12 December 1942

NETHERLANDS: During the night of 12/13 November, 14 RAF Bomber Command Wellingtons lay mines in the Frisian Islands.

FRANCE: Bordeaux: Four merchant ships, one tanker and a naval auxiliary moored in Bourdeaux, 60 miles from the sea, erupted this morning as limpet mines stuck to their hulls by British canoe commandos blew up. This is was known as Operation FRANKTON. Royal Marine raiders had paddled 81 miles through Europe's most dangerous estuary in icy conditions, for five nights, to reach their target. There is no plan to recover survivors. Initially five heavily-laden canoes carrying ten men were left submarine ten miles south of the Gironde estuary. They had to paddle north, round Pointe de Grave and then south down the Gironde, through tidal races. The first casualties were swept away in heavy seas offshore and taken prisoner. Near the Pointe, five-foot waves capsized a second two-man canoe. The men clung to other cockles, but had to be ordered to let go, a death sentence in such cold water. One whispered: "That's all right sir, I understand." In the river mouth a third canoe was swept off course.

Two cockles and four men survived to attack the fast merchant-men vital to Bordeaux's supply line. The men were Major Hasler, aged 28, his partner, Marine Sparks, and Corporal Laver with Marine Mills. Hidden in riverside reeds by day, they moved with the floodtide by night. In conditions likely to cause hypothermia they slipped alongside their targets, with nine hours to escape. If captured on the way to neutral Spain they will be shot.

The USAAF Eighth Air Force's VIII Bomber Command flies Mission 25: 78 B-17 Flying Fortresses are dispatched to the Rouen-Sotteville marshalling yard; 17 attack the target with the loss of two aircraft. A diversion is flown against the Drucat Airfield at Abbeville by 12 aircraft but the target is overcast and the aircraft return without attacking.

GERMANY: Berlin: The State Opera House, bombed by the British last year, reopens with a performance of Wagner's Die Meistersinger.

U.S.S.R.: Moscow: Stalin decides to defeat German attempts to supply Stalingrad before crushing Paulus's trapped army.

Stalingrad: Field Marshal von Manstein has decided to make his relief attack for Stalingrad near Kotelnikovo, some 60 miles south-west of the city, even though he has a point near Nizhne Chirskaya that is closer to Stalingrad, but to attack from here would involve a crossing of the Don which von Manstein regards as too risky. The German code name for this operation is "Wintergewitter" (Winter Storm). General Hoth is in tactical command of the operation which starts today.
Hoth's 4th Panzer Army, part of which is trapped in Stalingrad, is spearheading the attack from Kotelnikovo.

Von Manstein, ordered to "recapture the positions previously occupied by us", describes his operation as a "race with death", and there is no doubt that the Sixth Army is doomed if he loses. The Luftwaffe has failed the impossible task set it by Göring's boast to Hitler that he could keep the trapped army supplied. Heinkel He-111 bombers have been pressed into service as transports, but Russian fighters are taking a heavy toll.

The Germans in the Stalingrad pocket are hungry and cold. They are eating their horses; some freeze to death, and it is doubtful if they have enough fuel to break out.

Yet the beleaguered General Paulus is making no effort to link up with Hoth's advancing tanks, which are making good progress. He will not abandon the ruins of Stalingrad until Hitler gives him permission - and Hitler will never do that.

ITALY: RAF (B-24) Liberators of No. 205 (Heavy Bomber) Group, under operational control of the USAAF IX Bomber Command, attack the dock area at Naples.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: S class submarine HMS P.222 (the only one of her class not to be named) is located by Italian destroyer R.N. Fortunale which was escorting a convoy to Tunis and depth charged to destruction off Capri. There are no survivors (Alex Gordon)(108)

British submarine HMS/M Traveller (N 48) left Malta on 28 November for a patrol in the Gulf of Taranto. She also had to reconnoitre Taranto harbour on the Italian "heel" for a Chariot human torpedo attack (Operation PORTCULLIS). She is reported overdue today and is presumed lost on Italian mines in her patrol area.

Italian frogmen rode into Algiers harbour last night on their two-man underwater chariots, sank two merchantmen and damaged two others.

Despite the clear reluctance of many Italian soldiers to fight alongside the Germans - which led to world contempt in their 1940 desert campaign - the bravery of these frogmen, who have sunk or damaged ships in Gibraltar and Alexandria and during the Crete landings, is much admired by the Royal Navy which has had to take special precautions, including the use of concussion grenades.

Beaten but not unbowed, the Afrika Korps, has not lost its ability to sting. The regrouped and replenished Eighth Army has met fierce resistance from the retreating Axis at Mersa Brega, with Rommel ducking a strong right hook by New Zealand tanks. The going has not been easy for the Allies. The road to Tripoli is carpeted with mines and booby traps. In the west, Free French forces and the British 1st Guards Brigade have driven off strong Axis counter-attacks at Medje el Bab, but German reinforcements are flooding into Tunis.

TUNISIA: Blade Force, British First Army, is dissolved, component elements reverting to parent units. The British 6th Armoured Division is in contact with the Germans east and southeast of Medjez el Bab.

USAAF Twelfth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses, with P-38 Lightning escort, bomb the rail facilities and harbor area at Tunis; B-26 Marauders on a mission to bomb at Sousse or La Hencha abort due to very bad weather; and P-38s and P-40s fly widespread reconnaissance operations.

LIBYA: USAAF Ninth Air Force P-40s fly sweeps and attack ground forces in the El Agheila and Brega areas.

NEW GUINEA: From Oro Bay, Papua New Guinea, tanks are moved forward by sea to Hariko and hidden. Corvettes with Australian forces embarked (18th Brigade Headquarters, 2/9th Battalion, and Officer Commanding 2/10th Battalion) arrive off Soena Plantation after nightfall; they withdraw to Porlock Harbor after a few troops are unloaded because of the news that Japanese naval force is moving on Buna. Around midnight, the Japanese begin landing at the mouth of the Mambare River, near Cape Ward Hunt.

In Papua New Guinea, USAAF A-20 Havocs strafe barges off Sanananda Point while B-17 Flying Fortresses bomb the airfields at Lae and Salamaua.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: On Guadalcanal, the 2d Marine Division begins the relief of the Army's Americal Division west of the Matanikau River. A Japanese party raids Fighter Strip 2 under cover of darkness. The 2d Marine Division Signal Company and the 18th Naval Construction Battalion arrive.

USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses begin a series of daily attacks on the Japanese airfields nearing completion at Munda, New Georgia Island. Nine SBD Dauntlessess join the attack which is the first by the USMC.

TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: An attempted photographic reconnaissance mission over Kiska Island by a USAAF Eleventh Air Force B-24 Liberator and two P-38 Lightnings returns without result due to weather. Another reconnaissance B-24 is turned back by a weather front west of Buldir Island.

NEWFOUNDLAND: In St. John's, an arsonist sets fire during a barn dance in the Knights of Columbus hostel, killing 99 people and seriously injuring another 100, mostly military personnel and their dates. A subsequent inquiry determines arson to be the cause but finds no evidence of sabotage.

U.S.A.: A secret memorandum by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General George C. Marshall contains instructions on how to handle Latin Americans of German descent. "There interned nationals are to be used for exchange with interned American civilian nationals." (Mike Yared)

Ella Mae Morse's hit song "Mr. Five By Five"with Freddie Slack's Band was released today .

Escort carrier USS Coral Sea laid down.

Destroyer USS Porterfield laid down.

Destroyer USS Bradford launched.

Minesweeper USS Pheasant commissioned.

Minesweeper USS Champion launched.

ATLANTIC OCEAN:

U-301 had a fire on board after a short circuit, forcing her to return to base.

U-453 sustained so much damage during a depth charge attack that she was forced to return to base in the Mediterranean.

U-161 sank SS Ripley.

U-177 sank SS Empire Gull.