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• British submarine HMS Regent sank Italian ship Maria Grazia 10 miles off of Bari, Italy by ramming. ww2dbase [CPC]
• US Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox ordered all organized reserve divisions and aviation squadrons of the US Marine Corps to be on call for active duty. ww2dbase [CPC]
• The US Marine Corps organized the Air Detachment, Marine Barracks, Parris Island in South Carolina, United States; it would later be renamed Marine Corps Air Station, Parris Island. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Hauptmann Helmut Wick, the Gruppenkommandeur of 1/JG 2, claimed the destruction of five RAF fighters in one day. This took his overall total to 41. ww2dbase [AC]

• Italian submarine Nani sank British trawler HMT Kingston Sapphire 20 miles south of Cádiz, Spain; 3 were killed and the remaining rescued by a Spanish trawler. ww2dbase [First Happy Time | CPC]
• British submarine HMS Tigris spotted a group of Axis warships (Italian submarine Maggiore Baracca, Italian submarine Reginaldo Giuliani, German minesweeper M-9, German minesweeper M-13, and German auxiliary Cap Hadid) and fired four torpedoes at the distance of about 2,500 yards, about 20 miles west of the French coast at 0815 hours. All torpedoes missed the targets, but two of the torpedoes were detonated some distance after missing the targets. British commanding officer Lieutenant Commander Howard Bone had originally mistaken one of the German ships as a third submarine, thus even though all four torpedoes missed, having seeing only two submarines after the detonations Bone thought he had destroyed one enemy submarine. Maggiore Baracca arrived at Pauillac, France in the evening, ending her first war patrol. ww2dbase [Reginaldo Giuliani | Maggiore Baracca | M13 | First Happy Time | M9 | CPC]

• Communist Chinese New 4th Army counterattacked and defeated Nationalist Chinese troops at Huangqiao ("Yellow Bridge"), Jiangsu Province, China, capturing great quantities of weapons and ammunition. ww2dbase [Battle of Huangqiao | Huangqiao, Jiangsu | CPC]

• Luigi Torelli arrived at Bordeaux, France. ww2dbase [Luigi Torelli | Bordeaux, Aquitaine | CPC]
• Capitano Tarantini arrived at Bordeaux, France. ww2dbase [Capitano Tarantini | Bordeaux, Aquitaine | CPC]
• Comandante Faà di Bruno departed Pauillac, Aquitaine, France in the morning and arrived at Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France at 1300 hours. ww2dbase [Comandante Faà di Bruno | Pauillac, Aquitaine | CPC]

• Between 0930 and 1600 hours, 4 German raids of mainly fighters attacked southern England, United Kingdom. At 2035 hours, the Royal Navy base at Portland was bombed. The Germans lost 2 bombers and 20 fighters, while the British lost 9 fighters with 2 pilots killed. Overnight, London suffered a heavy raid which started a large fire at the West India Dock on the River Thames in the East End area of the city. ww2dbase [Battle of Britain | England | CPC]

• Henry Arnold submitted a proposal for the reorganization of US Army air units to US Army Chief of Staff George Marshall; the proposal called for a separate staff for air apart from the ground and supply units. ww2dbase [Henry Arnold | CPC]

5 Oct 1940 Interactive Map