Air Operations, Europe

• 59 Lancasters of 5 Group are sent to Wismar.
• Bad weather conditions are met but crews claim to have started a large fire at the target.
• 2 aircraft are lost.

Lancaster I, R5740/KM-O of No 44 Squadron, running up its engines at Waddington, 12 October 1942.

No 44 Squadron Lancaster

Air Operations, New Guinea

V Bomber Command B-25s attack Buna and several targets in the Owen Stanley Mountains. 3rd Light Bomb Group A-20s attack a village and trails in the Owen Stanley Mountains.

Air Operations, Solomons

• At 0515 hours, in the wake of the night’s US surface victory off Guadalcanal, 16 Cactus Air Force SBDs, escorted by 16 F4Fs and eight P-39s, take off from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal in search of crippled Japanese ships. Following large oil slicks, the attack force locates 4 destroyers north of the Russell Islands. One SBD scores a damaging near miss on a rescue destroyer. At 0800 hours, 14 VMF-121 and VMF-224 F4Fs strafe 2 destroyers, then 6 SBDs immediately follow up with an attack that scores 3 near misses on the previously damaged destroyer, and then 1 of 6 VT-8 TBFs scores a direct torpedo hit that causes the survivor-laden destroyer to sink within minutes.
• 10 Cactus Air Force SBDs attack 1 of 1 survivor-laden Japanese rescue destroyers at 1645 hours and score one direct hit and two near misses that sink the ship within moments. 8 339th Fighter Squadron P-39s strafe the other destroyer.
• V Bomber Command B-17s attack Japanese Navy installations on Buka Island.

Battle of the Atlantic

U-597 is sunk in the Atlantic by a British Liberator bomber. This is the first success scored by the single RAF Coastal Command squadron of these invaluable long-range aircraft. Despite the obvious utility of these planes a second squadron is not established until March 1943, largely because the aircraft are claimed for the strategic bomber forces.

Eastern Front

Operation MARS, the planned Soviet offensive against the Rzhev salient, is postponed until the end of October due to bad weather. The plan calls for the right wing of West Front and the left wing of the Kalinin Front to encircle the Germans at Rzhev and free the Moscow to Velikiye Luki railway. West Front's 20th and 31st Armies, supported by the 29th Army, are to attack along the Osuga and Vazuza Rivers toward Sychevka and link up with the 41st Army of the Kalinin Front which had attacked From Belyi. The 31st and 20th Armies will then mop up the German salient and strike toward Vyazma.

The Kalinin Front is to attack with one grouping (41st Army and attached corps) from Belyi toward Sychevka, while the 22nd Army encircles the Germans at Olenino. The 39th Army is to attack along the Molodi-Tud to push the Germans back into the arms of the 22nd and 39th Armies.

United States, Home Front

• 600,000 Italian-Americans are no longer to be classified as 'enemy aliens'.
• Roosevelt recommends the induction of 18- and 19-year-old men into the US military.