August 17th (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
First use of the Moonshine radar countermeasures system which allowed a single aircraft to simulate a much larger force. Installed in obsolete Defiant aircraft, the system is used to protect a US 8th A/F raid on French railway yards in Rouen with great success. (Cris Wetton)Light cruiser HMS Blake laid down. Minesweeping trawlers HMS Promise and Prodigal commissioned.
The Canada Steamship Lines merchantman Kindersley (1,999 GRT) was damaged by bombs from Luftwaffe aircraft in the North Sea, off Blyth. There is no record of casualties in this incident.
They fly at high altitude in daylight escorted by RAF, Dominion and Allied
fighters. Despite being attacked by Messerschmitt Me109s they all returned
safely and one gunner shot down a German fighter.
Brigadier-General Ira C. Eaker, the commander of the USAAF Bomber Command, led the attack which followed hard on the pledge by Major-General Carl Spaatz, the commander of the USAAF in Europe, to inflict "very powerful Anglo-American air blows on the enemy."
Major-General Spaatz was at the airfield to greet the crews on their return. "They behaved like veterans," he said, "this is the real start of our bombing effort and we are going to keep it up." The Flying Fortress crews were jubilant about their raid. One pilot said: "We have broken the ice at last. This is what we had been waiting for. The big moment came when, at great altitude, we saw the targets, an important marshalling yard and railway terminus with roundhouses to accommodate 250 locomotives. To see all the bombs making dead hits was like all the Fourths of July I have ever known."
This attack not only marked the entry of the USAAF heavy bombers into the war over Europe; it gave the American aviators the opportunity to test their theories of daytime precision bombing under war conditions. They believe that their Fortresses, bristling with half-inch machine guns, can beat off fighters by the defensive fire of their high altitude formations. The RAF having suffered heavy daytime bombing losses, is sceptical.
GERMANY: U-720 laid down.
U.S.S.R.: The Germans cross the Kuban river and capture Russian positions and
vital power stations, in Pyatigorsk and Yessentuki in the
Caucasus.
Black
Sea Fleet and Azov Flotilla: Shipping loss: MS
"TSch-405 "Vzrivatel"" - by field artillery, close to
Eupatoria (later raised) (Sergey Anisimov)(69)
Soviet submarine Shch-307 is also lost, mined near Suuraari Island. (Mike Yared)(146 and 147)
U-209 sank SS Kompleks, SS Komsomolec and escorts P-4 and SH-3.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: British submarine HMS/M Turbulent (N 98) fires two torpedoes that strike the Italian motor transport MV Nino Bixio. One of the torpedoes explodes in a hold full of Allied POWs and 336 of them, including 120 New Zealanders, are killed. The ship does not sink and is taken under tow by an escorting Italian destroyer and towed to Navarino, Greece. The survivors are shipped to a POW camp near Bari, Italy.
The Canadian Pacific Railways passenger liner Princess Marguerite (5,875 GRT), Captain Leicester, Master, was torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea in position 32.03N, 032.47E, by U-83, Kptlt Hans-Werner KRAUS, Knight's Cross, CO. Princess Marguerite was requisitioned by the British Government at the end of 1941 from CPR Ships for use as a troopship. After a refit in Esquimalt, she was dispatched to the Mediterranean. Princess Marguerite was enroute to Cyprus, escorted by the armed merchant cruiser HMS Antwerp and three destroyers, with elements of the British 8th Army embarked, when she was torpedoed. A fuel oil fire rapidly spread out of control and detonated a magazine. The ship sank in less than an hour. The loss of life would have been much greater had it not been for the determined efforts of the destroyer HMS Hero (later HMCS Chaudiere), who rescued a great number of the survivors. In all, 55 souls were lost in this incident.
GILBERT ISLANDS: Makin Island: Companies "A" and "B," 2d Marine Raider Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson, USMC), land on Butaritari Island. The purpose of this raid is to destroy Japanese installations, take prisoners, gain intelligence on the area and divert Japanese attention and reinforcements from the Solomon Islands; Intelligence estimates that there are 45 Japanese on the island. The Marines had been transported in the submarines USS Nautilus (SS-168) and USS Argonaut (SS-166), each of which could carry a company. The submarines surfaced in heavy rain and high seas and Carlson changed the plans; originally, the two companies were to land on widely separated beaches but the new plan has them landing together. One platoon did not get the word and ended up landing alone in what became the enemy rear.
The two companies crossed the island and then turned southwest towards the known Japanese positions and a fire fight soon ensued. The Japanese launched two banzai attacks which were easily dispatched; unknown to the Americans, these attacks nearly wiped out the Japanese garrison.
At 1130 hours, two enemy aircraft appeared and they dropped bombs, none of which hit the Marines. Two hours later, 12 aircraft appeared, several of them seaplanes. Two large seaplanes landed in the lagoon and were fired upon by the Marines; one burst into flames and the other crashed on takeoff. The remaining aircraft bombed and strafed the island for an hour.
The natives on the island reported that Japanese
reinforcements had landed from the seaplanes and two small ships in the lagoon.
Colonel Carlson believed there was a sizeable Japanese force on the island and
it was decided to evacuate the troops in their rubber boats. However, a heavy
surf soaked the outboard engines making them inoperative, boats capsized and
equipment was lost. Several boatloads of troops made it to the submarines but
Carlson and 120 men ended up on the shore where they remained into the next day.
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: A single USAAF B-17 of the Allied Air Forces bombs Kavieng,
New Ireland Island.
NEW GUINEA: 24 IJN bombers attack Seven-Mile Aerodrome at Port Moresby and destroy 3 B-26 Marauders and a transport.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: In the Aleutian Islands, a US 11th Air Force B-24 Liberator flies photo reconnaissance over Buldir, Kiska and Amchitka Islands despite heavy rain.
U.S.A.: Destroyer USS Anthony laid down. Minesweeper USS Motive launched.
Movie star Clark Gable goes to OCS. (Stuart Kohn)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-108 torpedoes and sinks the armed U.S. merchant tanker SS Louisiana about 200 miles (322 km) off Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, in position 07°24'N, 52°33'W; although the crew of the U-boat sees three men escape from the burning ship, they are never found. There are no survivors from the 41 merchant sailors and the 8-man Armed Guard.
U-507 sank SS Arará and SS Itagiba.
U-566 sank SS Triton in Convoy SL-118.
U-658 sank SS Fort la Reine, SS Samir and damaged SS Laguna in Convoy PG-6.
The Canadian-built, British-registered cargo ship Fort la Reine (7,130 GRT), Captain Percy W. Pennock, Master, was sunk by U-658, Kptlt Hans Senkel, Knight’s Cross, CO, in the Windward Passage, NE of Jamaica, in position 18.30N, 075.20W. Fort la Reine was as part of the 23-ship Vancouver, British Columbia, to Liverpool (via Cristobal, Guantanamo Bay, and Halifax) convoy PG-6 when she was lost. The was loaded with 9,800 tons of grain, lumber and other general cargo. The Master, 37 crewmembers and three DEMS gunners were rescued by the Flower-class corvette HMS Pimpernel. Twelve other survivors were rescued by a USN patrol boat. One DEMS gunner and two crewmembers were lost in this incident. Fort la Reine was a North Sands-class freighter built by Burrard Drydock Company Ltd. (South Yard), at Vancouver, British Columbia She was completed in Jul 42. Fort la Reine was one of 90 North Sands-class freighters built in Canada for American order under the Hyde Park Declaration and subsequently provided to Great Britain under the Lend-Lease Agreement. J. Constantine & Sons Ltd., of Middlesborough, England, managed the ship for the British government. Twenty-two of these ships were sunk and another seven were damaged.
Submarine USS Bass while at sea, a fire broke out in the after battery room and quickly spread to the after torpedo room and starboard main motor, resulting in the death of 25 enlisted men by asphyxiation. The following day USS Antaeus arrived to assist the submarine and escorted her into the Gulf of Dulce, Costa Rica. Both vessels then proceeded to Balboa.