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• » 6 Aug 1942

• Cruiser Köln arrived at Narvik, Norway. ww2dbase [Köln | CPC]
• The British section of the World Jewish Congress claimed that 1,000,000 Jews were already dead in occupied Europe. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Destroyer Yuzuki departed Rabaul, New Britain, Bismarck Islands, escorting a troop convoy to Buna, New Guinea. ww2dbase [Yuzuki | CPC]
• Michael Calvert wrote to Orde Wingate from Delhi, India warning that fellow British officers generally considered Wingate "not fit to command." ww2dbase [Orde Wingate | CPC]
• Hermann Göring again ordered the plunder of Soviet industries. ww2dbase [Hermann Göring | CPC]
• Japanese submarine RO-33 attacked Australian passenger-cargo ship Mamutu with her deck gun in the Gulf of Papua and machine gunned those who jumped into the water; 114 were killed, 27 survived. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German submarine U-612 sank after colliding with U-444 in the Baltic Sea off Gotenhafen (Gdynia), occupied Poland; 2 were killed, 43 survived. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German submarine U-77 sank Egyptian sailboat Ezzet and damaged Egyptian sailboat Adnan 85 miles east of Cape Greco, Cyprus at 0700 hours. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Hans-Joachim Marseille received a telegram informing him that he was to travel to Rome, Italy to receive the Gold Medal of Military Valor (Medaglia d'oro al Valore Militare) from Benito Mussolini. ww2dbase [Hans-Joachim Marseille | CPC]

• German submarines U-71, U-210, U-379, U-454, U-593, U-595, U-597, U-607, and U-704 attacked Allied convoy SC-94 520 miles southeast of the southern tip of Greenland; U-454 and U-595 were seriously damaged by convoy escorts and turned for home ports, while U-210 was sunk by Canadian destroyer HMCS Assiniboine by gunfire and ramming (6 were killed, 37 survived). At 1719 hours, U-66 sank small Polish freighter Rozewie 180 miles east of Tobago in the Central Atlantic; 3 were killed, 16 survived but the captain was captured by U-66. At 1908 hours, U-86 sank US schooner Wawaloam with 3 torpedoes (all missed) and deck gun 525 miles southeast of Nova Scotia, Canada; all 7 aboard survived. ww2dbase [Second Happy Time | CPC]
• The 6,030-ton Norwegian steam tanker Arthur W. Sewall was dispersed from a convoy west of Freetown, British West Africa. ww2dbase [HM]

• Japanese transport Yawata Maru delivered 15 A6M3 Zero fighters and 16 Type 99 D3A carrier bombers to Rabaul, New Britain. ww2dbase [Rabaul, New Britain | CPC]

• In the afternoon, 16 US B-17 Flying Fortress bombers were moved from Mareeba airfield near Cairns, Australia to Port Moresby, Australian Papua for a planned attack on Rabaul, New Britain on the following day. ww2dbase [Port Moresby | CPC]

• In the evening, construction crews at the Japanese airfield at Lunga Point, Guadalcanal were given extra rations of sake for being ahead of schedule. ww2dbase [Henderson Field | Guadalcanal Campaign | Lunga Point, Guadalcanal | CPC]

• B-25 bombers of US 10th Air Force attacked Tianhe Airfield in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China. ww2dbase [Tianhe Airfield | Guangzhou, Guangdong | CPC]

• While in Egypt, Winston Churchill decided to replace Claude Auchinleck with William Gott as the head of the British 8th Army and with Harold Alexander as the Commander-in-Chief Middle East. Churchill also separated Iraq and Iran from Middle East into a new command area; when offered command of Iraq-Iran, Auchinleck refused. ww2dbase [Winston Churchill | CPC]

• German submarine U-578 departed Saint-Nazaire, France. ww2dbase [Saint-Nazaire, Pays de la Loire | CPC]

• 216 British bombers attacked Duisburg, Germany, destroying 18 buildings and killing 24 civilians; 5 bombers were lost on this mission. ww2dbase [Bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Other Cities | Duisburg, Essen | CPC]

• Nachi arrived at Paramushiro (Paramushir), Kurile Islands. ww2dbase [Nachi | Paramushiro, Hokkaido | CPC]

• German 17th Army captured Tikhoretsk in southern Russia while 1st Panzer Army crossed the Kuban River en route toward Armavir to the southeast. Soviet troops in the region launched the Armavir-Maikop Defensive Operation. ww2dbase [Caucasus Campaign | Krasnodar Krai | TH, CPC]
• Soviet fighter pilot Mikhail Baranov of the 183rd Air Regiment leading a flight of four Yak-1 aircraft over Stalingrad, Russia ran headlong into a formation of 25 Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters and took them on, shooting down three before running out of ammunition. Then skilfully manoeuvring his aircraft on to the tail of a fourth Bf 109 fighter, he closed in and cut off the fin of the enemy fighter with his propeller, afterwards making a successful forced landing. ww2dbase [Yak-1 | Stalingrad | AC]

• Alan Brooke declined Winston Churchill's offer of the appointment to head Middle East Command, telling the Prime Minister that there would be no time to reorganise the Imperial General Staff and that he had no knowledge of desert warfare. Secretly he confided in his diary that he felt he would serve better by remaining in his present post in order to exercise some control over the Prime Minister's wilder schemes and, also, to prevent Claude Auchinleck from thinking that he had come out on purpose to work his way into the latter's shoes. ww2dbase [Alan Brooke | London, England | AC]

• USS Whale arrived at San Diego, California, United States. ww2dbase [Whale | San Diego, California | CPC]

6 Aug 1942 Interactive Map