July 28th, 1942 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
Submarines HMS Unsparing and Unruly launched.
Corvette HMS Comfrey launched.
Sloop HMS Cygnet launched.
Frigate HMS Lagan launched.
Destroyer HMS Mahratta launched.
GERMANY: U-360, U-530 launched.
U.S.S.R.:
Stalin begins the implementation of measures to bolster the resistance of the Red Army. He grants higher status and authority to officers and strengthens disciplinary measures. This is order No. 227 (aka the "not one step back" order)Black Sea Fleet and Azov Flotilla: Shipping loss: MS "TSch-405 "Vzrivatel"" - by field artillery, close to Eupatoria (later raised) (Sergey Anisimov)(69)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Beaufort Ops.
NORTH AFRICA: US Army, Middle East Air Force (USAMEAF) B-17 Flying Fortresses hit Tobruk, Libya, during the night of 27/28 July, while B-24 Liberators attack a convoy in the Mediterranean, claiming hits on 2 merchant ships.
JAPAN: Imperial General Headquarters orders the
IJA and IJN to mount an all-out offensive to conquer the remaining Allied bases
in New Guinea.
SOUTH PACIFIC: The USN invasion fleet rendezvous in the Fiji Islands and holds amphibious landing rehearsals for the upcoming invasion of Guadalcanal.
AUSTRALIA: Major General George C
Kenney, commander-designate of Allied Air Forces,
Southwest Pacific Area, arrives in Australia from the U.S.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: The USAAF 11th Air Force flies an air coverage survey for Army ground operations to Adak and Tanaga Islands is flown. Weather cancels a bombing mission to Kiska Island.
U.S.A.: Four million Americans are now doing military service.
Heavy cruiser USS Baltimore launched.
Corvette USS Action launched.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0715, U-155 torpedoed and sank the Barbacena, because she was armed with one 12-cm gun.
At 2230, the unescorted Piave was hit by one torpedo from U-155 about 100 miles off Barbados and sunk by gunfire. The master was the only casualty.
MS Weirbank sunk by U-66 at 11.29N, 58.51W.
At 0800, U-754 began shelling the unescorted and unarmed MFV Ebb about 45 miles SE of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia from about 50 yards off the starboard quarter steering parallel to the trawler. The U-boat sank her with fifty 88-mm rounds and 20-mm gunfire, as the crew of four officers and 13 men abandoned ship in one lifeboat. The master and four men died and seven others were wounded. The surviving three officers and nine men were picked up by destroyer HMS Witherington 14 hours later and were taken to Boston.