28 May 1943

UNITED KINGDOM: London: The award of the Victoria Cross to Wing-Commander Guy Gibson, who planned and led the raid on the Rühr dams, is announced.

YUGOSLAVIA: British support for Yugoslavia's partisans arrived today - in the shape of two officers and two wireless operators parachuted onto a mountainside in Serbia in a gale, while a battle raged around them. Their commanding officer, Captain F. W. Deakin, a former literary assistant to Winston Churchill, will report directly to London.

No visitors could have been more welcome. Tito's hard-pressed army is facing Operation Black, the strongest Axis offensive yet. One of the radio operators, Sergeant Peretz Rosenberg, a Palestinian volunteer, was shown an order to Axis forces to destroy everything, including civilians and animals.

Britain has decided to back Tito, whose requests for help have been hitherto fruitless, rather than the Chetniks led by the royalist General Mihailovich. This is largely owing to information on the two groups' merits received from a British intelligence officer, Major D. T. "Bill" Hudson, who landed in this country by submarine in 1941.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: U-755 sunk in the Mediterranean NW of Mallorca, in position 39.58N, 01.41E, by rockets from an RAF 608 Sqn Hudson from Blida in North Africa. This is the first U-boat sunk by an RAF aircraft by mean of rocket-fired projectiles fired from beneath the wings. 40 dead and 9 survivors. (22)

AUSTRALIA: The first Japanese Betty bomber is shot down by an Australian-based Spitfire. (Steve Alvin)(136)

TERRITORY OF ALASKA: By the end of the day on Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands, the Americans have crowded the Japanese into a small pocket of flat ground around their Chicagof Harbor base. The Americans plan a full-scale attack for tomorrow. During the night, a PBY Catalina drops surrender leaflets around the Japanese lines.

U.S.A.: From an Opera Broadcast by Deems Taylor of the New York Metropolitan Opera Guild in May, 1943, and quoted in a letter from Lady (Dorothy) Mayer, today:

A young ambulance driver in North Africa was taking his load back to the Hospital base. He had to drive about ten miles over bad roads, and as he drove he was thinking of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra concerts and of all that music had meant to him. When he go to the base and began to unload the wounded, one of the young Germans was already dead, and as he moved the body a book fell from the pocket. He picked it up. It was Introduction to Mozart, and on the fly-leaf were two words written - Goethe's words - "Mehr Licht."

Washington: The office of mobilization is established to co-ordinate war production.

Between 0443 and 0446, U-154 fired six torpedoes at Convoy BT-14 about 125 miles east of Fortaleza, Brazil and reported one tanker damaged, one freighter sunk, one tanker probably sunk and two more freighters sunk. In fact each of the three ships Florida in station #53, Cardinal Gibbons in station #61 and John Worthington in station #42 were hit by one torpedo and all reached port safely, but the last ship was never repaired. The Cardinal Gibbons was struck on the starboard side abaft the stem and a hole was ripped in the forepeak tank containing fresh water. The eight officers, 35 crewmen and 27 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in and nine 20mm guns) remained on board and suffered no injuries. The vessel remained on course and arrived in Port of Spain, Trinidad on 5 June. The Florida was struck forward of the after peak on the starboard side 15 feet beneath the waterline. The explosion opened a hole 16 feet by six feet and broke her back. The ship lost way as water filled the engine room and the stern settled until the stern gun platform was awash. 15 minutes after the attack, the eight officers, 34 crewmen and 27 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in, one 3in and eight 20mm guns) abandoned ship in three lifeboats. A fourth boat swamped in the moderate seas. All hands were picked up by USS PC-592 and landed at Fortaleza the same day. A salvage crew boarded the tanker and corvette USS Saucy towed her into Fortaleza. The salvage ship USS Crusader later towed the Florida to San Juan, Puerto Rico for temporary repairs. Permanent repairs were done at Chester, Pennsylvania, after which the tanker returned to service. The John Worthington was struck by one torpedo at the #8 tank. The explosion blew a hole 30 feet by 10 feet in her side, buckled the deck and pushed fragments out the port side. The ship veered 30° to starboard, but regained her course and continued on her way, rejoining the convoy the next morning. Only a few of the eight officers, 34 crewmen and 14 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4in, one 3in, two .50cal and two .30cal guns) suffered slight injuries. After temporary repairs at Trinidad the ship was sailed on 10 June to Galveston, Texas for major repairs, arriving on 21 June. But the tanker was never repaired and did not return to service.

At 2353, U-177 attacked Convoy CD-20 and claimed two ships with 16000 grt sunk. The ships sunk were the Storaas and the Agwimonte. The Agwimonte was in station #53 (last ship of the starboard column) and the lookouts spotted the wake of a torpedo from U-177 but it was too late. The torpedo struck on the starboard side between the #2 and #3 hatches, causing the ship to heel to starboard and the sea washed over the foredeck and the bridge. The watch below secured the engines and the ship settled on even keel. Ten officers, 36 men and 23 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in, one 3in, eight 20mm and two 30cal guns) abandoned ship in two lifeboats and three rafts. The first boat swamped in the swells when the after fall failed to release. The men tumbled into the sea and climbed back on board the Agwimonte. Several of these men left the ship with the overcrowded second lifeboat. The master and 5 men bailed out the swamped boat and picked up two men from a raft. One hour and twenty minutes later they witnessed a second torpedo attack, which caused the boiler to explode and she sank bow first off Cape Agulhas in ten minutes with the general alarm still blaring. Two of the survivors on one of the rafts later transferred to an abandoned lifeboat of the Storaas. The armed trawler SAS Vereeniging picked up 61 survivors from a lifeboat and two rafts and landed them at Port Elizabeth, South Africa. A South African Army plane sighted the other two boats in the afternoon of 29 May. An Army crash boat rescued the occupants of those boats 18 hours after the attack and landed them two hours later at Gordon Bay.

U-304 sunk in the North Atlantic SE of Cape Farewell, Greenland in position 54.50N, 37.20W by depth charges from an RAF 120 Sqn Liberator. 46 dead (all hands lost).