June 27th, 1943 (SUNDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Minesweeper HMS Pylades launched.
POLAND: Lwow: One of the last great Jewish ghettoes in Poland has now been destroyed. S Lt-Gen Fritz Katzmann has rounded up the remainder of this city's Jews, an estimated 20,000, and shipped them off to camps, mainly to the extermination centres of Auschwitz and Belzec.
But the SS came up against stiff resistance from those Jews strong enough to fight: they fought back with smuggled Italian handguns, and in the end 500 of them took to the sewers. The Germans are unaware of the Jews' secret weapon: in the last days, they released thousands of lice infected with deadly spotted fever, which they had saved up for the final reckoning.
BALTIC SEA: U-18 encountered a Soviet submarine in the Black Sea, but neither boat attacked.
GREECE: USAAF bombers attack German airfields at Eleusis and Hassani, near Athens.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: RFA Abbeydale damaged by U-73 at 36.53N, 01.55E.
U-73 was depth charged in the Mediterranean by escorts. Due to heavy damage, the boat had to return to base.
U-81 was
attacked by shore-based guns in the Mediterranean off Latakia (Syria).
INDIAN OCEAN: At 0942, the unescorted Sebastian Cermeno was hit on the port side by two torpedoes from U-511. The torpedoes struck the after part of the #5 hold and the forward part of the #4 hold and blew off the after two hatches, destroyed the quarters of the armed guards, buckled the gun deck, disabled the engines and killed one officer and two men on watch below. A sailor who had been asleep on the #4 hatch later died of injuries. The survivors among the eight officers, 34 crewmen, 27 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in, one 3in and eight 20mm guns) and five passengers on board abandoned ship in five lifeboats after five minutes. Ten minutes after the hits, the ship sank quickly by the stern. Then the U-boat surfaced and questioned the survivors before leaving the area. The first torpedo had smashed the radio but distress signals were sent daily from an emergency transmitter in one of the lifeboats. The boats became separated during the first night. On 14 July, the 19 survivors in the boat of the master were picked up by the American steam merchant Theodore Parker and landed at Durban the same day. The men in the second boat were picked up by a British corvette and landed at Durban on 23 July, while the 11 survivors in another boat were picked up by an Australian destroyer and landed in Durban on 27 July after being spotted by a patrol aircraft. One boat with 16 survivors made landfall in Madagascar on 5 July and the last was towed into Durban by an Allied ship after 16 days at sea. The first engineer died of exposure in one of the lifeboats on 13 July and was buried at sea. The master David Martin Nilsson took over the command of another Liberty ship, the Jean Nicolet, which was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-8 in the Indian Ocean on 2 Jul 1944. The Japanese crew massacred most of the survivors from the ship and the master was taken prisoner but did not survive the captivity.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: US Marines leapfrog up the coast via a short sea lift before beginning an overland advance against Viru Harbor from Segi Point, New Georgia. These Marines landed on New Georgia on June 21.
In preparation for Operation TOENAILS, the invasion of New Georgia Island in the Solomon
Islands, Task Force 36 arrives in the area. TF 36 consists of two aircraft carriers:
USS Saratoga (CV-3) with Carrier Air Group Three (CVG-3) minus Fighting Squadron
Six
(VF-6). VF-6 has been replaced by the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA) No. 832 Squadron
equipped with Grumman TBF-1 Avengers.
HMS Victorious with the USN's VF-6 with F4F-4s and FAA No. 882, 896 and 898 Squadrons with
Grumman Martlet Mk IVs. This exchange put
four squadrons of Wildcat fighters on the RN ship. (Jack
McKillop and Massimiliano Stola)
ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: Eight US Eleventh Air Force B-24's make a radar run on Kiska Island but return with their bombs due to weather. Later, 5 B-24's and 7 B-25's bomb the Main Camp area and vicinity north of Salmon Lagoon. 14 B-25's bomb Gertrude Cove, camp areas, and North Head, while 7 others abort due to weather. 2 P-40's fly reconnaissance over Segula Island but overcast prevents observations. A US Navy PV-1 Ventura on a weather reconnaissance flight bombs Kiska and later, two PV-1s bomb Gertrude Cove on Kiska.
The Japanese Navy issues a new order for
the evacuation of personnel from Kiska. Known as Operation KE (Phase II), the evacuation
will be carried out on one mission rather than by numerous submarine missions. The Rescue
Force will consist of cruiser and destroyers and three groups of submarines that will
search for American ships, report on weather and screen the surface forces. The submarine
force will be divided into three groups; one group to operate between Kiska and Attu
Islands and the other two groups deployed to the north and south of Amchitka Island. The
operation is scheduled to begin in early July.
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Trillium completed foc’sle extension refit Boston Massachusetts.
Corvette HMCS Algoma completed work-ups and returned St. John's.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Convoy PQ-17 leaves Reykjavik, Iceland for Archangel, Russia. It consists of 36 freighters and a tanker. It is escorted by 6 destroyers and 13 smaller ships. PQ-17 will pass convoy QP-13 returning from Russia.
At 1503, U-81 fired a spread of two torpedoes at the Michalios and hit her with one torpedo in the stern. The stern broke off, causing the ship to sink within two minutes three miles west of Latakia. The U-boat had missed the vessel, misidentified as the Greek steam merchant Livathos (1667 tons), at 1457 hours with a first spread of two torpedoes.
U-518 shot down an RAAF 10 Sqn Sunderland.
U-518 was attacked in the North Atlantic by an RAF 201 Sqn Sunderland with four bombs. The boat was damaged so badly that it had to return to base.