Day 988 May 15, 1942

British cruiser HMS Trinidad is scuttled in the Barents Sea 170 miles North of Norway, to prevent further attacks on the stationary cruiser and her destroyer escort after being hit several times yesterday by German dive bombers and torpedo bombers (63 killed). After the crew is taken off by destroyers HMS Matchless, Foresight and Forester, the burning wreck of HMS Trinidad is sunk at dawn by 3 torpedoes from HMS Matchless.

At 2.54 AM 420 miles Northeast of Barbados, U-156 sinks Norwegian MV Siljestad (2 killed). At 3 PM, Yugoslavian SS Kupa stops to pick up 31 survivors in 2 lifeboats and is promptly sunk by U-156 at 9 PM (2 more killed). All 31 from MV Siljestad in their 2 lifeboats and 39 Yugoslavs from SS Kupa in 2 more lifeboats make land after 5 - 10 days in Barbados and Venezuela.

German 11th Army forces the last Soviet troops off the Kerch peninsula linking Crimea to the Caucasus. Soviet losses in the campaign to relieve Sevastopol are 190,000 men killed or captured plus 417 aircraft and several hundred tanks and artillery pieces captured or destroyed. Germans have 12,400 casualties but capture 220 Soviet field guns and 170 tanks. Further North around Kharkov, the Soviet offensive is running out of steam. Soviet attacks continue but meet stiffer German resistance on the ground and overwhelming superiority in the air.

German cruiser Lutzow, returning to service following torpedo damage from British torpedo bombers on June 12 1940, sails from Kiel, Germany, for Ofotfjord in Northern Norway to threaten Allied convoys to USSR.

Australian Sparrow Force on the island of Timor conducts a guerilla raid on Japanese barracks at Dili, Portuguese Timor.

In Zhejiang-Jiangxi region of China, 180,000 Japanese troops (China Expeditionary Force), on a punitive campaign in response to the landing here of some US Doolittle Raiders, clashes with 300,000 poorly-equipped Chinese 3rd War Area troops.

Having marched through Northern Burma on foot, British Burma Corps, commanded by General “Hap” Alexander, reaches Imphal in the state of Manipur in Northeast India. US General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell and his headquarters group also arrive in India. Monsoon season halts the chasing Japanese on the Chindwin River in Burma.