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June 29th, 1942
UNITED KINGDOM: Captain Charles C Kegelman, USAAF, the Commanding Officer, 15th Bombardment Squadron (Light), flying on a mission with 12 RAF Bostons against Hazebrouck marshalling yard, France, becomes the first member of the US 8th Air Force to drop bombs on enemy-occupied Europe. The first pilot fatality of the US 8th Air Force in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) is suffered when First Lieutenant Alfred W Giacomini of the 31st Fighter Group crashes a Spitfire while landing at Atcham, Shropshire. (Jack McKillop)

Frigate HMS Bentinck laid down.

Light cruiser HMS Jamaica commissioned.

Boom defence vessel HMS Barbrake launched.

Rescue tug HMS Prosperous launched.

Sloop HMS Woodpecker launched. (Dave Shirlaw)

GREECE: The Statharos family is arrested by the Gestapo in Katerini. Thus begins the ordeal that causes my grandparents to meet and eventually fall in love in the Gestapo prison in Katerini. See Websites: Mitso Pictures of Dimitry Statharos(Steve Statharos)

ITALY: Rome: A specially modified Savoia-Marchetti 75-GA “Grande Autonomia” (tr. ‘great range’) Trimotor begins a 7,000 mile flight to Tokyo. (Ed Miller)

LIBYA: Mussolini arrives in Tripoli, anticipating a triumphal entry in Cairo.

CHINA: Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek sends a request to the US Government for infantry divisions, 500 combat aircraft and 5,000 tons of supplies to be delivered by air from India. (Jack McKillop)

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: The US submarine USS S-18 (SS-123) sights a Japanese but was unable to close and after returning to Dutch Harbor, and as he has previously recommended, her commanding officer requested up-to-date sound and radar equipment. (S-18 was first commissioned in 1924.) (Jack McKillop)

U.S.A.: The US Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Ernest J. King, requests that the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) consider a large-scale invasion of the eastern Solomon Islands.

Following an inspection of Igor I. Sikorsky’s VS-300 helicopter on 26 June, Lieutenant Commander Frank A. Erickson, USCG, recommends that helicopters be obtained for antisubmarine convoy duty and life-saving. (Jack McKillop)

Public opinion polls ask:

Which do you think is our chief enemy in the war - Japan or Germany?

Japan 25%

GERMANY 50%

Both 23%

No opinion 2%

(Jay Stone)

Destroyer escort USS Buckley laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)

CANADA: Patrol vessel HMCS Moresby III commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)

Director of Soldier Settlement given authority to buy or lease confiscated Japanese Canadian farms. 572 farms turned over without consulting owners. (Jack McKillop)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0125, the schooner Mona Marie was stopped by U-126 with machine-gun fire. She was shelled with all weapons after the crew abandoned ship, but did not sink and was left behind as floating wreck.

The unescorted Everalda was shelled and stopped by U-158. A boarding party sunk the ship by opening her seacocks. The master and a Spanish crewmember men were taken prisoner by the U-boat.

U-153 rescued four shipwrecked crewmembers from the sunken ship Ruth and put them in a lifeboat.

MS Waiwera sunk by U-754 at 45.49N, 34.29W. (Dave Shirlaw)

German submarine U-505 sinks an armed U.S. merchant freighter, the THOMAS MCKEAN, in the Atlantic northeast of Puerto Rico at 22N, 60W. The sub crew provides medical attention to wounded crewmen before departing the scene. (Jack McKillop and Dave Shirlaw)

CARIBBEAN SEA: At 0555, the unescorted Ruth was hit in the stern by one torpedo from U-153 while steaming a zigzag course at 10.5 knots about 100 miles north of Cape Maysi, Cuba. The explosion ignited the magazine and the whole stern was blown off. She developed a list to port and sank by the stern within two minutes. She sank so rapidly that the seven officers, 27 crewmen and four armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4in and two .30cal guns) had no time to launch boats or to leave the vessel otherwise. Three crewmen managed to swim to a raft that floated free and another crewman was picked up by the U-boat and placed aboard the raft after being questioned. The Germans apparently searched for other survivors before leaving the area. The survivors were picked up on 4 July by USS Corry and landed at Trinidad three days later. (Dave Shirlaw)

U-67 operating in the Gulf of Mexico sinks the unescorted British tanker Empire Mica near southwest of Cape St. George, Apalochicola, Florida. 33 crewmembers are lost. The master, seven crewmembers and six gunners are picked up by a US Coast Guard cutter and landed at Panama City. (William L. Howard and Dave Shirlaw).