9 May 1942

FRANCE: Paris: The streets are not the only battle-ground for the Franc-tireurs fighting the German and Vichy authorities in France. The battle has spread to the air-waves.

Last week the pro-Fascist radio station Rennes-Bretagne was suddenly silenced. Yesterday bombers blew up the mast of Radio Paris, the German propaganda station between the two Frances.

The Germans know the importance of the air waves. Their radio-direction vans search out illegal stations every night.

POLAND: 30,000 Jews from Lublin have been murdered at Belzec death camp since it opened in March.

YUGOSLAVIA: Belgrade: A two-mile long army of partisans is on the move in the mountainous north of Yugoslavia - fighting its way out of an Axis trap and heading northwest to challenge the Ustachi, the pro-German army of the Croatian Fascist Ante Pavelich. The odds are heavily against the mysterious leader of the 6,000 partisans, known only as "Tito".

Many of his men and women have spent months in a barren region of Bosnia, living mainly on a diet of boiled unsalted mutton, and chewing young beech leaves to ward off scurvy. They are desperately short of ammunition; Pavelich's Ustachi jeer at them as "the five bulleteers".

Vengeance is their ally. All of these partisans have seen the results of Ustachi bestiality in Serbian towns and villages where entire populations have been found with throats slashed. Most have lost relatives in an orgy of rape and murder which has taken 750,000 Serbian lives and disgusted even Pavelich's German allies.

The partisans' strength lies in the rigid discipline imposed by Tito. These are communist partisans - they march with mules carrying 5,000 unbound copies of Stalin's History of the Communist Party translated into Serbo-Croat by Tito himself. No matter how hard the battles of the day, they assemble each night for indoctrination. Sexual relations are banned (although Tito, it is rumoured, has several mistresses) on pain of death for persistent offenders. And any partisan stealing from local peasants is shot.

Tito has begged for arms from Russia. Stalin has refused, anxious not to upset the west, which is backing the anti-communist partisans (Chetniks) of Drazha Mihailovich, a royalist colonel. As far as London is concerned, Tito's partisan army is no more than a rumour; the Nazis know otherwise.

This was Operation BOWERY. USS Wasp (CV-7) and HMS Eagle departed the UK on 3 May with Vickers Supermarine Spitfire Mk Vs, 47 in USS Wasp and 17 in HMS Eagle. At 0630 hours, USS Wasp, steaming in column ahead of HMS Eagle at a distance of 1,000 yards (914 m), commenced launching eleven Grumman F4F-4 Wildcats of Fighting Squadron Seventy One (VF-71) to serve as a combat air patrol (CAP) over the task force. At 0643, the first Spitfire piloted by Sergeant Pilot Herrington took off but the aircraft lost power and plunged into the sea killing the pilot. The remaining aircraft took off, formed up and began the flight to Malta. However, one pilot, Sergeant Pilot Smith, accidentally released his auxiliary fuel tank as he climbed to 2,000 feet (610 m) and had no chance to reach the island so he elected to return to the carrier. The Spitfire was not equipped with a tail hook but Smith landed anyway at 0743 hours and his aircraft came to a stop 15-feet (4.6 m) from the forward edge of the flight deck. With the mission completed, the task force began their return to the UK.

For German and Italian bomber crews, today's raid on Malta should have been a matter of routine. They risked the devastatingly accurate anti-aircraft fire, certainly, but none of them expected fighter opposition. Three weeks ago they succeeded in destroying 17 Spitfires on the ground and damaging 29 within three days of the planes' arrival. It was a very different story today. The RAF had learnt from that very bitter lesson.

Every available man was standing by on Malta's airfields. Fuel bowsers waited with engines running more than 60 Spitfires appeared over the horizon. The pilots had been briefed on the carriers HMS EAGLE and USS Wasp. This time they knew exactly where to park their aircraft in safety. So fast was the turnaround that some Spitfires were airborne again in a matter of 35 minutes.

High-altitude Italian bombers were the first to be hit and suffered heavily as the Spitfires broke through their fighter screen, bringing down several with machine-gun and cannon fire. Low-flying German Stukas took equal punishment as more and more British fighters were refuelled and took to the air. By the end of the day seven Axis aircraft had been destroyed, with seven more "probables." Sixteen are reported to have been damaged. Marshal Kesselring has told Hitler that the "neutralization of Malta is complete."

AUSTRALIA: Melbourne: 31 year old Pauline Thompson was the 2nd victim of the "Brownout Strangler". She had told her husband, a policemean in Bendigo, that was going to a dance at the Music Lover's club with a number of her girlfriends and a very young American, Private Justin Jones. She had planned to meet Private Jones at the American Hospitality Club before the dance at 7pm. Private Jones was 30 minutes late. Pauline gave up waiting for Jones and she was later seen with a soldier at the Astoria Hotel. They were seen leaving the hotel just before midnight. It was a dark, rainy miserable night.

Pauline's body was found at about 4am on the steps of Morningside House in Spring Street. She had been badly strangled and her clothing was torn. (Denis Peck)

PACIFIC OCEAN: An American naval task force has won the first victory of the war against the Japanese navy in a desperate battle in the Coral Sea, in the south-west Pacific.

Losses on both sides in the Coral Sea battle were about even, but for the Allies it was undoubtedly a morale-boosting strategic victory with far-reaching consequences. For the first time in the Pacific War a Japanese invasion force was forced to turn back empty-handed. The combat action came from carrier-launched or land-based aircraft attacking surface ships or in combat with enemy aircraft.

The battle was triggered when the Japanese set out from their Rabaul bastion with an amphibious task force to make a two-pronged assault on Port Moresby. A second Japanese amphibious force, also from Rabaul, was to seize Tulagi, in the southern Solomons. The Japanese succeeded at Tulagi, but fell well short of Port Moresby.

Flushed with their all-conquering early successes, some Japanese military leaders had been urging that Australia should be invaded and knocked out of the war. But this idea died in the discussion stages when army leaders opposed it as "reckless". Because of Allied successes in code-breaking, Japanese naval intentions were no secret to the Allies; to defeat the enemy plan, Admiral Nimitz sent into the Coral Sea a task force under Rear Admiral Frank Fletcher which included two aircraft carriers, the USS Lexington and USS YORKTOWN.

Supporting the Japanese operation were the carriers SHOKAKU and ZUIKAKU together with the light carrier SHOHO which, with four cruisers, was covering 11 transports carrying the Japanese invasion force. On 7 May in the Coral Sea, Japanese reconnaissance aircraft found and crippled an oiler and sank the destroyer USS SIMS.

Fletcher detached the Anzac Naval Squadron and sent it to bar the way of the enemy ships which aimed to sail through Jombard Passage to Port Moresby. In the ensuing actions, the SHOHO was sunk, the SHOKAKU suffered heavy damage and the ZUIKAKU lost many aircraft. The Japanese damaged the USS YORKTOWN and sank the USS Lexington, most of whose 3,000 crew were rescued.

U-371 encountered an enemy submarine, but neither boat attacked.

U-352 sunk in the North Atlantic SW of Cape Hatteras in position 34.21N, 76.35W, by depth charges from USCGC Icarus. 15 dead and 33 survivors.

At 0212, the unescorted Mont Louis was torpedoed and sunk by U-162 SW of Trinidad. 13 crewmembers were lost. The master and seven crewmembers were picked up by the Mona Marie and landed at Georgetown on 10 May.

At 1002, the unescorted Lubrafol was torpedoed by U-564 about 3.5 miles off Hillsboro Inlet, Florida. A torpedo hit on the starboard side amidships at #5 tank, which burst into flames immediately and seconds later the #1 tank also caught fire. The explosion stopped the engines, destroyed the radio antenna and the foremast toppled on the bridge, killing two men. The survivors among the 38 crewmembers and six armed guards abandoned ship in three lifeboats, but one of them caught fire and the men had to jump overboard and were lost. The remaining two boats with 31 survivors, seven of them injured, were towed free from the burning tanker by two USCG boats and landed at Boynton Beach, Florida. The vessels also recovered seven bodies. The burning Lubrafol drifted until 11 May and then sank in shallow waters. The burnt out wreck was broken up in 1954.

At 0327, U-588 fired three torpedoes at the unescorted Greylock in a fog about 10 miles from the Sambro Lightship outside Halifax Harbor in 44°14N/63°33W (grid BB 7500). Lookouts spotted the torpedoes as they approached from astern. Two missed and the third struck the ship at the stern, blowing off a section of the stern frame. The ten officers, 31 crewmembers and eleven armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4in, four .50cal and four .30cal guns) did not abandon ship and brought the freighter into Halifax under her own power. The Greylock was en route at 10 knots from New York having left there on 6 May to the USSR via Halifax with 8530 tons of general cargo.

SS Calgarolite (11,941 GRT) Canadian tanker, Capt Tom Mountain, Master, was sunk at 0215 about 120 miles south of Isle of Pines, Cuba, in position 19.24N, 082.30W, by torpedoes and gunfire from U-125, Kptlt Ulrich Folkers, Knights Cross, CO. The entire crew survived the sinking. Calgarolite was proceeding independently from New York to Cartagena, Colombia, to load oil. The ship was struck on the starboard side by 2 torpedoes, which caused the ship to stop. The crew abandoned ship and pulled away from the ship in two lifeboats. The U-boat fired a third torpedo, which struck the ship's stern, and then surfaced and shelled the ship, which finally rolled over onto her starboard side and sank by the stern about ninety minutes after she was first struck. The U-boat departed on the surface without approaching the lifeboats. The 2 boats became separated during the night. The master's boat eventually made Isle of Pine on the 13th, with the assistance of a Cuban fishing boat. The second boat landed at Mujeres, Mexico, on the 12th of May.