September 27th, 1943 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: STRATEGIC OPERATIONS: The US Eighth Air Force's VIII Bomber Command flies 2 missions.
- Mission 104: The port of Emden, Germany is the target. In
the first pathfinder (PFF) mission, 2 of 3 H2S equipped pathfinder B-17s lead
the mission.
(1) 246 B-17s hit the Emden industrial area and targets of opportunity at
0958-1008 hours; they claim 32-7-24 Luftwaffe aircraft; 7 B-17s are lost; escort
is provided by 262 P-47 Thunderbolts which claim 21-2-6 Luftwaffe aircraft; 1
P-47 is lost.
(2) 24 B-24s fly a diversion.
- Mission 105: 4 B-17s hit Hannover at 2208-2217 hours in a night raid with the RAF; 1 B-17 is lost.
TACTICAL OPERATIONS: The US Eighth Air Force's VIII Air
Support Command flies Missions 73 and 74 against 2 airfields in France.
(1) 65 72 B-26B Marauders hit Tille Airfield at Beauvais at 1044-1045 hours;
they claim 4-6-4 Luftwaffe aircraft.
(2) 68 of 72 B-26's hit Conches Airfield at 1729 hours; 1 B-26 is lost.
The escort aircraft carrier (CVE) Jamaica (CVE-43) is transferred to Britain under Lend-Lease. She is the 25th CVE transferred to the Royal Navy and is renamed HMS Shah (D 21). The ship is returned to the USN on 6 December 1945.
Frigates HMS Montserrat and Tobago launched.
Escort carrier HMS Smiter launched.
NETHERLANDS: Seven RAF Bomber Command aircraft lay mines in the Frisian Islands.
FRANCE: Paris: PPF member Dr. Paul Guérin, président des groupements corporatifs français is assassinated.GERMANY: Allied air raid on Emden. (Glenn Stenberg)
During the night of 27/28 September, RAF Bomber Command sends 678 aircraft, 312 Lancasters, 231 Halifaxes, 111 Stirlings, 24 Wellingtons and USAAF Eighth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress to bomb Hannover; 38 aircraft are lost, 17 Halifaxes, ten Lancasters, ten Stirlings and a Wellington, 5.6 per cent of the force, and one B-17 also lost. The use by the Pathfinders of faulty forecast winds again saved the centre of Hannover. The bombing is very concentrated but fell on an area 5 miles (8 kilometers) north of the city centre. No details are available from Germany but RAF photographic evidence showed that most of the bombs fell in open country or villages north of the city. Twenty one Lancasters and six Mosquitos carried out a diversionary raid on Brunswick which is successful in drawing off some night fighters; 218 people are killed in Brunswick, 51 Germans and 167 foreigners. One Lancaster is lost. Mosquitos crews flew two missions: five Mosquitos on another diversion to Emden and three on Oboe tests to Aachen. Ten aircraft layed mines in the Kattegat, a bay of the North Sea bounded by Denmark and Sweden.
U.S.S.R.: The Soviets reach the suburbs of Dnepropetrovsk. In the Kuban, the Russians occupy the north bank of the Kuban River and capture Temryuk, their last port reducing the German's bridgehead to a narrow strip.
ITALY: Foggia greets the advance units of the British 8th Army. The airfields are now in Allied hands. The main body of the 8th Army is still not ready. Canadian units capture Melfi, Italy.
In the U.S. Fifth Army's VI Corps area, 3d Infantry Divsion reaches Highway 7 and is threatening Avellino.
Marshal of Italy Pietro Duke Badoglio, the Prime Minister of the new
government, receives terms of complete instrument of surrender.
The people in Naples begin an insurrection against Germans, which will last
through to the end of the month. (Glenn Stenberg)
Weather almost halts US Twelfth Air Force operations; XII Air Support Command fighters strafe Viterbo Airfield and Bracciano seaplane base, bomb a road junction at San Servero, and strafe a locomotive and the train station; other Northwestern Tactical Air Force aircraft hit trucks in the Benevento area.
GREECE: The Germans take full control of the island of Corfu having wiped out the Italian garrison.
Destroyer HMS
Intrepid is damaged by two air raids on the port of Leros and abandoned.
Considered to be beyond repair, she capsizes. There are 15 casualties. (Alex
Gordon)(108)
In the Ionian Sea, the 1,092 ton Greek ship SS Ardena is sunk by a mine off Argosoli, Kefalonia Island, Ionian Islands, laid by the Italian ship Berletta three months earlier. SS Ardena had been bombed and sunk in June 1941 by the Luftwaffe during the invasion of Greece. Raised and repaired by the German Kriegsmarina, she is sunk again today. The ship is carrying 840 Italian POWs; 720 of them are killed.
CHINA: Mao Tse-min (Mao Tse-tung's brother) and the Communist party founder Chen Tan-chi are executed by order of Chiang Kai-shek.
SINGAPORE: British and Australian commando forces led by Lieutenant Colonel Lyons, Gordon Highlanders, mounted Operation Jaywick, a canoe attack on Japanese shipping in Singapore harbour. Their limpet mines sank three ships and left several others damaged. The assault team escaped in their fishing boat, HMAS Krait, which has been preserved as part of the Australian War Memorial collection.
PACIFIC OCEAN: Submarine USS Pompano sunk while patrolling off the coasts of Hokkaido and Honshu; probably lost to Japanese mines.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: 27 B-24s, 20+ P-40s and P-39Airacobras of the US Thirteenth Air Force, and several USMC F4U Corsairs to pound the Kahili area on Bougainville Island. P-39s over Choiseul Island strafe (and explode) 3 barges off Wogai Point, and strafe 2 others off Bambatana, leaving 1 ablaze.
NEW GUINEA: 117 B-24s and B-25s, escorted by 129 P-38s and P-40s, attack airfields and shipping in the Wewak area; about 40 aircraft are destroyed on the ground and 8 are claimed shot down in combat; the bombers sink a transport and 4 cargo ships; Finschhafen is bombed twice during the day.
U.S.A.: Destroyer escorts USS Howard D Crow and Neunzer commissioned.
Escort carrier USS Savo Island laid down.
Submarine USS Scabbardfish laid down.
Frigates USS Rockford, Woonsocket and Dearborn launched.
BRAZIL: The beginning of airship (blimp) operations in the South Atlantic is marked by the arrival of the nonrigid airship K-84, of Blimp Squadron Forty One (ZP-41) at Fortaleza.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Two German submarines are sunk:
- U-161 is sunk in the South Atlantic near Bahia, Brazil, in position 12.30S, 35.35W, by depth charges from a USN PBM-3 Mariner of Patrol Squadron Seventy Four (VP-74) based at Natal, Brazil. All 53 hands on the U-boat were lost; 2 crewmen in the PBM are wounded by AA fire from the U-boat.
- U-221 shoots down an RAF Handley Page Halifax aircraft (Sqdn. 58/B) but is sunk southwest of Ireland, in approximate position 47.00N, 18.00W, by depth charges from the same aircraft, an RAF Halifax Mk II of No 58 Squadron based at Holmsley South, Hampshire, England. All 50 hands on the U-boat are lost.