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• Allied troops conducted an amphibious landing near Tobruk, Libya for a raiding mission. Meanwhile, about 50 kilometers to the northeast, raiders of the British Long Range Desert Group began to launch the raid against Barce, Libya. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• At a meeting of the S-1 Section Executive Committee of the United States Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), a decision was reached to build a laboratory to study fast neutrons. This study was to be codenamed Project Y. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• German submarine U-515 sank British ship Ocean Vanguard at 0227 hours (11 were killed, 40 survived) and Panamanian ship Nimba at 0634 hours (20 were killed, 12 survived) 45 miles east of Trinidad. At 0622 hours, U-558 fired 3 torpedoes at Allied convoy TAG-5, sinking Dutch ship Suriname (13 were killed, 69 survived) and British ship Empire Lugard (all 47 aboard survived) 100 miles west of Grenada. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• Allied convoy QP-14 departed Arkhangelsk, Russia with 15 merchant ships and two rescue ships under the civilian commodore J. C. K. Dowding; it was escorted by two anti-aircraft vessels, two destroyers, four corvettes, three minesweepers, and three trawlers under British Royal Navy Captain J. F. Crombie. Elsewhere, Allied convoy PQ-18 sailed in the opposite direction; PQ-18 would be subjected to repeated attacks all day. The first casualty occurred at 0855 hours when U-408 and U-589 sank Soviet freighter Stalingrad (hit by three torpedoes; 21 were killed) and US tanker Oliver Ellsworth 150 miles northwest of Bear Island (Bjørnøya), Norway; these two ships were on the outside starboard column of PQ-18. At 1500 hours, 6 Ju 88 aircraft attacked without success. At 1530 hours, 30 Ju 88 dive bombers of German Luftwaffe unit III./KG 26 and 55 He 111 bombers of I./KG 26 attacked, sinking the ships Wacosta (scoring a direct hit with a torpedo before the torpedo entered water), Empire Stevenson, Macbeth, Gregonian (US ship; 28 were killed, 27 survived), Sukhona (Russian ship), Afrikaner (Panamanian ship), Empire Beaumont, and John Penn at the cost of only 5 aircraft. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• At 0058 hours, U-506 sank Swedish merchant ship Lina 150 miles off Liberia; 3 were killed, 30 survived. At 0135 hours, U-512 sank US tanker Patrick J. Hurley with gunfire 950 miles northeast of Barbados; 17 were killed, 22 survived. U-594 sank Panamanian ship Stone Street (13 were killed, 39 survived but 1 was captured) 600 miles east of Newfoundland at 1436 hours; Stone Street was a straggler of Allied convoy ON-127. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• German submarine U-156 rescued survivors of British troopship Laconia 290 miles northeast of Ascension Island; at 0125 hours, Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein of U-156 radioed his German superiors for additional ships to help with the rescue; at 0600 hours, Hartenstein radioed, in English, for all ships in the area to help with the rescue. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• Failing to break lines held by the US Marines near Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands overnight, the Japanese attack was called off at 0550 hours. The Japanese attack resumed after sundown, penetrating the American lines before being driven back by artillery fire coming from nearby Hill 123; 500 Japanese were killed in the night's attack while the US suffered 80 killed. ww2dbase [Main Article | Facility | CPC]

• 446 British bombers attacked Bremen, Germany, damaging Lloyd dynamo works, Focke-Wulf factory, 7 historical buildings, 6 schools, and 2 hospitals; 70 civilians were killed; 21 bombers were lost on this mission. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• The George Cross medal was awarded to the island of Malta. It was officially presented to the people of Malta by Lord Gort, the Governor and Commander-in-Chief. ww2dbase [Main Article | AC]

• Soviet 13th Guards Rifle Division engaged in heavy fighting at Mamayev Kurgan and Railway Station No. 1 at Stalingrad, Russia; it would lose a third of its strength in the fighting. ww2dbase [Main Article | TH, CPC]
• Lydia Litvyak shot down a German Ju 88 bomber and the Bf 109G-2 fighter piloted by Oberfeldwebel Erwin Meier over Stalingrad, Russia while flying a Yak-1 fighter. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

13 Sep 1942 Interactive Map