27 Apr 1942
- Luftwaffe aircraft conducted a raid on Norwich, England, United Kingdom. ww2dbase [Battle of Britain | TH]
- USS Yorktown departed for Coral Sea. ww2dbase [Yorktown (Yorktown-class) | CPC]
- USS Hammann departed Tongatapu, Tonga as a part of Task Force 17. ww2dbase [Hammann | 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]
- 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 [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Auschwitz Concentration Camp | 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]

27 Apr 1942 Interactive Map
Timeline Section Founder: Thomas Houlihan
Contributors: Alan Chanter, C. Peter Chen, Thomas Houlihan, Hugh Martyr, David Stubblebine
Special Thanks: Rory Curtis
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