Operation HUSKY

SAT 10 JUL 1943
Pacific
Submarine Halibut (SS-232) damages Japanese transport (ex-armed merchant cruiser) Aikoku Maru, 10°27'N, 150°50'E.

Submarine Pompano (SS-181) damages Japanese oiler Kyokuyo Maru, 33°34'N, 136°07'N.

Submarine Steelhead (SS-280) damages Japanese escort carrier Un'yo, 10°00'N, 150°48'E.

USAAF B-25s bomb wreck of beached Japanese destroyer Nagatsuki (see 6 July 1943).

Mediterranean

Destroyer Fuels At Sea, Enroute Sicily Invasion, 1943

Allies invade Sicily in Operation HUSKY. Troops land under cover of naval gunfire and aircraft. The overall commander is General Dwight D. Eisenhower, USA; naval commander is Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew B. Cunningham, RN. Western Naval Task Force (Vice Admiral H. Kent Hewitt) lands the U.S. Seventh Army (Lieutenant General George S. Patton, USA), and Eastern Naval Task Force (Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, RN) lands British Eighth Army (British General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery). Naval gunfire will support the forces ashore throughout the Sicilian campaign. Off Sicily, Axis planes bomb invasion shipping and screening ships, sinking destroyer Maddox (DD-622), 36°52'N, 13°56'E; tank landing ships LST-313, 37°01'N, 14°15'E; and minesweeper Sentinel (AM-113), 37°06'N, 13°55'E. Collisions in the crowded waters off the beaches account for damage to destroyers Roe (DD-418) and Swanson (DD-443) at 37°03'N, 13°36'E, and LST-345 and submarine chaser PC-621 at 37°02'N, 14°15'E.

German submarine U-371 attacks convoy off the Algerian coast, torpedoing U.S. freighter Matthew Maury at 37°00'N, 05°00'E, and tanker Gulfprince at 37°13'N, 05°12'E. There are no casualties on board the former (including the 28-man Armed Guard), which is towed to the Algerian port of Bougie and subsequently returns to service. The latter is abandoned by the 36-man merchant complement and 28-man Armed Guard, the survivors being rescued by British trawler HMS Sir Gareth and freighter Empire Commerce; one Armed Guard sailor dies of his wounds on board the latter. A salvage crew later boards Gulfprince and the ship is towed to Algiers by British salvage tugs HMS Weazel and HMS Hudson; she subsequently is chartered by the Navy for use as a mobile storage facility in North African waters.

Indian Ocean
Anglo-Iranian oil company tugs tow damaged freighter Alcoa Prospector, torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-27 on 5 July 1943, into Bandar Abbas, Iran. Although there are no casualties inflicted by I-27's attack, one merchant seaman dies of pneumonia.

U.S. freighter Alice F. Palmer, bound for Durban, is torpedoed by German submarine U-177 at 26°30'S, 44°10'E, and abandoned by the 43 merchant seamen and the 25-man Armed Guard. After the Germans question the survivors, U-177 hastens the freighter's sinking by shelling her before she clears the area (see 13, 25, 26 and 30 July 1943).