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• Japanese Navy Captain Chiaki Matsuda relieved Rear Admiral Gihachi Takayanagi as the commanding officer of Yamato; Takayanagi was reassigned as the Chief of Staff of the First Fleet. ww2dbase [Yamato | CPC]
• Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden reported to the British House of Commons of the mass murder of Jews by the Germans; this would be followed almost immediately by a US declaration that these crimes would be avenged. ww2dbase [Anthony Eden | TH]
• US Marines captured Mt. Austen, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. Meanwhile, troops of the 35th Infantry Regiment of the US Army 25th Division arrived on the island. ww2dbase [Guadalcanal Campaign | CPC]
• Axis forces largely completed their evacuation from the Marsa Brega and El Agheila region in Libya. ww2dbase [Second Battle of El Alamein | CPC]
• Archibald Wavell met with Joseph Stilwell; during the meeting, despite Stilwell's insistence, Wavell refused to expand his current attack on Arakan, Burma into a larger coordinated joint-Chinese-American-British campaign. ww2dbase [Archibald Wavell | CPC]
• Hubert Lanz stepped down as the commanding officer of 1. Gebirgs-Division. ww2dbase [Hubert Lanz | CPC]
• Chiaki Matsuda was made the commanding officer of old battleship Yamato. ww2dbase [Chiaki Matsuda | CPC]

• USS S-35 set sail for Adak, US Territory of Alaska. ww2dbase [S-35 | Kiska | CPC]

• Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru departed Rabaul, New Britain. ww2dbase [Hikawa Maru | Rabaul, New Britain | CPC]

• The Japanese completed a 4,700-foot long airstrip at Munda Point, New Georgia, Solomon Islands. ww2dbase [Solomon Islands Campaign | Munda Point, New Georgia | CPC]

• US aircraft attacked Lashio Airfield, Burma for the first time. ww2dbase [Lashio Airfield | Lashio | CPC]

• Jewish violinist Julius Stwertka, a former leading member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and co-leader of the Vienna Philharmonic, passed away in Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia. ww2dbase [Theresienstadt Concentration Camp | Terezín, Cechy | CPC]

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

17 Dec 1942 Interactive Map