December 24th, 1942 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: The Vickers type 432 high-altitude fighter F.7/41 (DZ 217) is flown by test pilot Tommy Lucke. It has several defects including the impossibility of making a three-point landing. (19)
Corvette HMS Smilax launched.
The first P-47 Thunderbolts arrive in England for the USAAF Eighth Air Force however, because of VHF radio and engine difficulties, the P-47s are not sent into combat until April 1943.
GERMANY: Peenemunde: The German research station here today chalked up a successful test firing of a new type of surface-to-surface weapon system. This is a "flying bomb", known as the FZG 76 or Fi 103. Looking like a small aircraft, with a fuselage length of just over 25 feet and wingspan of 18 feet, it is powered by a pulse jet engine. Today the system was catapulted into the air from a 230-foot ramp and flew some one and half miles. More test flights are planned to iron out technical bugs in the system.
During the night of 24/25 December, RAF Bomber Command dispatches three Oboe Mosquitos to attack German targets. One bombs Dusseldorf and one each bomb steel factories at Essen and Meiderich. The Essen bombs fell on the northern parts of the Krupps factory.
U.S.S.R.: The Russian 62nd Army receives fresh reinforcements and retakes the Red October tractor factory in Stalingrad.The Germans lose their last remaining landing ground in the Stalingrad pocket, when Tatsinskaya is overrun by Soviet tanks. The German relief column finds itself pushed back as the Russian's recapture Generalovsky.
The Russians push Hoth's 4th Panzer Army back from the Myshkova river where it was halted in its attempt to rescue German forces trapped in Stalingrad. Following the suspension of Operation WINTER TEMPEST, the relief of Stalingrad, the Red Army begins an offensive against German Army Group Don toward Kotelnikovo, breaking through the lines of the 4th Romanian Army.
Black Sea Fleet and Azov Flotilla: Submarine "L-24" - mined, close to cape Kaliakria. (Sergey Anisimov)(69)
VATICAN: Pope Pius XII makes another of his many calls for the more humane conduct of hostilities during a lengthy Christmas message over Vatican Radio. Humanity, he says, owed the resolution of a better world to "the hundreds of thousands who, without personal guilt, sometimes for no other reason than their nationality or descent, were doomed to death or exposed to a progressive deterioration of their condition."
ALGERIA: Algiers: Admral Jean-François Darlan was assassinated here today by a young student, Fernand Bonnier de la Chappelle.
The admiral, the titular high commissioner who was in effect the head of what has been called a Vichy regime with Allied support, left his villa this afternoon to drive to the Palais d'Ete. At the door of his office he was shot by his assassin, who is 20 years old.
Bonnier de la Chapelle is apparently an ultra-right-winger, a member of a group called the Free Corps of Africa, and associated with Henri Astier de la Vigerie, a local monarchist leader. Bonnier will go before a court-martial tomorrow afternoon.
A decision is made at conference between U.S. Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander Allied Force, and Lieutenant General Kenneth A. N. Anderson, General Officer Commanding British First Army, to abandon the attack on Tunis, Tunisia, until after the rainy season.
TUNISIA: A unit of the British Coldstream Guards captures Longstop Hill.
The British First Army regains positions on Djebel el Ahmera hill.
Four USAAF Twelfth Air Force P-40s attack a bridge north of Gabes.
BURMA: Japanese forces in advance in the Chin Hills area. They are pushed back by Allied forces.
NEW GUINEA: The new Japanese defensive positions near Buna are broken by Allied forces. The few supporting tanks are lost in this action.
After an artillery preparation in Papua New Guinea, the Urbana Force, employing the U.S. 127th Infantry Regiment, 32d Infantry Division, begins a drive toward the sea through Government Gardens, where Japanese defenses are organized in depth and concealed by high kunai grass. Progress is very slow. A platoon of Company L discovers a weak spot and drives through to a line of coconut trees near the coast; is surrounded there and suffers heavy casualties before escaping by a circuitous route. As a diversion, elements move to the Mission side of creek from Musita Island and from shallows between Buna Village and Buna Mission, but withdraw because of intense opposition. The Warren Force opens an attack on Old Strip after an artillery preparation. The Australian 2/10th Battalion, 18th Brigade, 7th Division, disposed along the northern edge of the strip, is supported by three Australian-manned U.S. M3 Stuart light tanks while making their main effort. The 1st Battalions
of the U.S. 126th and 128th Infantry Regiments attack in parallel columns along the southern edge of the strip; later the 1st Battalion of the 128th Infantry Regiment follows the 1st Battalion of the 126th. The attack gains some 450 yards (411 meters), but Japanese fire prevents movement onto the strip and knocks out the three tanks.
In Papua New Guinea, USAAF Fifth Air Force A-20 Havocs strafe troops near Kel Kel and along the northern bank of the Amboga River and trail. B-24 Liberators, operating singly, bomb Lae and a schooner in Vitiaz Strait.
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: On New Britain Island, USAAF Fifth Air Force B-24 Liberators bomb the harbor at Arawe on the western tip of the island while B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24s hit shipping and the airfield at Gasmata on the southern coast. A Japanese netlayer is sunk by the B-24s and a transport is sunk by the B-17s. .
SOLOMON ISLANDS: On Guadalcanal, the 3d Battalion, 132d Infantry Regiment Americal Division, followed by the 1st Battalion in reserve, moves west without incident to Hill 31, west of the summit of Mt Austen; upon attacking south toward Hill 27, they are stopped short by fire from a Japanese strongpoint, called Gifu, between Hills 31 and 27. The Gifu position, with fixed defenses and interconnecting pillboxes, is held by about 500 Japanese troops.
Nine USMC SBD Dauntlesses and four F4F Wildcats and nine USAAF P-39 Airacobras and four P-38 Lightnings attack the airstrip at Munda on New Georgia Island.; the Americans claim ten "Zekes" fighters (Mitsubishi A6M, Navy Type 0 Carrier Fighters) as they are taking off. The SBDs destroy ten "Zekes" on the ground. There are no US losses.
CANADA: National Defence says there are now 681,615 volunteers and conscripts in the Canadian forces.
Minesweeper HMCS Blairmore arrived Halifax, from builder, Port Arthur, Ontario.
U.S.A.: Destroyer escorts USS Fleming and Sederstrom laid down.
Submarines USS Cabrilla and Cisco launched.