Saturday, December 4, 2010

Day 462 December 5, 1940

British destroyer HMS Cameron, one of the first 8 destroyers transferred from the US Navy in September, is bombed and badly damaged while refitting in drydock at Portsmouth (14 killed). The dock floods and HMS Cameron capsizes. She will be refloated in February 1941 and repaired by April 1942 but never see active service again.

German armed merchant cruiser Thor and British armed merchant cruiser HMS Carnarvon Castle exchange 6-inch shellfire 300 miles South of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Thor is not hit and leaves the area quickly to avoid Allied hunting groups. HMS Carnarvon Castle is hit 27 times (4 dead, 32 wounded) and will be repaired at Montevideo, Uruguay, using steel plates from German pocket battleship Graf Spee which had been sunk there in December 1939.

British submarine HMS Sunfish sinks Finnish steamer Oscar Midling (no survivors) off the Stadlandet peninsula, Norway.

British motor torpedo boats MTB.32, MTB.29 and MTB.31 sweep the coast of Holland near the mouth of River Scheldt, sinking German steamer Paranagua.

250 miles West of Ireland, Italian submarine Argo sinks British steamer Silverpine (35 killed).

6 miles off Cape Misurata, Libya, Italian torpedo boat Calipso sinks on a mine (laid by British submarine HMS Rorqual on August 16).

1 comment:

  1. My uncle was an apprentice lost on the silverpine. I was named after him.

    Ronald Giles

    ReplyDelete