer Army takes Voroshilovgrad (modern-day Luhansk) in far eastern Ukraine.

On July 19, German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders all submarines to withdraw from their positions along the U.S. Atlantic Coast. The move is in response to an increasingly effective American coastal-convoy system. SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler orders that all Jews within the “General Government” (as the Nazis refer to Occupied Poland) be “resettled” to concentration camps by December 31. The Germans begin transporting French Jews to concentration camps in Poland, 1,000 per train. A total of 25,000 will be deported.

After landing in the Buna-Gona area of New Guinea on July 20, the Japanese begin to climb the Owen Stanley Range, intending to capture Port Moresby — on the on the other side of the mountains — on the southeast corner of the island, close to Australia. In Berlin, as German forces make large-scale, sweeping advances through the Soviet Union, Hitler declares: “The Russian is finished!”

The German Army crosses the River Don near Rostov on July 21. On New Guinea, Japanese forces from the Buna area begin moving by foot up the single-file Kokoda Trail over the Owen Stanley Range — extremely rugged mountains that reach 7,380 feet in height. They are resisted by limited and under-strength Australian troops.

The Treblinka II extermination camp is opened in Poland by the Nazis on July 22. The systematic removal of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka begins. Two trains per day make the 50-mile journey, each transporting between 4,000 and 7,000 people. The German Sixth Army reaches the River Don near Stalingrad.

German Army Group A completes the encirclement of Rostov-on-Don on July 23 and takes 83,000 Soviet prisoners.