December 27th, 1942 (SUNDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Escort carrier HMS Khedive launched.
GERMANY: The German military begins enlisting Soviet POWs in the battle against the Soviet Union. Soviet Lieutenant General Andrei Vlasov, former commander of the 2nd Shock Army, is made commander of the renegade Soviet troops. Vlasov had fought at Leningrad and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin would not allow him to withdraw his troops to more favorable positions. His army was battered, and he was taken prisoner by the Germans along with many of his men. Back in Germany, Vlasov became disgusted with Stalin and communist ideology, which he had come to believe was a more sinister threat to the world than Nazism. He began broadcasting anti-Soviet propaganda and formed, with Nazi permission, of course, the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia. Its goal: to overthrow Joseph Stalin and defeat communism. The German "Smolensk Committee" began persuading more and more captured Russians, Ukrainians, Cossacks, and other Soviet anti-Stalinists to join the German war effort.
These now-pro-German Soviets were finally formed into a 50,000-man army, the Russian Liberation division, and fought toward the end of the war, with Vlasov at their command. Tens of thousands ending up turning back against the Germans, then finally surrendering to the Americans-rather than the advancing Soviets-when the German cause was lost. The Americans, under secret terms of the Yalta Agreement signed in February 1945, repatriated all captured Soviet soldiers-even against their will. Vlasov was among those returned to Stalin. He was hanged, along with his comrades in arms.
U.S.S.R.: In addition to action in the Stalingrad sector, the Soviets begin attacks in the Caucasus. Six armies near Nalchik, under command of Maslennikov and Tyulenev begin an attack. Von Kleist begins to withdraw as the advance of the Soviet armies in the Stalingrad sector reaches Rostov to his north.
Lieutenant-General Andrei Vlasov forms the Smolensk Committee to organize Russian opposition to Stalin. Vlasov, while enjoying some German support, does not have real support as they fail to understand the difference between a patriotic Russian and his opposition to Stalin.
ITALY: During the night of 27/28 December, one USAAF Ninth Air Force B-24 Liberator bombs the shipyard at Taranto.
LIBYA: British Eighth Army patrols cross Wadi Tamet.
TUNISIA: The British First Army repels an Axis attack in the Medjez el Bab area.
Thirty USAAF Twelfth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses, escorted by P-38 Lightnings, bomb the shipping and dock facilities at Sousse, damaging docks and warehouses and claiming direct hits on four vessels while P-38 Lightnings and P-40s fly several reconnaissance missions.
During the night of 27/28 December, 12 USAAF Ninth Air Force B-24 Liberators bomb the port area at Sousse.
BURMA: Indian troops reach the tip of the Mayu peninsula, meeting no resistance in their drive towards Akyab, but units of the 123rd Indian Brigade are stopped by the Japanese from occupying Rathedaung. In the coastal sector, the Indian 47th Brigade arrives at Indin and gets a patrol to Foul Point, at the tip of the Mayu Peninsula. The advance then halts for various administrative reasons, one being the difficulty of bringing reinforcements and supplies forward.
NEW GUINEA: In Papua New Guinea, the Japanese under Major General YAMAGATA Tsuyuo at Napapo are ordered to move to Giruwa by sea. On the Urbana front, Company B, U.S. 127th Infantry Regiment, 32d Infantry Division, breaks through to Companies A and F near the coast, and Company C engages in clearing bunkers north of the gardens. The Japanese defense of Old Strip slackens as a withdrawal is begun. The Warren Force finishes clearing the runway except for stubborn a bunker position to the rear of the dispersal bay. Additional Allied tanks and cargo are unloaded at Oro Bay, during the night of 27/28 December. Regimental Combat Team 163, U.S. 41st Infantry Division, arrives at Port Moresby from Australia.
In Papua New Guinea, USAAF Fifth Air Force B-26 Marauders hit targets in the Gona area while a single B-24 hits the runway at Finschhafen in Northeast New Guinea. Fifty two Japanese aircraft attack Allied ground troops at Buna and, in their first significant action in the Pacific, a dozen P-38 Lightnings engage some 24 Japanese aircraft over Buna, claiming nine "Zeke" fighters (Mitsubishi A6M, Navy Type 0 Carrier Fighters) and two "Val" dive bombers (Aichi D3A, Navy Type 99 Carrier Bombers) shot down for one P-38 damaged. One of the P-38F pilots is Second Lieutenant Richard I. Bong who scores his first two aerial victories. By the end of the war, he had earned 40 such credits, making him the top U.S. ace of all time.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: while the 3d Battalion, 132d Infantry Regiment, Americal Division, conducts a holding attack that gains little ground, the 1st Battalion, to the east, moves south to locate the Japanese flanks, elements running into the Gifu strongpoint near Mount Austen, instead of outflanking it.
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: USAAF Fifth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses bomb shipping at Rabaul, New Britain Island and sink a merchant cargo ship.
NEW GUINEA: Japanese units at Napopo are ordered to withdraw to Giruwa.
CANADA: Patrol vessel HMCS Beaver arrived Halifax, Nova Scotia for refit.
A troop train with 13 coaches plows into the rear of a Canadian Pacific Railroad train near Almonte, Ontario, killing 36 and injuring 155 persons. The crash was caused by lack of automatic signals. Almonte is located about 27 miles (43 kilometers) west-southwest of Ottawa, Ontario.
U.S.A.: The auxiliary aircraft carrier USS Santee (ACV-29), the first of 11 aircraft carriers assigned to Hunter-Killer duty, and the destroyer USS Eberle (DD-430) sortie Norfolk, Virginia, with Escort Carrier Air Group Twenty Nine (CVEG-29) on board for free-roving antisubmarine and anti-raider operations in the South Atlantic. All auxiliary aircraft carriers (ACVs) are redesignated escort aircraft carriers (CVEs) on 15 July 1943.
Minesweepers USS Delegate and Deft laid down.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-356 is sunk about 291 nautical miles (540 kilometers) north-northeast of Lagens Field, Azores Islands, in position 43.30N, 25.40W, by depth charges from the Canadian destroyer HMCS St. Laurent (H 83) and the Canadian corvettes HMCS Battleford (K 165), Chilliwack (K 131) and Napanee (K 118); all 46 crewmen on the submarine are lost. The destroyers are escorting of convoy ONS-15.
U-73 shot down RAF 500 Sqn Hudson.
The unescorted Oakbank was torpedoed and sunk by U-507 about 200 miles north-NE of Fortaleza, Brazil. The master, 24 crewmembers and two gunners were lost. 29 crewmembers and three gunners were picked up by the Brazilian merchant Commandate Ripper and landed at Recife on 3 January. The Argentinean tanker Juvenal rescued one crewmember and landed at Curaçao on 8 January, while two crewmembers on a raft reached the coast near Para on 15 January. Two crewmembers were taken prisoner and were lost when the U-boat was sunk on 13 Jan, 1943.
Destroyer HMCS St Laurent and corvettes HMCS Battleford, Napanee and Chilliwack sank U-356 north of Azores, 45-30N 25-40W. No survivors a crew of 45. U-356 with a record of sinking 6 ships, was also involved with a number of Wolfpacks, Group "Lotts" (15 Aug-27 Sep) which had sunk 4 ships of a convoy. Group "Pfeil" (13-25 Sep) which had sunk 6 ships of convoy ONS-122; Group "Raubold" which attacked Convoy ON-153. The convoy, of forty-five ships, (ONS-154) escorted by Canadian escort group C1, had been diverted to the south and was out of range of air cover from Iceland when it was sighted on 26 Dec 42 by U-664 one of ten U-boats of the "Spitz" line, which had been lying in wait for ONS-154 since the 24 Dec 42. U-225 damaged SS Scottish Heather, U-356 sank SS Empire Union, King Edward, Melrose Abbey and damaged SS Soekaboemi, U-441 sank SS Soekaboemi. A three-day battle began that night in which the escorts sank U-356, but the "Spitz" U-boats attacked again and again and were joined by another 9 U-boats from the "Ungestum" group, waiting some distance to the west. In one of the worst convoy maulings of the war, 14 ships of more than 73,000 tons were sunk. The convoy Commodore's ship Empire Shackleton was sunk, and a tanker was torpedoed. Also lost, with all hands, was the special service ship HMS Fidelity. On 30 Dec 42 32 Ships of the original Convoy ONS-154, arrive safely in the UK.