May 15th, 1942 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Minesweeping trawler HMS Sir Tristram commissioned.
Rescue tug HMS Lariat launched.
GERMANY: U-859 laid down.
U.S.S.R.: German units, under Manstein reach Kerch.
ARCTIC OCEAN: The
British Cruiser HMS Trinidad is scuttled after a German air raid on an Artic Convoy to Russia.
She had been repaired at Kola after sustaining a hit from one of her own
torpedoes. Now she is scuttled in the Barents Sea 100 miles N of Murmansk at
73 37N 23 53E. There are 81 casualties. (Alex Gordon)
A U.S. freighter suffers a direct hit by a bomb but there are no casualties. The
ship is beached to prevent loss.
SOUTH AFRICA: Destroyer depot ship HMS Hecla mined off Capetown. She was towed to Simonstown for 18 weeks of repairs.
INDIA: Imphal: It was days after the first pathetic Burmese refugee arrived here before the first sign of a disciplined body emerged. A column of men wearing what appeared to be eccentrically-shaped pith helmets and gumboots came over the horizon. It was a native fire brigade. The men had no fire-engines, but they marched in step all the same.
They were followed by miscellaneous civil servants, public works gangs, clerks without desks - and all the time the refugees, the small change of modern war, rolled by.
Only after they had passed did the army appear, its wounded in the van. For five months it has retreated before the Japanese advance into Burma, attacked by dive-bombers, Japanese infantry and Japan's Burmese nationalist allies all the way. Some units had trudged 900 miles on foot.
Many soldiers were wrecks, others, bootless and shirtless, still shouldered their rifles. Every man had his own horror story. For Lt-Gen Bill Slim, who commands the corps, it was the sight of a four-year-old trying to spoon-feed her dead mother from a tin of evaporated milk. He watched his troops march by. "They look like scarecrows," he noted. "But they look like soldiers too."
BURMA: The first British units reach India as the retreat from Burma continues.CHINA: The Japanese murder 100 Chinese families in reprisal for the Doolittle raid.
CANADA:
Minesweeper HMCS Noranda commissioned.
HMC ML 065 commissioned.
U.S.A.: Gasoline (petrol) rationing begins with the amount set for non essential vehicles at 3 gallons per week. There are 17 eastern states in the US, with rationing in effect, at this point.
There has been some grumbling as well as some severe shortages of the suddenly precious fuel. The basic allotment is three gallons a week, although special cases are allowed more. But even as many motorists complained that three gallons is an unreasonable amount, a number of drivers initially granted extra allotments returned their X and B-3 cards for lesser rations. Even Mrs. Roosevelt has an A card, for three gallons a week, saying that she will learn to use her new English bicycle to get around. One US citizen, Bernard Baruch, who is often asked to travel to Washington for conferences, gave up his special card for an A card. "I came to New York 62 years ago and hoofed it then. I can hoof it now," he said.
Shortages at stations occurred as pre-midnight consumption resulted in many dealers running out of fuel. Some station owners say that they will close on Saturday and Sunday to avoid irate motorists.
The 78th Pursuit Group (Interceptor) is re-designated 78th Fighter Group.
The U.S. star insignia applied to aircraft is modified on all military aircraft by eliminating the red disc in the center of the star. The USN also orders that the red and white rudder stripes be eliminated.
Washington: The chief of naval operations, Admiral Ernest King, demands another 1,670 million tons of warships in the next year.
First Naval Air Transport Service flight across Pacific.
Submarine USS Wahoo commissioned.
Light cruiser USS Mobile launched.
COSTA RICA: Costa Rica severed diplomatic relations with Hungary and Rumania.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0254, the unescorted Siljestad was hit on the port side under the bridge by one torpedo from U-156 and sank after 40 minutes about 420 miles NE of Barbados. The ship had been spotted at 17.20 hours the day before and missed with the first two torpedoes at 2045 and 0155. The crew abandoned ship in the two starboard lifeboats, but two men fell overboard and drowned. The U-boat then questioned the survivors and gave them the course to Barbados before leaving the area. The survivors were picked up after about 12 hours by Kupa, which also hoisted the lifeboats on her starboard side and took care of the survivors. It was planned to let them continue in the boats because the ship was heading for South Africa. At 2059, the zigzagging Kupa was hit under the bridge by one torpedo from U-156 and sank by the bow in a few minutes. The U-boat had observed about six hours earlier how the vessel stopped and assumed correctly that they picked up 31 survivors and their lifeboats from Siljestad, which had been sunk at 0254 by the same U-boat. Two crewmembers were lost. At 2113, the U-boat surfaced, questioned the survivors and fished 14 tires from the surface before leaving the area. The lifeboats made landfall after ten days in Venezuela and Barbados.