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• 8 B-24 Liberator and 2 B-17 Flying Fortress bombers of US 11th Air Force were launched to attack Japanese positions on Kiska, Aleutian Islands. Only 8 reached Kiska, and due to fog only 7 bombs were dropped. 1 B-24 bomber became missing on the return flight. ww2dbase [Kiska | CPC]

• German submarine U-505 sank Colombian sail boat Urious with her deck gun 100 miles east of Nicaragua at 1335 hours; 13 were killed. ww2dbase [Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico Campaigns | Caribbean Sea | CPC]
• German submarine U-582 sank unarmed US ship Honolulan 500 miles west of Freetown, British West Africa between 2012 and 2040 hours. All 39 aboard survived; the German submarine crew gave the survivors two boxes of cigarettes before departing. ww2dbase [Second Happy Time | CPC]
• German Type IXC U-Boat U-505 shelled and sunk the Columbian 3-masted schooner Urious in the Caribbean off the coast of Nicaragua. 13 were killed and the number of survivors, if any, is not known. This vessel was owned by a Columbian diplomat and its sinking was the political grounds Columbia used to declare war on Germany. ww2dbase [U-505 | Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico Campaigns | Caribbean Sea | DS]

• Japanese submarine I-11 torpedoed US Liberty Ship William Dawes 185 south of Sydney, Australia 5 miles from the coast line at 0530 hours, killing 5; William Dawes would finally sink at 1630 hours along with her full cargo of military vehicles and explosives. ww2dbase [CPC]
• USS S-41 departed Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, starting her fourth war patrol. ww2dbase [S-41 | Brisbane, Queensland | CPC]

• USS S-43 embarked Flight Officer Cecil John Trevelyan Mason of the Royal Australian Air Force in the Feni Islands; Mason had been put ashore to make contact with friendly agents, but had failed to find them. ww2dbase [S-43 | Feni Islands | CPC]

• Troops of the Japanese South Seas Detachment began to march across the Kokoda Trail from Buna toward Port Moresby in Australian Papua. USAAF B-17, B-25, and B-26 bombers, escorted by P-39 and P-4000 fighters and supported by RAAF P-40 fighters, in five separate attacks, targeted Japanese shipping in the area, damaging transport Ayatosan Maru and killing 16 men aboard destroyer Uzuki. After dark, Australian Lieutenant John Chalk led a small contingent of natives in small engagements with Japanese soldiers before falling back. ww2dbase [New Guinea-Papua Campaign, Phase 2 | Buna | CPC]

• Deportation of Belgian Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland began. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | TH]

• Canadian Navy purchased a ship in seaworthy but otherwise poor condition from the Union Trading Company, Limited of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The ship would become the patrol vessel HMCS Western Maid. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Minesweeper HMCS Middlesex was launched Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada. ww2dbase [CPC]
• The keel of corvette USS Pert was laid down by the Morton Engineering and Dry Dock Company, Limited in Quebec, Canada. ww2dbase [Quebec | CPC]

• Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru departed Surabaya, Java. ww2dbase [Hikawa Maru | Surabaya, Java | CPC]

• German tanks counterattacked the positions gained by the latest Allied offensive in Egypt, inflicting heavy losses among New Zealand troops. By the time the British 23rd Armoured Brigade arrived, it was bogged down by a minefield as it engaged in battle with German tanks; when the engagement ended, the brigade was practically wiped out. ww2dbase [First Battle of El Alamein | El Alamein | CPC]
• In the western desert in Egypt, Australian Private Arthur Gurney won a posthumous Victoria Cross for taking two enemy positions despite being blown up by a grenade. During an attack on a third position he was cut down and killed. ww2dbase [AC]
• Australian Private Arthur Stanley Gurney personally attacked and overtook several enemy machine gun positions at Tel-el-Eisa, Egypt before being struck down and killed. He would be awarded the Victoria Cross medal posthumously. ww2dbase [Tel-el-Eisa | CPC]

• General der Artillerie Robert Martinek succeeded August Krakau as the commanding officer of the German 7th Mountain Division stationed in Finland. ww2dbase [CPC]

• German submarine U-639 was launched. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German submarine U-665 was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [CPC]

• B-24 bombers of US Middle East Air Force attacked Suda Bay, Crete, Greece, damaging two German vessels. ww2dbase [Suda Bay, Crete | CPC]

• Two transports with the final elements of the US 1st Marine Division departed from Pearl Harbor for New Zealand aboard 12 ships. ww2dbase [Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]

• The Japanese Imperial General Headquarters agreed to the study of a follow-up to the conquest of Burma with an invasion of Assam, India to be called Operation 21. The plan involved two divisions moving through the Hukawng valley in northern Burma, two taking Imphal, and a fifth capturing Chittagong. The plan was dropped, however, after opposition from Generals Renya Mutaguchi (18th Division), Yanagida Motozo (33rd Division) and Shojiro Iidas (55th Division). ww2dbase [AC]

• B-17 bombers of US Middle East Air Force attacked Tobruk, Libya. ww2dbase [Tobruk | CPC]

• German submarine U-77 sank Greek sailboat Vassiliki with her deck gun in the eastern Mediterranean Sea at 0453 hours; all aboard survived. ww2dbase [CPC]

• US 1st Marine Division set sail from Wellington, New Zealand for Koro island, Fiji. ww2dbase [Wellington | CPC]

• At a meeting of the Judenrat, the Jewish Council which the Germans had set up to relay their orders to the people of the ghetto, SS Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle, the Resettlement Commissar, announced that all Jews living in Warsaw, Poland, regardless of age or sex, were to hold themselves in readiness for "resettlement on the east", ie. deportation. It was an order without appeal. For nine weeks the Ghetto Jews were herded onto cattle trucks and transported to Belzec and Treblinka Concentration Camps, where, on arrival, they were marched to the gas chambers and killed in their thousands. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Treblinka Concentration Camp | Warsaw | TH, AC]
• Germans who attempted to liquidate the Nieswiez ghetto in occupied Poland (now Nesvizh, Belarus) encountered armed resistance. ww2dbase [Nieswiez, Nowogródek | CPC]

• Japanese ship Asama Maru landed 800 Americans civilians at Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), Mozambique; 377 of them had been most recently held at the Stanley Internment Camp in Hong Kong. On the same day, Italian ship Conte Verde also arrived at Lourenço Marques, landing 600 American civilians from Shanghai, China. They were part of an internee exchange program with the United States. ww2dbase [Asama Maru | Lourenço Marques | CPC]

• German 6th Army reached the great bend in the Don River near Stalingrad, Russia. ww2dbase [Battle of Stalingrad | Stalingrad | CPC]
• German 1st Panzer Army and 17th Army attacked Rostov-on-Don, Russia; among the attacking division was the Czechoslovakian Mobile Slovak Division. ww2dbase [Caucasus Campaign | Rostov-on-Don, Rostov | CPC]

• British minesweeper HMS Dornoch was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [CPC]

• The United States implemented a gasoline rationing scheme. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Submarine USS Blackfish was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [Blackfish | CPC]
• Destroyer USS Radford was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [CPC]
• The keel of submarine USS Dace was laid down by the Electric Boat Company at Groton, Connecticut, United States. ww2dbase [Electric Boat Company | Dace | Groton, Connecticut | CPC]
• The keel of destroyer USS Sigsbee was laid down. ww2dbase [CPC]
• The keel of minesweeper USS Pheasant was laid down. ww2dbase [CPC]

22 Jul 1942 Interactive Map