Day 967 April 24, 1942

Siege of Leningrad Day 229. The Spring thaw finally makes the ice road across Lake Ladoga unusable. The Road of Life has operated for 152 days carrying over 100,000 tons of food and ammunition into the city and bringing out 440,000 civilians.

12 RAF Douglas DB-7 Boston bombers with fighter escort fly across the English Channel on a daylight raid on the docks at Flushing, The Netherlands. No aircraft are lost.

Burma. Japanese 18th Infantry Division advances 37 miles North from Kyidaunggan and captures Yamethin, 105 miles South of Mandalay. Their path to Mandalay is blocked by the Chinese 200th Infantry Division at Meiktila.

At 11.48 PM 280 miles Southeast of New York, U-136 sinks British MV Empire Drum carrying 6000 tons of military stores, including 1270 tons of explosives, from New York to Egypt. All 41 hands abandon ship in 4 lifeboats. Swedish MV Venezia rescues 14 men in one lifeboat on April 26. US destroyer USS Roper picks up 14 survivors on April 29 and 13 men on 1 May (only 15 miles from the US coast).

Overnight, RAF returns to Rostock. 91 aircraft target the town, causing much damage to the old wooden buildings with incendiary canisters. 34 bombers drop bombs in the vicinity of the Heinkel aircraft works but fail to hit any of the factory buildings. 1 Hampden is lost. For the second night, Luftwaffe aircraft bomb Exeter in Southwest England. This is the beginning of the Baedeker Blitz (bombing of British cultural and historic targets in retaliation for the bombing of Lübeck, Germany, on March 28).