Tuesday, November 16, 1943. An attempt on Hitler's life.

Major Axel von dem Bussche, a confederate of Claus von Stauffenberg, planned to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a concealed landmine which he planned to detonate while embracing Hitler during a viewing of a new winter uniform the striking looking Major would be modeling. The viewing was canceled when an Allied air raid in Berlin destroyed the rail car in which the new uniforms were contained.

Von dem Bussche was of German noble lineage, as the name indicated, and had turned against the Nazis after accidentally witnessing a 1942 massacre of Jews in Ukraine.  He volunteered to attempt the assassination again in 1944 and was set to do so when he was badly wounded on the Russian Front and had to have a leg amputated.  His being in the hospital at the time of the July 20 plot saved him from being a suspect in it.

An East Westphalian by birth, much of his ancestral holdings were in East Germany after the war, which required him to pursue a civilian career, which he in turn did.  After 1990, however, he was a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking their return, which failed.  His eldest daughter, however, has since bought the larger portions back from the Federal Republic of Germany.  He died in 1993 at the age of 73.

The Battle of Leros ended with an Allied surrender.  The Germans, however, had taken tremendous casualties in the effort, and were on the verge of calling the offensive off when the surrender came.

The British village of Tyneham in Dorset was ordered evacuated by the British War Department, which needed the grounds for a training area.  It remains a British military facility today.

The U.S. Army Air Force struck heavy water facilities at Rjukan and a molybdenum refinery at Knaben, damagign the German nuclear weapons effort.

USS Corvina.

The submarine USS Corvina was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-176, becoming the only U.S. submarine to be sunk by another submarine.

The I-176.

The I-176 was in turn sunk in June 1944.

The U-280 was sunk by a British B-24.

Saturday, November 13, 1943. Coconut Grove.

The Germans commenced a counterattack at Kyiv that would run for forty days.  The Red Army reached Zhytomyr which threatened the norther flank of German Army Group South.

The first XP-80 was completed.

Lulu Belle, the first XP-80.

The Kelly Johnson design would go into service in 1945, too late for the Second World War, but would see service in Korea, by which time it was already eclipsed by later designs.

The Battle of Coconut Grove commenced on Bougainville between Marine Corps elements and the Imperial Japanese Army.

On the same day, the third wave of the US invasion forced landed, which included the balance of the 37th Infantry Division and the 21st Marine Regiment.  The USS Denver was hit during the operation by a torpedo launched by a Japanese aircraft, rendering her incapable of operating under her own engines.

Gen. Mark Clark informed his superior Gen. Alexander that operations in Italy should be halted temporarily.

The Japanese I-34 was sunk by the British submarine Taurus off of the Strait of Malacca.

HMSM Taurus.

The HMS Dulverton was scuttled after being hit by a HS 293 glide bombs off of Leros.

Friday, November 12, 1943. The Germans land on Leros.

 The Germans invaded Leros in the Aegean's/

German paratroopers preparing to board for drop on Leros.  By Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-527-2348-21 / Bauer / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5412561

We tend not to think of the Germans engaging in offensive operations this late in the war, but they did, of which this was a successful example. After four days of fighting, they'd take the island from its British, Italian and Greek defenders.  The island had been occupied by a reduced British force as the Italians, during their Axis period, had heavy fortified the port facilities. The US had not approved of the British, i.e. Churchill, focus on the Aegean, so it had not participated with the British in the occupation of various Aegean islands, including this one.

According to some, the novel The Guns of Navarone is based contextually on the Battle of Leros, but I don't see that really.

Leros is extremely close to Turkey. So much so, that it's a bit amazing that the island wasn't transferred to the Turks in 1923.  It has a Greek population, but it became an Italian possession in 1912 following the Italo Turkish War, one of the pre World War One wars that's nearly wholly forgotten now, leading to the commonly cited falsehood that Europe had been "at peace for fifty years" prior to World War One breaking out.  It was annexed by Italy in 1923.  It became a Greek possession at the end of World War Two.

The Allies won the Battle of Treasury Island in the Solomon's.

The Japanese bombed Darwin, Australia for the last time.

Remaining Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft are withdrawn from Rabaul. The overwhelming majority had already been lost.

The Allies bombed Arezzo, Italy, for the first time.

Franklin Roosevelt left for the Tehran Conference on board the USS Iowa.

Women in Lebanon turned out in the streets in favor of their deposed government.

The U-508 was sunk in the Bay of Biscay by a US B-24.

Dauntless above the USS Washington, flying a mission in support of landings in the Gilberts.