Friday, December 31, 1943. New Years Eve

 

No ball was dropped in Times Square for the second year in a row.

With a strange mixture of abandon and restraint, San Francisco accorded 1943 a reasonable facsimile of the traditional year-end sendoff last night, and then settled back for a more or less sober inspection of A. D. 1944.

San Francisco Examiner.

Friday, given the nature of the celebrations of New Years, is a particularly good day for the end of the year to fall on.

Not everyone was celebrating:

Photo of a U.S air raid on a ball bearing plant near Paris, December 31, 1943.

Today in World War II History—December 31, 1943: The US Victory Book Campaign closes due to inefficiency of the program and to the publication of the Armed Services Editions books.

A remarkable entry by Sarah Sundin.

She also notes:

The Marines secured an airfield on Cape Gloucester; and

The commissioning of the USS Cassin Young, which is a museum ship today (photo on blog included).  Ms. Sundin, it should be noted, has an article on museum destroyers.  I'd like to visit one.  I've been on battleships and submarines, but not destroyers.

Hitler delivered a New Year's message to the Germans admitting that the Third Reich had suffered heavy reverses in and that the upcoming year would require more, and in fact would approach the crisis level.  He also noted that the Allies would land on the Atlantic Coast.

It's often noted, and apparently correctly, that the German people didn't really appreciate the dire circumstances they were in until January 1945.  While that seems to be true, it's hard to understand, given that they were certainly getting lots of bad news, in this case even from the very top.

It should be noted that the concluding year, 1943, was the one in which not only did German battlefield fortunes begin to massively decline, but that an accompanying massive expansion of the Holocaust began.

In preparation for those landings, Field Marshall Rommel was inspecting fortifications on the coast of Northern France.

Douglas MacArthur visited troops under his command, including this group of Native American soldiers.

From left: Staff Sergeant Virgil Brown (Pima), First Sergeant Virgil F. Howell (Pawnee), Staff Sergeant Alvin J. Vilcan (Chitimacha), General MacArthur, Sergeant Byron L. Tsingine (Diné [Navajo]), Sergeant Larry Dekin (Diné [Navajo]).

Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee broadcast a New Years Eve message to the British people promising that the "hour of reckoning" had come for Germany, but also warning that 1944 would involve heavy sacrifice.

The Red Army captured Zhytomyr.

Argentina's President, Gen. Pedro Ramirez, dissolved political parties and restored the requirement of Roman Catholic education in all Argentine public schools.

Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (John Denver) was born in Rosewell, New Mexico.

Sub Lt. G.C. Morris flying Spitfire P8537 of 761 Squadron attempting land on HMS Ravager without a tail wheel - New Year's Eve 1943.

Monday, December 27, 1943. Seizing the railroads, again.

People like to imagine that World War Two was a period in which the whole country simply pulled together for the war effort, and we put our differences behind us.

Well, to some extent, but not as much as imagined.

On this day in 1943 President Roosevelt seized the nation's railroads by executive order in advance of a strike scheduled for December 30.  The Army took control of the rail lines.

This had last happened on December 26, 1917, for the same reason.

The Battle of the Pimple commenced on New Guinea between the Japanese and the advancing Australians.

Allied advances stopped at Monte Cassino.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 27: 1943  The USS Casper, a Tacoma Class frigate, launched.

The Americans extended their beachhead at Cape Gloucester with the Japanese offering little resistance.

The German blockade runner Alsterufer was sunk by Allied aircraft in the Bay of Biscay.