16 December 1942

UNITED KINGDOM: German "hit-and-run" air raids strike 20 towns and villages in southern England.

FRANCE: During the night of 16/17 December, RAF Bomber Command dispatches aircraft to lay mines in the Bay of Biscay off French ports: nine lay mines in the River Gironde Estuary and two lay mines off Brest. .

GERMANY: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini realizes that a two front war is unwinnable. He sends Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano to meet with Adolf Hitler to discuss a possible peace settlement with the Soviet Union. Hitler discounts this proposal and claims that the Axis can win a two front war.

Berlin: Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler orders that everyone of gypsy or mixed gypsy blood be sent to Auschwitz.

During the night of 16/17 December, eight RAF Bomber Command Wellingtons attempt to bomb a German aircraft depot at Diepholz; three aircraft bomb the general area of the target but "with no evidence of success" and one Wellington is lost.

U-279 launched.

U-247 laid down.

U-420, U-669 commissioned.

ITALY: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini realizes that a two front war is unwinnable. He sends Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano to meet with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler to discuss a possible peace settlement with the Soviet Union. Hitler discounts this proposal and claims that the Axis can win a two front war.

U.S.S.R.: The Soviet winter offensive now strikes the Italian 8th Army on the Don. Saturn brings immediate results destroying Il Duce's army. In other places the is offensive falls against Army Detachment Hollidt along the Chir river.

Stalingrad: One of the fiercest tank battle of the war is raging on the Kalmyk Steppe, south-west of Stalingrad, as Hoth's 4th Panzer Army struggles to break through to the Sixth Army, trapped in the city and now fighting a bloody battle for survival, factory by factory, street by street.

In fighting as cruel as the winter the Germans have pushed the Russian Fifth Shock Army back across the Aksai river and almost to the Myshkova river where the Second Guards Army has formed a defence line stretching south-east from the stubbornly-defended Nizhne Chirskaye to Kapinsky. Hoth has been stopped there, only 25 miles from Stalingrad; his leading tankmen can see the gun-flashes from the perimeter defences. Yet as he struggles to advance Russia has started a new offensive.

Before dawn this morning Zhukov launched Operation SATURN, a stunning blow at the Italian Eighth Army holding the line on von Manstein's flank north-west of Stalingrad. The Italians have crumbled, and a 60-mile-wide gap has opened in the German defences - and the Russians are pouring through.

FINLAND: Major Max von Hellens, intelligence officer of the 11th Division, and an American informer, is condemned to death for treason.

LIBYA: Rommel's forces, by breaking into small detachments, are able to withdraw from El Agheila positions after hard fighting with the New Zealand 2d Division, but loses about 20 tanks and some 500 captured.
USAAF Ninth Air Force P-40s fly fighter-bomber missions and sweeps over the battle area while B-25 Mitchells hit troop concentrations and transport targets.

TUNISIA: USAAF Twelfth Air Force Douglas DB-7s bomb the rail junction east of Mateur and hit the town area of Massicault and the nearby vehicle dispersal area; P-38 Lightnings attack ships off the north coast scoring a hit on one vessel; other P-38s fly reconnaissance mission, exchanging ineffective fire with enemy aircraft.

BURMA: In the Arakan coastal sector, the Eastern Army of India Command, under Lieutenant General N. M. S. Irwin, opens a limited-objective offensive for Akyab Island, at the end of Mayu Peninsula, which at this time is lightly held by the Japanese. Lacking resources for an amphibious assault, as planned originally, an advance is made overland by the Indian 14th Division, which consists at this time of 4 Indian brigades and is later strengthened by 4 more Indian brigades and one British brigade. The Indian 123d Brigade, leading off, finds Maungdaw free of the enemy and occupies it.

NEW GUINEA: On the Urbana front, the 2d Battalion of the 128th Infantry renews the attack on the Coconut Grove and clears it by 1200 hours; they also establish a bridgehead across Entrance Creek, where engineers repair a bridge, from which to attack the Triangle. A platoon of Company F, 126th Infantry, called the Schwartz patrol, is ordered to Tarakena, west of Siwori, to protect the left flank.
In the Gona area, the Australian 39th Battalion and 2/14th Battalion, 21st Brigade, 7th Division complete their encirclement of the Japanese at the creek mouth west of Gona. Meanwhile, the 36th Battalion of the 14th Brigade and the 2/7th Cavalry Regiment, serving as infantry, arrive at Soputa.

39 Battalion Australian Military Force and 2/14 Battalion Australian Imperial Force have skirmished from Gona towards Haddy's Village (two miles to the west) to delay and destroy reinforcements landed by the Japanese some days earlier. Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Honner's 39th Battalion are moving by an inland route while Lieutenant Colonel Challen's 2/14th Battalion moves along the coast. This is where the Japanese 3rd Battalion, 170th Regiment that had landed between the Kumusi and Amboga on the night of 1/2DEC42. Together with stragglers from the Kokoda Track fighting Honner estimated the Japanese to muster about 600 personnel. Having fenced in the Japanese at Haddy's village between the sea (north), creek (west) and the Australians (south and east), the final actions next day saw 170 Japanese buried in the village area and an estimate of at least the same number (if not more) in the preliminaries.

The cost was a total of 129 casualties (2 officers and 105 OR from the 39 Bn). The 39 Bn was critical to the success of the Kokoda Track and the Gona/Buna battles. (Daniel Ross)

USAAF A-20 Havocs and B-26 Marauders hit forces in the Buna area and at the mouth of the Kumusi River, and strafe barges on the lagoon shoreline south of the Kumusi's mouth. Meanwhile, B-24 Liberators attack a wreck off Gona, a cargo vessel in the Bismarck Sea, and a destroyer, two cargo ships and two tankers in the Solomon Sea, southeast of Cape Orford.

NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: Troops of the 2nd Yokosuka SNLF occupy an important oil refinery in the town of Lutong, a few miles north of Miri on the island of Sarawak. (Daniel Ross)

SOLOMON ISLANDS: On Guadalcanal, Lieutenant General Alexander M. Patch orders the 132d Infantry, Americal Division, to occupy Mt. Austen, which dominates the island, as a preliminary to a major offensive to be undertaken in January.
On New Georgia Island, USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 5th Bombardment Group (Heavy) attack the airstrip at Munda. They are met by 16 Zeke fighter (Mitsubishi A6M, Navy Type 0 Carrier Fighters); the B-17s claim four Zekes with the loss of one B-17.
IJN Kagero is damaged by the Cactus Airforce during a Tokyo Express run to Guadalcanal.

PACIFIC OCEAN: Pharmacist's Mate First Class Harry B. Roby, USNR, performs an appendectomy on Torpedoman First Class W. R. Jones on board USS Grayback. It is the second appendectomy performed on board a submarine. Roby was an "IDC" -- an Independent Duty Corpsman, one of the superior sorts of PhMs specially trained to serve in small vessels and with Marine Corps field units, as their combination physician-surgeons, in lieu of not having a commissioned doctor-surgeon. These personnel yet exist in the USN, though no longer called Pharmacist's Mates and wearing a unique scarlet red cross as their specialist insignia; all in the old-line Hospital Corps are now called Hospital Corpsmen, and wear a white caduseus.

During heavy weather in the North Atlantic a lookout on U-610 broke his arm

U-159 sank SS East Wales.

U-176 sank SS Observer.

U-610 sank SS Bello and damaged SS Regent Lion ON-153.

U-664 sank SS Emile Francqui in Convoy ON-153.