October 6th, 1942 (TUESDAY)
NETHERLANDS: During the day, three RAF Bomber Command Mosquitos attack the Stork diesel-engine works at Hengelo.
GERMANY: During the day, two RAF Bomber Command Mosquitos bomb Bremen and one each bombs Munster and Saarbrucken. During the night of 6/7 October, RAF Bomber Command sends 237 aircraft, 101 Wellingtons, 68 Lancasters, 38 Stirlings and 30 Halifaxes, to bomb Osnabrück; 216 bomb the target. Six aircraft, two Halifaxes, two Lancasters and two Stirlings, are lost, 2.5 per cent of the force. The Pathfinders succeeded in illuminating the Dummer See, a large lake northeast of the target which is used as a run-in point. The town of Osnabrück is then found and marked. The bombing is well concentrated, with most of the attack falling in the center and the southern parts of the target. Osnabrück's report shows that 149 houses are destroyed, 530 are seriously damaged and 2,784 lightly damaged. Six industrial premises are destroyed and 14 damaged. Sixty five people are killed, 45 civilians, 16 policemen or servicemen and four foreign workers, and 151 are injured.
U-369 is laid down.
NORWAY: Martial law is declared in Trondheim.
U.S.S.R.: Malgobek, in the Caucasus, falls to German Army Group A.
* The German III. Panzerkorps (von Mackensen) captures Malgobek in the bend of the Terek River in the Caucasus.
* Units of Heeresgruppe Mitte (von Bock) capture Brjansk on the road to Moscow.
EGYPT: British General Bernard Law Montgomery, General Officer Commanding Eighth Army, issues instructions for the El ‘Alamein offensive in the Western Desert.
LIBYA: US Army, Middle East Air Force B-24s hit Bengasi harbor, scoring a large number of near misses but no direct hits; a B-24 bombs Bardia during the return flight. AA is heavy and accurate and fighters attack 6 B-24s over target; 2 B-24s are lost.
NEW GUINEA: On the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea, the Australian 2/25th Battalion is advancing towards Efogi while the 2/1st Battalion advances northward from Ower's Corner. Units of the US 32nd Division begin to advance over the Kapa Kapa Trail, 25 miles SW of the Kokoda Track in New Guinea. This route over the Owen Stanley Mountains is through even worse terrain that the Kokoda Track.
Fifth Air Force aircraft complete the movement of the reinforced Australian 18 Brigade to Wanigela on the peninsula between Dyke Acland and Collingwood Bays on the east coast of Papua; this is part of the move aimed at capture of the Buna-Gona area. The channel from Mime Bay to Cape Nelson has now been charted in order to permit shipment of supplies by water.
NEW CALEDONIA: Major General Millard F. Harmon, Commander U.S. Army Forces in the South Pacific Area (USAFISPA), recommends to Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, Commander South Pacific Area and Commander of the South Pacific Force, that the projected invasion of Ndeni Island in the Santa Cruz Islands, scheduled to follow the capture of Tulagi and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, be postponed and that Guadalcanal be reinforced; that naval operations in the Solomons be increased; and that adequate airdrome construction personnel and equipment be sent to Guadalcanal. Admiral Ghorrnley decides to proceed with the plan to occupy Ndeni as a landing field site and agrees to reinforce Guadalcanal with an Army regiment and to improve airdrome facilities. The 164th Infantry Regiment of the Americal Division is chosen to reinforce Guadalcanal and the 147th Infantry Regiment (less 2 battalions) to occupy Ndeni.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: The Eleventh Air Force dispatches 8 B-24 Liberators, a B-17 Flying Fortress, 10 P-39Airacobras, and 8 P-38 Lightnings to fly bombing and weather missions over Kiska Island; a large transport is bombed in the harbor which is left sinking; hits are scored on a corvette and on a large freighter at Gertrude Cove and on a hangar in Main Camp; the radio station is damaged; and a float fighter is strafed and set afire.
CANADA: The last group of Japanese internees detained at Hastings Park internment camp in Vancouver, British Columbia, leave for camps in the British Columbia interior.
Minesweeper HMCS Oshawa laid down.
U.S.A.: In Washington D.C., the U.S.S.R., and the US sign an additional Lend-Lease Agreement (the Second Protocol) covering the period to 1 July, 1943. A total of 4.4 million tons (4 million metric tonnes) are to be sent to the Soviet Union, 3.3 million tons (3 million metric tonnes) by the northern Soviet ports and 1.1 million tons (1 million metric tonnes) by the Persian Gulf route.
* A second U.S. merchant ship is sunk off the coast of Oregon by the Japanese submarine HIJMS I-25 in 3 days. The ship is the armed tanker SS Larry Dohney.
* Chester Floyd Carlson obtains a patent on the xerography process for making electrostatic copies. Carlson worked in the patent department of an electronics firm and was frustrated at the difficulty of making copies of patent drawings. He investigated various processes and developed xerography after four years of experimenting. He made the first Xerox copy on 22 October 1938. Although he received a patent in 1942, he failed to interest companies in producing copy machines until 1947, when the Haloid Company of Rochester, New York, licensed the process. The company, which later changed its name to Xerox, introduced its first copy machine in 1958.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-116 sent her last radio message on this day (a weather report); nothing more was ever heard from this boat.
U-333 fought
an epic battle with the British corvette HMS Crocus on 6 Oct, 1942. The U-boat
lost 3 men dead (including the IWO) and several men wounded, including the
commander, Peter Erich Cremer. The boat was heavily damaged and limped back to
base with help from a replacement WO from the Milk Cow
U-459. Cremer then spent 3
months in a hospital.[Oberleutnant zur See Bernhard Hermann, Bootsmaat Heinz
Kurze, Maschinenobergefreiter Erwin Levermann]