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WWII On This Day: October 16

What happened on October 16 during World War II? This date brings together 5 events from 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1940
German Type IXA submarine U-37 in dock at Lorient in 1940 after the French Atlantic ports became U-boat bases.
Mannewitz · Bundesarchiv Bild 101II-MW-1032-11A · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE
The Happy Time and the Wolfpacks

SC 7 is broken apart

Slow convoy SC 7 was found on 16 October and progressively surrounded as additional U-boats reached the contact. By the end of the battle twenty merchant ships had been sunk and six damaged, a catastrophic loss for a convoy that had sailed with thirty ships. The escorts were not simply absent. Sloops and corvettes were present, but the convoy had become disordered in bad weather and several submarines attacked at night from the surface. U-99, U-46, U-48, U-100 and other boats could make separate penetrations faster than the escorts could…

1941
Citizens of Leningrad queueing for water during the siege.
Leningraders queueing for water during the siege · RIA Novosti archive image 907 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
The Siege of Leningrad

The Tikhvin offensive threatens the Ladoga lifeline

Army Group North opened the drive toward Tikhvin and the lower Svir from the Volkhov sector, extending the fighting east of Leningrad. The advance threatened the railway feeding the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga and aimed toward a junction with Finnish-held territory, placing the city's remaining supply system under direct operational pressure.

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1942
A destitute mother and child on a Calcutta pavement during the Bengal famine of 1943-44.
Kalyani Bhattacharyee and Manoj Sarbadhikar / Bengal Speaks, Servants of Bengal Society · Public domain
World War II Famines

A cyclone strikes Bengal's rice-growing coast

A severe cyclone and tidal surge struck the Bengal coast around Contai and Midnapore, killing thousands, destroying stored food and damaging the aman rice crop. Flooding was followed by conditions favourable to brown-spot disease, worsening losses in the crucial winter harvest. The storm was a real supply shock, not a complete explanation of the famine. Its effects became lethal in combination with lost Burmese imports, wartime inflation, market failure, transport disruption, procurement problems and an inadequate relief response.

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1944
Infantrymen of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division rest on a slope in the Hürtgen Forest on 18 November 1944.
U.S. Army Signal Corps / National Archives · 18 November 1944 · Public domain · Source
Aachen and the Hürtgen Forest

Aachen is encircled

The 30th and 1st Infantry Divisions finally made contact north-east of the city. German armoured reserves had been committed in repeated attempts to keep the corridor open, but the American link sealed the garrison inside Aachen. On the same date the 9th Division's October forest attack ended far short of Schmidt. It had advanced about 3,000 yards and lost approximately 4,500 men.

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LVT-4 Alligator amphibious vehicles pass Terrapin amphibious vehicles near Terneuzen during the Battle of the Scheldt, 13 October 1944.
Department of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada · 13 October 1944 · Public domain in Canada · Source
The Battle of the Scheldt

Woensdrecht falls and the isthmus is sealed

Canadian troops secured Woensdrecht on 16 October after two weeks of fighting around the ridge and the approaches to the South Beveland isthmus. German movement by road between the islands and the mainland was now severely constrained. On the same day Montgomery issued the directive giving the Scheldt complete priority within 21st Army Group, linking the local Canadian battle to a wider shift in Allied operational priorities.

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