November 4th, 1942 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Churchill takes the chair of the Cabinet Anti-U-Boat Warfare Committee. Including the service chiefs, some government ministers and scientists in radar and operational research. This type of committee is unmatched by the Axis powers.
Britain: Now that winter has come the hazards facing airmen are significantly increased. One of the worst is fog, which especially affects RAF bomber crews returning from long flights over Germany. Trying to land a heavy bomber in fog, especially if it has been damaged is highly dangerous, and many aircraft have been written off and crews killed as a result.
Some months ago Mr. Churchill ordered the Petroleum Warfare Department to investigate methods of dispersing fog at airfields. It has now arrived at a solution, Fog Investigation Dispersal Operation (Fido). This consists of petrol burners positioned at intervals at he edges of runways. These are lit shortly before take-off and landing and have proved successful in reducing the fog, as well as providing additional illumination.
The plan is to install Fido at three emergency landing strips, Carnaby (Yorks), Manston (Kent) and Woodbridge (Suffolk). Crippled bombers, using an emergency radio system codenamed "Darkee", will be guided to one of these airstrips, which also have the latest approach-and-landing aids. Later other airfields will also have Fido fitted. The complexity of the system, which involves laying much underground piping, makes it unlikely that the system will be operational this winter.
Whilst
on a training exercise in Loch Striven, Scotland, miniature submarine X-3 sinks
when her induction trunk valve failed, and she floods and bottoms in 100 feet of
water. All three crew make successful escapes and the submarine is raised later
the same evening and returned to Vickers for repair. (Under the guarantee?)
(Alex Gordon)(108)
ASW trawler HMS Mullet commissioned.
GERMANY: Obermaschinist Alfred Wernicke died after an accident onboard U-197 in Kiel.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Following up on shipping concentrations at Gibraltar, their are 10 German and 21 Italian submarines patrol in the western Mediterranean. They will have some success during the next two weeks.
USN submarines USS Shad (SS-235), Gunnel (SS-253), Herring (SS-233), Barb (SS-220), and Blackfish (SS-221) are deployed to reconnoiter French North African waters off Rabat, Fedala, Casablanca and Safi, French Morocco, and Dakar, French West Africa, in advance of Operation TORCH (the invasion of Northwest Africa).
Italian torpedo boat Centauro is sunk off Benghazi, Libya, by British bombers.
EGYPT: British X Corps reaches open ground. The fighting causes heavy losses of the Ariete, 90th Light and HQ units before they break off the action and retreat. German General Von Thoma is captured. Despite Montgomery's orders the British fail to advance, while the Axis forces retreat toward Fuka. Eventually 16,000 Italians are captured in 14 days. Rommel loses 32,000 men, 1,000 guns and 450 tanks. The Afrika Korps now only consists of 35 German tanks and almost 100 obsolete Italian tanks. British Commonwealth Forces lose 13,500 troops, but win in a decisive victory over the Axis Forces.
Many will remember the huge October moon that bathed the desert that night - even more than they will remember the ear-splitting crash of the first artillery salvo. The moon was the last thing of beauty that they would see for 11 terrible days and nights of fighting.
For the soldiers who went out under that barrage with fixed bayonets and experienced the horror of battle at close quarters, the memories will be more vivid.
"Monty's" order was to "hit the enemy for six out of Africa". Lieutenant George Greenfield was serving with the Buffs at Alamein, "It was not too hard to sit in the pavilion of army headquarters and urge the others out in the face the fast bowling." He will always remember holding a fellow soldier's leg while it was amputated. "I was left squatting on the sand, stupidly holding the unattached leg, still in it's stocking, webbing gaiter and boot, across my knee. I had never realised before the utter dead weight of a solitary leg." Others will remember the piper, Duncan McIntyre, aged 19, who led the Black Watch to the first ridge. Twice wounded, he continued playing "The Road to the Isles" until a burst of machine-gun fire silenced him for ever.
As Panzer Army Afrika was being ground into dust and bones by the British offensive, General Von Thoma rode a tank of his headquarters unit directly into the fire of the British lines, and after having it shot out from under him, he climbed out of the burning hulk and waited for capture. He dined with General Montgomery that same night. (Russ Folsom)
US Army, Middle East Air Force (USAFIME) B-25 Mitchells and P-40s attack motor transport and troops retreating west from the El Alamein battleline with British in pursuit. Lieutenant General Frank M Andrews replaces Brigadier General Russell L Maxwell as Commanding General USAFIME.
ALGERIA: French Admiral Jean Darlan, Head of the French Armed Forces and High Commissioner in North Africa, is told that his son has been hospitalized with polio in Algiers. The situation is so serious that a coffin has been ordered and the admiral rushes from Vichy France to Algiers to be with him.
LIBYA: Twenty five US Army, Middle East Air Force B-24 Liberators bomb Bengasi harbor, hitting three ships and claiming one Axis fighter shot down.
AUSTRALIA: Minesweeper HMAS Gympie commissioned
SOLOMON ISLANDS: Lunga perimeter command is reorganized and garrison is reinforced, two sectors are established, the commander of each being responsible to 1st Marine Division headquarters. Brigadier General William H. Rupertus, Assistant Commanding General of the division, is assigned the sector east of Lunga River and Brigadier General Edmund B. Sebree, Assistant Commanding General of the Americal Division, the western sector. The 8th Marine Regiment, reinforced, of the 2d Marine Division debarks from a naval task force in the Lunga-Kukum area and is attached to 1st Marine Division. The 1st Marine Division halts their westward offensive short of Kokumbona because of a Japanese threat east of perimeter. The 2d Marine Regiment (less 3d Battalion), reinforced by the 1st Battalion of the 164th Infantry Regiment, after driving 2,000 yards (1 829 meters) west of Point Cruz, breaks off their attack and digs in at Point Cruz; the 5th Marine Regiment and the Whaling Group return to positions east of the Matanikau River. East of the perimeter, Brigadier General Rupertus and Headquarters and 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, arrive in the Koli Point area to assist the 2d Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment. The 164 Infantry Regiment (less 1st Battalion) and Company B of the 8th Marine Regiment march to the west bank of the Nalimbiu River in the region south of the 7th Marine Regiment and elements start north along the river.
Meanwhile, the naval task force transporting the 8th Marine Regiment lands forces at Aola Bay to establish an airfield. The Aola Force (1st Battalion of 147th Infantry Regiment; companies C and E of the 2d Marine Raider Battalion; the 5th Defense Battalion detachment; Battery K of the 246th Field Artillery Battalion, Americal Division; and 500 naval construction troops) establishes a beachhead a little east of the Aola River without opposition. This landing is the result of the cancellation of the landings on Ndeni Island in the Santa Cruz Islands; Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner, commander of Amphibious Force, South Pacific Force, wants to build another airfield there. Coastwatcher Martin Clemens and Major General Alexander Vandegrift, Commanding General 1st Marine Division, oppose this plan. Work is begun at once on an airfield, but the site is later found unsuitable. The 2d Raider Battalion is ordered to march west from Aola Bay to Koli Point to assist with the action east of the Lunga perimeter.
USN cruisers and destroyers of Task Group 65.4 bombard Japanese positions near Koli Point, Guadalcanal.
Companies C and E of the 2nd marine Raider Btn land unopposed at Aola Bay in Eastern Guadalcanal. Their landing is the result of the cancellation of the landings on Ndeni on the Santa Cruz Islands. Admiral Turner's idea is to build another airfield there. Coastwatcher Martin Clemens and General Vandegrift have opposed this plan. They are to be followed by the 147th Infantry and Seabees.
NEW CALEDONIA: Japanese submarine HIJMS I-9 launches a "Glen" seaplane (Kugisho E14Y, Navy Type 0 Small Reconnaissance Seaplane) to reconnoiters Nouméa, New Caledonia Island.
NEW GUINEA: In Papua New Guinea, the Australian 16th Brigade begins an attack on Oivi and finds the Japanese prepared fora firm stand. Colonel Leif Sverdrup, the deputy to the Southwest Pacific Area Engineer Officer, by this time has cleared sites for three more airfields in the general vicinity of Dyke Ackland Bay, the most important of these at Pongani.
In Northeast New Guinea, USAAF Fifth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-25 Mitchells bomb the town and harbor of Salamaua. In Papua New Guinea, A-20 Havocs hit troop concentrations at Oivi, where an Australian attack meets firm resistance; transports fly most of the remainder of the U.S. 128th Infantry Regiment, 32d Infantry Division, to Wanigela.
EAST INDIES: USAAF Fifth Air Force B-26 Marauders bomb Japanese strongpoints at Aileu on Portugese (East) Timor Island.
PORTUGESE TIMOR: The Australian signaller, Laidlaw, of Sparrow Force who had witnessed the air battle over Dili yesterday between American Marauder bombers and Japanese Zero fighters, once more breaks into the USAAF radio net and asks 'did Hitchcock make it?' The bomber crews though are too busy to reply. But later this night a message is received from the United States Army Air Force Command in Darwin: "Thanks Diggers. Hitchcock made it. Crash landed on Bathurst Island." The effect of this action on the troops on Timor was immeasurable in lifting their morale, for the first time in months they felt they were not alone in the fight against the Japanese, Hitchock and his plight will be discussed up and down the lines for the next few days. (William L. Howard)(188, 189, 190, 191)
AUSTRALIA: The USAAF's 90th Bombardment Group (Heavy) and its four component squadrons, the 319th, 320th, 321st and 400th Bombardment Squadrons (Heavy) arrive at Iron Range, Queensland. They are equipped with the Consolidated B-24 Liberator.
FIJI ISLANDS: Japanese submarine I-31 launches a "Glen" seaplane (Kugisho E14Y, Navy Type 0 Small Reconnaissance Seaplane) to reconnoiters Suva.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: Japanese submarine HIJMS RO-65 is sunk in the harbor of Kiska Island, when she accidentally dives into a reef while seeking to avoid an attack. .
Bad weather at Umnak Island and Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island and a flooded field at Adak Island preclude missions by the USAAF Eleventh Air Force; a new Adak Island runway permits an air alert.
CANADA: HMCS Dawson, a Flower-class corvette, A/LCdr. Anthony Hubert Storrs RCNR CO, returned to Esquimalt,, British Columbia., from the Aleutian Campaign. 'Tony' Storrs was a reserve officer and was the first of the very few to transfer to the RCN and subsequently reach flag rank. Rear-Admiral Storrs was often at odds with the professional officers of the RCN, both during the war and afterwards (see Marc Milner's comments about Storrs in Canada's Navy: The First Century). He found them to be a largely unintelligent and poorly educated group that was slavishly devoted to their RN customs and traditions. He refused to mimic the British accents and manners of his contemporaries and was adored by his crews during the war, partly as a result of his complete lack of hubris. He was a calm and quick thinking warrior, along the lines of Vice-Admiral Herbert Rayner, rather than the much more aggressive Vice-Admiral Harry DeWolf. Storrs’ appointments included command of the aircraft carrier Magnificent, Commandant of the National Defense College at Kingston and, after retirement, Director of Marine Operations for the Canadian Coast Guard, where he was instrumental in the founding of the Canadian Coast Guard College at Point Edward, Nova Scotia. Tony Storrs built, in the face of substantial institutional opposition, a reputation as an outstanding intellectual and an original thinker. He, along with Rayner, was among the officers considered for commemoration when the name 'DeWolf Hall' was selected for the recent expansion to the Canadian Forces College. His awards and honours included: Distinguished Service Cross and Bar, Legion of Merit, Legion d'Honneur, Croix de Guerre avec palmes, Honorary Commodore of the Canadian Coast Guard. Tony Storrs died in 2002, at the age of 95.
Minesweeper HMCS Mulgrave commissioned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The I WO of U-108 fell overboard in a heavy sea, but the crew rescued him within fifteen minutes.