Sunday, April 29, 2018

Missionary Evacuation; Ranger "Sunk"

THU 29 APR 1943
Pacific
Submarine Gato (SS-212) lands coast watchers at Teop Island, Solomons Islands, and evacuates missionaries.

Atlantic
German submarine U-404 attacks carrier, misidentified as Ranger (CV-4), in screen of convoy ONS 4. Although U-404's Korvettenkapitan Otto von Bulow claims to have heard four detonations, leading the German Navy to credit him with Ranger's destruction, U-404's intended victim, however, is British escort carrier HMS Biter, which emerges unscathed from the encounter. The "sunken" Ranger will prove, much to the Germans' distress, a very potent adversary (see 5 October).

PBY (VP 84) damages German submarine U-528 as it threatens convoy ONS 5.

U.S. freighter McKeesport, in convoy ONS 5, is torpedoed by German submarine U-258 at 60°52'N, 34°20'W, and abandoned. British trawler HMS Northern Gem rescues all hands: 43 merchant seamen (one of whom dies subsequently) and the 25-man Armed Guard. British frigate HMS Tay scuttles McKeesport with gunfire.

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