Air Operations, Aleutians

3 28th Composite Bomb Group B-24s are forced to abort their mission to reconnoiter and attack Kiska because of bad weather.

Air Operations, Europe

200 Spitfires carry out an offensive sweep over northern France. Wing Commander 'Paddy' Finucane, a 21-year-old ace with 32 victories, is shot down and killed by machine-gun fire near Le Touquet.

Air Operations, Libya

During the night, USAFMEAF B-24s attack port facilities and shipping at Benghazi.

Allied Planning

Plans are prepared for Operation PROVIDENCE, the occupation of Buna by the Allies. Buna is on the north coast of New Guinea.

Argentina

Ex-President Dr Jaime Ortiz dies at the age of 55.

Battle of the Atlantic

The German submarine U-576 attacks Convoy KS-520 torpedoing the US bulk carrier Chilore (8310t) about 20 miles west of Okracoke Inlet, North Carolina as well as the Panamanian freigher J. A. Mowinkel (11,147t) and the Nicaraguan merchantman Bluefield (2063t). Chilore later enters a US minefield hitting 2 mines and receiving further damage.

U-576 is sunk by naval land-based aircraft (VS-9) and the US merchant vessel Unicoi off the coast of North Carolina.

U-576

Aerial view of the burning convoy ship SS Pennsylvania Sun after being struck by a torpedo in the North Atlantic, July 15, 1942. Few people realise just how close the war actually came to America's shores. (Photo: PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

Convoy Ship on Fire after Torpedo Hit

Brazil, Home Front

Gasoline rationing is introduced.

China

The air lift from India to China, the first supplies flown 'Over the Hump', operated by Gen Chennault's daring pilots, begins to reach Chiang Kai-shek's forces.

Flying Over the Hump

Heavily loaded transports began their runs to China after lifting off from hot, muggy airfields in India’s eastern jungles, then struggled upward for altitude to clear the towering Himalayas. A direct route to Kunming, China, took four hours, at an average altitude of about sixteen thousand feet, and placed aircraft over areas within range of Japanese fighters. The crews characteristically flew a dogleg to the north to escape enemy airplanes, even though the path stretched fuel reserves to the limit and required an operational altitude of twenty thousand feet to clear most of the Himalayan peaks. In addition to the changeable weather high over the Himalayas, pilots flew across virtually impenetrable jungles on both sides of the menacing mountain ranges. Over the Indian jungles, in particular, fliers had to contend with monsoon rainstorms for six months of every year. Landing strips and runways became muddy quagmires; fliers and ground personnel existed in a swampy world of sodden bunks, clothes, and tents. The C–46 Commandos mounted a many-paned windscreen and, when airborne, pilots discovered that the monsoons forced water through myriad gaps around the cockpit windows and left them as miserably soggy in the air as they were on the ground. Sheets of driving rain and turbulence around airfields often kept operations shut down for days at a time. Early in the war, the Japanese never expected Allied airlifts to work because of the mountains and the tropical storms, but the pressure to deliver needed war matériel often meant flying in conditions that normally kept airplanes on the ground.

Eastern Front

Russian news bulletins admit the loss of Boguchar and Millerovo. While the German Army Group A pushes on quickly towards Rostov, the 1st Panzer Army and 4th Panzer Army reach Kamensk on the Donetz.

Kamensk and Millerovo are given up as the South Front pulls back.

Interfering in the operations of the field armies, Hitler sacks von Bock from command of Army Group B, charging him with not attacking with enough vigor and failing to ensure the adequate supply of his units. Weichs takes command of the army group, leaving the 2nd Army under Gen Salmuth.

SS Gloucester Castle was part of a section of 24 vessels from OS.32 sailing on to the Cape and beyond. On July 15, 1942, she was shelled and sunk by the German auxiliary cruiser, Michel, about 840 miles west of Luanda, Angola. There were 61 survivors but 93 crew members were killed.

SS Gloucester Castle Sunk by German Auxiliary Cruiser

Gulf of Mexico

The US tanker Pennsylvania Sun (11,394t) is torpedoed by U-571 about 125 miles west of Key West, Florida. The crew and the Armed Guard abandon the ship. The US destroyer Dahlgren (DD-187) rescues the survivors and takes them to Key West.

North Africa

Auchinleck's forces rout the Italian Brescia and Pavia Divisions south of El Alamein. As a result, Rommel is forced to send German troops to stabilize the front and upset plans for Axis offensive actions.

In the operations south of the Ruweisat Ridge two counterattacks by the Germans regain some ground, about 5 miles south of the El Alamein perimeter, but lose heavily to British artillery fire. The British artillery in North Africa has generally up to now been ill-organized and wastefully dispersed, so that its comparatively lavish resources have produced inadequate results. These faults are gradually remedied in the next few months.[MORE]

Pacific

• In Operation EON 18 a Russian destroyer squadron is transferred from Vladivostok to Kola Inlet via the Bering Strait.
• The US submarine Grunion (SS-216) sinks the Japanese submarine chasers CH-25 and CH-27 west of Sredni Point, Kiska, Aleutians.