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August 19th, 1942

UNITED KINGDOM: The US Eighth Air Force flies Mission 2: 22 B-17 Flying Fortresses bomb Drucat Airfield, Abbeville, France between 1032-1040 hours while 6 B-17s fly a diversion. This mission is flown to occupy the Luftwaffe and prevent them from opposing an invasion by over 5,000 Allied troops, mostly Canadians, who raid Dieppe, France. 123 Spitfire Mk Vs of the US VIII Fighter Command support the raid on Dieppe and claim 1-1-5 Luftwaffe aircraft with the loss of 8 Spitfires; 2d Lieutenant Samuel F Junkin Jr of the 309th Fighter Squadron, 31st Fighter Group, flying a Spitfire Mk V in support of the amphibious raid on Dieppe, shoots down a German fighter, this being the first aerial victory won by an 8th Air Force fighter pilot flying from the UK. (Jack McKillop)

During the ensuing dogfight, Lieutenant Junkin was one-versus-one with a FW, which he managed to shoot down before he was subsequently attacked by a second FW. Wounded in the shoulder by cannon fire, he momentarily passed out, but re- gained consciousness just above sea level. He climbed to 1,000 feet where he planned to bail out, having to break through his stuck canopy before he managed to get out at an altitude of 600- 700 feet. Rescued by an Allied torpedo boat, he was transferred to another ship which had also picked up Lieutenant Collins, another Spitfire pilot who had been shot down. (Bob Castle)

Duncan Scott-Ford, a Royal Navy sailor, is arrested for passing information to the enemy.

Lancashire: Tommy, a racing pigeon who strayed into the Netherlands during a race, arrives home bearing valuable military information attached to his leg by a Dutch resistant.

Minesweeper HMS Brixham commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)

FRANCE: During Operation JUBILEE, 4,963 Canadians of the 2nd Canadian Division, 1000 British Commandoes of Nos 3 and 4 Commando and 50 U.S. Army Rangers raid along a 10 mile (16 kilometer) wide beachhead centered on the English Channel port of Dieppe. This raid will end in disaster. It ends with a long casualty list of 3600 Allied soldier vs. 60 Germans and most of the installations designated for destruction are not reached, much less destroyed. Some lessons about opposed landings are learned. This raid will become one of the most controversial actions of the war.

Dieppe: Along an 11-mile stretch of the French coast, burning tanks, destroyed landing craft and the crumpled bodies of at least 1,000 soldiers remain as a grim memorial to today’s disaster. Lieutenant Edwin Loustalot, of the 1st Ranger Battalion, became the first American to be killed in land fighting in Europe in this war. A Canadian chaplain, John Foote, tended wounded on the beach and carried them to the boats to be taken off. He refused to embark with them, preferring to become a PoW and help wounded captives. Lieutenant-Colonel J. P. Phillips, RM, died almost instantly as he stood to signal rear landing craft to turn back, but saved 200 of his men.

Combined-Ops HQ: A badly-mauled Allied commando force is returning to England this afternoon after a fruitless nine-hour attempt to seize the French port of Dieppe and destroy the German defences.

Of the 6,100-strong force of Canadians, British, Americans and Free French, around 4,100 officers and men are reported killed, wounded or missing. The 4,963 Canadians, the bulk of the force, bore the brunt of the casualties: 907 dead and 1,496 taken prisoner. Operation Jubilee, as it was codenamed, was planned last April as a reconnaissance in force to test enemy defences on a well-defended sector of the coast, and to persuade the Germans to withdraw men from the eastern front. A fleet of 252 ships sailed from four south-coast ports, and arrived off France at 0330 hours. H-hour was 0450 hours. Five thousand men were ready to go ashore in assault craft. Then the mishaps began.

At 3.47am the commando force in the east ran into an escorted German convoy. In the exchange of fire that followed two German ships were sunk and the eastern flank landing party considerably disordered. Most importantly, the sound of the battle alerted the German land forces and the advantage of tactical surprise was lost.

The force went ashore on an 11-mile stretch of coast centred on the port. The task was to destroy a series of shore batteries and a radio-location station and capture the German divisional HQ. One battery was silenced with brisk efficiency and another sniped at; but the others poured a hail of shells on the Canadians trapped against against barbed-wire on the beaches.

Of 24 tank-landing craft, ten managed to land 27 tanks, all of which were lost. One destroyer (Hunt class HMS Berkeley) and 33 landing craft were sunk. The navy’s 550 casualties include 75 dead and 269 missing or captured.

The RAF, including the Duxford Wing’s new Hawker Typhoons, gave air cover, but lost 106 machines to the Germans’ 170. The Germans lost 314 killed and 294 injured in the day’s battles; 37 Germans were taken prisoner and brought back to England. (22)

Whilst participating in the Dieppe raid, destroyer HMS Berkeley is subjected to a number of air attacks which cause serious structural damage, requiring the ship to be abandoned and finally scuttled by a torpedo fired from HMS Albrighton 4 miles NW of Dieppe at 49 57N 01 04E. (Alex Gordon)(108)

Dieppe: Capt. (Reverend) John Weir Foote (1904-88), Canadian Chaplain Services, assigned to the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, saved wounded and volunteered to leave the landing craft evacuating him and et himself be captured so that he could minister to PoWs (Victoria Cross)

Dieppe: Lt-Col Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt (b.1908) of the South Saskatchewan Regiment, Canadian Army, led survivors of four parties across the Scie River bridge under fire, and helped to cover the withdrawal from the port. (Victoria Cross)

Dieppe: Capt. Patrick Anthony Porteous (b.1918), Royal Regt. of Artillery, was shot through the hand, yet ran, under fire, to take charge of a leaderless detachment until he was severely wounded. (Victoria Cross)

GERMANY: U-747 laid down.
U-269 commissioned.
U-386 launched. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.S.R.: Polish General Anders along with 115,000 Poles, held as prisoners since the fall of 1939, leaves the Soviet Union. General Anders feels that for the first time since September of 1939, he was indeed a free man.

The decision was made, March 26, 1942, that the only way to properly feed and equip the Polish Army in the Soviet Union was to transport them to Iran. Once in Iran, the British could provide adequate food and equipment to train and prepare the Poles for combat. (Alex Bielakowski)

Leningrad is still besieged, but warm weather enables ferries to cross Lake Ladoga bringing in much needed supplies and evacuating civilians. (Jack McKillop).

EGYPT: The Commander in Chief, Middle East, Field Marshal Harold Alexander orders Eighth Army Commander General Bernard Montgomery to hold positions while preparing the offensive. (Jack McKillop)

INDIAN OCEAN: Seychelles Islands: Northeast of Africa’s Zanzibar, the Japanese submarine HIJMS I-29 launches a “Glen” reconnaissance seaplane (Yokosuka E14Y, Navy Type 0 Small Reconnaissance Seaplane) to reconnoitre the islands. (Jack McKillop)

SOLOMON ISLANDS: General Nishino, with the Kawaguchi Detachment, approaches
Guadalcanal by sea. His men read a training manual that says, “Westerners — being very haughty, effeminate, and cowardly — intensely dislike fighting in the rain or mist or in the dark. They cannot conceive night to be a proper time for battle — though it is excellent for dancing. In these weaknesses lie our great opportunity.”
Colonel Kiyamo Ichiki’s First Echelon of 917 men arrives at Guadalcanal’s Taivu Point at 0100 hours local. The men unload and start marching in the dark nine miles to Tetere, where they take a break.
Early in the morning, Martin Clemens is asked to provide native guides and scouts to locate the Ichiki force.
Daniel Pule is assigned to a Marine patrol, and police Sergeant Major Jacob Vouza leads a native patrol of his own.
Early that day, Marine Captain Charles H. Brush hits the trail with a patrol of 60 men from Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines. They run encounter a 38-man patrol from Ichiki’s detachment. A jungle firefight ensues, and the Marines kill all but five of the Japanese. Brush notes that the bodies of four Japanese officers and 29 men wear the star insignia of the Imperial Army as opposed to the chrysanthemum of the Imperial Navy on their fresh clothes. Obviously this is a new force. Their large amounts of communications equipment suggest a large unit. Their maps show the Japanese know the Marine positions. Brush immediately returns to headquarters.

The Japanese survivors return to Ichiki’s force and although his patrol has been annihilated, Ichiki presses on through the jungle.
Marine General Vandegrift studies the captured maps, and realizes that the Japanese are coming and know his dispositions. His officers urge a counterattack but Vandegrift wisely decides to await the Japanese within his perimeter.
The Marines will dig in along Alligator Creek, which Martin Clemens has named after its inhabitants, which are
actually crocodiles. The Marines think the sluggish waterway is actually the Tenaru River.
Three Japanese destroyers, HIJMS Kagero, HIJMS Hagikaze and HIJMS Maikaze, shell Tulagi. Allied Air Forces B-17s, flying from Espiritu Santo, bomb the destroyers and one aircraft scores direct hits on the HIJMS Hagikaze’s stern, killing 33 and wounding 13. Hagikaze limps home. (Jack McKillop)

NEW GUINEA: Troops of the Australian 7th Division start a series of landings at Port Moresby.

TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: Mechanical failure prevents a US 11th Air Force B-24 Liberator from flying reconnaissance over Tanaga Island.

CANADA: Patrol vessels HMCS Blue Nose and Sea Wave (ex HMCS Chatham S) acquired from seized Japanese fishing fleet. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.A.: Submarine USS Harder launched. (Dave Shirlaw)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: During an aircraft attack on U-155 a man was lost overboard. [Maschinengefreiter Konrad Garneier]
U-162 sank SS West Celina in Convoy TAW (S)
U-564 sank SS British Consul and Empire Cloud in Convoy TAW (S)
U-217 sank SS Sea Gull
U-406 sank SS City of Manila in Convoy SL-118
U-507 sank SS Jacyra
U-510 sank SS Cressington Court. (Dave Shirlaw)