May 6th, 1942 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Anti-Aircraft cruiser HMS Sirius commissioned.
FRANCE: Paris: The Reich security chief, Reinhardt Heydrich, arrives and places SS Major-General Karl Oberg in charge of police forces in France.
GERMANY: U-263, U-337 commissioned.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Submarine HMS Urge left Malta on 27 April 1942. She failed to arrive at Alexandria on 6 May and was reported overdue on that day. Most likely she was lost on Italian mines off Malta. There is also a possibility that she was sunk 29 April off Ras el Hilal, Libya by Italian aircraft or that she was sunk by the Italian torpedo boat Pegaso in the eastern Mediterranean.
CHINA: Attacks on seven cities yesterday signalled the start of an offensive along a 400-mile front by Chinese forces led by General Chiang Kai-shek against the Japanese occupation forces.
Shanghai and Nanking were among the cities raided, with Japanese communications and munitions supplies among the principal targets. Nanking, captured by Japan more than four years ago, is the seat of Wang Chingwei's puppet government set up with Japanese support.
CAPT Milton Miles arrives in Chungking, China, to begin building an intelligence and guerrilla training organization, Naval Group China.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: General Wainwright surrenders on Corregidor with 15,000 American and Filipino troops. The island fortress' defences weakened by a 27-day artillery barrage, were breached last night by Japanese commandos.Lt-Gen Jonathan Wainwright, the US commander, decided to surrender this morning after radioing President Roosevelt and General MacArthur. He told them he feared that his whole garrison might be killed. As he spoke several hundred Japanese were machine-gunning the eastern entrance of the Manilta Tunnel, Corregidor's underground gallery which was sheltering 6,000 administrative staff untrained for combat and 1,000 sick and wounded. The president told Wainwright: "You have given the world a shining example of patriotic fortitude and self-sacrifice."
The fall of Corregidor has been anticipated since Bataan surrendered 27 days ago. Since then the island, only two miles away, has had 300 air raids and been hit by 300 shells a day, it's green hills turning into a bleak moonscape. Yesterday's landings followed a day of 13 air attacks. Coming ashore under a bright moon the enemy was hit by two concealed 75mm guns which inflicted hundreds of casualties - but not enough to stem the attack.
The river gunboats USS Oahu (PR-6) and USS Luzon (PR-7) and the minesweeper USS Quail (AM-15) are scuttled in Manila Bay. The commanding officer of the USS Quail, Lieutenant Commander John H. Morrill, another officer and 16 enlisted men, escape Manila Bay in a 36-foot (11 m) motor launch from Quail.
Text of Wainwright's Message to Roosevelt"> Roosevelt:
6 May 1942
For the President of the United States:
It is with broken heart and head bowed in sadness, but NOT in SHAME, I report to Your Excellency that I must go today to arrange terms for the surrender of the fortified islands of Manila Bay: Corregidor (Fort Mills), Caballo (Fort Hughes), El Fraile (Fort Drum), and Carabao (Fort Frank).
With anti-aircraft fire control equipment and many guns destroyed, we are no longer able to prevent accurate aerial bombardment. With numerous batteries of the heaviest calibre emplaced on the shores of Bataan and Cavite out ranging our remaining guns, the enemy now brings devastating cross fire to bear on us.
Most of my batteries, seacoast, anti-aircraft and field, have been put out of action by the enemy. I have ordered the others destroyed to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. In addition we are now overwhelmingly assaulted by Japanese troops on Corregidor.
There is a limit of human endurance and that limit has long since been past.
Without prospect of relief I feel it is my duty to my country and to my gallant troops to end this useless effusion of blood and human sacrifice.
If you agree, Mr. President, please say to the nation that my troops and I have accomplished all that is humanly possible and that we have upheld the best traditions of the United States and its Army.
May God bless and preserve you and guide you and the nation in the effort to ultimate victory.
With profound regret and with continued pride in my gallant troops I go to meet the Japanese commander.
Good-by Mr. President.
Jonathan M. Wainwright
Lt. General USA
Allied commander in the Philippines
(William L. Howard)
NEW GUINEA: Jack McKillop adds:
In the Coral Sea, Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, commanding Task Force 17 in the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5), gathers all Allied forces under his tactical command. Carrier aircraft from the USS Lexington and USS Yorktown plus USAAF reconnaissance aircraft continue their search for the Japanese Port Moresby invasion force. At 1030 hours local, three Australia-based USAAF B-17s find the light aircraft carrier HIJMS Shoho and her escorts and make a high-altitude attack but inflict no damage. The sighting is reported and forwarded to the navy.
AUSTRALIA: General MacArthur, the C-in-C of Allied Forces in the South-west Pacific, is given wide powers of censorship.
U.S.A.: The motion picture "Take a Letter, Darling" is released in the U.S. Directed by Mitchell Leisen, this comedy stars Rosalind Russell, Fred MacMurray, Constance Moore, Robert Benchley, Macdonald Carey and Dooley Wilson (the "pianist" in "Casablanca"). The plot has Russell, an advertising executive, hiring struggling painter MacMurray as her secretary. The film is nominated for three technical Academy Awards.
Washington: The Secretary of the Navy sends dispatch 062230 transmitting ALNAV 97 directing the removal of the red circle in the white star and the horizontal red and white stripes on the rudders of Navy aircraft.
Destroyer USS Johnston laid down.
ATLANTIC OCEAN and CARIBBEAN SEA: Three more U.S. unarmed merchant ships are sunk by German submarines. A tanker is sunk off Florida, a freighter is sunk in the Gulf of Mexico and another freighter is sunk in the Caribbean.
At 1855, a lookout on the unescorted and unarmed Alcoa Puritan spotted a torpedo passing approximately 15 feet astern about 15 miles off the entrance to the Mississippi River. The master immediately ordered full speed and swung the ship to keep the U-boat dead astern to present as small a target as possible. U-507 surfaced and began to overtake the freighter that was running at 16.5 knots. Five minutes the U-boat began to shell the ship from a distance of one mile. In 40 minutes, about 75 rounds were fired, scoring about 50 hits and disabling the steering gear. Two of the crewmembers suffered minor shrapnel injuries. The crew of ten officers, 37 crewmen and seven passengers abandoned ship in one lifeboat and two rafts. At 19.43 hours, a torpedo was fired, which struck below the #4 hatch and caused the ship to sink stern first in eight minutes. U-507 then approached the survivors and a German officer with a megaphone shouted "Sorry we can’t help you - hope you get ashore" and waved as the U-boat sailed away. All hands were picked up by USCGC Boutwell the same day and landed at Burrwood, Louisiana, after a patrol bomber had spotted them. The passengers were repatriated seamen from the American steam tanker T.C. McCobb, which was sunk by the Italian submarine Pietro Calvi 600 miles off British Guyana 31 Mar 1942.
At 0935, the unescorted Amazone was hit on the port side by a torpedo from U-333 and sank within two minutes off Miami. 14 crewmembers were lost (twelve men from the Dutch Antilles, one Dutch gunner and one Swiss crewman). The survivors were picked up by submarine chaser USS PC-484 and landed at Miami.
At 1125, the unescorted and unarmed Halsey was hit by two torpedoes from U-333 off Jupiter Inlet, Florida, while proceeding on a nonevasive course at 10.5 knots in bright moonlight. The torpedoes struck close together on the port side at the #2 and #3 main tanks. The explosion ripped a hole in the side 60 feet long. The master stopped the engines and headed toward the shore. No distress signal was sent, because the radio antenna had been destroyed. The entire crew of eight officers and 24 men abandoned ship in two lifeboats 15 minutes after the attack, the other two boats had been destroyed by the explosions. The men were nearly asphyxiated by the naphtha fumes before they could clear the ship. After one hour, the U-boat came alongside the lifeboats and offered assistance, but it was declined. The survivors recounted that the calcium lights on the lifebuoys ignited the naphtha two hours later. The tanker exploded amidships, broke in two and burst into flames both fore and aft. At the time of the explosion, USS PC-451 had approached the lifeboats but had to immediately investigate a probable sighting of a conning tower. Two fishing vessels later took the lifeboats in tow and brought them to the Gilbert Bar Lifeboat Station.
At 0543, the unescorted Java Arrow was torpedoed twice by U-333 eight miles off Vero Beach, Florida. The first torpedo struck on the port side about 15 feet above the keel at the #5 tank, just aft of the bridge. The second struck on the port side about ten feet above the keel and demolished the engine room, killing two officers on watch below. Some of the surviving seven officers, 32 crewmen and six armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4in and four .30cal guns) abandoned ship after 20 minutes in a first lifeboat, the remaining men followed ten minutes later in a second boat. The survivors were picked up by USS PC-483 and a USCG craft and landed at Miami and Fort Pierce, Florida. A USCG officer boarded the tanker to ascertain the damage and concluded she could be saved, so the master and four men returned to the ship and dropped the starboard anchor to prevent the ship going aground on the beach. The master went to Fort Pierce to arrange the salvage tugs and returned later with 14 men. They cut through the anchor chain with an acetylene torch and remained on board. The tugs Ontario and Bafshe towed the tanker, escorted by USCG vessels, to Port Everglades, Florida arriving after 90 hours. In June 1942, the Java Arrow was given to the US Maritime Commission, repaired and returned to service in 1943 as Kerry Patch. 1944 renamed Celtic, but changed name again to Kerry Patch in 1945.
ASW trawler HMS Senateur Duhamuel sank following collision off Morehead City, North Carolina.