Tuesday, July 7, 1942. The sinking of the U-701.

Heinrich Himmler authorized sterilization experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz, increasing Nazi barbarity to new perverse levels.

It's hard to appreciate how deeply weird the Nazis truly were.  As their reign expanded, and authority deepened, they not only turned to greater levels of killing, but also acts that were more and more perverse on every level.

The U-701 was sunk by a Lockheed Hudson off of Cape Hatteras.  This was noted by Sara Sundin in her blog, in which she stated:

Today in World War II History—July 7, 1942: US Army Air Force opens Wideawake Field on Ascension Island. US Army Air Force sinks its first submarine off the US East Coast.

Seven men survived the sinking, including the captain, and were picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard.  Seventeen has escaped the submarine through the conning tower, of which ten died before being rescued.  Another 29 went down with the ship.

While I haven't been noting it, while the Germans were losing submarines in this period, they were also commissioning new ones almost every day.  An outside observer would have real reason at this point to ask who was winning the war.  Having said that, the human toll of submarine losses, which would ultimately be over 50,000 for the Germans, was truly horrific.

On that topic, the U-457 sank the British fleet oiler FRA Alderdale which had been part of the embattled convoy PQ 17.  It had been disabled and abandoned two days prior.  The U-355 sank the SS Hartlebury. The U-255 sank the SS Alcoa Ranger.  PQ 17 was becoming a major naval disaster.

The U-571 sank the SS Umtata off of Miami.  It was under tow for repairs at the time.

Sundin also noted the item about Wideawake Field on Ascension Island and has a further website entry on that here:

 Of Terns and Planes: While the armies of democracy battled the armies of totalitarianism, a smaller battle raged between US Army Engineers and a little bird called the sooty tern.

Ascension Island figured most recently in wartime in the Falklands War, when the British, whose possession it is, used it as a military staging area.   The United Kingdom continues to maintain communications installations there.  During World War Two the use of the island by the Air Force was able to extend the range of airborne protection to convoys on the southern route in the Atlantic.

Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King, in a debate in the Canadian parliament on manpower, stated that the government's policy was "not necessarily conscription, but conscription if necessary".