Vichy French Steamship Sunk

FRI 7 MAY 1943
Pacific
TG 36.5, composed of light minelayers Gamble (DM-15), Preble (DM-20), and Breese (DM-18), covered by destroyer Radford (DD-446), lays minefield across Blackett Strait, western approaches to Kula Gulf, Solomons. Four Japanese destroyers encounter the field later that night (see 8 May 1943).

Submarine Snook (SS-279) sinks Japanese merchant cargo ships Tosei Maru and No. 3 Shinsei Maru in the Yellow Sea, 36°05'N, 123°21'E.

Submarine Wahoo (SS-238) sinks Japanese merchant passenger/cargo ship No.5 Tamon Maru off Benten Zaki, Honshu, 40°05'N, 141°53'E.

Net tender Catalpa (YN-5), escorted by minesweeper Dash (AM-88), brings damaged U.S. freighter William Williams, torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-19 on 2 May 1943, into Suva, Fiji Islands.

Vichy French steamship Gouverneur General Pasquir is sunk by mine off coast of French Indochina, 20°14'N, 107°00'E.

Atlantic
U.S. freighter Samuel Jordan Kirkwood, torpedoed by German submarine U-195 in the South Atlantic the previous day, sinks (see 16 May 1943).