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• Adolf Hitler approved the plan to convert the captured and incomplete French cruiser De Grasse into a light aircraft carrier. ww2dbase [De Grasse | CPC]

• Ariake and Yugure arrived at Shortland Islands, Solomon Islands at 0530 hours. At 1100 hours, Yugure, Naganami, and Makinami departed Shortland Islands to serve as escort for a group of seven destroyers carrying supply drums for Tassafaronga Point, Guadalcanal. ww2dbase [Guadalcanal Campaign | Yugure | Shortland Islands | CPC]

• S-36 departed Cavite Navy Yard, Luzon, Philippine Islands at 0100 hours for what would become her first war patrol. She sailed north and entered Bolinao harbor at 1930 hours. ww2dbase [S-36 | Cavite City, Cavite | CPC]

• Approximately 300 Jewish prisoners from the Sonderkommando who dug up and burned the 107,000 bodies buried in mass graves were taken from Auschwitz II-Birkenau to the main camp by SS guards. They were led to the gas chamber in Crematorium I and killed. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Auschwitz Concentration Camp | Oswiecim | CPC]

• In southern Russia, German Armeegruppe Don received several divisions from Western Europe in preparation for the relief operation against Stalingrad, Russia, Operation Winter Tempest. ww2dbase [Battle of Stalingrad | TH]
• In Stalingrad, Russia, after fierce hand-to–hand fighting, Soviet forces capture the L-shaped House where the Germans had been overlooking the Soviet positions along the Volga River for many weeks. ww2dbase [Battle of Stalingrad | Stalingrad | AC]

• British 2nd Parachute Battalion reached Ksar Tyr, Tunisia. ww2dbase [Advance into Tunisia | Ksar Tyr | CPC]

• All remaining ships of Allied convoy QP-15 arrived at Loch Ewe, Scotland, United Kingdom. ww2dbase [Arctic Convoys | Loch Ewe, Scotland | CPC]

• USS St. Louis departed San Francisco, California escorting a convoy bound for Nouméa, New Caledonia. ww2dbase [St. Louis | San Francisco, California | DS]

3 Dec 1942 Interactive Map