FRI 10 APR 1942
Pacific
Pacific Fleet is reorganized into type commands: Battleships (Rear Admiral Walter S. Anderson); Aircraft Carriers (Vice Admiral William F. Halsey Jr.); Cruisers (Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher); Destroyers (Rear Admiral Robert A. Theobald); Service Force (Vice Admiral William L. Calhoun); Amphibious Force (Vice Admiral Wilson Brown, Jr.); Submarine Force (Rear Admiral Thomas Withers); and Patrol Wings (Rear Admiral John S. McCain*). Old titles Battle Force and Scouting Force are abolished.
Submarine Snapper (SS-185) evacuates military personnel from Corregidor.
Minesweeper Finch (AM-9) is sunk by aerial bombs off Luzon, 14°22'N, 120°35'E.
Crews of river gunboats Oahu (PR-6), Luzon (PR-7), and Mindanao (PR-8) are transferred ashore to man U.S. Army guns at Fort Hughes, Manila Bay.
Japanese troops land on Cebu.
Submarine Thresher (SS-200) torpedoes and sinks Japanese (ex-Portuguese) merchant cargo ship Maru [sic?] six miles north of Oshima, near the entrance to Tokyo Bay, Honshu, Japan, 34°59'N, 139°29'E.
Atlantic
U.S. tanker Gulfamerica, silhouetted by the lights of Jacksonville, Florida, is torpedoed and shelled by German submarine U-123 at 30°14'N, 81°18'W. Some of the tanker's crew perish in the torpedo explosion or gunfire when U-123 shells and machineguns the vessel; others drown as the ship is abandoned. Of the 41-man crew, 17 perish; two of the seven-man Armed Guard die in the attack. District patrol vessel YP-32 aids in rescue of survivors. Gulfamerica capsizes and sinks on 16 April.
Norwegian freighter Marpesia, off Surinam, rescues 19 survivors from U.S. tanker T.C. McCobb, sunk by Italian submarine Pietro Calvi on 31 March (see 16 May).
Seaplane recovers 13 survivors from U.S. tanker Eugene V.R. Thayer, shelled on 9 April by Italian submarine Pietro Calvi (see 11 and 13 April).
*RADM J.S. McCain Sr., to be exact. Yes, the grand-pappy of Arizona's beloved Republican Senator Cap't. John Sidney McCain III.
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