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• » 10 Mar 1942

• USS Lexington launched aircraft to attack the Japanese invasion force at New Guinea. ww2dbase [Lexington (Lexington-class) | CPC]
• USS Yorktown launched aircraft to attack the Japanese invasion force at New Guinea. ww2dbase [Yorktown (Yorktown-class) | CPC]
• US Army General MacArthur once again received orders to evacuate Philippine Islands. ww2dbase [Douglas MacArthur | CPC]
• Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru arrived at Rabaul. ww2dbase [Hikawa Maru | CPC]
• German submarine U-161 sank Canadian passenger ship Lady Nelson (25 were killed, 204 survived) and British freighter Umtata (4 were killed, 169 survived) off Port Castries, Saint Lucia at 0449 hours. ww2dbase [Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico Campaigns | CPC]
• Clive Caldwell of No. 112 Squadron RAAF made the first 250-pound bomb drop from a Kittybomber. ww2dbase [Clive Caldwell | CPC]

• At 2310 hours, when northeast of Anguilla, the 9,959-ton Norwegian motor taker Charles Racine was torpedoed by the Italian submarine Giuseppe Finzi (Commander Ugo Giudice). The torpedo hit on the port side, forward of the engine room; water gushed in and the engines stopped. Shortly thereafter another torpedo struck, also on the port side. The radio operator sent out an SOS with their position. After the entire crew of 41 had gotten safely away in four lifeboats they observed two more torpedoes hitting the ship, this time on the starboard side, and later in the night they heard another two explosions followed by flames. The crew remained in the vicinity until daylight, but when the captain rowed back to the ship that morning to look for the fourth boat it was nowhere to be seen, so sail was set for Puerto Rico. ww2dbase [Second Happy Time | Giuseppe Finzi | CPC, HM]

• USS Skipjack arrived at Fremantle, Australia, ending her second war patrol. ww2dbase [Skipjack | Fremantle, Western Australia | CPC]
• Jack Heyn arrived in Charters Towers, Australia. ww2dbase [Jack Heyn | Charters Towers, Queensland | CPC]
• USS S-41 arrived at Fremantle, Western Australia, Austalia, ending her second war patrol. ww2dbase [S-41 | Fremantle, Western Australia | CPC]

• USAAF B-17, B-24, B-25, and A-20 bombers, escorted by USAAF P-38 fighters, attacked a Japanese convoy unloading supplies near Lae, Australian Territory of New Guinea. In a separate effort, 104 carrier aircraft from USS Lexington and USS Yorktown attacked the Japanese invasion fleet in Huon Gulf to the north of the landing beaches, sinking armed merchant cruiser Kongo Maru, auxiliary minelayer Tenyo Maru, and transport Yokohama Maru while damaging several other ships; one Dauntless dive bomber was lost in the attack, while the Japanese lost 350 troops on the transports alone. On land, Japanese consolidated the beachhead with landings at Finschhafen, while Japanese engineers reported that the airstrips at Lae and Salamaua were now ready for action; later on the same day, aircraft of the Japanese 4th Air Group would begin to arrive at Lae and Salamaua. ww2dbase [New Guinea-Papua Campaign, Phase 2 | CPC]

• 18 Japanese aircraft bombed Port Moresby, Australian Papua. ww2dbase [Port Moresby | CPC]

• Japanese 55th Infantry Division began pursuing the retreating British troops from Rangoon, Burma. ww2dbase [Invasion of Burma | Rangoon | CPC]
• Headquarters Burma Army (Lieutenant-General Thomas Hutton) relocated to Maymyo, the pleasant summer capital of Burma. ww2dbase [Maymyo, Mandalay | AC]

• Dutch ship Palima disembarked several survivors of HMS Kuala, an auxiliary patrol boat serving as a civilian evacuation transport and sunken by Japanese aircraft on 14 Feb 1942, at Colombo, Ceylon. ww2dbase [Kuala | Colombo | HM]

• After dark and into the next morning, Indian troops on Christmas Island, led by Sikh policemen, mutinied and killed five of their British officers and imprisoned 21 Europeans. ww2dbase [CPC]

• Nachi departed Makassar, Celebes, Dutch East Indies for Mako, Pescadores Islands, Taiwan. ww2dbase [Nachi | Makassar, Celebes | CPC]
• Yugure arrived at Staring Bay, Celebes, Dutch East Indies at 1550 hours. ww2dbase [Yugure | Staring Bay, Celebes | CPC]

• Overnight, 62 RAF bombers attacked Essen, Germany, damaging railways leading to Krupp factories, killing 6 civilians and wounding 12. ww2dbase [Bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Other Cities | Essen | CPC]

• At Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii, Joseph Rochefort concluded that the target AF which had appeared in Japanese radio messages in the past few days referred to either Johnston, Palmyra, or Midway, and he promptly sent out warnings to all three locations. Privately, he reported to his superiors that Midway was the likely target. ww2dbase [Joseph Rochefort | Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Ford Island Naval Air Station | Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]

• Japanese submarine I-62 sank the 235-ton British sailing ship Lakshmi Govinda with gunfire 470 miles east of Madras, India. ww2dbase [CPC]

• Twelve US Marine fighters based at Midway Atoll, commanded by Captain Robert M. Haynes, intercepted and shot down a Japanese H6K flying boat. ww2dbase [CPC]

• USS S-31 began her first defensive patrol off the Panama Canal Zone. ww2dbase [S-31 | CPC]

• Jonathan Wainright's car was strafed by Japanese fighters on Bataan Peninsula, Luzon, Philippine Islands in the morning as he inspected forward areas. At noon, he traveled to Corregidor as requested by Douglas MacArthur, who informed him that President Franklin Roosevelt had ordered MacArthur to depart. ww2dbase [Jonathan Wainwright | Bataan | CPC]
• The 6,668-ton Japanese collier Kosei Maru was sunk by a mine in Lingayen Gulf, Phillipines with the loss of two crewmen, two gunners and nine passengers. ww2dbase [Lingayen Gulf | HM]

• Soviet transport Kiev and merchant ship El Occidente, both of which fell out of Allied convoy PQ-12 several days prior, arrived at Iokanka, Russia. ww2dbase [Arctic Convoys | Iokanka, Murmansk | CPC]

• The US Marine Corps purchased the 132,000-acre Santa Margarita Ranch situated north of San Diego, California, United States for a future base; it would become Camp Pendleton later in the year. ww2dbase [San Diego, California | CPC]
• At 0632 hours, the unescorted 6,776-ton American unarmed steam tanker Gulftrade was torpedoed by German submarine U-588 three miles off Barnegat Light on the coast of New Jersey, United States. The tanker was spotted by the submarine because the running lights and the masthead light had been turned on to avoid collision with several colliers in the vicinity. A torpedo struck the starboard side just forward of the mainmast and just aft of the bridge. The explosion broke the ship in two and oil and debris was sprayed over the vessel from stem to stern and the ship caught fire immediately. Within one minute, the high seas washed over the tanker and extinguished the flames. The engines were stopped and the ship was abandoned by the crew of eight officers and 26 crewmen. The high seas and the fact that oil lay several inches deep all about the deck and had filled the boats complicated the abandoning. Seven survivors stayed on the stern and nine abandoned ship in a lifeboat. Two other boats with 18 men swamped, drowning the officer and 17 crewmen in them. ww2dbase [Second Happy Time | Barnegat Light, New Jersey | CPC, HM]
• The United States Office of Scientific Research and Development arranged to move the proximity fuze development project from the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC to The Johns Hopkins University in Maryland at the newly formed Applied Physics Laboratory that operated out of the former Wolfe Motor Company used car dealership in Silver Spring, Maryland. ww2dbase [VT Radio Proximity | Silver Spring, Maryland | DS]
• USS St. Louis departed San Francisco as an escort for a convoy of US Army men and equipment bound for Hawaii. ww2dbase [St. Louis | San Francisco, California | DS]

10 Mar 1942 Interactive Map