Air Operations, New Guinea

1 5th Air Force B-17 attacks Gona and another attempts to hit a Japanese Navy cargo vessel at sea near Salamaua without result.

Air Operations, North Africa

Allied planes strike at Axis communciation and supply lines in North Africa.

Allied Preparations

The transit of US troops to Britain aboard the large liners Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary and Nieuw Amsterdam begins. These vessels cannot be given standard escorts because of their high speed, but the Admiralty chooses their route based on knowledge of U-boat locations via the code-breaking services.

Diplomatic Relations

Rumania declares war on Nicaragua and Haiti.

Eastern Front

German mobile units enter Kotelnikovo as they push toward Stalingrad.

The Stalingrad Front is dismembered, being split up into 2 new formations. A smaller Stalingrad Front is created and a new Southeast Front formed. The Stalingrad Front, with the 63rd, 21st, 62nd, 1st Guards, 4th Tank and 16th Air Armies, is placed under the command of Gen Gordov, while Gen Eremenko takes over the Southeast Front, which deploys the 64th, 57th and 51st Armies and the 8th Air Army. Tolbukhin's 57th Army has only recently deployed on the southern approaches to Stalingrad. The boundary of the 2 fronts is along the Tsaritsyn River in Stalingrad and on the Kalach.

India, Home Front

Mahatma Gandhi warns that the Indian people will welcome a Japanese invasion unless the British grant full independence.

Mahatma Gandhi demonstrates spinning to the public to break British goods monopoly.

Gandhi Demonstrates Spinning

Malta

Axis bombers continue to strike the harbors, airfields and other military installations on the island.

Pacific

The Dutch submarine O-23 sinks the Japanese army cargo ship Zenyo Maru (6442t) off Penang, Malaya.