http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/nov42/f02nov42.htm
Australians take back Kokada
Monday, November 2, 1942 www.onwar.com
In New Guinea... Kokada is recaptured by the Australian 25th Brigade. The reacquisition of the airfield here is especially important as it means supplies can be ferried in by air rather than lugged over the poor terrain of the Kokada Trail.
In the Solomon Islands... On Guadalcanal, the “Tokyo Express,” the flotilla of Japanese destroyers supplying their forces, begins to be very active. The American advance in the west continues slowly with some successes.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
November 2nd, 1942
UNITED KINGDOM: Fairmiles HMC ML 092 and ML 093 commissioned.
Submarine HMS Statesman laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: Berlin: Dr. Sievers of the “Ancestral Heritage Institute” requisitions 150 dead Jewish Bolshevik commissars for dissection because they exemplify a “revolting but typical subhuman type.”
U-1222 is laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
POLAND: Jews around Bialystock try to resist, but 100,000 of them are taken for deportation to Treblinka.
NORTH AFRICA: Last night British General Montgomery’s Operation Supercharge begins. The British Eighth Army’s XXX Corps opens a breakout assault at 0100 hours. The New Zealand 2nd Division, in the lead, advances west under cover of an artillery barrage and secures a new corridor through the Axis mine fields. The 9th Armored Brigade passes through the corridor in the mine field and establishes a bridgehead across the track extending south from Rahrnan. At daybreak, the armoured brigade meets furious opposition from an Axis antitank screen and sustains over 75% casualties, but maintains the bridgehead. X Corps armor begins debouching through the bridgehead, and the 1st Armored Division becomes strongly engaged near Tel el Aqqaqir.
Taking heavy losses, the British can afford, they also take German tanks. By evening Rommel is down to 35 tanks and signals Hitler that he can no longer prevent a breakthrough.
(Note: To debouch is to march (move) from a narrow or confining area into an open area. For example, passing through a ravine onto open ground, or through a gap in barbed wire or a cleared lane through a minefield into the open. Seldom seen in US military usage, its common in British use. Americans “punch” or “thrust” through minefields.) (Gordon Rottman)
NEW GUINEA: Kokoda falls to the Australian 25th Brigade. The possession of the airstrip will ease the supply difficulties.
AUSTRALIA: Minesweeper HMAS Kiama laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
SOLOMON ISLANDS: At 0650 the 2nd Btn 7th Marines head east, from the Lunga perimeter on Guadalcanal, for the Metapona River. Their mission is to meet the Japanese force landed there last night.
U.S.A.: Submarine USS Ling laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
U-172 sank SS Llandilo.
U-174 sank SS Zaandam.
U-177 sank SS Aegeus.
U-586 sank SS Empire Gilbert.
U-522 sank SS Martima, Mount Pelion and Parethenon.
U-402 sank SS Dalcroy, Empire Antelope, Empire Leonard, and Rinos in Convoy SC-107.
SS Empire Sunrise sunk by U-84 and U-402 in Convoy SC-107.
SS Hartington sunk by U-521, U-438 and U-522 in Convoy SC-107.
SS Rose Castle (7,803 GRT) Canadian merchantman, While lying at anchor off Bell Island, Nfld, fully loaded with iron ore and waiting for a convoy, was torpedoed and sunk by U-518, Kptlt. Friedrich-Wilhelm Wissmann, CO. Of her crew of 46 men (reports vary on this detail), there were between seven and 11 survivors. Another merchant ship, the French ship PLM 27, was also sunk. Many of the survivors swan three-quarters of a mile to shore, including Pierre Edouard Gerard Simard, whom later who joined the Canadian Navy.
U-521 fired torpedo at corvette HMCS Moose Jaw in Convoy SC-107 but missed. (Dave Shirlaw)