Nature Takes Her Toll

SAT 5 DEC 1942
Pacific
Tug Grebe (AT-134) sinks after running aground south of Fiji, 19°49'S, 178°13'W.

Japanese merchant cargo ship Mansei Maru founders and sinks in storm in Formosa Strait, 23°30'N, 119°34'E.

VCS Detachment RINGBOLT is established at Tanambogo, B.S.I. [British Solomon Islands], composed of planes (SOCs) from heavy cruisers Pensacola (CA-24), Northampton (CA-26), New Orleans (CA-32), Minneapolis (CA-36), and light cruiser Honolulu (CL-48). Operations of the new unit commence immediately, taking precedence over setting up camp. Two SOCs patrol this night with PT boats. Lack of equipment and communication difficulties handicap operations that are carried out on moonless nights in rain squalls. Only facilities provided being a flashlight on the beach to guide returning plane through reef passage after landing.

Caribbean
Gunboat Erie (PG-50), damaged on 12 November and moved to facilitate salvage on 28 November, capsizes at her moorings at Willemstad, Curacao, N.W.I. (see 12 and 28 November).

Atlantic
U.S. freighter John Lykes rescues 19 survivors from freighter Jeremiah Wadsworth, sunk by German submarine U-178 on 27 November; an unidentified Allied ship rescues 20 more of Jeremiah Wadsworth's men the same day.