October 28th, 1942 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Destroyer HMS Rocket launched.
FRANCE: During the night of 28/29 October, three RAF Bomber Command Wellingtons lay mines off St. Nazaire; one aircraft is lost.
GERMANY:
U-531 commissioned.
U-243, U-346, U-478, U-1221 laid down.
NORWAY: U-586 made a ground reconnaissance of Jan Mayen Island in Mary Mass Bay.
During the night of 28/29 October, two RAF Bomber Command Wellingtons lay mines off Stavanger without loss.
FINLAND: Shtsh-304 and Shtsh-306 are mined in Gulf of Finland.
GREECE: US Army, Middle East Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses, dispatched to attack a convoy at sea, fail to locate the target but attack cruisers in Pylos Bay.
GIBRALTAR: The British carrier HMS FURIOUS sails with Spitfires for Malta.
ALGERIA: Robert Murphy, US Consul in Northwest Africa, tells French General Mast that the invasion will occur in November. Mast insists that he does not have enough time to organize the Allied sympathizers and to arrange for Giraud to be accepted.
EGYPT: After probing British positions in the Kidney Ridge area, Axis forces begin forming for an attack but are forced by Allied aircraft to abandon it. During the night of 28/29 October, the Australian 9th Division of XXX Corps, British Eighth Army, begins a northward attack toward the sea in an effort to eliminate German's coastal salient and secure the coastal road and railroad. A narrow wedge is driven almost to the road despite stubborn opposition from Thompson's Post, a key point in the German’s coastal positions.
US Army, Middle East Air Force B-25 Mitchells attack tanks, motor transports, and landing grounds; P-40s fly medium and light bomber escort, bomb and strafe landing grounds and other targets, and engage aircraft in combat, mostly in the area between El Alamein and El Daba, claiming three Bf 109s destroyed.
NEW GUINEA: Along the Kokoda Track the Japanese are finally forced off the high ground at Eora Creek. (William L. Howard)
In Papua New Guinea, the 2d Battalion, 126th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 32d Infantry Division, and a portable hospital begin the difficult march from Jaure toward Natunga and Bofu, preceded by two companies, which are to secure dropping grounds.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: GUADALCANAL: Japanese reinforcements, nicknamed the "Tokyo Express" by the Americans, start landing on the north-west coast. They meet stiff resistance.
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: On New Britain Island, USAAF Fifth Air Force): B-17 Flying Fortresses bomb shipping in the harbor at Rabaul while B-25 Mitchells hit the airfield at Gasmata.
ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: Six USAAF Eleventh Air Force B-24 Liberators turn back from an attempted attack on the Japanese-held Kiska Island submarine base because of adverse weather; a B-17 Flying Fortress bombs Attu Island with unobserved results and flies weather reconnaissance over Kiska, Amchitka, and Tanaga Islands.
CANADA: At Kluane Lake, Yukon Territory, Canadian Health Minister, Ian Mackenzie, and the U.S. Secretary of Alaska, Edward L. Bartlett, cut a ribbon to open the Alcan Military Highway, today known as the Alaska Highway. The 2 575 kilometer (1,600 mile) road, from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Fairbanks Alaska, is built to move supplies and munitions rapidly north in case of Japanese invasion.
U.S.A.: After completing Officer Candidate School, Clark Gable is commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Army Air Forces.
Procurement of the expendable radio sonobuoy for use in antisubmarine warfare is initiated as the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet, Admiral Ernest J. King, directs the Bureau of Ships to procure 1,000 sonobuoys and 100 associated receivers.
Minesweeper USS Spear laid down.
Destroyer USS Erben laid down.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-627 (Type VIIC) which had left Kiel for its first combat patrol on 15 Oct is sunk 12 days later south of Iceland, at position 59.14N 22.49W by depth charges from a British Fortress aircraft (Sqn 206/F). 44 dead (all crew lost).
U-509 sank SS Nagpore and damaged SS Hopecastle in Convoy SL-125.
U-606 sank SS Gurney E Newlin and damaged SS Kosmos II in Convoy HX-212.
SS Bic Island, 4,000 GRT, Canadian merchant ship, formerly the Italian CAPO NOLI, captured on 10 Jun 40 by HMCS Bras D'Or, was sunk in the North Atlantic by U-624, KptLt Ulrich Graf Von Soden-Fraunhofen, CO. All of her crewmembers plus the survivors of 2 other sunken merchant-ships were lost. Bic Island was part of HX 212, a 43-ship convoy from New York City to Liverpool. She is not listed among the 5 other ships that were lost, which means that she was likely a 'straggler'. The materiel lost from the 5 ships that were sunk while in convoy amounted to 21,000 tons of crude oil, 20,300 tons of fuel oil, 12,000 tons of petrol, and 8,200 tons of grain, plus the cargo from Bic Island. 243 merchant sailors were lost from the 5 sunken merchant ships. The size of Bic Island's crew is not known. The convoy eventually reached the UK on 02 Nov 42. The convoy was escorted by the American Escort Group A 3, Commanded by Capt Paul Heineman USN. The ships included the US Coast Guard cutters Badger and Campbell, Corvettes HMS Dainthus, HMCS Rosthern Trillium. 3 assigned for passage and for further duties in Operation TORCH were also included - HMCS Alberni, Summerside and Ville de Quebec.