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• Orders from Heinrich Himmler: The SS was to have full judicial control over Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish, and Roma prisoners; all prisoners of the German justice system capable of work were to be transferred to concentration camps for forced labor; food rations for Jews in Germany were to be reduced. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• Monsignor Montini, future Pope Paul VI, sent a letter to Pope Pius XII, noting that "the massacres of the Jews reach frightening proportions and forms". ww2dbase [Main Article | Event | CPC]
• Soviet troops launched an offensive from the Voronezh Front in Russia. ww2dbase [TH]
• 4,180 men of US 7th Marine Regiment arrived at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. The American beachhead strength was now at 22,500 men. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• The US Marine Corps 1st Parachute Battalion departed for Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides. ww2dbase [CPC]
• British 29th Infantry Brigade landed at Tamatave, Madagascar. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• The US Second Air Force started to phase out the training of B-17 and B-24 bomber aircrews in order to concentrate on the training of B-29 Superfortress crews for the proposed, China-based, Twentieth Air Force. ww2dbase [AC]

• German submarine U-175 sank Canadian ship Norfolk 25 miles off British Guyana at 0152 hours; 6 were killed, 13 survived. At 0921 hours, U-380 sank Norwegian merchant ship Olaf Fostenes 1,100 miles east of Nova Scotia, Canada; all 38 aboard survived. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• Tenryu departed Rabaul, New Britain. ww2dbase [Main Article | Tabular Record of Movement | CPC]
• US B-17 Flying Fortress bombers attacked Rabaul, New Britain, causing little damage. ww2dbase [CPC]

• Japanese troops began retreating back along the Kokoda Track across the Owen Stanley Range in Australian Papua. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia surpassed its maximum capacity; 58,491 prisoners now resided in the camp. ww2dbase [Main Article | Facility | CPC]

• Nachi arrived at Ominato Guard District, Mutsu, Aomori Prefecture, Japan. ww2dbase [Main Article | Tabular Record of Movement | CPC]

• Soviet 1st Guards Army and 24th Army attacked German VIII Army Corps at Kotluban 40 kilometers north of Stalingrad, Russia; German Stuka dive bombers hampered the attack by destroying 41 of the 106 Soviet tanks committed, while escorting Bf 109 fighters destroyed 77 Soviet aircraft in the immediate area. In the city, heavy house-to-house fighting continued. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• 12 German He 111 torpedo bombers attacked Allied convoy PQ-18 at the entrance of the Kola Inlet, Russia, sinking US ship Kentucky (all aboard survived) at the cost of 3 aircraft shot down. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

18 Sep 1942 Interactive Map