Air Operations, Australia

P-40s of the 49th Pursuit Group's 7th and 8th Pursuit Squadrons shoot down 3 G3M 'Nell' bombers and 5 A6M Zeros over Darwin around 1430 hours.

Air Operations, Europe

To continue their reprisal raids, the Germans bomb Norwich.

• 18 Bostons are sent on raids to Ostend and Lille. 1 plane is lost.
• 97 aircraft including 76 Wellingtons, 19 Stirlings and 2 Halifaxes are sent to Cologne. Bombing conditions are favorable and the force reports good results. Reports from the ground show 9 industrial sites are hit, 1,520 houses hit or damages, and 19 other sites affected. 11 people are killed, 52 injured and 1,683 bombed out. A considerable number of bombs fall outside the city to the east causing a large fire in the Tannenwald.
• In another operation 31 Halifaxes and 12 Lancasters are sent to bomb the Tirpitz in Trondheim Fjord. The Tirpitz is found and bombed, but no hits are recorded. 4 Halifaxes and 1 Lancaster are lost.
• One of the lost Halifaxes was piloted by Wing Commander D. C. T. Bennett, later the commander of the Pathfinders. He escaped to neutral Sweden and returned to England 5 weeks later.
• Another Halifax lost on this raid, W1048 of 35 Squadron, was damaged by Flak and its pilot, Pilot Officer Donald Mclntyre, crash-landed it on the frozen surface of a nearby lake, Lake Hoklingen. The crew all survived and the Halifax, a new aircraft on its first operational flight, sank gently. In 1973 this aircraft was salvaged from the bed of the lake and, after restoration by airmen at R.A.F. Wyton, was placed on public display in the R.A.F. Museum at Hendon.
• In minor operations, 12 aircraft are sent to Dunkirk, 8 aircraft lay mines of the German coast and 3 Lancasters and 5 OTU Wellingtons are on leaflet flights. 2 Halifaxes from the Dunkirk raid, 1 Stirling and 2 OTU Wellingtons are lost in these operations.
• The 2 Whitleys dispatched by 58 Squadron to Dunkirk represent the last Whitley operations flown by a front-line Bomber Command squadron. Their last operation to Germany had been by 5 aircraft against Rostock the previous night. OTUs would continue to use small numbers of Whitleys on leaflet flights for some time.

27 april 1942: the cruising of U-552 was profitable: the flags fixed on the periscope recall that 90,000 tons of Allied cargo liners were sunk in one month and twenty days.

Cruise of U-552 Was Profitable

Canada, Home Front

In a Conscription Plebiscite voters in 8 provinces approve the introduction of conscription for overseas service, but in Quebec there is a 71% majority against. (See July 29, 1942.)

Plebiscite Held in Canada in April 1942

After declaring war on Germany on September 10, 1939 with the promise that only volunteers would serve overseas, the federal government, led by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, held a plebiscite in April 1942 asking Canadians to release it from the promise.

India, Home Front

The All-India National Congress rejects a policy of nonviolence directed at both the Btitish and the Japanese as proposed by Gandhi.

Japan, Home Front

In the world's worst ever mining disaster 1,527 people are killed. It happens at the Honkeiko Colliery in Manchuria where there is an accidental gas/dust explosion.

Mediterranean

The British submarine Urge is sunk by Italian aircraft off Ras al Hilal, Libya with the loss of 43 on board.

United States, Home Front

Roosevelt places the American economy on a full war footing.