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• The keel of submarine Blenny was laid down. ww2dbase [Blenny | CPC]
• German submarine U-759 was reportedly to be lost, though later records show she might had not been destroyed until 23 Jul 1943. ww2dbase [Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico Campaigns | CPC]
• Casablanca was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [Casablanca | CPC]
• In the Kursk salient Walter Model's armour made three thrusts into the centre of the Soviet defences along the Central Front, the villages of Teploye, Olkhovatka and Ponyri in Russia. At Teploye, the main objective was Hill 272. Time and again the Germans assaulted it, after attacks by swarms of Stuka dive bombers which dropped 550-pound bombs on the anti-tank positions. But the Soviets were well dug in and camouflaged. They preferred to fight the Germans at close range, where their anti-tank rifles and dug in T-34 tanks took a devastating toll. The Germans took the hill three times, but the Soviets continued to recapture it. ww2dbase [Battle of Kursk | AC]
• USS Bailey departed Mare Island Naval Shipyard bound for San Diego but after an hour and a half, Bailey’s starboard reduction gears were stripped by a broken tooth. Bailey returned to Mare Island Naval Shipyard. ww2dbase [Mare Island Navy Yard | Bailey | DS]
• Cruisers USS Honolulu and USS St. Louis escorted by destroyers USS Nicholas, USS O’Bannon, USS Radford, USS Jenkins, and USS Chevalier arrived at Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides. ww2dbase [Nicholas | St. Louis | Walden Ainsworth | Honolulu | DS]

• In the South Atlantic, the 10,324-ton Norwegian motor tanker B. P. Newton was struck at 0520 hours by one of three torpedoes launched from German submarine U-510 commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Alfred Eick. It hit the tanker on the port side aft and immediately ignited the cargo of 14,700 tons of aviation fuel; the explosion blew burning fuel over the decks and bridge, destroying all but a single lifeboat. Two men on watch below were killed before they were able to secure the engines and other crew that had jumped over the stern were killed by the burning fuel. The surviving crew were all at the forecastle save for the Master Einar Andersen and the second officer who remained on the bridge to see if they could perhaps save the ship; they were however, forced to go forward by the heat ad flames. They managed to get the remaining lifeboat launched and started to pick other crew up and then escape from the burning fuel. Twenty-four survived, some badly burned were picked up by escort vessels, but no attempt was made to save the ship as by then her plates were glowing red hot, still under way the B. P. Newton finally sank 150 miles northeast of Cayenne, French Guiana. The survivors were landed at Pernambuco, Brazil on 17 Jul 1943. The B. P. Newton was one of the Kvarstad ships held back in Gothenburg, Sweden and had participated in Operation Performance in Apr 1941. ww2dbase [HM]
• Northwest of the Spanish coast, German Type IXC U-Boat U-505 was attacked by three British destroyers from a hunter-killer group that pursued the submerged boat for 36 hours (assisted by a leak from an external fuel tank) but U-505 managed to slip away. ww2dbase [U-505 | DS]

• Companies N and Q of USMC 4th Raider Battalion were dispatched on a patrol on Gatukai Island in New Georgia, Solomon Islands after reports on the possible presence of a 50-100 men Japanese garrison on the island. ww2dbase [Solomon Islands Campaign | Gatukai Island, New Georgia | CPC]

• Richard Heppner arrived in India. ww2dbase [Richard Heppner | CPC]

• The 400-mph Macchi C.205V Veltro fighter made its combat debut when fifteen machines escorted a force of Italian Regia Aeronautica torpedo-bombers tasked to attack Allied warships bombarding the island of Pantelleria southwest of Sicily, Italy. ww2dbase [C.205 Veltro | Pantelleria, Sicilia | AC]

• USS Permit sank Japanese merchant ship Showa Maru and Soviet oceanographic vessel No. 20 off Hokkaido, Japan, hitting them with 3 of 10 torpedoes fired. ww2dbase [Permit | CPC]

• Eight US Army B-24 bombers from Midway made the first land-based air strike against Wake Atoll. ww2dbase [Midway Bases | Midway | TH, CPC]

8 Jul 1943 Interactive Map