Friday, November 26, 1943. The sinking of the HMT Rohna.

The HMT Rohna was struck by a HS-293 guided bomb and sank, killing 481 officers men in the initial explosion and 534 who subsequently drowned.  Details of the death of the 1,015 men off of the coast of North Africa were not released until after the war.

HMT Rohna.

Yank published "Jungle Mop Up" in its November 26, 1943 edition, with photographs of combat on the Islands of Arundel and Sagekasa in the New Georgia Group.

Wounded, now dead, Japanese soldier left by withdrawing comrades

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Company commander spotting artillery fire on mortar fire.

U.S. machine gun crew with M1919 machine gun.

The Red Army took Gomel, Belarus.

Medal of Honor winner and the Navy's first ace of World War Two, Lieutenant Commander Edward Henry O'Hare, failed to return from a combat mission, being a casualty of it.

A 7.2 magnitude earthquake resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in Turkey.

The MGM hit musical comedy Girl Crazy was released.

September 21, 1943. The Massacre of the Acqui Division.

The German Army, starting on this day, and running through September 26, murdered 5,000 Italian soldiers on the Greek Island of Cephalonia.

Proceeding the disaster had been a period of indecision by the Italians on whether to resist the Germans or not.  The Allies were reluctant to allow the Italians to use aircraft that were in the area, and therefore the Italians did not have air cover.  Ultimately, the Italian soldiers did resist and an unsuccessful battle broke out.  On September 18 that "because of the perfidious and treacherous behavior on Cephalonia, no prisoners are to be taken."  A group of Bavarian soldiers objected and were threatened with summary execution.

The Red Army captured Demidov.

Sarah Sundin notes:

Today in World War II History—September 21, 1943: 80 Years Ago—Sept. 21, 1943: In the Solomon Islands, US secures Arundel and Wana Wana. Soviets cross the Dnieper River south of Kiev, Ukraine.

Kate Smith appeared for a continuous 18 hours on the CBS Radio Network, starting at 8:00 a.m. in a bond drive.  85,000,000 listeners tuned in and $39,000,000 was raised.

Friday, August 27, 1943. Wunderwaffe, French arrests, the 43d Infantry at Arundel, Red Army at Kotleva and Sevsk, USS Eldridge doesn't disappear.

A German Henschel Hs 293 struck and sank the HMS Egret in the first successful anti shipping guided missile strike in history.

German Wunderwaffe were beginning to come online.

Former French President Albert Lebrun was arrested by the Gestapo, as was André François-Poncet, the former French ambassador to Germany.  Lebrun would survive the war, albeit in ill health, and breifly maintain to DeGaulle that he remained head of state, which DeGaulle ignored and which was legally incorrect in any event.  François-Poncet would as well, and would repreise his pre-war role as ambassador to West Germany.

Insignia of the island hopping 43d Infantry Division. The 43d was a unit made up of mobilized National  Guardsmen from New England.  It was inactivated as a unit in 1963.

Elements of the US 43d Infantry Division landed on the Nauro Peninsula on Arundel in the Solomon's without opposition.

Unless you are exceptionally well versed on the war in the Pacific, you probably are unaware of this action, but it fit into many such forgotten landings by the Army and the Marine Corps during the war.

The Red Army retook Kotleva and Sevsk.

Following up on the US and British example, the Soviet Union and China gave limited recognition to the French Committee of National Liberation.

The USS Eldridge was commissioned. The Eldridge is famous for being part of a 1950s vintage hoax, in which merchant seaman Carl Meredith Allen fairly successfully convinced people that the ship had been made to disappear as part of a dangerous naval experiment during World War Two. There are people who still believe the hoax.