Auckland Reconnoitered; Torpedo Trouble

SUN 24 MAY 1942
Pacific
Submarine Pompano (SS-181) sinks Japanese merchant fishing boat Kotoku Maru, 25°16'N, 122°41'E.

Small reconnaissance seaplane from Japanese submarine I-21 reconnoiters Auckland, New Zealand.

Caribbean
Unarmed U.S. freighter Beatrice is torpedoed by German submarine U-558 at 17°23'N, 76°58'W, but the torpedo fails to explode. U-558 then surfaces to shell the ship, which is abandoned under fire with the loss of one man.

A PBY arrives on the scene and drives off the submarine. Of the 30 survivors, 21 men in a lifeboat reach Pigeon Island, Jamaica; British patrol craft Hauken rescues the remaining nine sailors. Beatrice sinks the next morning.

Steamship Marpesia rescues two survivors on a raft from U.S. freighter Norlantic, sunk by German submarine U-69 on 13 May.

Destroyer Goff (DD-247) rescues 48 survivors of U.S. tanker Samuel Q. Brown, torpedoed by German submarine U-103 the previous day (see 25 May).

Atlantic
Fifteen survivors from U.S. freighter Quaker City, sunk by German submarine U-156 on 18 May reach safety at Barbados (see 26 May).