August 8th, 1942 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Trawler HMS Anticosti commissioned.
Light cruiser HMS Argonaut commissioned.
Submarine HMS Splendid commissioned.
GERMANY: U-287 laid down.
U.S.S.R.: Army Group A continues to advance south from the Kuban. Army Group B captures Surovniko.
ARCTIC OCEAN: Soviet submarine "M-173" of the Polar fleet and White Sea Flotillas is sunk - by surface ASW ships, at Varde area. Near Ekkery by UJ 1101, 1108 and 1112 they dropped 178 depth charges over it. (Torstein and Sergey Anisimov)(69)
NEW GUINEA: The joint Australian-Papuan Maroubra Force
recaptures Kokoda but is unable to hold onto it.
USAAF P-400 Airacobras of the Allied Air Forces dive-bomb Kokoda
and Yodda.
AUSTRALIA: Minesweeper HMAS Tamworth commissioned.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: Just after 9.00pm Tulagi and Gavutu fall to the US invaders following heavy fighting.
Admiral Turner continues unloading Marines on Guadalcanal. The unloading is interrupted with another Japanese air strike from Rabaul. The 1st Marines occupy the uncompleted Japanese airfield about 4:00 pm. This field will be renamed Henderson Field for Major Lofton Henderson, a Marine pilot lost at Midway.
Shortly after 6:00 pm Admiral Turner advises Ghormley and Fletcher that TF 61 is withdrawing. Admiral Turner then calls a meeting with Admiral Crutchley, commanding the screening ships and General Vandegrift, aboard the USS McCawley, AP-10 off Lunga Point.
- From this date through 23 August, USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses fly search missions
covering the lower Solomons in order to detect any attempt to make a surprise attack on
the forces consolidating the Guadalcanal Island beachhead.
- At 1156 hours, 23 G4M "Betty" bombers armed with torpedoes escorted by 15 A6M "Zeke" fighters arrive from Rabaul. USN F4F Wildcats and an SBD Dauntless and AA fire from the warships shoot down 17 "Bettys" and a "Zeke" but the Japanese severely damage the destroyer USS Jarvis (DD-393) with a torpedo and the transport USS George F Elliott (AP-13), which is hit by a torpedo and a "Zeke."
- The uncompleted 3,600-foot (1.1 km) long Japanese airfield is captured by the US
Marines and is renamed Henderson Field.
- The Marines capture Tulagi, Gavutu and Tanambogo.
- Two of three RAAF Hudsons based at Milne Bay, New Guinea spot a Japanese task force consisting of 4 heavy cruisers, 3 light cruisers and a destroyer heading for the Solomon Islands. The RAAF crews report in a timely fashion but there is a delay in retransmitting it plus the USN brass underestimate the composition of the Japanese force.
- At 1807 hours, Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, commander of the USN's air and surface forces, recommends to Admiral Ghormley, Commander South Pacific Force, at Noumea, New Caledonia, that the air support force be withdrawn from Guadalcanal. Fletcher, concerned by the large numbers of enemy planes that had attacked today, reported that he had only 78 fighters left (he had started with 99) and that fuel for the carriers was running low. Ghormley approved the recommendation, and the aircraft carriers USS Enterprise (CV-6), USS Saratoga (CV-2) and USS Wasp (CV-7) retire from Guadalcanal.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: The USAAF's 11th Air Force dispatches 1 LB-30 and 3 B-24 Liberators, and 8 P-38 Lightnings on photo and bombing missions over Kiska Island cannot attack due to fog but 6USNPBY-5A Catalinas of Patrol Squadron Forty One (VP-41)and VP-51, both based at NAF Dutch Harbor, also operating over and off Kiska Island, hit freighters and a transport, claiming 1 transport sinking, and score many hits on North Head and Main Camp.
U.S.A.: Roosevelt and Churchill agree that command of "Operation Torch" will be vested in General Eisenhower.
Six of the eight German spies that landed on Long Island, New York, and Florida in June are executed in the electric chair at the District of Columbia Jail in Washington, D.C. The other two spies, who turned themselves in to the FBI, were sentenced to 30-years and life imprisonment respectively. Both are released in 1948 by order President Harry S. Truman and returned to Germany.
German submarine U-98 sows mines off the waters of Jacksonville, Florida.
Destroyer USS Burns launched.
Destroyer USS Izard launched.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Five ships of convoy SC-94 are sunk: one of the
escort, the corvette Dianthus, sinks U-379.
The German submarine
U-379 is sunk in the North Atlantic southeast
of Cape Farewell, Greenland, in position 57.11N, 30.57W, by ramming and depth charges from
the RN corvette HMS Dianthus. 5 of the 45 man U-boat crew survive.
U-176 sinks the SS Kelso.
U-176 sank SS Mount Kassion.
U-176 sank SS Trehata.
U-379 sank SS Anneberg.
U-379 sank SS Kaimoku.