Geographic Word Of The Day: Funafuti

FRI 2 OCT 1942
Pacific
5th Defense Battalion, USMC, occupies Funafuti, Ellice Islands.

Transport St. Mihiel (AP-32) is damaged when she strikes uncharted underwater object off Turn Island, Alaska.

USAAF B-17s bomb Rabaul harbor, damaging Japanese light cruiser Tenryu.

Atlantic
USAAF B-18 (99th Bombardment Squadron) sinks German submarine U-512 off French Guiana, 06°50'N, 52°25'W.

U.S. freighter Alcoa Transport is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-201 about 100 miles southeast of Trinidad, 09°03'N, 60°10'W. Submarine chaser PC-490 rescues the surviving 31 merchant seamen (three crewmen are killed; a fourth dies of wounds later) and five-man Armed Guard sailors.

British steamship Loch Dee rescues 23 survivors from lifeboat from U.S. tanker Patrick J. Hurley, sunk by German submarine U-512 on 12 September 1942. All told, 31 of 44 merchant seamen and 14 of 18 Armed Guard sailors survive the loss of Patrick J. Hurley.