September 16th, 1942 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Three Eagle Squadrons, consisting of American volunteers to the RAF, are to be transferred to USAAF command.
Frigate HMS Waveney commissioned.
NETHERLANDS: During the day, nine RAF Bomber Command Bostons are dispatched to Den Helder but are turned back. Two of them bomb Bergen Airfield at Alkmaar.
GERMANY: During the day, RAF Bomber Command sent six Mosquitos to Wiesbaden to bomb the Biebrich chemical factory. Five bombed the target without loss.
During the night of 16/17 September, RAF Bomber Command dispatched 369 aircraft to bomb Essen; 244 aircraft bombed the target and 39 are lost, 21 Wellingtons, nine Lancasters, five Stirlings, three Halifaxes and a Whitley, 10.6 per cent of the force. Although much of the bombing is scattered, this is probably the most successful attack on this difficult target. There are 33 large and 80 "medium" fires. Eight industrial and six transport premises are hit. The Krupps works are hit by 15 high-explosive bombs and by a crashing bomber loaded with incendiaries. There is much housing damage. In Essen and its immediate surroundings, 47 people are killed and 92 injured. Other town hit are Duisburg by two aircraft and individual aircraft bombed Hamborn, Kempin and Oberhausen without loss.
U-528 commissioned.
U.S.S.R.: At dawn in Stalingrad, the
Soviet 42nd Regiment attacks into a hurricane of mortar fire, seeking the top of
Mamayev Kurgan. A short and vicious hand-to-hand battle settles the issue, and
Soviet troops gain the summit.As soon as they dig in, the Germans counterattack,
but the Soviets hold on.
EGYPT: US Major General Lewis H Brereton, Commanding General US Army Middle East Air Force in Egypt, is officially assigned to the Middle East as a result of pressure from Major General Clayton L Bissell, new Commanding General Tenth Air Force in India, for clarification of the status of Brereton and other key staff officers and combat crews who had gone from India to the Middle East in June and July 1942.
LIBYA: During the night of 16/17 September, US Army, Middle East Air Force B-24 Liberators bomb Bengasi, Libya, harbor.
SUDAN: Sgt. Graham Leslie Parish (b.1912), RAFVR, tried to help an injured passenger from his crashed and blazing bomber. Unfortunately, both men died. (George Cross)
NEW GUINEA: In Papua New Guinea, the Japanese ground offensive toward Port Moresby comes to a halt at Ioribaiwa; Australian troops are entrenched on Imita Range where they are preparing a counteroffensive. The Japanese are too ill-equipped and their supply lines too extended over forbidding terrain to enable them to reach their objective, Port Moresby.
A lone US 5th Air Force B-17 attacks landing barges in the Sanananda area while a single A-20 Havoc bombs and strafes positions at Nauro and Menari in the Efogi area.
BISMARK ARCHIPELAGO: On New Britain Island, US 5th Air Force B-17s bomb the wharf and airfield at Rabaul and airfield on Gasmata Island off the south coast of New Britain Island.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIANS: The Japanese complete transfer of the Attu garrison to Kiska, begun on 27 August; all defensive positions on Attu were destroyed by the Japanese. A US 11th Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress and a B-24 Liberator fly photographic and reconnaissance runs over Adak.
CANADA: Corvettes HMCS Weyburn and Lunenburg departed St. John's for UK with Convoy SC-100 and support of Operation Torch, North African Landings.
Corvette HMCS Oakville arrived
Halifax for repairs to damage.
U.S.A.: A training program for the
Women's Auxiliary Flying Squadron (WAFS), under Jacqueline Cochran's direction,
is approved as the 319th Army Air Forces Flying Training Detachment (Women), or
more simply Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD), at Howard Hughes Field,
Houston, Texas.
The motion picture "The Major and the Minor" is released
today. This romantic comedy, directed by Billy Wilder (his directorial debut),
stars Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Rita Johnson, Robert Benchley and Diana Lynn.
The plot has Rogers posing as a 12-year-old to get a cheap rail fare home from
New York City. She runs into Milland who is an Army major at a military school
and ends up spending some time at the school being pursued by the cadets.
Lloyds Register of Shipping did a survey and issued a certificate, dated 16 Sep 1942, giving permission for the tugs North Shore and North Lake to be sailed from New Orleans to Norfolk, Va, via inland waters, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast. Apparently when the civilian crew was sailing North Lake by this route they grounded that tug which resulted in some damage to her steering gear.
Minesweeper USS Nuthatch launched.
BARENTS SEA: While tracking convoy PQ-18 (Iceland to Northern U.S.S.R.), German submarine U-457 is sunk in the Barents Sea northeast of Murmansk, USSR, in position 75.05N, 43.15E, by depth charges from the RN destroyer HMS Impulsive (D 11). All 45 hands on the U-boat are lost. This is the boats third patrol and she had been credited with sinking an American freighter and a British tanker in July 1942 for a total of 15.593 tons and damaging another for a total of 8.939 tons.
SOUTH ATLANTIC: The German submarines U-156, U-506 and U-507 and the Italian submarine Capellini are engaged in rescuing survivors of the sinking of the British transport Lanconia on 12 September, when they are attacked by a USAAF B-24.
U-558 sank SS Commercial Trader.
U-165 sank SS Joannis and damaged SS Essex Lance and SS Pan York in Convoy SQ-36.