It was a Saturday, and all the Saturday magazines were out. As we're dealing with 1943, they're still protected by copyright. They all featured Thanksgiving themes, but the most recalled is that of the Saturday Evening Post, which featured a Rockwell with a picture of an Italian girl praying near rubble, wearing the wool mackinaw of an American Army 1st Sergeant.
The US, China, and UK agreed to the release of the Cairo Declaration. It stated:
The several military missions have agreed upon future military operations against Japan. The Three Great Allies expressed their resolve to bring unrelenting pressure against their brutal enemies by sea, land, and air. This pressure is already rising.
The Three Great Allies are fighting this war to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan. They covet no gain for themselves and have no thought of territorial expansion. It is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China. Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed. The aforesaid three great powers, mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent.
With these objects in view the three Allies, in harmony with those of the United Nations at war with Japan, will continue to persevere in the serious and prolonged operations necessary to procure the unconditional surrender of Japan.
Included in the "rising pressure" that declaration referenced were actions on New Guinea, where on this day the Australians, who didn't get a seat at the table in the Cairo Conference, began an armored supported advance at Wareo.
The Australian Army was using the Matilda tank, which had been a disappointment elsewhere, to great effect in New Guinea. Its use took the Japanese by surprise.
The campaign in New Guinea, one of the major ones of the war against Japan, which was heavily borne by the Australian Army, went on until the Japanese surrender. It was like the Marine action at Bougainville, albeit on a much larger scale, that way.
The Army-Navy Game was played at West Point. Navy beat Army 13 to 0.
Angelo Bertelli was awarded the Heisman Trophy for his performance as Notre Dame's quarterback. He was in Marine Corps bootcamp at the time.
Badly wounded as a Marine Corps officer on Iwo Jima, his football career in the NFL was short after the war, ending in 1948. His Marine Corps career lasted longer, as he remained in the reserves until 1957. He died of brain cancer at age 78 in 1999.
As playing for Notre Dame would indicate at the time, Bertelli was Catholic and the child of Italian immigrants.
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