Survivor Stories

TUE 27 JUL 1943
Pacific
Submarine Sawfish (SS-276) damages Japanese minelayer Hirashima off Kyushu, Japan, 32°32'N, 127°41'E.

Submarine Scamp (SS-277) sinks Japanese submarine I-168, 02°50'S, 149°01'E, and damages oiler Kazahaya, 02°38'S, 149°20'E.

Submarine Seadragon (SS-194) inflicts further damage on the previously damaged Japanese transport Suwa Maru off Wake Island, 19°15'N, 166°30'E.

Japanese merchant cargo ship Teikin Maru is sunk by mine (laid by submarine Tambor (SS-198) on 2 November 1942) off Hainan Island, 19°57'N, 109°05'E.

Indian Ocean
Last group of survivors of freighter Sebastian Cermeno, torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-511 on 27 June 1943, reaches Durban, South Africa, on board a British destroyer. From the 42-man merchant complement, five passengers and 27-man Armed Guard, five of the crew perish in either the initial attack, die of their wounds or from exposure in the lifeboats.

Second and third groups of survivors from U.S. freighter Robert Bacon, torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-178 on 14 July 1943 off Mozambique Light, are rescued from their boats, one by British steamship English Prince the other by British tanker Steaua Romana. Three rafts with survivors are still at sea (see 28 July, 3 and 27 August 1943).