July 10th, 1942 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Diplomatic relations
between the Netherlands and Russia renewed.
HMS Condor RNAS Arbroath 753 RN Sqn
Albacore aircraft #N4255 crash North Sea off Scotland during night flying.
Submarine HMS Shakespeare is commissioned.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Sir Geraint is commissioned.
GERMANY: U-975 is laid down.
U-186 is commissioned.
POLAND: Auschwitz: A hundred Jewish women are taken to the camp hospital for medical experiments.
U.S.S.R.: Submarine "Sch-317" of the Baltic Fleet, Landoga and Onega Flotillas is sunk by aviation and surface ships SW Kalbodagrund; according to other data this happened on the 15th, by Swedish DD North of Eland Is. (Sergey Anisimov)(69)
The Germans capture Rossosh on the Kharkov front, cutting the rail link between Moscow and Rostov-on-Don and crossing the river Don.
BARENTS SEA: The El Capitan had been in Convoy PQ-17 which was dispersed on Admiralty orders in the Barents Sea on 4 Jul 1942. On 8 July she picked up 19 survivors from the John Witherspoon, which had been sunk by U-255 two days earlier. She reached Novaya Zemlya where she joined five other merchantmen and eight escort vessels from the convoy in the Matochkin Strait. Commodore Dowding assembled a small convoy out of them and then proceeded to Murmansk and Archangel. On 9 July, the small convoy was attacked by several German Junkers Ju 88 aircraft of II and III/KG 30 about 65 miles NE of Iokanka. A Ju 88 from II/KG 30 dropped three bombs, which detonated close to the El Capitan in 70°10N/41°40W. The concussion caused the after peak compartment to break open, the bulkhead at #4 hold was ruptured and the starboard side of the engine room was demolished. Holds #4 and #5 began to take water and the ship settled by the stern. Soon it became clear that the ship was in sinking condition and all 37 crewmembers, 11 armed guards and the 19 passengers safely abandoned ship. They were all picked up by armed trawler HMS Lord Austin and taken to Archangel. They were later taken to Glasgow and repatriated on RMS Queen Mary, arriving in Boston on 15 October. The armed trawler tried to scuttle the wreck with gunfire after rescuing the crew but apparently she stayed afloat and was sunk by U-251 with a coup de grāce at 0045 today.
The Hoosier had been in Convoy PQ-17 which was dispersed on Admiralty orders in the Barents Sea on 4 Jul 1942. She reached Novaya Zemlya where she joined five other merchants and eight escort vessels from the convoy in the Matochkin Strait. Commodore Dowding assembled a small convoy out of them and then proceeded on 7 July to Murmansk and Archangel. On 9 July, the small convoy was attacked by several German Junkers Ju 88 aircraft of II and III/KG 30 about 65 miles NE of Iokanka. The first stick of bombs missed the Hoosier, but the second hit five feet from the boat deck and the third 20 yards away. These explosions damaged the steam pipes and oil lines, sprung some of the hull plates and disabled the engines. The eight officers, 34 crewmen and eleven armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4in, four .50 cal and two .30 cal guns) abandoned ship in four lifeboats and were picked up by corvette HMS Poppy at 69°45N/39°35E. The commanding officer of corvette HMS La Malouine decided to tow the ship in and put a salvage crew back on board that included the engineers of the vessel. But when U-255 was sighted four miles astern, the corvette expeditiously dropped the tow and recovered the boarding party. HMS Poppy unsuccessfully tried to sink her with gunfire. At 0256 today, the drifting wreck of the Hoosier was torpedoed by U-376. Another torpedo fired at 0302 missed and the vessel only sunk after a coup de grāce was fired five minutes later.
NORTH AFRICA: Rommel sends reinforcements to the front around Tell el Eisa due to the recent arrival of the Australian 9th division. Auchinleck attacks the Italian units on the front forcing German armour to use fuel moving here and there on the battlefield.
NEW CALEDONIA: Navy PBY-5 Catalinas of VP-14 operating from Noumea, attempt to bomb Japanese bases on Tulagi and Gavutu Islands but the mission is aborted due to weather.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: One 11th Air Force B-24 Liberator aborts a reconnaissance mission to Kiska Island due to bad weather.
While returning from a routine patrol mission, a crewman on a a VP-41 PBY-5A Catalina spots a crashed "Zeke" fighter (Mitsubishi A6M2 Navy Type 0 Carrier Fighter Model 21), while flying low over the tundra of Akutan Island near their base at NAF Dutch Harbor. The pilot of the fighter had engine problems and attempted to land on what he had assumed was a grass field, not realizing that it was actually a swamp. The "Zeke" had nosed over immediately on landing, breaking the pilot's neck. The aircraft had lain there undiscovered since the Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor in early June. The pilot of the PBY later leads a recovery party to the site to retrieve the aircraft. The "Zeke" was disassembled and then sent under great secrecy to NAS San Diego, California, where it was reassembled and test flown. It was the first example of the "Zeke" to fall in to Allied hands and proved to be one of the more fortuitous finds of the war.
The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff change the date of Operation WATCHTOWER, the invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi, from 1 to 7 August.
USAAF planners for the Operation BOLERO build-up estimate 137 USAAF groups in the UK by 31 December 1943.
The motion picture "The Magnificent Ambersons" is released in the U.S. This period drama, based on the Booth Tarkington novel, is directed by Orson Welles and stars Joseph Cotten, Delores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Orson Welles as narrator. Cotten wants to marry Costello but she marries someone else. Their only child (Holt) grows up a spoiled brat and years later, when Costello's husband dies and Cotten returns to marry her, Holt sabotages their relationship. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Support Actress (Moorehead).
Destroyer escort USS Hammann is laid down.
Destroyer USS Coghlan is commissioned.
CARIBBEAN SEA: At 0619, the Benjamin Brewster was hit by two torpedoes from U-67 on the port side about ten seconds apart, while lying at anchor for the night off the coast of Louisiana 60 miles west of Southwest Pass close into shore in about six fathoms of water. One struck at the bridge and the other aft, causing the tanker to immediately burst into flames from bridge forward. Burning oil and gasoline covered the surface of the water for some distance around the vessel. Because the wind kept the flames forward some of the eight officers, 27 men and five armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in and two .30cal guns) were able to leave the ship from the stern with one partially burned lifeboat as the tanker rapidly sank within three minutes. Six officers, 18 crewmen and one armed guard died, most of them from burns. Three hours later eight crewmen and three armed guards in the lifeboat made landfall at Grand Isle, Louisiana. A fishing boat spotted their campfire, picked them up and transferred them to a Coast Guard vessel, which took them to Burrwood, Louisiana and thence to the Marine Hospital at New Orleans. Three crewmen and one armed guard were picked up by a Coast Guard vessel and also taken to Burrwood. The Benjamin Brewster laid in 37 feet of water and burned for nine days until the cargo was consumed. The structure above the water was reduced to a molten mass of metal by the intense heat and the tanker was a total loss. The wreck was salved in September 1951 and was broken up.