http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/oct42/f27oct42.htm
Germans near victory in Stalingrad
Tuesday, October 27, 1942 www.onwar.com
German soldier in Stalingrad [photo at link]
On the Eastern Front... At Stalingrad, German advances continue in the ground between the Red October and Barricades Factories. From this area, they can bring the landing stages on the Volga under direct machine gun fire. The remaining Soviet controlled areas are now on average of 300 yards deep, however, these are strongly held and fortified.
In North Africa... The Battle of Alamein. While the British concentrate on regrouping their forces, what Rommel intends as a major counterattack is defeated by a small British force at Kidney Ridge. Other attacks farther north meet with no success.
In the Solomon Islands... At Guadalcanal, the Japanese halt the offensive. They have suffered 3500 casualties with entire units being destroyed. Both sides are exhaustive by the heavy day and night fighting, but the initiative has passed to the Americans.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
October 27th, 1942
UNITED KINGDOM: Submarines HMS Spirit, Vivid and Voracious laid down.
Minesweeper HMS Onyx launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: A 17-year-old youth is executed for listening to foreign news broadcasts.
U-1161 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
BALTIC SEA: The submerged U-339 collided with the cruiser Nürnberg. (Dave Shirlaw)
FINLAND: Finnish submarine Iku-Turso (Kapteeniluutnantti Eero Pakkala) torpedoes and sinks the Soviet submarine Shtsh 320 in Gulf of Finland. (Mikko Härmeinen)
U.S.S.R.: German forces continue to gain ground between the Red October and Barrikady Factories in Stalingrad. Those parts of Stalingrad still held by Soviet forces are strongly held and fortified. The Soviet policy at Stalingrad has been to feed new divisions in slowly, gaining experience. In the Moscow area new divisions are committed as a unit. Faulty intelligence allows the Germans to assume the northern policy is followed in Stalingrad. They therefore overestimate losses and underestimate remaining strength.
The German forces are now within firing distance of Soviet landing jetties on the west bank of the Volga. The Soviet-held strip is only 300 yards deep on average.
XII Squadriglia MAS removed from Lake Ladoga and transported to Tallinn via Helsinki. (Dave Shirlaw)
EGYPT: Rommel mounts an intended major counterattack and is held off by a small British force at Kidney Ridge in the Battle of El Alamein.
El Aqqaqir: Lt-Col. Victor Buller Turner (1900-72), Rifle Brigade, led an attack which knocked out 50 out of 90 tanks, helping, despite a head wound, to man a six-pounder gun himself. (Victoria Cross)
In the MTO 1st Lt. Lyman Middleditch Jr., 64th FS/57th FG, USAAF, becomes the first USAAF fighter pilot in the ETO or North Africa to score a triple victory when he downs three Bf 109s. Middleditch will end the war as an ace with five victories. (Skip Guidry)
CHINA: Peking: Wang Ching-wei, the leader of the Chinese puppet government in Nanking, today made an official visit to Peking. He attended the third national convention of the Hsin-min-hui [New People’s Society], north China’s central collaborationist political organization.
Though Wang Ching-wei is officially leader of the puppet “central” government of occupied China, in the north the Hsin-min-hui is effectively in control. The organization’s purpose is simple: the inculcation of a Japanese philosophy of life, based on Confucian principles, in the people of the region.
PACIFIC OCEAN: 2200 hours: USS Tautog (SS-199) sinks a transport-cargo ship at 10-20 N, 108-43 E. (Skip Guidry)
CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS Milltown arrived Halifax from builder Port Arthur, Ontario.
U.S.A.: LST-325 is launched.
Minesweepers USS Triumph and Logic laid down.
Destroyer USS Stephen Potter laid down.
Destroyer USS Aulick commissioned.
Minesweeper USS Strive commissioned.
Destroyers USS Bush and Spence launched.
Submarines USS Lapon and Balao launched.
Minesweeper USS Caravan launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-627 (Type VIIC) which had left Kiel for its first combat patrol on 15 Oct is sunk 12 days later south of Iceland, at position 59.14N, 22.49W, by depth charges from a British Fortress aircraft (Sqdn. 206/F). 44 dead (all crew lost). (Alex Gordon)
U-436 damaged SS Frontenac, Gurney E Newlin and sank HMS LCT-2281, SS Sourabaya in Convoy HX-212.
U-509 sank SS Pacific Star and SS Stentor in Convoy SL-125.
U-604 sank SS Anglo Mærsk (already torpedoed the previous day) in Convoy SL-125.
After an explosion during torpedo loading on U-67 one man was killed. [Matrosenobergefreiter Heinz Hartmann] .
The same day 3 men were washed overboard from the U-706, 2 men died but the third was saved by U-463. [Leutnant zur See Erich Eichmann, see right, Matrosenobergefreiter Ralf Köhler].
U-117 laid some mines off Iceland, but no sinkings resulted from this field. (Dave Shirlaw)