Bureaucratic Maneuvering Continues

MON 30 MAR 1942
General
Pacific War Council representing United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, and China is established in Washington, D.C., to plan war policy.

Pacific
Joint Chiefs of Staff order Pacific Ocean divided into two commands: Pacific Ocean Areas (Admiral Chester W. Nimitz) and Southwest Pacific Area (Lieutenant General Douglas MacArthur).

Submarine Tambor (SS-198) damages Japanese transport Tatsuho Maru off Brown Atoll, 13°00'N, 157°30'E.

Destroyer Phelps (DD-360), undergoing repairs in drydock at Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, is damaged when a railroad crane falls into the drydock.

Japanese forces occupy Christmas Island.

Submarine Sturgeon (SS-187) sinks Japanese transport Choko Maru off Makassar City, Celebes, N.E.I., 05°39'S, 119°00'E.

Atlantic
Debris sighted by plane at 34°52'N, 69°58'W includes five empty life rafts; no survivors are sighted in the area of the last reported position of antisubmarine vessel Atik (AK-101), sunk on 26 March by German submarine U-123.

PBY search of area in which U.S. steamship City of New York is torpedoed proves negative (see 31 March and 11 April).

North Russia
U.S. freighter Effingham, straggling 90 miles astern of Murmansk-bound convoy PQ 13, is torpedoed and set afire by German submarine U-435 at 70°28'N, 35°44'E. The ship explodes and sinks; two men drown during the abandonment (see 2 and 4 April).