World War II Database

• Home
• » Events
• » WW2 Timeline
• » 27 Apr 1942

• USS Hammann departed Tongatapu, Tonga as a part of Task Force 17. ww2dbase [Hammann | CPC]
• USS Yorktown departed for Coral Sea. ww2dbase [Yorktown (Yorktown-class) | CPC]

• While off Attu, US Territory of Alaska in the Aleutian Islands, USS S-35's cook was diagnosed with mumps, forcing the submarine to return to base. ww2dbase [S-35 | Attu | CPC]

• Japanese aircraft attacked the airfield near Darwin, Australia; 3 Japanese bombers and 4 escorting fighters were shot down by the US fighters assigned to the airfield, while the Americans lost 4 P-40 fighters. ww2dbase [Darwin, Northern Territory | CPC]

• 9 Japanese Type 1 bombers and 11 Zero fighters attacked Seven Mile airfield near Port Moresby, Australian Papua, destroying 3 A-24 and 1 B-26 aircraft. ww2dbase [Port Moresby | CPC]

• USS Astoria departed Tongatapu, Tonga to join Task Force 11. ww2dbase [Astoria (New Orleans-class) | Tongatapu, Tonga | CPC]

• A major mining disaster in Manchukuo in Japanese-occupied northeastern China resulted in the death of 1,527 miners. ww2dbase [CPC]

• RAF conducted a 100-bomber raid on Rostock, Germany; it was the fourth consecutive nightly raid on Rostock. Over Köln (Cologne), 97 British bombers (76 Wellington, 19 Stirling, 2 Halifax) dropped bombs and damaged 1,520 homes and killed 11; 7 bombers were lost. ww2dbase [Bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Other Cities | TH, CPC]

• Joseph Rochefort's cryptanalytic team based in Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii reported that the Japanese Navy had changed call signs of some major warships, possibly indicating that a major operation was about to take place. ww2dbase [Battle of Coral Sea | Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Ford Island Naval Air Station | Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]
• Joseph Rochefort's cryptanalytic team at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii decrypted a radio message from Nobutake Kondo to Tokyo, Japan requesting navigation charts of the Aleutian Islands area and latest intelligence at AOE and KCN (which was determined to be Dutch Harbor and Kodiak in the Aleutian Islands). ww2dbase [Battle of Midway and the Aleutian Islands | Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Ford Island Naval Air Station | Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]

• Japanese Naval General Staff reviewed the preliminary proposal a underwater aircraft carrier. ww2dbase [I-400-class | CPC]
• Tanikaze arrived at Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan for repairs. ww2dbase [Tanikaze | Kure, Hiroshima | CPC]

• Kamoi departed Emidji, Marshall Islands. ww2dbase [Kamoi | Emidji | CPC]

• 31 British Halifax and 12 Lancaster bombers attacked German battleship Tirpitz and other ships at Trondheimsfjord near Trondheim in Norway to little effect. 5 bombers were lost during this attack. ww2dbase [Tirpitz | Trondheim | CPC]

• USS S-44 suffered a failure with her port engine. ww2dbase [S-44 | CPC]

• The first of 127 Polish female political prisoners arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. They were imprisoned in Block 8. ww2dbase [Auschwitz Concentration Camp | Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Oswiecim | CPC]

• Troops of the Australian Sparrow Force on Portuguese Timor, now waging a guerrilla war against the Japanese, received supplies by Australian aircraft. ww2dbase [Dutch East Indies Campaign, Java | CPC]

• Allied convoy QP-11, consisted of 13 merchant ships, departed northern Russia. ww2dbase [Guy Gabaldon | CPC]
• At Murmansk, Russia, HMS Edinburgh embarked wounded merchant mariners, British Army personnel (who had trained Soviet counterparts), British Royal Air Force personnel (who also trained their Soviet counterparts), and Czechoslovakians and Polish nationals who had fled German occupation. ww2dbase [Edinburgh | Murmansk | CPC]

• Germans retaliated the 28 Mar 1942 RAF raid that destroyed the historic district of Lübeck, Germany by beginning a campaign that was later nicknamed "the Baedeker raids". Norwich was the first target. The pathfinder bombers of 1/KG100 dropped shoals of incendiary bombs making a clear target for the aircraft of KG2 and KG106 to drop mixed loads onto the city. The narrow streets were utterly demolished by the 550-kilogram bombs and fires soon became out of control as the mains water system became damaged. By the end of this raid 63 people had lost the lives and many were in hospitals and emergency aid depots. At 0045 hours on the following date, the last of the raiders turned homeward, all returned safely, leaving the entre of the old town a burning ruin. ww2dbase [Battle of Britain | Norwich, England | HM]

27 Apr 1942 Interactive Map