Air Operations, Europe

US bombers conduct a daylight raid on the occupied French port of Cherbourg.

• 9 Bostons bomb the harbor and railway targets at Cherbourg without a loss.
• Dortmund is again the target as 152 aircraft including 111 Wellingtons, 19 Hampdens, 15 Stirlings and 7 Manchesters are sent. Although thick clouds and icing meet the bombing force, 88 planes claim to have hit the target area. Dortmund reports 1 house destroyed and 13 seriously damaged with 2 people killed and 6 injured. Bombs falling in Dortmund are the equivalent of 8 bomb loads. 3 Wellingtons and 1 Stirling are lost.
• In minor operations, 18 Whitleys are sent to St Nazaire, 8 Wellingtons to Le Havre, 4 Blenheim Intruders to Holland, 11 aircraft lay mines of St Nazaire and 4 are sent on leaflet flights over France. There are no losses.

Allied Planning

Harry Hopkins and Gen Marshall, Roosevelt's two envoys, return to Washington from London with the British approval of the BOLERO plan. The plan calls for the opening of a second front in Europe, but the details have yet to be worked out.

Battle of the Atlantic

The unarmed US freighter Robin Hood (6887t), en route to Boston from Trinidad, BWI, is torpedoed and sunk by U-575 about 300 miles off Nantucket with the loss of 14 crewmen.

Burma

Following their breakthrough on the 13th the Japanese continue to drive northward, isolating one of Slim's divs, the 1st Burmese.

Eastern Front

The Germans launch a series of furious attacks against Soviet partisans and paratroopers trapped in the Dorogobuzh area.

Heavily Bomb-Damaged Street in Valletta, Malta

A heavily bomb-damaged street in Valletta, Malta. This street is Kingsway, the principle street in Valletta. Service personnel and civilians are present clearing up the debris. The sustained air attack on Malta reached its peak in April 1942 with over 280 air raids during the whole month, almost 10 a day. The brunt of the attack was borne by the civilian population with most of the small towns having between 60 and 70 per cent of their houses destroyed or seriously damaged. Casualties were in their hundreds every month with many more seriously injured. Resupplying the island was now a major undertaking, any ship making for Malta had to travel in convoy and run a gauntlet of German and Italian bombers and torpedo planes, in addition to the threat from surface ships and U-boats. Food supplies were now running short. Invasion itself seemed imminent. It was in recognition of these threats that the King made the exceptional gesture of awarding the George Cross to the whole island. There was no shortage of heroism amongst the island’s military defenders but this was recognition of what the island’s population was enduring.