November 2nd, 1942 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Fairmiles HMC ML 092 and ML 093 commissioned.
Submarine HMS Statesman laid down.
Brigadier General Robert C Candee, Commanding General USAAF Eighth Air Force's VIII Air Support Command, states that the effort expended and personnel lost in organizing the Twelfth Air Force and preparing for its move from the U.K. to North Africa has severely retarded organization of his headquarters and staff.
GERMANY: Berlin: Dr. Sievers of the "Ancestral Heritage Institute" requisitions 150 dead Jewish Bolshevik commissars for dissection because they exemplify a "revolting but typical subhuman type."
U-1222 is laid down.
POLAND: One of the most carefully organized and intensive Jewish roundups takes place in the Bialystok region when 110,000 Jews, who had been strictly confined to their villages, are now seized and eventually transported to Treblinka and Auschwitz concentration camps. (Atlas).
U.S.S.R.: In the Caucasus, the German 13.Panzer-Division of III.Panzerkorps approaches the outskirts of Ordshonikidse, the southeastern-most point ever reached by the Wehrmacht on the entire Eastern front.
EGYPT: Last night British General Montgomery's Operation Supercharge begins. The British Eighth Army's XXX Corps opens a breakout assault at 0100 hours. The New Zealand 2nd Division, in the lead, advances west under cover of an artillery barrage and secures a new corridor through the Axis mine fields. The 9th Armored Brigade passes through the corridor in the mine field and establishes a bridgehead across the track extending south from Rahrnan. At daybreak, the armoured brigade meets furious opposition from an Axis antitank screen and sustains over 75% casualties, but maintains the bridgehead. X Corps armor begins debouching through the bridgehead, and the 1st Armored Division becomes strongly engaged near Tel el Aqqaqir.
Taking heavy losses, the British can afford, they also take German tanks. By evening Rommel is down to 35 tanks and signals Hitler that he can no longer prevent a breakthrough.
U.S. Army, Middle East Air Force B-25 Mitchells bomb a track extending south from Rahman as the British 9 Armoured Brigade establishes bridgeheads across the track; other B-25 Mitchells attack tanks and other targets in support of the assault; P-40s fly escort and strafing missions in the battle area.
(Note: To debouch is to march (move) from a narrow or confining area into an open area. For example, passing through a ravine onto open ground, or through a gap in barbed wire or a cleared lane through a minefield into the open. Seldom seen in US military usage, its common in British use. Americans "punch" or "thrust" through minefields.) (Gordon Rottman)
LIBYA: U.S. Army, Middle East Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses bomb shipping and jetties in Tobruk harbor.
EAST INDIES: USAAF Fifth Air Force B-26 Marauders bomb Dili on East Timor Island, Netherlands East Indies.
NEW GUINEA: In Papua New Guinea, the Australian 25th Brigade, which has re-entered the battle for the Kokoda Track, seizes Kokoda and its airfield, greatly facilitating supply and reinforcement of Australians in this area. Piecemeal movement by night of the 128th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 32d Infantry Division, less elements still at Port Moresby, by lugger from Warngela to Pongani and Mendaropu is completed by this time and supplies are being accumulated. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief, Southwest Pacific Area, sets 15 November as the tentative date for an attack to reduce the Buna-Gona beachhead and agrees to a proposal by General Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief Allied Land Forces Southwest Pacific and Commander in Chief Australian Military Force, that troops be transferred by air to Pongani.
USAAF Fifth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses sink a Japanese army cargo ship off Buna.
AUSTRALIA: Minesweeper HMAS Kiama laid down.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: On Guadalcanal, the 3d Marine Regiment, 7th Marines, envelops the Japanese on the coast at Point Cruz. The 3d Battalion joins the 1st Battalion in the coastal battle east of Point Cruz while the 2d Battalion, on the left, drives north to the coast west of Point Cruz and turns east, trapping the Japanese. The 2d Marine Regiment (less 3d Battalion) moves forward on the left of the 5th Marine Regiment to continue a westward attack. Stores, ammunition, and one Army and one Marine Corps 155 mm (6.1 inch) gun battery arrive at Lunga Point. The two batteries are the heaviest U.S. artillery to reach the island and the first capable of countering enemy fire effectively. East of the Lunga perimeter, the 2d Battalion of the 7th Marine Regiment crosses the Metapona River mouth and establishes itself near Tetere village. During the night 2/3 November, the Japanese 17th Army lands supplies and about 1,500 men east of Koli Point to supply and reinforce the Japanese already there; they are ordered to construct an airfield.
NEW HEBRIDES ISLANDS: A "Glen" small seaplane (Kugisho E14Y, Navy Type 0 Small Reconnaissance Seaplane) is launched by a Japanese submarine and flies a reconnaissance mission over Efate Island.
PACIFIC OCEAN: In the Tonkin Gulf of the South China Sea, USN submarine USS Tambor (SS-198) lays mines in Hainan Strait between Hainan Island and the Chinese mainland.
In the Bismarck Sea, USAAF Fifth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses attack shipping northeast of Buna, Papua New Guinea while.
In the Solomon Sea, USAAF Fifth Air Force B-25 Mitchells strike at a convoy south of New Britain Island, Bismarck Archipelago.
U.S.A.: Submarine USS Ling laid down.
The film "The Palm Beach Story" premieres in the U.S. This romantic comedy directed by Preston Sturges stars Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee and William Demarest. The members of the American Film Institute ranked this film No. 77 on the list of the 100 Funniest American Films.
NEWFOUNDLAND: German submarine U-518 attacks targets off Bell Island in Conception Bay. The subā€™s first torpedo is fired at a coal boat tied up at the Scotia Pier. It misses its original target, but strikes the pier causing heavy damage. The sub then fires three torpedoes at the 7,803 ton Canadian freighter SS Rose Castle which is fully loaded with iron ore and waiting for a convoy; the ship sinks with the loss of 28-crewmen. The next target is the 5,633 ton Free French freighter P.L.M. 27 which is struck by one torpedo and sinks with the loss of 12 crewmen.
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
U-174 sank SS Zaandam.
Pre-war, the 10,909 ton Dutch cargo-passer liner MV Zaandam had sailed from Java, Netherlands East Indies, to New York; the vessel escaped from the Southwest Pacific in March 1942. Today, she is sailing from Capetown, South Africa, to New York when she is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-174 about 334 nautical miles (618 kilometers) north-northeast of Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil, in position 01.25N, 36.22W Her cargo includes 8,600 tons (7 802 metric tonnes) of chrome and copper ore. Also on board are 299 persons including 112 crew members and 18 U.S. Naval Armed Guards plus 169 passengers, most of them survivors from five Allied ships previously sunk off Capetown. Ten minutes after the first torpedo hit, another slams into the port side sinking the Zaandam in less than two minutes. A total of 134 men lose their lives, leaving 165 survivors. A U.S. tanker picks up 106 survivors from two lifeboats on 7 November. A third lifeboat, containing around 60 person s, makes landfall near the town of Barreirinhas, Brazil, some days later. Two men from this lifeboat died.
U-177 sank SS Aegeus.
U-586 sank SS Empire Gilbert.
U-522 sank SS Martima, Mount Pelion and Parethenon.
U-402 sank SS Dalcroy, Empire Antelope, Empire Leonard, and Rinos in Convoy SC-107.
SS Empire Sunrise sunk by U-84 and U-402 in Convoy SC-107.
SS Hartington sunk by U-521, U-438 and U-522 in Convoy SC-107.
SS Rose Castle (7,803 GRT) Canadian merchantman, While lying at anchor off Bell Island, Nfld, fully loaded with iron ore and waiting for a convoy, was torpedoed and sunk by U-518, Kptlt. Friedrich-Wilhelm Wissmann, CO. Of her crew of 46 men (reports vary on this detail), there were between seven and 11 survivors. Another merchant ship, the French ship PLM 27, was also sunk. Many of the survivors swan three-quarters of a mile to shore, including Pierre Edouard Gerard Simard, whom later who joined the Canadian Navy.
U-521 fired torpedo at corvette HMCS Moose Jaw in Convoy SC-107 but missed.