December 7th, 1942 (MONDAY)
FRANCE: During the night of 7/8 December, RAF Bomber Command aircraft lay mines off four French ports: six aircraft lay mines off Brest, five off La Pallice and four each off Bayonne and St. Jean de Luz.
NETHERLANDS: During the night of 7/8 December, 14 RAF Bomber Command aircraft lay mines in the Frisian Islands.
GERMANY: The Gestapo arrests over 700 young people, alleged members of a group called "Edelweiss Pirates".
U.S.S.R.: Soviet forces attack at the River Chir. Their goal are the German airfields that are supplying Stalingrad. These attacks are stopped by the German 11th Panzer Division, but the Germans absorb serious losses.
ALGERIA: In Algiers, French Admiral Jean Francois Darlan proclaims himself French Head of State in North Africa and Commander in Chief of land, naval and air forces. Darlan appoints an Imperial Council consisting of Generals Nogues, Giraud, Chatel, Boisson and Bergeret to advise him. The action has been approved before hand by the Allies.
TUNISIA: In Bizerte, French Admiral Derrien, the naval commander, complies with the orders of the German commander General Walther Nehring, commander of the LXXXX Corps, and disarms the Bizerte garrison, turning over all his ships, and the harbor's arsenal and defenses.
Ground fighting subsides as German attacks in the Tebourba area decrease in intensity.
USAAF Twelfth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses, escorted by P-38 Lightnings, attack docks and shipping at Bizerte. Escorted DB-7 Bostons attack tanks in the Tebourba-El Bathan area where elements of the British First Army continue to be hard pressed. Other DB-7s sent to bomb La Hencha and Sousse abort because of bad weather. P-38s and P-40s fly numerous reconnaissance missions over the Sousse-Sfax-Gabes area and patrols over Oran, Algeria, while B-17 Flying Fortresses and F-4 Lightnings fly photographic reconnaissance over the Sousse-Sfax-Gabes area and the Tunis-Bizerte area.
SINGAPORE: Changi: A beautiful shinto shrine, built by PoWs is unveiled in the camp.
NEW GUINEA:
In the Australian 7th Division area in Papua New Guinea, the 30th Brigade relieves the 16th Brigade on the Sanananda front where the troops are greatly weakened by malaria as well as protracted fighting. Companies C, D, and L of the U.S. 126th Infantry Regiment are relieved in the front line by the Australian 49th and 55/53d Battalions, 30th Brigade. Americans, except for those garrisoning the roadblock and holding positions west of it, are ordered to the rear of the Australian forces. Fresh Australian troops attack at once toward the block but cannot reach it; a further effort to supply the block is also futile. After a heavy air and artillery preparation, Urbana Force (two battalions of the U.S. 126th and 128th Infantry Regiments, 32d Infantry Division) again attacks Buna Village and clears a trench at the southern edge. Elements on the coast repel Japanese attacks from the village and mission. Warren Force (based on U.S. 128th Infantry Regiment, 32d Infantry Division) patrols intensively. U.S. Lieutenant General Robert Eichelberger, Commanding General I Corps, who is in the process of moving his headquarters from Henahambuti to Simemi Village and of combining headquarters of I Corps and the 32d Infantry Division into Headquarters Buna Force, selects Brigadier George F. Wootten, General Officer Commanding Australian 18th Brigade, 7th Division, who is at Milne Bay, to command future operations of the Warren Force.
George Welch, who is credited with shooting down four Japanese planes during the attack on Pearl Harbor shoots down two Vals and a Zeke flying a P-39, becoming an ace exactly one year after his first victories.
Welch was credited with shooting down 4 Japanese planes during the attack on Pearl Harbor . He would go on to score 16 victories and become a test pilot for North American Aviation.
All of Welch's victorys were multiples: 7 Dec. 41: 4; 7 Dec. 42: 3; 21 Jun 43: 2; 20 Aug 43: 3; 2 Sep 43: 4. (Skip Guidry and Tom Carlson)
In Papua New Guinea, USAAF Fifth Air Force B-25 Mitchells attack the area around Buna as ground forces attack the village and clear a trench at the southern edge; B-25 Mitchells also hit the airfield at Lae. B-17 Flying Fortresses attack a wrecked vessel off Gona. Japanese Army bombers attack the Second Field Hospital at Port Moresby in retaliation for the inadvertent bombing of a Japanese field hospital at Buna earlier in the week.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: Captain Sato leads a Tokyo Express run to Guadalcanal tonight. US P(atrol) T(orpedo) Boats (PT 36, PT 37, PT 40, PT 43, PT 44, PT 48, PT 59, and PT 109) force his destroyers to retire.
Thirteen USMC SBD Dauntlesses from Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, attack 12 Japanese destroyer-transports of the Tokyo Express in New Georgia Sound at 1635 hours local. Two destroyers are damaged for the loss of one SBD.
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: USAAF Fifth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses attack a tanker off Gasmata, New Britain Island.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: USAAF Eleventh Air Force aircraft fly a reconnaissance mission over the Semichis and Attu Islands; reconnaissance of Kiska Island is aborted due to weather.
U.S.A.: The USS New Jersey BB-62 is launched from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. This battleship is one of the Iowa class.
One year after the "day of infamy" at Pearl Harbor, the US Navy today launched 15 ships, including the biggest battleship ever built. The huge USS New Jersey slid down the ways at the Philadelphia Navy Yard almost on the hour of last December's attack.
Elsewhere in America, an aircraft carrier, two destroyers, a submarine, six minesweepers, two escort craft, a destroyer tender and what the navy called a "special" ship were launched. All this was a tangible demonstration of Franklin D. Roosevelt's message to the people: that the day of surprise was a year ago, the period of defence is over and the offensive is under way. "Coral Sea, Midway, the Solomons, New Guinea and North Africa are shining examples of [our] power," the president said. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the chief of the Pacific Fleet, said that victory has been assured over the Japanese because the "sea lane across the greatest of oceans has been made safe. The optimism is tempered by official statistics: 58,307 casualties in the year, a massive 35,822 of which occurred in the Pacific theatre. Many are classified as missing and presumed to be prisoners of war. More than one million US servicemen are now in action.
Corvette HMCS Oakville arrived New York for duty under USN Commander Eastern Frontier, New York-Guantanamo convoys, Dec 42 - Feb 43.
The prototype Bell (Model 33) XP-63-BE (USAAF s/n 42-45511) makes it first flight at Buffalo Municipal Airport, New York. During the war, a total of 3,303 P-63s are built. The majority of the P-63s are transferred to the Soviet Union and France.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: When U-515 sinks the British liner CERAMIC only one man a Royal Engineer, survives.