World War II Database

• Home
• » Events
• » WW2 Timeline
• » 6 Sep 1942

• German submarine U-164 sank Canadian ship John A. Holloway 150 miles northwest of Aruba at 2227 hours; 1 was killed, 23 survived. ww2dbase [Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico Campaigns | CPC]
• German submarine U-514 sank British sailing vessel Helen Forsey by gunfire 500 miles east of Bermuda at 1100 hours; 2 were killed, 4 survived. At 2323 hours, U-109 sank British passenger-cargo ship Tuscan Star 300 miles southwest of Cape Palmas, Liberia, 51 were killed, 63 survived but 1 of them would be taken prisoner. ww2dbase [Second Happy Time | CPC]
• U-375 sank Egyptian sailing vessel Turkian with her deck gun 20 miles off of Khan Yunis, Palestine at 1008 hours, in range of British coastal guns (which failed to hit the submarine); all 19 aboard survived. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Hans-Joachim Marseille shot down five P-40 fighters and one Spitfire fighter over El Alamein, Egypt, bringing his score up to 142 kills. In the evening, he received personal congratulations on being awarded Diamonds to his Knight's Cross medal from Albert Kesselring, Erwin Rommel, Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Joseph Goebbels, and Erhard Milch, but his spirits remained low because he had lost fellow pilot Hans-Arnold Stahlschmidt, whom he considered a close friend, in combat in the afternoon. ww2dbase [Hans-Joachim Marseille | CPC]
• 500 internees of the Portland Assembly Center in Oregon, United States departed for the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho, United States. ww2dbase [Portland Assembly Center | CPC]

• Australian troops attacked the Japanese beachhead at Waga Waga on the coast of Milne Bay, Australian Papua, which the Japanese had already been evacuating. Further inland, Australian 2/27th Battalion arrived at Efogi along the Kokoda Track to reinforce the two battered battalions that had fled to this position recently; meanwhile, US aircraft bombed Japanese positions near Efogi. After dark, Japanese cruiser Tatsuta bombarded Gili Gili on the coast of Milne Bay, sinking Australian merchant ship Anshun. ww2dbase [New Guinea-Papua Campaign, Phase 2 | CPC]
• Tenryu embarked surviving Special Naval Landing Force troops at Milne Bay, Australian Papua. ww2dbase [Tenryu | CPC]

• Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru departed Truk, Caroline Islands. ww2dbase [Hikawa Maru | Truk | CPC]

• B-17E bombers of US Eighth Air Force attacked an aircraft factory near Méaulte, France, without fighter escort because the fighters had failed to make the rendezvous. The raid caused no damage on the French aircraft production ; two US bombers were shot down. ww2dbase [Bombing of Cities in France and Low Countries | Méaulte, Picardie | CPC]
• Kapitänleutnant Loewe was relieved of command of the German Type IXC U-Boat U-505 in Lorient, France and Kapitänleutnant Peter Zschech took command. ww2dbase [U-505 | Loirent, Bretagne | DS]

• German submarine U-261 departed Kiel, Germany. ww2dbase [Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein | CPC]

• Joseph Stilwell departed Delhi, India for Chongqing, China. ww2dbase [Joseph Stilwell | Delhi | CPC]

• USS Wahoo attacked an unescorted Japanese freighter in the Pacific Ocean; all three torpedoes missed. The freighter turned around; fearing a ramming attempt, Wahoo dove and withdrew. ww2dbase [Wahoo | CPC]

• The German 4.Gebirgsjäger Division of 17.Armee captured the naval base at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea in southern Russia. ww2dbase [Caucasus Campaign | Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai | TH]

6 Sep 1942 Interactive Map