Day 1090 August 25, 1942

Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Overnight, Japanese destroyers Kagero, Isokaze, Kawakaze, Mutsuki and Yayoi shell Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, shaking up the US Marines but causing little damage. Following the battle yesterday, Japanese believe 2 US carriers are badly damaged (in fact only USS enterprise is damaged), so they send the invasion convoy back towards Guadalcanal. At 6 AM, 6 Douglas SBD dive-bombers from Henderson Field find the convoy 150 miles North of Guadalcanal, sinking troop transport Kinryu Maru and damaging cruiser Jintsu (24 killed). 4 USAAF B-17 bombers from Espiritu Santo sink destroyer Mutsuki as she takes troops off Kinryu Maru (41 killed, 11 wounded). Destroyer Yayoi rescues survivors from both Kinryu Maru and Mutsuki. It is obvious the troop convoy cannot get through, so the invasion is postponed.

Between 1.30 – 2 AM in the North Atlantic midway between Ireland and Newfoundland, 14 U-boats of the Lohs Wolfpack attack convoy ONS-122, sinking 4 steamers (Norwegian SS Trolla and British SS Katvaldis, SS Sheaf Mount & SS Empire Breeze) as well as the unescorted Dutch MV Abbekerk which is in the same area. Convoy escorts launch several depth charge attacks which damage 8 U-boats but only U-174 and U-256 are forced to abort their patrols.

U-164 and U-558 attack convoy WAT-15 between Jamaica and Haiti, sinking Dutch SS Stad Amsterdam (3 killed, 35 survivors) and British SS Amakura (13 killed, 31 survivors).

20 miles southwest of Taiwan/Formosa, US submarine USS Growler sinks Japanese auxiliary gunboat Senyo Maru. 50 miles off the East coast of Borneo, USS Seawolf sinks the Japanese transport ship SS Showa Maru.

In the Indian Ocean 250 miles South of Ceylon, Japanese submarine I-165 sinks British SS Harmonides (14 crew killed).

Operation Wunderland. German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer (which left Narvik, Norway, on August 16 to seek Soviet warships sheltering in the Kara Sea) sinks Soviet ice-breaker Sibiyakov. Sibiyakov radios a distress signal, compromising the German misson.

Stalingrad. Richthofen’s Luftflotte 4 again pulverizes the city but probing attacks by German 6th Army into the Northern suburbs are held by counterattacks from Soviet 62nd and 64th Armies. Stalin decides that the city must be held at all costs; to avoid the impression that Stalingrad is being evacuated, no factories are to be destroyed or machinery removed. Tractor factories, converted to manufacture tanks, roll T-34s straight off the production line and into combat.

At 7.44 PM 160 miles South of Freetown, Sierra Leone, U-130 sinks British SS Viking Star (7 dead, 54 survivors reach land after 6 - 18 days).

At 10 PM 250 miles North of Norway in the Barents Sea, German minelayer Ulm runs into 3 British destroyers HMS Marne, Martin, and Onslaught, which sink Ulm with shellfire and a torpedo (80 killed). The destroyers rescue 61 before they are chased off by a German aircraft (leaving 40 crewmen in the water).

Invasion of Milne Bay, Papua. At 10.30 PM, 1000 Japanese SNLF troops land at Waga Waga on the North shore of Milne Bay with 2 Type 95 Ha-Go light tanks. 2 small boats carrying Australian troops are shot up by the Japanese (survivors of one boat take to the jungle on foot but 11 Australians in the other boat, Bronzewing, are either killed in the fighting or captured by the Japanese and murdered).