The destroyer USS Reuben James has been torpedoed and sunk near Iceland while on convoy duty, becoming the first US Navy vessel lost in the war.

U-boats have targeted two other American warships in the same area recently, with one evading attack and the other sustaining damage.

While British sources say the sinking of the Reuben James will hasten America’s entrance into the war, President Roosevelt said the loss was a foreseeable consequence of the Atlantic convoy system and will not change US neutrality.

In the East, German forces are assaulting the Russian city of Tula, located 110 miles south of Moscow.

They have also entered Crimea for an anticipated assault on the Soviet Black Sea fleet.

Meanwhile, heavy fighting rages between Soviet defenders and German assault forces in Rostov, in southern Russia, a city which serves as the gateway to the oil fields of the Caucasus Mountains.

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