Air Operations, Bismarcks

V Bomber Command B-17s mount single-aircraft attacks against the airfields in the Rabaul area.

Air Operations, Europe

• 3 Halifaxes make leaflet flights over France without loss.

Air Operations, Greece

USAMEAF B-24s attack shipping in Pylos Bay and port facilities and shipping at Sphakia, Khalones and Pylos Island.

Air Operations, New Guinea

V Bomber Command B-17s mount single-aircraft attacks Lae and a beached cargo ship at Salamaua. V Fighter Command P-39s, P-40s and P-400s bomb and strafe landing barges at Lae and Salamaua.

Atomic Research

All atomic research in the United States is placed under military control and Gen Leslie Groves is appointed to direct the program. Groves is deeply worried about security; partly for this reason and partly through simple chauvinism he is strongly opposed to sharing any information with the British (see December 1942).

Battle of the Atlantic

• The British minesweeping trawler Waterfly (387t) is sunk by German bombing off Dungeness with the loss of 15 of her crew.
• The US freighter Mae (12,225t) is torpedoed, shelled and sunk by U-515 about 41 miles north of Georgetown, British Guiana with the loss of 1 of her crew. The 31 surviving crewmen and the 9-man Armed Guard are rescued by the Norwegian merchantman Norwangen. They are then transferred to the Canadian merchantman Gypsum King and taken to Georgetown.

Eastern Front

Fierce hand-to-hand street fighting rages in the northwest outskirts of Stalingrad.

Men of the 92nd Rifle Brigade, newly committed to the battle, take up positions in the grain eleator, opening a savage 3-day battle for the building. Repeated German attacks are repulsed by the small bank of Soviet defenders.

Chuikov signals the Front headquarters that he needs reinforcements, requesting 2 or 3 divisions. High Command commits the 92nd Rifle and 137th Tank Brigades, element of the former having already started to cross the Volga and enter the battle. The 92nd begins to take up positions to the left of the 13th Guards, while the 137th Tank is to the right, in the Tennis Racquet railway yards.

Under heavy German fire, Chuikov is again forced to relocate his headquarters, moving from the Tsaritsyn bunker to the north of the Krasnyi Oktyabr factory. Unbeknownst to the Soviets, the oil storage tanks on the hills over the headquarters are still full of fuel.

On the morning of 17 September 1942 the Soviet defenders subjected to a heavy attack by infantry and 20 tanks and assault guns. Here, a Schützengruppe (infantry squad), supported by a StuG III Ausf. F assault gun armed with a long 7.5cm gun, also know as a Sturmgeschütze 40, awaits orders to advance through the railway sidings and shattered rolling stock.

Fighting for the Central Railroad Station in Stalingrad

Madagascar

The terms suggested by the British for an armistice are rejected by the Vichy Governor General Annet.

New Guinea

While the Australians and Americans prepare to counterattack, the Japanese are in a precarious position at Ioribaiwa. Because of a lack of supplies and reinforcements the Japanese cannot attack the Australian positions near Port Moresby.

Occupied Norway

Premier Vidkun Quisling reintroduces captial punishment in Norway.

United States, Home Front

Roosevelt begins a 15-day nationwide inspection tour of military bases, shipyards and aircraft plants, including the vast new Ford heavy bomber plant at Willow Run in Detroit.