Air Operations, Aleutians

5 28th Composite Bomb Group B-17s and 3 B-24s attack Kiska. 1 B-24 is brought down by antiaircraft fire. Only the pilot is rescued.

Air Operations, CBI

• 11th Medium Bomb Squadron B-25s attack Hankow, China, and 23rd Fighter Group P-40s bomb and strafe Japanese Army ammunition dumps and warehouses at Sienning, China.
• 23rd Fighter Group P-40s also bring down 3 Ki-27 'Nate' fighters near the airfield and Nanchang at 1330 hours.

Air Operations, Europe

There is a night raid on Colchester and East Anglia. A direct hit on a mental hospital causes heavy casualties.

• 3 Mosquitos to Germany, only 1 bombs at Cologne
• No losses

• 52 aircraft lay mines in Kiel Bay and off the Danish coast
• 1 Lancaster and 1 Stirling lost

Battle of the Atlantic

Wellington 'H' of No 311 Squadron sights U-578 on the surface and attacks. 3 depth charges are dropped on the first run. Turning around for a second pass the aircraft is fired on by the U-boad as it begins to dive. The depth charges then explode around the conning tower and stern. A large oil slick is then observed in the area where the U-boat had dived.

U-578

Eastern Front

Von Paulus' 6th Army reaches the outskirts of Stalingrad. Hoth's Panzers drive towards the city from the southwest. German forces also reach Pyatigorsk in the foothills of the Caucasus.

The Maikop oilfields fall to the 13th Panzer Division of the 1st Panzer Army, but the retreating Red Army sabotages the oil production installations. the 17th Army attacks Krasnodar, while the 1st Panzer is involved in heavy fighting near Stavropol.

The Soviet High Command order the North Caucasus Front to cover the approaches to the Black Sea, using Kamkov's 18th Army and the XVII Cavalry Corps to cover the mountain passes and Grechko's 12th Army to defend the junction of the 18th and 56th Armies. Kotov's 47th Army is to protect Novorossysk.

India, Home Front

There are riots in Bombay and Delhi. Police fire on the crowds.

Mediterranean

Operation Pedestal, a re-supply mission to Malta, begins. A 14-ship British convoy leaves Gibraltar for Malta under heavy escort. Only 4 transports and the burning tanker Ohio reach Malta, August 13-15. From August 11 they are battered by Axis aircraft, submarines and MTBs. Among the ships sunk are the carrier Eagle, sunk by U-73 commanded by Kapitänleutnant Helmuth Rosenbaum, cruisers Cairo and Manchester, the destroyer Foresight and 7 merchant vessels. Ships that are badly damaged are the carrier Indomitable, 2 cruisers, 1 destroyer and 7 merchant vessels. 2 Italian submarines are rammed and sunk by British destroyers.

North Africa

Churchill tells Alexander what his object must be: the destruction of Italian and German forces in Egypt and Libya.

Pacific

The American submarine S-44, under the command of Lt-Cmdr John R. Moore, fires 4 torpedoes at the Japanese heavy cruiser Kako off Kavieng, New Ireland, returning from the Battle of Savo Island. Three of the torpedoes hit the ship sinking it in just a few minutes carrying down many of her crew.

The Kako was a Japanese Furutaka-class cruiser. Commissioned July 31, 1926, she had a displacement of 8,000 tons. On August 10, 1942, she was struck by three torpedoes from the American submarine USS S-44 and sunk off Simbari Island.

Japanese Cruiser Kako Sunk by US Submarine