Sunday, August 22, 1943. Gertie from Berlin.

Irish army recruiting poster during World War Two.  Note the odd shade of the uniform, which was a very grass shade of green, a color unique to the Irish Army, but well suited for the island nation.  This depiction shows an Irish soldier after the adoption of the British style helmet, which came at the UK's request.  Before that the Irish had used a British Vicker's produced version of the German M1916 helmet, which was in fact a better pattern.  Ireland had a hard time staffing its Army during "the Emergency" as military aged men joined the British Army in such large numbers.

Sarah Sundin reports, on her blog:

Today in World War II History—August 22, 1943: German 10th Army is activated in southern Italy under Gen. Heinrich von Vietinghoff. 

In the Mediterranean, all fighter groups and medium bomb groups in the US Ninth Air Force are transferred to the Twelfth Air Force.

The Germans began to withdraw from Kharkiv to avoid encirclement.

Andrei Gromyko was named Ambassador to the United States, replacing Maxim Litvinov who had returned to the Soviet Union under Stalin's orders in May.  Gromyko was Belarusian.

US forces occupied islands in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands including Nukufetau and Namumea without opposition.

George S. Patton thanked the troops of his Army for their efforts in Sicily, noting:

As a result of this combined effort, you have killed or captured 113,350 enemy troops. You have destroyed 265 of his tanks, 2324 vehicles, and 1162 large guns, and, in addition, have collected a mass of military booty running into hundreds of tons.

English language German radio propagandist "Gertie from Berlin" was revealed to be Gertrude Hahn, a native of Pittsburgh who had gone to Germany in 1938 when her family returned to their native country.

The United Islamic Society of America formed in Newark, New Jersey.

Tuesday, August 17, 1943. Messina falls. Quebec Conference starts. Schweinfurt and Wewak bombed.

The U.S. 7th Army and the British 8th Army met in Messina.  Sicily was conquered.

Italian civilian returning home after German departure from Messina.

On the same day, Allied artillery began to bombard mainland Italy.

The Quebec Conference opened in Quebec City between Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and William Lyon Mackenzie King.

King's role was only ceremonial.  Stalin had been invited but could not attend.  Military topics were the purpose of the meeting.

A target date for May 1 1944 was picked for the invasion of France, and September 3, 1943, for an invasion of Italy.

The U.S. Army Air Force carried out its first raid on German war production, bombing Schweinfurt.   The 376 plan raid lost 60 of its members.

B-17s over Schweinfurtt.

On the same day, the USAAF 5th Air Force began a five-day bombing campaign on Wewak on New Guinea.

The nocturnal engagement of the Battle off Horaniu saw the Japanese lose four auxiliary ships but evacuate 9,000 troops from Kolombangara in the Solomons.

Saturday, August 14, 1943. Rome declared an open city.

Rome was declared an open city by the Italian government.  The Italian government offered to remove its defenses under the supervision of the Allies. This followed the second major bombing strike on the city.

Allied troops had not even touched foot yet on the Italian mainland.  Suffice it to say, this made it clear that Italy would exit the war soon.

On Sicily, the Allies captured Rondazzo.

The U.S. Army Air Force raided Borneo with B-24s that were based in Australia, making a record 2,500 bombing run.  The target was oil reserves at Balikpapan.

U.S. aviation insignia changed again, albeit slightly.

By NiD.29 - Bell, Dana (1995) Air Force Colors Volume 1 1926–1942, Carrollton: Squadron Signal Publications ISBN: 0-89747-316-7.US Navy F6F Hellcat USMC F4U Corsairaccording to Section 40.1.1.2 Color of MIL-STD-2161A (AS), the colors of this insignia are established as FED-STD-595 red 11136 white 17925 blue 15044. The visualization of the colors comes from this siteElliot, John M. (1989) The Official Monogram US Navy & Marine Corps Aircraft Color Guide Vol 2 1940–1949, Sturbridge, MA: Monogram Aviation Publications ISBN: 0-914144-32-4., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3330877

The Allies won the battle of Roosevelt Ridge.  The Soviets prevailed in the Battle of Belgorod.

The US revised its conscription regulations with a revised list of reserved occupations and providing that dependents were a deciding factor in deferments.

The movie This Is The Army premiered.

Tuesday, August 10, 1943. The second slapping incident.

Patton slapped a second soldier, Pvt. Paul G. Bennet, as a military hospital in Sicily.  Bennet was in the hospital for shell shock and told Patton, upon his asking why Bennet was in the hospital, that It's my nerves... I can't stand the shelling anymore."

This incident would result in the story being broken to the press when a nurse told her boyfriend, who was a public affairs officer.

Bennet, who was also suffering from dehydration and a fever, was an Army volunteer, having entered the Army in 1939.  He remained in the Army as a career after the war and served again in the Korean War. He retired as a Sergeant First Class and died in 1973 at age 51.

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

Friday, August 6, 1943. Naval ambush

The nighttime Battle of Vella Gulf was fought between destroyers of the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy, the latter of which was better at night fighting.

U.S. Navy Task Group 31.2, consisting of a group of six destroyers, waited in Vella Gulf for the Japanese who were planning to land troops and supplies at Vila, Kolombangara with four destroyers.    All four Japanese destroyers were surprised by U.S. torpedoes, sinking three.  1,500 Japanese sailors went down with their ships.

The action was the first one in the Pacific in which US destroyers were authorized to operate independently from a cruiser force 

The Germans commenced the liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto.  It was resisted.

U.S. and Free French forces prevailed at Toina, Sicily.

August 4, 1943. Famine in India.

Churchill and his cabinet decided not to ship British wheat to India, a decision which has been claimed to have resulted in the devastating Bengali famine of that year.

In actuality, the story is quite complicated, and the wheat request didn't have a 1 to 1 correlation with food supplies.  In the UK the request for wheat shipments was interpreted as an attempt to reduce grain inflationary prices and that a famine was ongoing was not appreciated.   The cause of the famine itself isn't particularly clear, as it was not associated with drought, which prior then recent Indian famines had been.  When the Indian Viceroy took action, belatedly, the famine was brought under control, but not before huge numbers of people had died.

Indeed, the Indian wheat harvest had been at a record level that year.

Claims that Churchill, who opposed Indian independence, was vicariously responsible for the famine didn't really come about until the 21st Century and to some extent reflect a post-colonial tendency, particularly in regard to India, to blame the British for every bad thing that occured during their imperial period.

Germany made the decision to employ concentration camp inmates at Peenemünde.

US forces prevailed in the Battle of Munda Point.

Sarah Sundin notes the beginning of the US assault on San Frantello Ridge in Sicily.

Saturday, July 31, 1943. The Battle of Tioina starts and the Battle of the Ruhr ends.

The U.S. II Corps, under George S. Patton, commenced offensive operations in what would become the Battle of Tioina on Sicily.

Tioina in 1943.

The Battle of the Ruhr, the extensive air campaign over the Ruhr, came to an end.  The last raid was on Remscheid. The bulk of the campaign had been at night, and by the RAF, and it did cause substantial industrial damage to Nazi Germany.

The USS Sheridan was launched.

Today In Wyoming's History: July 31: 1943  The USS Sheridan, APA-51, an attack transport, commissioned.

General Henri Giraud was appointed as commander of French Resistance forces at the first meeting of the National Committee of Liberation.  De Gaulle was named President of the Committee.

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.

Thursday, July 15, 1943. Segregation for loyalty to Japan, US reorganization on Sicily, Changes in command on New Guinea, Italian participation in Holocaust in France.

Tule Lake Segregation Center in California was established by the War Department to house Japanese Americans who were deemed to be loyal to Japan.  The site is administered by the National Park Service today.

Loyalty to Japan was determined in a number of ways, but it included refusing to be inducted into the U.S. Armed forces and having attempted to return to Japan prior to the war.

Gen. Patton formed a provisional corps to advance up the western coast of Sicily, while the U.S. 2nd Corps was to drive northward under Bradley.  Axis forces retreated behind the Simeto River.

Major General Oscar W. Griswold took over field command of US Army forces on New Guinea.

Italian occupation police authority Renzo Chierici agreed to a German demand to return German Jews who had fled into Italian occupied regions of France.

Chierici was a fascist and warned Mussolini when it was clear that the Grand Council was going to vote him out of office, but he remained loyal to the new government, resulting in his arrest by the Germans and subsequent murder.

The fact that Italy occupied Provence and Savoy after November 1942 is often missed.

Tuesday, July 13, 1943. Operation Citadel ends due to Operation Husky

I don't put up German posters often (I really ought to, to demonstrate what they looked like) as I don't want to give any mistaken impression that there's any admiration for the Germans in World War Two in this quarter.  Indeed, it's been a real mystery to me and others as to how a cultured people could go so far astray as to elect the Nazis into power.  Having said that, events since 2020 have been a real illustration as to exactly how a country descends into fascism.  Anyhow, this is a poster for the Herman Goering Division which, at that time, was one of the two German units fighting in Sicily.  Oddly, the division was technically part of the Luftwaffe, not the Herr, in order to honor its namesake.  The cap device on the flat cap depicted in this poster demonstrates that.  This poster is from 1943 and reads, roughly; "Come to us! Herman Goering Division. Taking volunteers!"  The division stands as an example of German military inefficiency, in a way, in that it meant that there were three ground forces all fulfilling the role that the army would have normally, the army, the airforce and the SS, although the Luftwaffe ground forces were only seriously an air arm in the case of paratroopers.

Today in World War II History—July 13, 1943: Battle of Kolombangara: in the Solomon Islands, US & New Zealand ships sink Japanese light cruiser Jintsu, but fail to prevent reinforcement of Kolombangara.

We covered what Sarah Sundin notes here yesterday, as this was a nocturnal battle, but this entry noted above is correct.

What Sundin also notes, and what is a more significant event, is that Hitler ordered a halt to Operation Citadel due to Operation Husky in order to redeploy troops from the Kursk offensive to Sicily.

That actually occured the evening of July 12, when Hitler summoned Kluge and Manstein to is Rastenburg headquarters.  Kluge, aware of a coming Soviet counteroffensive, was relieved to receive the order, fearing what that would mean, but Manstein opposed it given that his troops had spent a week of hard fighting and, he believed, were on the verge of breaking through.  Manstein argued, "On no account should we let go of the enemy until the mobile reserves he [has] committed [and is] completely beaten."

Manstein may have been overestimating the extent of Red Army losses, but the Red Army had sustained huge losses, including massive losses the day prior.  At any rate, Hitler relented to the extent that he agreed to allow the offensive to temporarily continue in the south.  However, on this day, the 13th, he ordered Manstein's reserve, the XXIV Panzer Corps, to move south to support the 1st Panzer Army, removing from Manstein the forces he actually needed to continue.

Therefore, it was the American, Canadian, and British armies that brought about the end of Operation Citadel, and one day after a German tactical victory in that offensive that had resulted in huge Soviet losses.

Could Citadel have achieved its objectives?  That's much more difficult to say.  The Germans and the Soviets were still fighting at Prokhorovka, although the Germans had arrested the Red Army attack the day prior, with large losses being sustained by the Soviets in a battle that is still so murky that partisan historians, professional and amateur, declare victory for each side. Model, however, had completely committed his reserves and the Soviets, while sustaining huge casualties, had not yet broken.  Given this, it seems unlikely that the Germans would have reduced the Kursk salient, but they would have taken enormous losses attempting to do so.  

This provides one of the uncomfortable facts about the Germans during the Second World War, that being that quite frankly Hitler's estimation of the battlefield situation was often better than that of his generals.  People like to repeat the "Hitler is the best general we've got" quote that some Allied commander said during the war, but in terms of tactical decisions, he was often better at calculating them than generals in his army were.  The decision to call off Citadel was probably correct, Manstein notwithstanding, as the Germans had committed very good armored forces with large amounts of armor and had not broken through.  Ignoring Husky early on stood a very good chance of resulting in a rapid Allied victory in Sicily which could possibly have taken an already teetering Italy out of the war.

The American League won the All Star Game.

Luz Long, age 30, 1936 Olympic medalist, died of wounds sustained in fighting in the Germany Army in Sicily.  His death came in a British hospital.  Long had been friends with Jesse Owens and was, prior to entering the German army, a lawyer.

He held the rank of Obergefreiter in the Heer, which is a rank that's somewhat difficult to correlate to American and British enlisted rank structures.  It's roughly equivalent to the World War Two US rank of Corporal or the British Rank of Lance Corporal, which would effectively be the first NCO in a squad to command other enlisted men.

White Rose figures University of Munich student Alexander Schmorell, age 25, and Professor Karl Huber, age 49, executed by guillotine for distributing anti-Nazi literature.  Wilhelm Geyer, Manfred Eickemeyer, Josef Soehngen and Harald Dohrn were acquitted of the most serious charges and convicted for the less serious crime of failing to report treason, benefitting from the absence of the chief judge and that Judge Schwingenschlögl, the most lenient, was presiding. Soehngen received a six-month sentence, with credit for time served, while the rest were ordered to pay court costs, a truly lucky break for them.

Sunday, July 11, 1923. Allied Success, and Disaster, in Sicily. Massacres in Poland.

Patton, in a famous pose, on the ground in Gela, Sicily on this day in 1943.

The Allies captured the Sicilian port cities of Syracuse (Siracusa), Licata, Gela, Pachino, Avola, Noto, Pozzallo, Scoglitti, Ispica and Rosolini.

US Navy gunners opened up on US transport aircraft carrying paratroopers at Gela that evening, resulting in the deaths of over 300 of them in the worst friendly fire incident in the war to date.   The Luftwaffe had earlier attempted a nighttime raid on the ships much earlier in the day, making the gunners nervous.  The disaster commenced when a single ship's gunner opened up on passing C-47s and C-53s.

The USS Boise crossing the bow of the USS LSST-325 while firing on German armored forces near Gela,  July 11, 1943.

The Navy, however, also saved the day at Gela on this day by stopping an armored counterattack with ship to shore fire.  And Patton came ashore at the same city that day.  Both events are depicted in movies, with the first in The Big Red One, and the second in Patton.

Red Cross field director James P. Show would perform acts of heroism on this day which would result in the Silver Star.  His citation would read:

The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Mr. James P. Shaw a United States Civilian, for gallantry in action while serving as Field Director, American Red Cross, attached to the *** Infantry, in action on 11 July 1943, near Licata, Sicily. On that date, an enemy dive bomber scored a direct hit on a landing craft which had almost reached its position for debarkation. Mr. Shaw, who was already ashore, immediately left his position of comparative security, waded back into the rough water and assisted many men to safety. He continued to assist until the last man had been brought to shore and the wounded cared for. All of these acts were performed at the risk of his life because of attacking enemy airplanes, the explosion of ammunition on the damaged craft, and the turbulent and treacherous water. The gallantry of Mr. Shaw on this occasion is a distinct credit to himself and the American Red Cross.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the military arm of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalist OUN-B branch, attacked 99 Polish settlements in Wołyń Province of Poland.  Attacks were carried out in what became known as the Vohynian Bloody Sunday on Kisielin, Poryck, Chrynów, Zabłoćce, and Krymn.  Attacks coincided with local attendance at Mass.

The massacre campaign was part of a OUN-B effort, which is sometimes called the Volyn (Wołyń) Tragedy, to clear Poles from the territory east of the Bug River, and dated back to the difficulties that existed in drawing a border between Poland, Ukraine and Belarus following World War One.  The OUN itself was split into OUN-B and OUN-M.  The OUN itself dated back to 1929 when it formed and absorbed other Ukrainian independence movements.  It was a right wing organization which picked up elements of fascism early on, and the Nazism later.  OUN-M was named for one of the OUN's founders, Andriy Melnyk, who declared Ukraine independent after the German invasion of the country during World War Two. OUN-B, named for Stepan Bandera, was much more radical and indeed the two organizations fought each other.  OUN-B came to dominate.

A far right organization in general, and in the case of OUN-B radically so, the organization picked up much of the extreme far right attitudes of the day, including being racist, deeply nationalist, and anti-clerical (indeed Melnyk's personal conservatism and Catholicism made Melnyk at odds with the views of his own organization).  OUN-B principally attacked Poles during the war and was allied to the Germans until the Germans began to collapse, at which time it eschewed its fascist ideology and took on a pro-democracy one.  The UPA would fight against the Soviets and Poles after the conclusion of the Second World War.

The genocidal effort against the Poles was bizarre in a way in that not only was it horrifically violent, but it ultimately served the interests of the Soviet Union in creating an ethnic line of demarcation which was west of the Bug.  While the majority of victims were Poles, some Ukrainian civilians who opposed the actions or who were not of the same brand of nationalist as the UPA.  Several hundred Jews, Russians, Czech and Georgians who were part of Polish families or who sheltered Poles were murdered.  Total Polish victim numbers are hard to determine, but they were ultimately between 50,000 to 100,000, mostly killed during July and August 1943.

Melnyk would escape to the West after the war and died in Luxembourg at age 73, in 1964.  Bandera was assassinated by the KGB in Munich in 1959.  He was 50 years old.

Saturday, July 10, 1943. Seaborne landings on Sicily. Battle at Enogai.

Early morning view on July 10, 1943.  U.S. Navy photograph.

The main landing force started disembarking in Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily.

Weather conditions were poor, featuring high winds, which served to cause the Axis forces, under Italian command, to assume that landings could not be conducted, which would be the first of two such bad assumptions on the same basis Axis forces would make in Europe during the war in regard to an amphibious landings.  Landings commenced at 02:45 on 26 beaches spread out over a distnace of a stunning 105 miles, making the landings the largest of World War Two in terms of both the sizeof the landing zone and the number of Allied divisions landed on D-Day.  The landing Allied troops, consisting of British, Canadian and American soldiers, generally encountered weak resistance, althought there were some Italian exceptions.

51st Highland Division unloading stores from tank landing craft on Operation Husky D-Day

By any rational measure, the massive operation meant that the Western Allies had returned to the European continent after having been pushed out of Greece in June 1941.  The operation also demonstrated the ability of the Western Allies to conduct very large-scale amphibious and airborne operations, although imperfectly.

The battle would also bring into increased prominence, and not always in a good way, the names of a vareity of Allied commanders who would dominate the news from the ETO for the remainder of the war.

Husky was under the overall command of Gen. Eisenhower, but operational command of hte invasion force was under British command.  Often lost to American understanding, at this stage of the war the British Commonwealth forces in Europe were larger and more experienced than American ones. 

The two-day Battle of Enogai took place on New Guinea between US Marines and Japanese solders. A Marine Corps victory would result on the second day, which featured Marines turning captured Japanese automatic weapons on Japanese forces, something that was somewhat unusual for US forces to do.

Dead Japanese machine gun crew at Enogai.

Friday, July 9, 1943. Operation Husky commences.

Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, commenced with airborne landings by British and American airborne and glider troops.  The American forces were blown strongly off course by high winds which scattered them so badly that by July 14 half of the U.S. paratroopers still had failed to reach their rallying points.  British airborne forces likewise were badly scattered.  Ironically, the very widespread landings created Axis confusion and their professionalism allowed them to mount scattered but effective attacks.

British glider borne troops of the 1st Battalion, Border Regiment, 9 July 1943, just prior to take off. Folding bicycle in the foreground.  Note the shorts these men, experienced in desert combat, are wearing, even though they are completely unsuitable for it.

With the commencement of the Invasion of Sicily, the Western Allies had returned to the continent and resumed ground offensive operations against the Axis.  The break in action between the fighting in North Africa and Sicily had been a mere matter of weeks.  During that short break in ground action, although not because of it, the Germans had launched Operation Citadel.  Already running into men and material shortages in that action, the Germans would soon have to withdraw forces from the East in order to redeploy them to counter Operation Husky.

Often sometimes missed, it should be noted that the Western Allies had committed troops with Operation Husky to the European continent, unless Sicily is not regarded as part of it due to its island status, almost a year before Operation Overlord.

A German air raid on East Grinstead killed 108 people, many of whom were children, in a movie theater.  The bombers struck at 5:17 p.m.

Congress recessed for the first time since 1939, the last time the body had allowed for vacations.

Thursday, July 8, 1943. The execution of Jean Moulin, Looming Operation Husky, Stalled Operation Citadel, Bombing Wake, Smog in Los Angeles.

Jean Moulin.

Jean Moulin, the first President of the National Council of the Resistance, but for less than two months, was executed by the Germans.  He had been arrested due to a betrayal that's never been solved. He was one of the individuals who was tortured under Klaus Barbie.

General Eisenhower arrived in Malta in anticipation of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily.

By this point, it was obvious that an imminent invasion of Sicily was coming. The Allies were bombing it heavily.  Nonetheless, German attention was focused on the East, at Kursk, which had entered its fourth day of fighting.  In the north, Ponyri station switched hands back and forth.  The 9th Army attacked the second Soviet line, which featured defense in depth, a Soviet tactic, and failed to breach it.  The 9th Army was in turn suffering critical losses.  Model was forced to commit the last of his armored reserves.

In the south, the Germans broke through the second defense line in the Oboyansk direction, but then withdrew after a strong counterattack.

B-24s operating from Midway bombed Wake Island in the first land based strike on Wake.

The escort carrier USS Casablanca was commissioned.

Smog became a problem for LA.

Friday, June 18, 1943. Marine Corps Life Lessons, Allied Action in the Med, Churchill shuffles the deck, Australia safe from invasion.

"How to disable an armed opponent is demonstrated by two girl Marines in training at Camp Lejeune, New River, North Carolina. The Marines with their backs to the camera are watching another display of feminine skill in the art of self-defense, June 18, 1943." 

Sarah Sundon notes, in her blog:

Today in World War II History—June 18, 1943: Allies intensify bombing of Sicily, Sardinia, and Naples . Australian Prime Minister John Curtin declares that the risk of Japanese invasion is over.

The all black 99th Pursuit Squadron, part of the those groups nicknamed the Tuskegee Airmen, flew in action against the Luftwaffe for the first time when six of their P-40s encountered 12 FW 190s over Pantelleria.  The 99th was outmatched in terms of what they were flying but suffered no losses.

Churchill removed Field Marshall Sir Archibald Wavell and Gen. Claude Auchinleck from command by promoting them uphill to Viceroy of India and Commander-in-Chief, India.

One of Wavell's first tasks in India was attempting to relieve the Bengal Famine of 1943. Auchinleck would go on to reorganize the Indian Army.

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.

Friday, April 30, 1943. Operation Mincemeat

The body of "Major Martin", a fictional British Major carrying fictional papers, was released from the British submarine HMS Seraph off of Spain.  In reality, the body was that of Glyndwr Michael, a vagrant who had died from eating rat poison.

The operation, known as Operation Mincemeat, was designed to deceive the Axis on plans for the invasion of Sicily, and was highly successful.

The US took Hill 609 in Tunisia.

The Bermuda Conference concluded.  The topic of the conference between the US and UK, which had commenced on April 19, was Jewish refugees who had been liberated by the Allies, and the remaining Jews in Axis controlled territory.  No substantial agreement on what to do was reached, other than to win the war, US immigration quotas would not be raised, and the British would not lift the prohibition on Jewish refugees going to Palestine.

Participants in the conference.

Thursday, April 15, 1943. V-Mail.

 

The first Victory Mail station established overseas, in this case in Casablanca.

The technology involve microfilming mail for more efficient transmission.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—April 15, 1943: Maj. Gen. Omar Bradley takes command of US II Corps in Tunisia; George Patton is relieved to prepare for the invasion of Sicily.

All in all, Patton had been in command of II Corps for a mere matter of weeks.

On the same day, Gen. Eisenhower toured the front in North Africa.

The State Bank of Ethiopia was established.

The Sino-American Cooperative Organization was established as an intelligence gathering cooperative between Nationalist China and the United States.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand was issued. I haven't read it, and I'm not going to, as Ayn Randites don't impress me.

Saturday, April 10, 1943. Sfax taken.

The Tunisian port of Sfax was captured by the British 8th Army.  It would later be the staging point for the invasion of Sicily.

It was also used as a POW camp, holding German Prisoners of War through the rest of, and after, the war.

Foreshadowing that later event, perhaps, the Italian cruiser Trieste was sunk by B-24s in the port of La Maddealena, Sardinia.

Tom Harmon, well known collegic football star, a halfback, now a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Force, disappeared when a bomber he was flying cracked up in a storm over Surinam. The only survivor of the plant, he'd emerge several days later with the assistance of natives, who escorted him out of the jungle.

Harmon as a football player for the University of Michigan.

Harmon had been drafted by the Chicago Bears but had declined to take up professional football, which was not as lucrative or as followed as it now is. Instead, he intended to pursue a career in acting and radio, although he ended up joining the American Football League in 1941 for a $1,500 per game salary, a large sum at the time.  

Harmon had resisted being drafted, something we don't think of as occurring much during World War Two, but which was in fact much more common than might be supposed.  He received a 1-B classification in May 1941 as he was a student and then given a 60-day extension on the basis that he was the sole support for his parents.  He asked for a permanent extension thereafter, but was denied and classified as 1-A, which he appealed.  Losing the appeal, he was ordered to report by November 1941, and he thereafter enlisted as an Air Corps cadet.

Following the bomber disaster, he became a P-38 pilot and flew in combat missions over China, being shot down in 1943.  He was returned to the US following evading the Japanese, having been shot down behind enemy lines, and was released from the service in January 1945.  In 1944, he married actress Elyse Knox.  Actor Mark Harmon was one of their three children.

He played for the Los Angeles Rams for a while after the war, and then returned to sports broadcasting.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—April 10, 1943: US Department of Agriculture establishes Women’s Land Army: during WWII, 1.5 million women from non-farming backgrounds will serve on farms.