29 May 1942
Atlantic Ocean : German submarine U-156 torpedoed and sank British cargo ship Norman Prince 60 miles west of Saint Lucia, Lesser Antilles islands at 0103 hours; 16 were killed, 32 survived. At 0217 hours, German submarine U-107 torpedoed and sank British cargo ship Western Head 10 miles south of Rio Seco, Cuba; 24 were killed, 6 survived. Finally, U-50 torpedoed and sank British cargo ship Allister 54 miles south of Grand Cayman island at 2337 hours; 15 were killed, 8 survived.
Italian submarine Barbarigo shelled and sank British cargo ship Charburry on surface in South Atlantic.
Panaman tanker Stanvec Calcutta was intercepted torpedoed , then shelled and sunk by German merchant raider cruiser Stier off Brazil in South Atlantic.
North Sea : German manned Danish cargo ship Niels Finsen struck a mine and sank off Netherlands
German anti submarine trawler Sperrbrecher 150 Virito struck a mine and sank off Dunkerque , France.
Arctic Ocean : Allied convoy QP-12 arrived at Reykjavík, Iceland. To the east, PQ-16 sailed in the opposite direction. As PQ-16 enterted White Sea and neared Murmansk, Russia, they were joined by Soviet destroyers Grozny, Sokrushitelny, and Kuibyshev at 1150 hours previous day and then joined by six Royal Navy minesweepers based in Murmansk several hours later. Today at 2200 hours, the convoy broke into two groups, one heading Kola Inlet sailing for Murmansk and another sailing for Arkhangelsk further east. At 2330 hours, the Murmansk group came under attack by 18 German aircraft and the Arkhangelsk group by 15 German aircraft; no ships were sunk, and three German JU-88 bombers and one HE-111 were shot down by anti aircraft gunners and Soviet Air Force fighters , at cost of one of Soviet Air Force aces , Double Hero of the Soviet Union Boris Safonov, killing him.
At 2330, while the two sections of the convoy were still in sight of each other, the Murmansk section was attacked by a combination of eighteen Ju-87 Stukas and Ju-88 bombers and the Arkhangelsk section by fifteen Ju-88s. According to the official report, no damage was suffered by the ships. But the men who weathered the attack tell of different results. Sixteen-year-old Newfoundlander George H. Evans, a stoker on the explosives-laden Dutch ship SS Pieter de Hoogh, witnessed the Soviet destroyers’ response to the attack:
“The Russian form of defence was direct counterattack. The destroyers sailed out onto the exact courses held by the dive bombers and then opened with every gun aboard, they followed the low-sweeping German Heinkels along the columns, and pursued them across open sea. Russian gunners were deft in their use of the 37-millimeter Bofors cannon. They skipped shells from the surface of the sea; that o/Kuibyshev struck the Heinkels in the belly, she went away damaged. Two more German planes were shot down; no more of the convoy ships were lost.”
From then onward, Soviet Hurricane fighters gave air cover to the convoy as the crews began seeing signs that they were at last approaching land: floating tree trunks and land birds. At 1100 hours, they sighted the coast with its dark, rocky, pine-covered hills , Kola Inlet. It was 1600 hours on May 30 when the Murmansk section formed single file to enter Kola Inlet. They steamed past Toros Island and through the minefield, took aboard their pilots. Commander Onslow , convoy commodore held destroyer HMS Ashanti on standby as they passed. He signaled them: “Reduced in numbers, battered and tired, but still keeping Perfect station.” Admiral Tovey the commander-in-chief, Royal Navy Home Fleet, was agreeably surprised that, in the face of such a scale of attack, four-fifths of the ships of this large convoy ultimately reached their destination. He wrote: “The success was beyond expectation. It was due to the gallantry, efficiency and tireless zeal of the officers and men of the escorts and to the remarkable courage and determination of those of the merchant ships. No praise can be too high for either.”
And from the Senior British Naval Officer, North Russia, Rear-Admiral Bevan, came the relayed congratulations of both the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr A.V. Alexander, and the First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound, to ‘the officers and men of all Allied Merchants and Allied Forces concerned on their magnificent exploit . . . fighting PQ16 through to North Russia’. When Convoy PQ 16 was assembled off Iceland Churchill declared it would be worthwhile if even 50 per cent got through; despite the losses the majority of the ships of Convoy PQ 16 did arrive, twenty ships to Murmansk (30 May 1942) and eight ships to Archangelsk (1 June 1942). Just convoy PQ-16 brought 93.000 tons of war supplies to Soviet Union including 325 tanks , 125 aircraft and 2.500 military motorised vehicles. The convoy was such a success in terms the delivery of war material that the Germans made greater efforts to disrupt the following convoys.
On the German side, Admiral Donitz, commander-in-chief, U-boats, wrote in his War Diary about the operation: “My opinion as to the small chances of success for U-boats against convoys during the northern summer … has been confirmed by experience with PQ 16. Owing to the difficult conditions for attack (constant light, very variable weather and visibility, abnormally strong convoy escort, clever handling of the convoy, appearance of Russian aircraft forcing the U-boats to dive on sighting our own aircraft as well) the result, in spite of shadowing and a determined set-to by the boats, has been one steamer sunk and four probable hits. This must be accounted a failure when compared with the results of the anti-submarine activity for the boats operating … U-436 , U-703 have depth charge damage, unfit to dive to greater depths. Three more boats have slight depth charge damage, the effects of which … will probably mean some considerable time in the dockyard.”
The Luftwaffe greatly overestimated the effects of their attacks on PQ-16 and claimed to have destroyed the whole convoy. From the results of their reconnaissance flights, Luftwaffe officers were convinced that the convoy had dispersed as the result of the first attack in the evening of May 25. This was not the case. Actually they made 207 sorties with 260 planes over the convoy but only sank six ships. The lesson the Germans drew from this attack was that the anti-aircraft defense could be dissipated and confused by high-level dive bombing closely integrated with the launching of torpedoes from a height of about three hundred feet. The method adopted for the torpedo attack, which was known as the “Golden Comb,” was for the aircraft to approach in a wide line abreast and to drop their torpedoes simultaneously. It also was decided to attack at twilight with the ships silhouetted against the lighter sky. By June, forty-two HE-111 torpedo aircraft had arrived in Northern Norway and these tactics were assiduously practiced.
Convoy PQ-16 lost seven merchant ships: six to air attack and one to a U-boat. Seventy-four officers and 397 men were rescued from the seven ships.
Even as both sides studied what happened to PQ-16 and QP-12, the next convoys, PQ-17 and QP-13, were being assembled.
Gazala , Libya : An Italian supply convoy led personally by Rommel got through by outflanking south of Gazala Line and reached the Axis forces in the “Cauldron” south of Tobruk, Libya , while two corridors recently being carved up by German and Italian engineers over the British minefields Meanwhile General Neil Ritchie commanding Eighth Army still undecided , vaccilating and still could not concentrate his armored brigades for a organised and concentrated countrer attack. British armor still dispersed and uncoordinated and uncooperated with other arms like artillery and infantry , making wild charges unsupported by other arms due to their inexperience or cavalry ragiment traditions unheeding army command authority or smaller probing attacks only being repulsed and decimated by effective Axis anti tank gun fire and at the same time leaving British and Commonwealth infantry and artillery uncovered and defenceless. Meanwhile the oppurtunity to strike and destroy cornered Afrikakorps with one blow is slipping away and Rommel’s forces trying to breach minefields in their rear getting stronger. From the British point of view the day’s fighting had been inconclusive, the 4th Armoured Brigade being prevented from joining in the tank battle by a sandstorm.
The British counter to Rommel’s initiatives was to hold conferences and General Ritchie, charming man though he was, exuded completely unrealistic optimism. General Messervy commented to that effect, adding that he was always saying, ‘Ah, now we’ve got him,’ when it was quite clear we hadn’t. During these days, Rommel seemed to be everywhere at once, urging his men on, devising new tactics, and all the time on the move. There could not have been a greater contrast between his leadership and that of the Eighth Army’s commander-in-chief Neil Ritchie , who preferred to oversee the battle from well behind the lines. This was not for want of courage on Ritchie’s behalf but because he adhered to a stolid military convention which – like his immediate predecessor – he did not question. Cautious and plodding, he was psychologically and intellectually unable to react with the incisiveness required on a battlefield, the character of which altered as rapidly and dramatically as a constantly shaken kaleidoscope. Thus, rather than seizing the initiative at a point when his adversaries feared he would achieve ‘a crushing victory’, Ritchie dithered. In this vacuum, Rommel’s commanders were able to regroup, repair armour and artillery, and take up defensive positions from which they were able to ward off the uncoordinated and sporadic attacks launched against them. Ritchie’s armour had been committed piecemeal, had suffered periods of complete disruption, and even with the Grants had been unable to smash the Germans in the tank battles of the 28th and 29th May. As usual his information had been bad (he was often 24 hours late with news of the battle) and with the Desert Air Force unable to help, their lack of success was again beginning to take its toll of his men’s confidence. Even so, on the 29th Ritchie had the best grounds yet for optimism. With Rommel’s tanks pinned against the minefields west of Sidi Muftah they could perhaps be shelled to bits while his own armour sought out and destroyed the enemy supply columns, and cleared the way for a major counter-offensive.
On Axis side , things are not brighter though. Rommel despite everything could not breach British minefields yet though his German sappers and Italian engineers from other side working constantly to remove mines and open up corridors for supply columns desperately needed for cornered Afrikakorps and Arierte Armored Division in Cauldron. The ammunition and supplies are getting scarce. Rommel’s Chief of Staff General Bayerlein remarked later “If British made a proper all out concentrated offensive on 29th or 30th May , we would surrender after a few hours of tough fight due to lack of ammunition and supplies.” Both corridors carved up by German engineers would be ready only 30th May. If Afrikakorps can hold up till then , afterwards Rommel decided to punch through Gazala Line and British minefields complately and re establish communications and supply link with rest of Panzer Army Afrika by attacking and capturing Got El Ulrieb (Sidi Muftah ) box on Gazala Line held by 150th Brigade of 50th British Infantry Division.
The news for Axis got even worse that day. To the north near the coast, a German Fieseler Storch observation aircraft which General Ludwig Crüwell , German general commanding Italian 20th Corps and German Hecker battlegroup making diversion attacks from west on Gazala Line , was aboard , shot down and forced to land inside British infantry box on the frontline at Got ul Ualeb (Sidi Mufti) box held by 150th Brigade of 50th British Infantry Division (same box Rommel would attack with everything he had in two days). The British infantrymen quickly captured German general Cruwell and his pilot then sent him to rear to Eighth Army HQ. Rommel lost one of his best subordinates. Feld Marshal Albert Kesselring visiting the front temporarily took command of 20th Italian Corps and Hecker battle group.
Bir Hackeim , Gazala , Libya : A Free French Bren Carrier patrol led by Captain Lamaze and accompanied, in person, by Colonel Mitakvari of the Foreign Legion, was surprised while patrolling in the open desert by a section of Italian M13 tanks which managed to get between the patrol and its perimeter defences. They were only rescued by the timely intervention of Captain Messmer (9th company 3/13th battalion) who would later become the Minister of Defence in the Charles de Gaulle regime in the 1960s.
On 29 May, the detachment of Capitaine Gabriel de Sairigné defending the eastern perimeter of Bir Hackeim box , destroyed three German tanks, RAF Desert Air Force fighters intercepted two raids by Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers and fighter-bombers and attacked Axis supply lines south and east of Bir Hakeim.
Mediterranean Sea : Royal Navy submarine HMS Turbulent intercepted an Italian convoy made up two cargo ships and an escorting destroyer 135 miles northwest of Benghazi, Libya at 0700 hours and fired four torpedoes at it ; one torpedo struck and sank Italian cargo ship Capo Arma, while another circled back over the submarine and then turned again proceeding to strike and sink Italian destroyer Emmanuele Pessagno.
Royal Navy submarine HMS Trasher torpedoed and sank German cargo ship Penelope off Benghazi , Libya.
France : 77 British bombers (31 Wellington, 20 Halifax, 14 Lancaster, 9 Stirling, 3 Hampden) from RAF Bomber Command attacked the Gnome et Rhône aircraft engine factory at Gennevilliers northwest of Paris, France, causing little damage; 34 French civilians were killed, 167 were injured; 5 bombers were lost in this mission.
Izium , Ukraine : Soviet resistance in the Izium, Ukraine ceased. Less than one man in ten among encircled Soviet forces at Barvenkovo managed to escape. The Red Army had lost parts of four armies: 22 rifle divisions, 7 cavalry divisions and 15 tank brigades. Soviet 6th and 57th Armies , 21st Soviet Tank Corps, caught in the ‘Barvenkovo mousetrap’, were virtually annihilated. Soviet 9th and 38th Armies were also partially or halfway crushed and destroyed while trying to hold or trying to break out Izium bulge. More than 70.000 Red Army troops were killed. Only 23.000 Red Army soldiers managed to break out German encirclement. and retreated northern bank of Donetz river. Paulus 6th Army and Kleist’s 1st Panzer Army and 17th Army had secured nearly 241,000 Soviet prisoners, destroyed or captured 2,000 Soviet guns and 1.200 tanks , the bulk of Timoshenko’s tank force. Their own losses were not much more than 20,000 men killed and wounded. Soviet Air Force also lost 540 aircraft over Izium in two weeks.
On German side congratulations arrived from all quarters. Paulus found himself fêted in the Nazi press which, reluctant to praise reactionary aristocrats, made much of his modest family origins. The Führer awarded him the Knight’s Cross and sent a message to say that he fully appreciated ‘the success of the Sixth Army against an enemy overwhelmingly superior in numbers’. Schmidt, Paulus’s chief of staff, argued in later years that the most influential effect of this battle was on Paulus’s attitude towards Hitler. The Führer’s decision to back the ambitious counter-attack convinced Paulus of his brilliance and of the superior ability of OKW to judge the strategic situation.
At the other side of the hill Stalin , angered by this military disaster , called Ukranian and South West Front political comissar Nikita Khruschev to Moscow to explain his forces defeat. When Khruschev ended his report in Kremlin , Stalin got up , took a full ashtray from table , approached Khruschev and emptied contents of ashtray over unfortunate political commissars head , remarking “In Roman Empire , any general suffered a failure like that would fall on his sword” Humiliated Khruschev left the room without saying anything till 1956 Party Congress , three years after Stalin’s death when he became General Secretary of Soviet Union Communist Party and shifted the blame of all failure and disasterous defeat during Second Battle of Kharkov on Stalin. Marshal Georgy Zhukov claimed neither Timoshenko nor Khruschev warned Stalin in time nor they did insisted to retreat more forcefully but there is no doubt main culprit was Stalin. On the subject, Zhukov sums up in his memoirs that the failure of this operation was quite predictable, since the offensive was organized very ineptly, the risk of exposing the left flank of the Izium salient to German counterattacks being obvious on a map. Still according to Zhukov, the main reason for the stinging Soviet defeat lay in the mistakes made by Stalin, who underestimated the danger coming from German armies in the southwestern sector (as opposed to the Moscow sector) and failed to take steps to concentrate any substantial strategic reserves there to meet any potential German threat. Furthermore, Stalin ignored sensible advice provided by his own General Chief of Staff, who recommended organising a strong defence in the southwestern sector in order to be able to repulse any Wehrmacht attack.
In his famous address to the Twentieth Party Congress about the crimes of Stalin in 1956, Khrushchev used the Soviet leader’s errors in this campaign as an example, saying: “Contrary to common sense, Stalin rejected our suggestion. He issued the order to continue the encirclement of Kharkov, despite the fact that at this time many [of our own] Army concentrations actually were threatened with encirclement and liquidation… And what was the result of this? The worst we had expected. The Germans surrounded our Army concentrations and as a result [the Kharkov counterattack] lost hundreds of thousands of our soldiers. This is Stalin’s military ‘genius’. This is what it cost us.”
Additionally, the subordinate Soviet generals (especially South-Western Front generals) were just as willing to continue their own winter successes, and much like the German generals, underestimated the strength of their enemies, as pointed out by the commander of the 38th Army, General Kirill Moskalenko. The Soviet winter counteroffensive weakened the Wehrmacht, but did not destroy it. As Moskalenko recalls, quoting an anonymous soldier, “these fascists woke up after they hibernated”. Red Army did not deploy its main armored reserves to exploit the initial breakthrough and did not widen the shoulders of breakthough area and Soviet Air Force left all air superiorty to Luftwaffe over battlefield.
For the Russians, Second Battle of Kharkov combined with defeat at Kerch , Crimea was another disaster on a stupendous scale. Now Soviet South West and Southern Fronts were complately weakened and ripe for a new German offensive towards Caucaus. After the resilience they had shown in recovering from the German invasion in the winter of 1941–2, the catastrophe which met by far the most ambitious of German counter-attacks of early to mid 1942, at Khar’kov, was a huge political blow to the Soviet Union. Zhukov noted the January 1942 declaration by twenty-six countries that they would conclude no separate peace with the Axis powers and would combine all their strength against them. Although the Soviet Union would subsequently be severely disappointed, as we saw in the last chapter, in early 1942 the prospect of a second front in Europe that year appeared quite real. 18 Coming after a tide of Soviet optimism, Khar’kov was a huge blow, and like many ‘dislocations of expectation’, perhaps appeared worse than it really was. Compared with 1941, the loss of a quarter of a million soldiers might not seem so bad. But it came at a time of optimism, renewed confidence and hope, so the Kharkov offensive and the formidably professional German response struck home to the Soviet leadership. Stalin, Stavka and the senior military command became much more realistic and cautious as a result.
Black Sea : Soviet submarine A-3 torpedoed and sank Romanian cargo vessel Sulina off Odessa in the Black Sea.
Soviet submarine ShCh-214 torpedoed and sank Turkish cargo vessel Hudarvendigar in the Black Sea.
Berlin , Germany : On May 29, Hitler, having returned briefly to Berlin from Rastenburg, agreed with Goebbels that all Jews should be removed at once from Berlin in retaliation for assasination attempt on Heydrich whose condition became critical due to infection of his wounds.
Hitler began to reconsider invasion of Vichy France , Operation Anton and invasionb of Spain Operation Isabella but shelved them temporarily.
Paris , France : Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris were ordered to wear the yellow badge starting June 7.
UK : German bombers attacked Grimsby, England, United Kingdom in night
Java Sea : American submarine USS Swordfish torpedoed and sank Japanese transport ship Tatsufuku Maru, already damaged by USS Seal on the previous day, between Dutch Borneo and the Philippine Islands.
Tulagi , Solomon islands , South West Pacific : Long range Catalina flying boats of No. 11 and No. 20 squadrons RAAF made their first raid against the Solomon Islands base at Tulagi, which had already been attacked by US carrier aircraft earlier in the month.
South West Pacific : Japanese submarine I-21 launched her floatplane for a reconnaissance mission over Sydney, Australia.
Kure , Japan - Marinna islands , Pacific Ocean : The Main Body of the Japanese Midway invasion fleet set sail; it was consisted of Battleship Division 1 (Yamato, Nagato, Mutsu), light carrier Hosho, seaplane/submarine tenders Chiyoda and Nisshin, light cruiser Sendai of Destroyer Squadron 3, nine destroyers, and Supply Group No. 1; the Main Body remained 600 miles behind the Carrier Striking Force. Meanwhile, the transport fleet set sail from Saipan in the Mariana Islands; it was consisted of 15 transports.
Pearl Harbour , Hawaii : American aircraft carrier USS Yorktown was refloated and moved out of Dry Dock No. 1 at Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, US Territory of Hawaii. She received fuel and a new air complement from nearby Naval Air Station Kaneohe.