Saturday, August 4, 2012

Day 1070 August 5, 1942

In a rare display of Axis cooperation, Japanese submarine I-30 arrives at German submarine pens in Lorient, France, carrying 3300 pounds of mica and 1452 pounds of shellac (for use in electronics) and blueprints of the highly successful Japanese Type 91 aerial torpedo. I-30 is greeted by German Admirals Raeder and Dönitz. I-30’s crew will visit Berlin, where the captain Commander Endo meets Hitler, and Paris.

In the Baltic Sea 10 miles off Pavilosta, Latvia, Soviet submarine SC-7 sinks Finnish freighter SS Pojanlahti with the deck gun. Some crewmen escape in a lifeboat including the captain who is carrying a suitcase, which is confiscated by the Soviet submarine and found to contain maps of German and Finnish minefields in the Baltic.

Churchill, who arrived in Cairo, Egypt, by air yesterday, visits the El Alamein front with British General Auchinleck.

At 11.45 AM 325 miles East of Barbados, U-155 stops tiny Dutch freighter MV Draco with the deck gun and then sinks her after all 16 crew abandon ship (1 lifeboat reaches Suriname 300 miles South and 1 lifeboat is picked up by British tanker MV Athelbrae).

The attack on convoy ON-115 concludes when U-458 sinks a straggler, British SS Arletta, at 4.13 PM 170 miles South of Newfoundland (36 dead, 5 survivors rescued after 15 days by US Coast Guard USS Menemsha). However, U-593 finds convoy SC 94 500 miles East of Newfoundland and sinks Dutch SS Spar at 6.48 PM (3 dead, 36 survivors picked up by convoy escorts British corvette HMS Nasturtium and Canadian corvette HMCS Orillia).

In the middle of the Philippines Sea, 450 miles Southwest of Guam, American submarine USS Greenling sinks Japanese troopship MV Brasil Maru, converted liner carrying 400 troops and 200 other passengers to reinforce Guadalcanal (at least 200 drown), and freighter Palau Maru.

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