April 21st, 1942 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Minesweeper HMS Wedgeport commissioned.
FRANCE: The Germans shoot 20 French hostages "for complicity" during the raid on St. Nazaire last month.
Louise Leahy, wife of Admiral William D. Leahy, USN (Retired), Ambassador to France, dies of an embolism in Vichy. Her death, on the eve of their departure from Vichy, is a "crushing emotional shock" to the admiral, "beyond the understanding of anyone who has not had an identical experience."
GERMANY: U-238, U-365, U-843 laid down.
SWITZERLAND: General Giraud reaches safety after escaping from German captivity. he will return to unoccupied France.
ITALY: Malta is nearly defenceless and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini urges an assault led by German parachute units. Hitler is hesitant, recalling the heavy losses his paratroopers suffered in 1941 when they drove the British from Crete.
U.S.S.R.: Germany relieves the 100,000 troops who have been trapped in the Demyansk pocket, supplied by airlifts only, for ten weeks.
The Germans request the assistance of the Italian Navy to deal with the ramshackle Soviet flotilla on Lake Ladoga (estimated at 6 gunboats, 2 large and 5 small torpedo boats, 32 armed minesweepers, 9 armed transport ships, 17 armed tugboats and 1 submarine, plus another 25 other boats).
The Italian Navy promptly agreed and sent the four torpedo boats (MAS 526 to 529) of 12th MAS Flotilla, commanded by Capitano di Corvetta (Lt-Comm.) Bianchini, with four officers, 19 NCO's, and 63 other ranks. (Arturo Lorioli)
MALTA: ASW trawler HMS Jade bombed and sunk.
CANADA: First arrivals at detention camp in Greenwood, British Columbia.
Corvette HMCS Prescott completed refit Liverpool , Nova Scotia.
U.S.A.: Washington: Roosevelt orders all patents owned or controlled by enemy nations to be seized in order to forestall German interference in US industry.
The federal government decides to build the "Big Inch" oil pipeline from Texas to New York so Allied tankers won't have to run the German submarine gauntlet along the East Coast.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 1854, the unescorted unarmed U.S. freighter Pipestone County, en route from Trinidad, B.W.I., to Boston, Massachusetts was hit by one torpedo from U-576 about 475 miles east of Cape Henry, Virginia. The torpedo struck in the #1 hold, which was flooded but the engine room was still intact and the ship was still moving. At 1914, a coup de grāce was fired that struck in the #2 hold and caused the ship to sink after six minutes. The nine officers, 28 crewmen and nine armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4in, four .50cal and four .30cal guns) abandoned ship in four lifeboats and one raft. They were questioned by the U-boat, which also gave provisions to the men in one of the boats. The survivors on the raft were transferred into the boats, which were later separated because of rain and moderate seas. The 23 men in two of the boats were picked up by the British steam merchantman Tropic Star on 24 April and landed at Boston the next day. The eleven crewmembers and two armed guards in a third boat were picked up by USCGC Calypso on 7 May and taken to Norfolk, Virginia. The ten men in the last boat were rescued on 8 May by the American fishing vessel Irene and May and landed at Cape May, after they were spotted by an USCG aircraft from Elizabeth City, North Carolina
At 0236, the unarmed U.S. freighter Bris was torpedoed and sunk by U-201 while en-route to San Juan, Puerto Rico, approximately 475 miles (764 km) south-southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina. The survivors abandoned ship in two lifeboats and some jumped overboard, three of them were caught in the swirl of the screw and were killed. The next day they found an overturned lifeboat that was righted and the master and eight men transferred into it. The boats were separated in bad weather and the boat of the master capsized three times, causing the loss of food and equipment, but they managed to right it each time. On 3 May, they were picked up by the American motor tanker Chester D. Swain five nautical miles off Cape Fear, after having been spotted by two aircraft the day before which dropped supplies. The third engineer died the same day and the others were brought to the USCG base at Charleston. On 4 May, the 13 men in the other lifeboat were picked up by YT-132, attached to the Parris Island Marine Base and were landed there. (Jack McKillop and Dave Shirlaw)
U-576 gave some provisions to the shipwrecked survivors of the sunken American ship Pipestone County.
SS West Imboden sunk by U-752 at 41.14N, 65.55W.
At 0030, the unescorted and unarmed Chenango was struck by one torpedo from U-84 on the port side between #4 and #5 hatches blasting a huge hole in the hull. The cargo caused the ship to sink within one minute 60 miles southeast of Cape Henry. One boat was launched but it capsized, the other boat went down with the ship, like all the regulation rafts on the ship, because they were improperly stowed on deck instead of in quick release racks. Two men managed to reach a raft, which had floated free when the ship sank. This raft had been condemned in New York and the only supplies on the raft were water and a fishing line. Twelve days later the raft was sighted by an US Army aircraft in position 34.30N/74.25W. Six hours later they were picked up by a USCG PBY Catalina and were taken to the Marine Hospital in Norfolk, but one of the rescued men died two days later. The crew of 32 men was made up of 12 different nations, there were Americans, Danes, Norwegians, Estonians, Swedes, Chileans, French, Portuguese, Canadians, Colombians, Belgians and Irish. Only one Irish Fireman survived.