ITALY: Various targets in Southern Italy are attacked by British aircraft, including Messina and Reggio Calabria.

ARCTIC OCEAN: Convoy PQ-17 loses eight more ships. With these losses some two-thirds of the ships have been sunk in the worst convoy disaster of the war so far. Twenty-three merchant ships and one rescue ship have been sunk of the 36 merchant ships and three rescue ships which sailed for Russia on 27 June. Nearly 100,000 tons of cargo were lost, including 430 tanks, 210 aircraft and 3,350 vehicles, all urgently needed by the Russians.

Todays' losses include three merchant ships, two British and one American, which are hit by U-255, U-355 and U-457. Two of these are sunk off the west coast of Arkhangel'sk Island and the third about 434 nautical miles (805 km) northeast of Murmansk.

Controversy over the devastation seems destined to continue for years to come - because it happened without the Germans making the move which the Allies had feared for some time. Operation Rosselsprung - meaning knight's move, from chess - had been planned by Grand Admiral Raeder himself. Germany's biggest battleship, the TIRPITZ, based at Trondheim, was to move out, supported by the heavy cruiser ADMIRAL HIPPER the pocket battleships ADMIRAL SCHEER and LUTZOW, and six destroyers, to attack an Arctic convoy.

The Admiralty had long feared such an attack and knew that by 4 July the support team had joined the TIRPITZ in Altenfjord ready for Rosselsprung. What it did not know was whether the operation had actually begun. Sir Dudley Pound, the first sea lord and chief of naval staff, chaired the meeting which began at 8.30pm that day. Pound asked for confirmation that the enemy strike team was still in port. When he could not get this, he closed the meeting at 9.30pm and decided to assume that it was already at sea.

He gave the order for the convoy to scatter, with each ship trying to reach a Russian port as best she could. In fact at the time of the order the TIRPITZ was still at anchor. However, there were ample other German forces nearby. During the night the U-boats and the dive-bombers started to pick off the ships. Thirteen were sunk on 5 July, then more yesterday and today.

Meanwhile TIRPITZ and her supporting armada had sailed. Once the news of the massacre reached Raeder, however, he decided that there was no longer any need to risk his prize ships, so he cancelled Rosselsprung. His knight had won the game without making a move. Admiral Pound's defenders argue that the outcome could have been even worse if he had not given the order to scatter. The TIRPITZ might have sunk the whole convoy.

At 0927, the US ship Alcoa Ranger was steaming independently towards Archangel, when she was hit by a torpedo on the starboard side at the #2 hold, opening a large hole and causing the vessel to list heavily to starboard. The eight officers, 26 men and six British gunners (the ship was armed with two old Anti-Aircraft-guns and one .30cal Lewis MG) abandoned ship in three lifeboats 15 minutes after the attack. U-255 surfaced, questioned the crew and began to shell the ship from a distance of 100 yards. She fired at least 60 shells (some survivors stated that they used as many as 150 shells) until the Alcoa Ranger sank by the head at 1100. Two of the lifeboats landed at Novaya Zemlya on the same day and one week later the last boat landed at Cape Kanin. Soviet patrol boats picked up all hands and landed them at Archangel. The crew was later repatriated from Scotland on the British troop transport Queen Mary and arrived Boston on 15 October.

At 1835, the Hartlebury, dispersed from Convoy PQ-17, was hit by two of three torpedoes fired by U-355 and two minutes later by another torpedo. At 1845, a coup de grâce hit the vessel, which sank over the bow within 10 minutes 17 miles 180° from Britwin Lighthouse, Novaya Zemlya. The first torpedoes had killed six mess attendants and the master had to be freed underneath a piece of debris. The explosions only left one lifeboat intact, which was lowered by panicking crewmen and flipped over, throwing the occupants into the icy water. Others jumped into the water and tried to reach the rafts. A total of 29 crewmembers, seven gunners and two naval signalmen were lost. The master and 12 survivors landed at Pomorski Bay, Novaya Zemlya. Seven survivors made it to the American SS Winston-Salem aground at North Gusini Shoal, Novaya Zemlya, were rescued by a Soviet survey ship and transferred to the British SS Empire Tide at anchor in Pomorski Bay. All survivors were later transferred to HMS La Malouine and landed at Archangel on 25 July. The master, George Willbourne Stephenson, survived the sinking but died of a head trauma within a year.

RFA Aldersdale, dispersed from Convoy PQ-17, was bombed and heavily damaged by German Ju88 aircraft of III/KG 30 in the Barents Sea north of the Kola Peninsula. The motor tanker was first taken in tow by HMS Salamander, but was later abandoned. The master and 53 crewmembers transferred to the minesweeper and landed at Archangel on 11 July. Between 1140 and 1300, U-457 shelled the abandoned Alderdale with the 88-mm gun (38 high explosive shells and 37 incendiary shells) and the 20-mm Flak (40 rounds). At 1456, the U-boat fired a coup de grâce, which broke the ship in two. Both parts sank within 20 minutes.

CHINA: Chungking: Hard on the heels of its successes in the air and on the ground, Generallissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang enters the sixth year since the Japanese invasion more optimistic that ever, but with a warning to the rest of the Allies that China's fate now hinges on being provided with at least 500 more planes.

The warning was made by Chunking's military attaché in Washington, General Chu Shih-ming, who said that with 500 bombers, plus the fighters to support them, China would be able to launch an offensive against Japan. But if the planes were not provided there was the danger that Japan, which has now launched an all-out attack against China, might be more successful than the west realized. His remarks were supported by Chinese successes in the last 24 hours.

These include the destruction of six Japanese fighters and the bombing of three Japanese air bases without the loss of a single plane by the United States China Air Task Force.

On the ground the Kuomintang forces have turned back Japanese attacks in Kiangsi province in eastern China and on the Hunan-Kiangsi border, inflicting 1,700 Japanese casualties.

In a speech to mark the fifth anniversary General Chiang had predicted: "We may face worse reverses in the next few months, but these will be short and the final collapse is near.

U.S. Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell, Commanding General American Army Force, China-Burma-India Theatre of Operations and Chief of Staff to Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, issues a letter of instructions setting up the command structure in the CBI, with "Headquarters, American Army Forces, China. Burma, and India" at Chungking and a branch office at New Delhi, India. A few days later another branch office is established at Kunming.
The USAAF 10th Air Force in India activates the China Air Task Force (CATF).

 

AUSTRALIA: Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, South Pacific Area commander, arrives in Australia to discuss the upcoming operations in the Solomon Islands with General Douglas A. MacArthur, the Commanding General Southwest Pacific Area.

U.S.A.: A 1st Air Force A-29 Hudson of a detachment of the 396th Bombardment Squadron (Medium), 41st Bombardment Group (Medium), operating from Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, North Carolina, sinks German submarine U-701 by aerial depth charges about 153 nm (284 km) east-northeast of Wilmington, North Carolina at 34-50N 74-55W. This is the first submarine sunk by USAAF aircraft during World War II. U-701 is sunk in 60' of water ; 18 self escape, 15 without Drager gear, no rescue at hand, but only 7 survive until rescue, PoW.

USAAF Major General Millard F Harmon is designated Commanding General, US Army Forces in the South Pacific (COMGENSOPAC).

An agreement is reached between the USAAF and USN which stipulates that the USAAF will deliver to the USN a specified number of B-24s (USN PB4Y-1), B-25 Mitchells (USN PBJ) and B-34 Venturas (USN PV-1) to meet the Navy's requirement for long range landplanes. In exchange, (1) the Navy cancels the production of the Boeing PBB-1 Sea Ranger seaplane at Boeing's Renton, Washington, plant so that the plant may be used for the production of B-29 Superfortresses, and (2) limits its orders for PBY Catalinas to avoid interference with the production of B-24s.

Major General Carl A. Spaatz, Commanding General 8th Air Force, is also named Commanding General U.S. Army Air Forces in the European Theater.

Second Lieutenant Richard Bong loops the loop around the central span of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, while flying a P-38 Lightning. He then flies up Market Street at low altitude causing a local woman's laundry to be blown off the clothes line. Bong is ordered to report to Major General George C. Kenney, Commanding General 4th Air Force, and Kenney orders him to re-wash the woman's laundry as punishment. Kenney goes on to command the Fifth Air Force, and later Far East Air Forces, in the Southwest Pacific Area. Bong is later assigned to the Fifth Air Force and becomes the U.S.'s top fighter ace of all time with 40 Japanese aircraft shot down.

Destroyer USS BACHE is launched.

GULF OF MEXICO: Between 1016 and 1017, German submarine U-67 fires four torpedoes at three ships about  78 nm (144 km) east-southeast of New Orleans, Louisiana. Eeports one hit and assumed that one tanker sank at 1045. The Paul H. Harwood was hit by one torpedo while steaming at 12 knots in a small convoy of four ships being escorted by one destroyer. The torpedo struck on the port side abaft amidships at the #6 tank and blew a hole 15 feet by 12 feet into the hull, causing the flooding of tanks #5, #6 and #7. The tanker was stabilized by counterflooding the forward tanks and continued on her course at 10 knots into Southwest Pass to Burwood, Louisiana. She anchored at Pilottown and then proceeded to New Orleans. None of the eight officers, 32 crewmen and 16 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4in, one 3in and four 20mm guns) reported an injury. The tanker arrived for permanent repairs at Galveston, Texas on 16 July and returned to service on 28 September. (Jack McKillop and Dave Shirlaw)