Air Operations, Egypt

• 57th Fighter Group mounts 34 effective combat sorties in support of the British 8th Army pursuit of Axis forces. The P-40s are credited with destroying German Army motor vehicles around Mersa Matruh.
• 6 79th Fighter Group pilots join the 57th Fighter Group for a strafing attack against an Axis motor convoy near the Egyptian coast. 1 pilot is lost when he force-lands his battle-damaged P-40 and detonates a land mine.

Air Operations, Europe

BOMBER COMMAND
Daylight Ops:

• 14 Wellingtons and 5 Lancasters make cloud cover raids to Essen, Osnabrück and Wilhelmshaven. 12 Bostons bomb an airfield near Caen without loss. 10 Venturas in fours and twos carry out low-level raids to Holland.
• Because of cloud, only 6 aircraft drop bombs in the Osnabrück and Wilhelmshaven areas.
• 4 Venturas are lost.

One of the Bostons Which Attacked Caen Airfield

The Airfield at Caen under Attack

• 72 Lancaster of 5 Group and the Pathfinder Force attack Genoa.
• It is a concentrated attack, but most of the damage is done in residential areas in the eastern part of the city.
• 2 Lancasters are lost.

• 65 aircraft lay mines from Lorient to the Frisians; there are 4 OTU sorties.
• 3 mine-laying Stirlings are lost.

Air Operations, Libya

USAMEAF B-24s attack the harbors at Tobruk and Benghazi and claim hits on 2 Axis ships.

Eastern Front

In the Caucasus the Red Army firmly repulses enemy efforts to take Ordzhonikidze, southwest of Grozny.

A Fremde Heer Ost report states that the most likely location for a Soviet counterattack is the central sector, most probably against the 2nd Panzer Army.

Guadalcanal

The 7th Marines cross the flooded Nalimbiu with difficulty, while the 164th's battalions move slowly through the jungle. The 3rd Battalion finds an abandoned Japanese bivouac about 1,000 yards south of Koli Point, but the enemy has escaped to the east. The 3rd Battalion, 164th Infantry, reaches Koli Point at night followed by the 2nd Battalion the next morning. The Aola Force transports complete their unloading operations and withdraw.

Carlson's men start out in the morning. They carry 4 days rations. Their route takes them to the villages of Gegende, Reko, Tasimboko, Tina and Binu. Each is near the coast, and the men are to be re-supplied by boat every 4 days based upon radio designation until they can capture Japanese supplies.

North Africa

EGYPT

Many of the pursuing British forces are short of fuel because not enough can be moved through the chaos around El Alamein. The 7th Arm Div does catch and destroy what is left of 21st Pzr, which is completely stranded and out of fuel. Later in the day heavy rain falls which means that the only practical route of advance is now along the coast road. By 2:35p.m. the Folgore Div, which left its base in Italy with 5,000 men, now numbers only 32 officers and 262 men of other ranks.

Men of the British Eighth Army enter Tobruk on 6 November 1942

British Enter Tobruk