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Yesterday Tomorrow

May 1st, 1942

UNITED KINGDOM: Destroyer HMS Whelp laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
FRANCE: Paris: Lacan the Egyptologist, the Orientalist Pelliot and a dozen of their colleagues at the Collège de France and the Académie des Sciences have been thrown into Fresnes prison for a few days. It is thought that the police found their names on a list of those helping an underground paper. Lacan tells me that they were able to keep up with the news by asking for lavatory paper, and the wardens cut up the daily newspaper.

The Arno Brecker exhibition opens today at the Orangerie. Brecker had been influenced by Rodin. His neoclassical idealizations of the human figure coincided with Hitler’s preconceptions of great art, with the result that Brecker has become a kind of Reich sculptor in chief.

GERMANY:
U-966 laid down.

U-189 launched. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.S.R.: Moscow: Stalin promises that he has no territorial ambitions abroad.

BURMA: Mandalay falls to the Japanese.

PACIFIC OCEAN: The US submarine USS Grenadier (SS-210) sinks the Soviet freighter SS Angarstroi about 90 miles (145 km) west southwest of Nagasaki, Japan. (Jack McKillop)

CANADA:
Corvette HMCS Woodstock commissioned.

HMC MTB 340, 341, 342 and 343 completed in Canada. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.A.: Graduates of the first class of MIS Language School are sent to the Aleutians and the South Pacific. Field commanders clamour for more Nisei linguists.

May, 1942 Richard Sakakida becomes P.O.W. when Corregidor falls.

Corvette HMCS Bittersweet completed forecastle extension refit Charleston.

Submarine USS Paddle laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Northeast of Iceland at 66 00N, 08 00W: While acting as screen to the home fleet the destroyer HMS PUNJABI is rammed and sunk by the battleship HMS King George V in fog. Force “Distaff,” the combined US Navy and Royal Navy force that is protecting convoy PQ-15 en-route to Murmansk, is off Iceland when the RN battleship HMS King George V collides with and sinks the destroyer HMS Punjabi. Punjabi sinks stern down almost immediately, the US battleship USS Washington (BB-56) is unable to manoeuvre around the wreckage and must sail through it and the depth charges in HMS Punjabi explode underwater damaging the Washington’s fire control systems. As the forward section sank more slowly, 205 officers and men including the commander were able to be rescued. (Jack McKillop and Alex Gordon(108))

Canadian Zwicker and H.O. Emptage fishing vessel James E Newsome sunk by gunfire from U-69 at 35.20N, 059.40W. Newsome’s crew of 9 reached Bermuda by boat.

At 1136, the unescorted La Paz was hit by one of two torpedoes from U-109 in shallow waters about 10 miles SE of Cape Canaveral. 42 crewmembers abandoned ship in three lifeboats, while the master and 14 crewmembers remained on board to save the ship. A first torpedo had missed the ship at 1101. Bleichrodt observed how the ship sank by the stern until it rested on the bottom with the bow out of the water and heard another detonation one minute later, thinking that the second torpedo had hit a ship of a tug convoy, which had been spotted earlier further inshore, but apparently the torpedo exploded as it hit the shore. He claimed the Nicaraguan MS Worden, identified by an intercepted radio message, but the vessel only reported the distress of the La Paz and took the damaged ship in tow. With the help of some shrimp cutters, she was subsequently beached with the forward section in a distance of about seven miles in 28°19N/80°33´30W. The La Paz was salvaged together with the cargo after being sold to US agents and passed to the US War Shipping Administration (WSA). She was towed to Jacksonville, repaired and returned to service on 7 Oct 1942 as ship of the US Maritime Commission (USMC).

At 2046, the unescorted Parnahyba was hit by one torpedo from U-162 near Trinidad. The ship was finished off with 56 rounds from the deck gun after the survivors abandoned ship.

SS Tsiolkovskij sunk by U-589 at 71.46N, 34.30E in Convoy QP-11.

At 0543, the Bidevind was hit by a torpedo from U-752. The entire crew abandoned ship safely, but one of the lifeboats was hit by debris, which was thrown in the air by a second torpedo hit and injured the 17 men in it. They were transferred to the motor lifeboat that came to assist and they arrived near Toms River, New Jersey the next day. The Bidevind foundered later that day in 40°13N/73°46W. (Dave Shirlaw)