Throw-Back Thurs.

MARCH

MON 1 MAR 1943
Pacific
Japanese submarine I-10 torpedoes U.S. tanker Gulfwave at 22°30'S, 174°45'E; Gulfwave reaches Suva, Fiji, under her own power and suffers no casualties to either her merchant crew or the Armed Guard.

Naval Auxiliary Air Facility, Annette Island, Alaska, is established.

Atlantic
Atlantic Convoy Conference meets in Washington, D.C.

U.S. freighter Wade Hampton, straggling from convoy HX 227, is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-405 at 59°55'N, 35°55'E; British corvette HMS Vervain rescues 41 merchant seamen and 26 Armed Guard sailors (see 3 March 1943). Lost with Wade Hampton are Soviet motor torpedo boats RPT 1 (ex-PT-85) and RPT 3 (ex-PT-87), lend-lease craft being carried as deck cargo.

U.S. freighter Fitz John Porter, in Bahia, Brazil-to-Trinidad convoy BT 6, is torpedoed by German submarine U-518, 12°25'S, 36°55'E, and abandoned. While there are no casualties among the merchant sailors, one Armed Guard seaman is blown overboard and lost. Brazilian minelayer Carioca rescues the survivors, and Fitz John Porter sinks the following evening.