Saturday, January 8, 1944. P-80 takes flight, Wilson takes command.

Bomb being loaded on carrier, January 8, 1944.

Today in World War II History—January 8, 1944: First flight of US Lockheed XP-80 Shooting Star jet fighter at Muroc Army Air Base, CA, but it won’t be ready for combat until the war is over.

Sarah Sundin.

Yesterday we reported on the P59.  As can be seen from her entry above, already a much better jet fighter was coming up. 

1,715 of the fighters would be produced in various versions before production was ceased, the design having been eclipsed, in 1950.  It would see action in the Korean War, although there were better jet fighter designs already in service.  It would be phased out of US service in 1959, by which time it was very obsolete.

Wilson, left, with Sir Oliver Lease.

She also reports that Gen. Sir Henry Maitland Wilson officially replaced Dwight Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean.

Jumbo Wilson, as he was nicknamed, was a British career soldier who as 63 years old at the time.  He had seen combat service before World War Two in the Boer War and the Great War.  He'd live until 1964, dying at age 83.

The Red Army took Kirovohrad, Ukraine.  In night operations, the Red Army's 67th Tank Brigade hit the headquarters of the German 47th Panzer Corps. The raid featured tank riders.

The Italian Social Republic put the 19 members of the Fascist Grand Council, six of whom were in their custody, on trail for voting to remove Mussolini.  Five of the six in custody would be found guilty and executed on January 11.

I can't help but note how authoritarian losers like to put those who voted against them on trial. . . a warning for voters this fall on what could happen with a Trump return.

The U-426 was sunk in the Bay of Biscay by a RAAF Short Sunderland.  The U-757 was sunk in the North Atlantic by the HMS Bayntun and the Canadian corvette Camrose.

The U.S. Navy bombarded Japanese installations on Shortland Island in the Solomons.

Royal Navy Radio receiving room, Algeria, January 8, 1944.

Christmas Day, 1943.

1st Marine convoy en route for invasion of Cape Gloucester, New Britain.

Raids on Berlin by the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Force were temporarily halted.  The Luftwaffe likewise conducted no raids on the United Kingdom.

Sixty-four prisoners tunneled out of the Ninth Fort in Lithuania.  The facility housed mostly Lithuanian Jews.  About half would be recaptured by mid-January.

U.S. Task Force 50.2 raided Kavieng, New Guinea, with aircraft, sinking a Japanese transport ship.

The Scharnhorst departed northern Norway to attack Convoy JW-55B.

The epic The Song of Bernadette was released.

The film tells the story of St. Bernadette Soubirous, the French peasant woman who saw the Virgin Mary at Lourdes.

Attending movies at Christmas, and even on Christmas Day, is a tradition with a lot of people, although I've never done it.  

Christmas service on USS Card, December 25, 1943.

USS Brooklyn (CL 40), galley, Christmas morning, 1943.  Malta.

Thursday, December 23, 1943. Moving toward railroad seizure.

The Great Hall of Union Station, Toronto, Canada, December 23, 1943.

Three out of five railroad unions rejected Franklin Roosevelt's offer of arbitration in their wage dispute.

Accordingly, President Roosevelt ordered Attorney General Francis Biddle to being the process of seizing the railroads effective December 30.

The Red Army prevailed in the Battle of the Dnieper.

The Canadian 1st Division seized most of Ortona.  Other 8th Army elements captured Arielli.

The HMS Worcester hit a mine in the North Sea and was rendered a loss.

Tuesday, December 21, 1943. Arrests of the former Vichy officials.

Pierre-Étienne Flandin, a former Prime Minister of France, and briefly Premier of Vichy France, was arrested in Algiers along with former Vichy Interior Minister Marcel Peyrouton, former Vichy Information Secretary Pierre Tixler-Vignacourt, member of parliament André Albert, and Pierre François Boisson, the Vichy Governor-General of French West Africa.

Flandin had been a French pilot during World War One.

Albert had been serving with the Free French forces since June 1943, after he had fled from Vichy.

They would all survive their arrests and falls from grace.

The U-284 was scuttled by the Germans after it received storm damage southeast of Greenland.

Monday, December 13, 1943. The Kalavryta Massacre.

The German 117th Jäger Division destroyed Kalavryta, Greece and killed 460 adult men of the town.  We noted this event a few days back.  It was a reprisal for partisan activity.

1,462 U.S. bombers carpet bombed Bremen, Hamburg and Kiel.  P-51Ds are used as escorts for the first time in the raid.

The U-172, U-391 and U-593 were sunk.

Tuesday, November 9, 1943. Humanitarian Efforts.

The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was created 

Senate Resolution 203 was introduced, calling for the Federal Government to come up with a plant to save "the surviving Jewish people of Europe from extinction."  House Resolutions 350 and 352 were passed calling for the creation of an agency to resettle those survivors to neutral nations.

Marines on Bougainville, November 1943.

The U.S. Marines prevailed in the Battle for Piva Trail.  The 3d Marine Division advanced off the beachhead at Cape Tarokina.  The U.S. Army's 37th Division began landing on the island.

Gen. Giraud and Gen. Georges resigned from the Free French Committee of National Liberation.  Giraud remained its militar commander in chief.

The U-707 was sunk near the Azores by an RAF B-17.

Saturday, November 6, 1943. The Red Army retakes Kiev

Today in World War II History—November 6, 1943: Hitler names Field Marshal Albert Kesselring commander of all German forces in Italy. Submarine USS Pampanito is commissioned at Portsmouth Navy Yard, NH.

Sarah Sundin.

The Pampanito is now in San Francisco and may be toured.  Well worth doing.

The Red Army took Kiev.  Most of the German forces successfully withdrew and avoided capture.

The Greater East Asia Conference, a conference of Japan and its puppet states, concluded and issues a final declaration, which stated:

It is the basic principle for the establishment of world peace that the nations of the world have each its proper place, and enjoy prosperity in common through mutual aid and assistance.

The United States of America and the British Empire have in seeking their own prosperity oppressed other nations and peoples. Especially in East Asia, they indulged in insatiable aggression and exploitation, and sought to satisfy their inordinate ambition of enslaving the entire region, and finally they came to menace seriously the stability of East Asia. Herein lies the cause of the recent war. The countries of Greater East Asia, with a view to contributing to the cause of world peace, undertake to cooperate toward prosecuting the War of Greater East Asia to a successful conclusion, liberating their region from the yoke of British-American domination, and ensuring their self-existence and self-defense, and in constructing a Greater East Asia in accordance with the following principles:

The countries of Greater East Asia through mutual cooperation will ensure the stability of their region and construct an order of common prosperity and well-being based upon justice.

The countries of Greater East Asia will ensure the fraternity of nations in their region, by respecting one another's sovereignty and independence and practicing mutual assistance and amity.

The countries of Greater East Asia by respecting one another's traditions and developing the creative faculties of each race, will enhance the culture and civilization of Greater East Asia.

The countries of Greater East Asia will endeavor to accelerate their economic development through close cooperation upon a basis of reciprocity and to promote thereby the general prosperity of their region.

The countries of Greater East Asia will cultivate friendly relations with all the countries of the world, and work for the abolition of racial discrimination, the promotion of cultural intercourse and the opening of resources throughout the world, and contribute thereby to the progress of mankind.

This entity issuing anything at this point is somewhat surreal, as Japanese fortunes had clearly turned in the war and they were obviously losing.

The participating entities were Japan, Manchukuo; The "Reorganized National Government of China" governed from Nanjing, the Kingdom of Thailand; the State of Burma; and the Second Philippine Republic.  Only Thailand was really independent.

The USS Beatty was torpedoed off of Algeria by Junkers Ju 88, resulting in its sinking.   The U-226 and U842 were sunk by the Royal Navy in the Atlantic.

Monday, November 1, 1943. Landings on Bougainville.

14,000 U.S. Marines of the 3d Marine Division landed on Bougainville in the Solomons in the oddly named Operation Goodtime as well as the smaller Operation Cherryblossom.

The major operation would ultimately involve 144,000 US troops of the Marine Corps and the Army and 30,000 Australian troops.  Japanese defenses were initially overrun, the defending force consisting of only 200 men, but the island had 40,000 Japanese troops on it.  Operations would not cease until the end of the war, as the Japanese forces remained fighting up until that time.

Bougainville is a very large island that the Germans colonized starting in 1899.  It passed to Australian by way of a League of Nations mandate following World War One.

Internees at the Tule Lake Segregation Center surrounded the administration building during a visit by War Location Director Dillon S. Myer. 

Between 5,000 to 10,000 internees surrounded the building upon learning of Myer's unannounced visit until he consented to see a negotiating committee regarding grievances they held.

The USS Borie and the German submarine U-405 fought in the North Atlantic, with the result that both ships had to be scuttled.

President Roosevelt orders the Solid Fuels Administration to take over the operation of the nation's coal mines.

He also addressed Congress on the nation's food program.

The Moscow Conference issued its declaration on atrocities.

Moscow Declaration on Atrocities

by President Roosevelt, Mr. Winston Churchill and Marshal Stalin, issued on

November 1, 1943

The United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union have received from many quarters evidence of atrocities, massacres and cold-blooded mass executions which are being perpetrated by the Hitlerite forces in many of the countries they have overrun and from which they are now being steadily expelled. The brutalities of Hitlerite domination are no new thing and all people or territories in their grip have suffered from the worst form of Government by terror. What is new is that many of these territories are now being redeemed by the advancing armies of the liberating Powers and that, in their desperation, the recoiling Hitlerite Huns are redoubling their ruthless cruelties. This is now evidenced with particular clearness by the monstrous crimes of the Hitlerites on the territory of the Soviet Union which is being liberated from the Hitlerites and on French and Italian territory.

Accordingly the aforesaid three Allied Powers, speaking in the interests of the 32 United Nations, hereby solemnly declare and give full warning of their declaration as follows: At the time of the granting of any armistice to any Government which may be set up in Germany, those German officers and men and members of the Nazi party who have been responsible for or have taken a consenting part in the above atrocities, massacres and executions will be sent back to the countries in which their abominable deeds were done in order that they may be judged and punished according to the laws of these liberated countries and of the Free Governments which will be erected therein. Lists will be compiled in all possible detail from all these countries having regard especially to the invaded parts of the Soviet Union, to Poland and Czechoslovakia, to Yugoslavia and Greece including Crete and other islands, to Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Italy.

Thus, Germans who take part in wholesale shootings of Italian officers or in the execution of French, Dutch, Belgian or Norwegian hostages or of Cretan peasants, or who have shared in the slaughters inflicted on the people of Poland or in the territories of the Soviet Union which are now being swept clear of the enemy, will know that they will be brought back to the scene of their crimes and judged on the spot by the peoples whom they have outraged. Let those who have hitherto not imbued their hands with innocent blood beware lest they join the ranks of the guilty, for most assuredly the three Allied Powers will pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth and will deliver them to the accusers in order that justice may be done.

The above declaration is without prejudice to the case of the major criminals whose offences have no particular geographical location and who will be punished by a joint decision of the Governments of the

Allies.

Sunday, October 31, 1943. Advances.

Brian Piccolo, famous running back born on this day in 1943, and who died in 1967 of testicular cancer.

Today in World War II History—October 31, 1943: Over New Georgia in the Solomon Islands, US Navy F4U Corsair accomplishes first night air radar-guided victory, shooting down a Japanese G4M1 bomber.

Sarah Sundin, whose blog also reports that on this day the US rendered all airfields in southern Bougainville inoperable.

The IS-2 was accepted into Soviet service.  Nearly 4,000 of the Soviet heavy tank were built.

The Red Army severed the German rail link to Crimea.

The U.S. Army took Mondragone in Italy.

The Tuna Canyon Detention Center in California, which had held over 2,000 Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants, and Japanese Peruvians was closed as the inmates were transferred to different facilities.

The U-306, U-584 and U-732 were sunk in the Atlantic.

Sunday, October 24, 1943. The murder of Leonard Siffleet and H. Pattiwal

Australian POW, commando Sgt. Leonard Siffleet and Ambonese private H. Pattiwal  were murdered by the Japanese.

Their story is an odd one, as they were basically turned over to the Japanese by New Guinea natives who had ambushed them, once again demonstrating that native populations were not universally hostile to the Japanese.  They were interrogated and tortured, and then executed under the orders of Vice Admiral Michiaki Kamada.  The officer committing the murders had the process photographed.  His fate is unknown.

British psyop radio channel Soldatensender Calais, broadcasting on German frequencies, went on the air at 5:57 local time, filling the gap, with British broadcasts, every time Radio Deutschland was off the air due to bombing raids.

The Battle of Finschhaften resulted in an Allied victory

The U.S. Army captured Sant'Angelo in Italy.

The HMS Eclipse was sunk by a mine in the Aegean, resulting on the loss of 119 sailors and 134 soldiers it was carrying

The Japanese destroyer Mochizuki and five merchant ships were sunk southwest of Rabaul by American aircraft.

The U-566 was sunk in the Atlantic by a Vickers Wellington.

Fiday, October 22, 1943 Kurt.

Today in World War II History—October 22, 1943: Maj.-Gen. Robert Laycock becomes British Chief of Combined Operations. A German meteorological team lands in Labrador, to establish weather station “Kurt."

From Sarah Sundin's blog. 

The automated weather station would operate for only a month before failing due to unknown causes.  It was discovered in 1977.

Royal Navy HMS Charybdis which was lost in action on this day.

The Battle of Sept-Îles was fought near the French coast between the Royal Navy and the Kreigsmarine when British ships were ambushed in the Channel Islands area. The Royal Navy lost a cruiser and a destroyer to no German losses as a result of the action.

Sunday, October 17, 1943. The Burma Railway completed.

The German surface raider Michel was torpedoed and sunk off of Japan by the USS Tarpon.  On the same day the German's lost the U-540, U-631 and U-841 in the Atlantic.

The Burma Railway, constructed with Asian slave labor and Allied POWs, was completed.

Tamils working on the bridge.

The railway may be best remembered today due to the fairly inaccurate movie, The Bridge On the River Kwai, which is nonetheless a great movie.

POW illustration of the construction of Bridge 227 across the Kwai.

A second concrete bridge replaced the original wooden bridge shortly after its construction. It was destroyed by the RAF in February 1945.  Shortly after the war, most of the original railway was dismantled and only the original 81 miles remains in use.

The Third Moscow Conference begins.

It would begin to work on the post-war world.

Chicago began running its subway for the first time.

October 13, 1943. Italy declares war on Germany.

Italy would not be the last Axis power to switch sides, but it was the first.   The declaration was delivered by radio.

PROCLAMATION BY MARSHAL BADOGLIO TO THE ITALIAN PEOPLE, OCTOBER 13, 1943

Italians, with the declaration made September 8th, 1943, the Government headed by me, in announcing that the Commander-in-Chief of the Anglo-American Forces in the Mediterranean had accepted the Armistice requested by us, ordered the Italian troops to remain with their arms at rest but prepared to repel any act of violence directed at them from whatever other source it might come. With a synchronized action, which clearly reversed an order previously given by some high authority, German troops compelled some of our units to disarm, while, in most cases, they proceeded to a decisive attack against our troops. But German arrogance and ferocity did not stop here. We had already seen some examples of their behavior in the abuses of power, robbery, and violence of all kinds perpetrated in Catania while they were still our allies. Even more savage incidents against our unarmed populations took place in Calabria, in the Puglie and in the area of Salerno. But where the ferocity of the enemy surpassed every limit of the human imagination was at Naples. The heroic population of that city, which for weeks suffered every form of torment, strongly cooperated with the Anglo-American troops in putting the hated Germans to flight. Italians! There will not be peace in Italy as long as a single German remains upon our soil. Shoulder to shoulder we must march forward with our friends of the United States, of Great Britain, of Russia, and of all the other United Nations. Wherever Italian troops may be, in the Balkans, Yugoslavia, Albania, and in Greece, they have witnessed similar acts of aggression and cruelty and they must fight against the Germans to the last man. The Government headed by me will shortly be completed. In order that it may constitute a true expression of democratic government in Italy, the representatives of every political party will be asked to participate. The present arrangement will in no way impair the untrammelled right of the people of Italy to c hoose their own form of democratic government when peace is restored. Italians! I inform you that His Majesty the King has given me the task of announcing today, the thirteenth day of October, the Declaration of War against Germany.

The Australians prevail at the Battle of John's Knoll-Trevor's Ridge.

Australians after the battle.

The Germans prevailed against the Soviet/Polish offensive at Lenino.

Soviet armed and organized Poles at Lenino.

The battle was badly fought by the Red Army, and well fought by the Germans.

The U.S. Navy destroyer Bristol was sunk in the Mediterranean Sea by the U-371. The U-402 was sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by a TBF Avenger from the USS Card.

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.

Wednesday, August 25, 1943. Victory on New Georgia.

The Red Army prevailed in the Migorod Direction Offensive.  On the same day, the Red Army took Zenkov and Akhtyrka, near Kharkiv.

Contrary to what I posted yesterday, some sources have today as the day Lord Mountbatten took command of the Southeast Asia theater, and the sources for today would be correct.

German "Fritz X" glide bomb, of the type most widely used and first used on this day in 1943.

Germany used glide bombs for the first time, with that deployment being made in the Bay of Biscay against Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy escort destroyers.  Some crewmen were killed on the HMS Bideford.

In the same bay, the Royal Navy sank the U-523.

The last Japanese resistance on New Georgia was eliminated.

The Quebec Conference having ended, President Roosevelt made an address in Ottoawa to the Canaidan parliament.

August 25, 1943

Your Excellency Mr. Prime Minister, Members of the Parliament, and all my good friends and neighbors of the Dominion of Canada:

It was exactly five years ago last Wednesday that I came to Canada to receive the high honor of a degree at Queen's University. On that occasion- one year before the invasion of Poland, three years before Pearl Harbor— I said:

"We in the Americas are no longer a far away continent, to which the eddies of controversies beyond the seas could bring no interest or no harm. Instead, we in the Americas have become a consideration to every propaganda office and to every general staff beyond the seas. The vast amount of our resources, the vigor of our commerce and the strength of our men have made us vital factors in world peace whether we choose it or not."

We did not choose this war—and that "we" includes each and every one of the United Nations.

War was violently forced upon us by criminal aggressors who measure their standards of morality by the extent of the death and the destruction that they can inflict upon their neighbors.

In this war, Canadians and Americans have fought shoulder to shoulder—as our men and our women and our children have worked together and played together in happier times of peace.

Today, in devout gratitude, we are celebrating a brilliant victory won by British and Canadian and American fighting men in Sicily.

Today, we rejoice also in another event for which we need not apologize. A year ago Japan occupied several of the Aleutian Islands on our side of the ocean, and made a great "to-do" about the invasion of the continent of North America. I regret to say that some Americans and some Canadians wished our Governments to withdraw from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean campaigns and divert all our vast supplies and strength to the removal of the Japs from a few rocky specks in the North Pacific.

Today, our wiser councils have maintained our efforts in the Atlantic area, and the Mediterranean, and the China Seas, and the Southwest Pacific with ever-growing contributions; and in the Northwest Pacific a relatively small campaign has been assisted by the Japs themselves in the elimination of that last Jap from Attu and Kiska. We have been told that the Japs never surrender; their headlong retreat satisfies us just as well.

Great councils are being held here on the free and honored soil of Canada- councils which look to the future conduct of this war and to the years of building a new progress for mankind.

To these councils Canadians and Americans alike again welcome that wise and good and gallant gentleman, the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Mr. King, my old friend, may I through you thank the people of Canada for their hospitality to all of us. Your course and mine have run so closely and affectionately during these many long years that this meeting adds another link to that chain. I have always felt at home in Canada and you, I think, have always felt at home in the United States.

During the past few days in Quebec, the Combined Staffs have been sitting around a table—which is a good custom—talking things over, discussing ways and means, in the manner of friends, in the manner of partners, and may I even say in the manner of members of the same family.

We have talked constructively of our common purposes in this war-of our determination to achieve victory in the shortest possible time—of our essential cooperation with our great and brave fighting allies.

And we have arrived, harmoniously, at certain definite conclusions. Of course, I am not at liberty to disclose just what these conclusions are. But, in due time, we shall communicate the secret information of the Quebec Conference to Germany, Italy, and Japan. We shall communicate this information to our enemies in the only language their twisted minds seem capable of understanding.

Sometimes I wish that that great master of intuition, the Nazi leader, could have been present in spirit at the Quebec Conference- I am thoroughly glad that he wasn't there in person. If he and his generals had known our plans they would have realized that discretion is still the better part of valor and that surrender would pay them better now than later.

The evil characteristic that makes a Nazi a Nazi is his utter inability to understand and therefore to respect the qualities or the rights of his fellow men. His only method of dealing with his neighbor is first to delude him with lies, then to attack him treacherously, then beat him down and step on him, and then either kill him or enslave him. And the same thing is true of the fanatical militarists of Japan.

Because their own instincts and impulses are essentially inhuman, our enemies simply cannot comprehend how it is that decent, sensible individual human beings manage to get along together and live together as good neighbors.

That is why our enemies are doing their desperate best to misrepresent the purposes and the results of this Quebec Conference. They still seek to divide and conquer allies who refuse to be divided just as cheerfully as they refuse to be conquered.

We spend our energies and our resources and the very lives of our sons and daughters because a band of gangsters in the community of Nations declines to recognize the fundamentals of decent, human conduct.

We have been forced to call out what we in the United States would call the sheriff's posse to break up the gang in order that gangsterism may be eliminated in the community of Nations.

We are making sure- absolutely, irrevocably sure—that this 'time the lesson is driven home to them once and for all. Yes, we are going to be rid of outlaws this time.

Every one of the United Nations believes that only a real and lasting peace can justify the sacrifices we are making, and our unanimity gives us confidence in seeking that goal.

It is no secret that at Quebec there was much talk of the postwar world. That discussion was doubtless duplicated simultaneously in dozens of Nations and hundreds of cities and among millions of people.

There is a longing in the air. It is not a longing to go back to what they call "the good old days." I have distinct reservations as to how good "the good old days" were. I would rather believe that we can achieve new and better days.

Absolute victory in this war will give greater opportunities to the world, because the winning of the war in itself is certainly proving to all of us up here that concerted action can accomplish things. Surely we can make strides toward a greater freedom from want than the world has yet enjoyed. Surely by unanimous action in driving out the outlaws and keeping them under heel forever, we can attain a freedom from fear of violence.

I am everlastingly angry only at those who assert vociferously that the four freedoms and the Atlantic Charter are nonsense because they are unattainable. If those people had lived a century and a half ago they would have sneered and said that the Declaration of Independence was utter piffle. If they had lived nearly a thousand years ago they would have laughed uproariously at the ideals of Magna Charta. And if they had lived several thousand years ago they would have derided Moses when he came from the Mountain with the Ten Commandments.

We concede that these great teachings are not perfectly lived up to today, but I would rather be a builder than a wrecker, hoping always that the structure of life is growing— not dying.

May the destroyers who still persist in our midst decrease. They, like some of our enemies, have a long road to travel before they accept the ethics of humanity.

Some day, in the distant future perhaps—but some day, it is certain—all of them will remember with the Master, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

Monsieur le Premier: Ma visite a la ville historique de Quebec rappelle vivement a mon esprit que le Canada est une nation fondee sur l'union de deux grandes races. L'harmonie de leur association dans l'egalite peut servir d'exemple a l'humanite toute entiere—un exemple partout dans le monde.

Sunday, August 8, 1943. No Photos.

The United States banned taking photos or making illustrations of Atlantic beach resort beaches.

U.S. troops landed at Sant'Agata di Militello, Sicily, in an amphibious end run. German forces had succeeded in halting the US advance, which resulted in a series of beach landings.

U.S. soldier receives plasma from a pipe smoking medic at Sant'Agata di Militello

The Tripitz and Scharnhorst lead a task force to bombard Longyearbyen, Barentsburg and Grumant on Spitsbergen.

Ambassard Steinhardt wrote back to the Secretary of State regarding U.S. aircrewmen in Turkey.

The Ambassador in Turkey (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State

Ankara, August 8, 1943—11 p.m.

[Received August 9—9:30 p.m.]

1388. I discussed with the Minister for Foreign Affairs yesterday the status of the various American aviators interned in Turkey after the Ploesti raid. I suggested to him that the survivors of the crew of the Liberator which crashed off the coast and who were rescued by the Turkish coast guard be regarded as “shipwrecked mariners” and be released, and that all of the wounded aviators (some of whose wounds are very light) be regarded as unfit for further military service and be released and that subsequently the Turkish General Staff be instructed not to interpose too many barriers in the path of attempted escapes by others. Numan replied that he would give serious consideration to the release of the “shipwrecked mariners” and the wounded, and that he would suggest to the General Staff that they should not take “exceptional measures” to prevent escapes but that we must not embarrass him by “too many escapes” in the immediate future and particularly while the internment of the planes and crews was in the public eye. He added that “unfortunately” there were no German or Italian internees whose release could constitute a basis for exchange. He agreed to the immediate transfer of all the wounded to the American hospital in Istanbul.

Please inform General Arnold of foregoing.

Steinhardt

Sunday, July 18, 1943. Alexander appointed governor of Sicily.

Showing how far the invasion of Sicily already gone, British Gen. Harold Alexander was appointed the Allied Military Governor of Sicily. 

For his first act, he banned the Fascist Party.

The U.S. airship K-74 depth charged the German U-134, which returned fire with its 20mm deck guns. The K-74 was shot down.  The unsuccessful attack was the only such instance of an airship attacking a submarine during World War Two.

K class airship.

Japan's counteroffensive on New Georgia ended in failure.

MGM released Stormy Weather, showcasing a host of African American talent. The movie featured 20 musical pieces in 77 minutes.

Friday, June 11, 1943. Pantelleria calls it quits, the U.S. Army Air Force takes a pounding, Coal minters go on strike once again, Losses at sea.

The Italian island of Pantelleria was unconditionally surrendered to the Allies at 11:40 am local time.  

It was an historic surrender in that no boots were on the ground.  It was made solely in the face of an ongoing, and heavy, areal campaign, which is somewhat deceptive.  At this point in time the U.S. Army Air Force was of the mind that it could win the war without an invasion of Europe, which was obviously incorrect, and something like this tended to emphasize that mistaken view.

The surrender was significant in that it provided a staging area for the invasion of Sicily.

The island is closer to North Africa than it is to Sicily, but it can be regarded as midpoint.  The fact that it would call it quits is significant in and of itself, as it pretty clearly telegraphed that Italy was done.

On the same day the press reported that the Germans were planning a massive offensive in the East. They in fact were, but not in the location noted.

The RAF bombed Düsseldorf and Münster in its heaviest attack up to that time.  The U.S. 8th Air Force made a daylight raid on Wilhelmshaven and Cuxhave with 225 airplanes, losing 85 of them in a record loss ration at the time.

This emphasized the British point that daylight raids, which the U.S. favored as they were in favor of "precision bombing", and justifiably concerned about the immorality of nighttime targeting, were doomed due to heavy losses, in spite of having just agreed to the same in the Pointblank Directive.  On the other hand, this emphasized also the American view that the British fighter command was completely unhelpful in its refusal to do anything to extend the range of fighter escorts and make them suitable for long range penetration.

Indeed, it's worth noting that the Supermarine Spitfire and the P51 Mustang shared the same Rolls Royce Merlin engine. Had the RAF fighter command been less narrow-minded, the Spitfire, not the Mustang, would likely be remembered as the premier escort fighter of World War Two, and the P51 would have faded by late 1943 into obscurity.

U.S. coal miners went on strike again, with the support of their union President John L. Lewis.

Super patriotism at work. . . not.

Roosevelt would halt the strike, temporarily, by threatening to draft the miners.

In the popular imagination World War Two was free of labor strife, but in reality, it wasn't.

The German submarine U-417 was sunk in the North Atlantic by a B-17 of No. 206 Squadron RAF, the Japanese submarine I-24 was sunk off Shemya, Alaska by the U.S. Navy subchaser Larchmont, the Australian corvette HMAS Wallaroo sank off Fremantle after a collision with the American Liberty ship Henry Gilbert Costin.

The technicolor musical Coney Island was released.  It was nominated, but did not win, an Academy Award for best musical score in 1944.

May 24, 1943. Dönitz recalls the U-boats

Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz recalled the German fleet of U-boats following the reduction by 1/3 of that force in May, 22 out of 60, due to Allied action.  All together, 41 German U-boats would be lost in May.

Germany had effectively lost the Battle of the Atlantic.  While the submarines would redeploy, they'd never again pose the threat they had up to May, 1943.  This also meant the effective victory for the Allies against the Germans in a second front, although the fighting would go on, with the first being in North Africa.

Sarah Sundin notes the event on her blog, also noting that rationing of cheese in the US expanded to include all but cream and cottage cheese.

Josef Mengele was posted to Auschwitz.

Saturday, May 22, 1943. Comintern dissolves.

The Comintern was dissolved in Moscow.

The Soviet Union had already betrayed the propaganda associated with the entity by being an ally of Nazi Germany until attacked by Nazi Germany.  The move was interpreted as a feeler towards the Western Allies, in that the Comintern had been dedicated to supplanting any government that wasn't a communist one.

Sarah Sundin's blog reports:

Today in World War II History—May 22, 1943: USS Bogue’s TBF aircraft damage German U-boat U-569, which is scuttled by her crew, the first victory for an Allied escort carrier unassisted by surface ships.

She also noted that Luftwaffe General Adolf Galland flew the ME262 on this day and was impressed by it, as anyone would have had to have been.

Long Range Desert Group, No. 2 Commando and the No. 43 (Royal Marine) Commando raided the Yugoslavian island of Mljet.   The raid was a substitute for ones early planned, and was supported by the OSS which had agents on the island.

Helen Taft, former First Lady, died at age 81.