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.

Tuesday, August 3, 1943. The Patton Slapping Incidents, part one.

"Operation Husky, July-August 1943. Navy Comes Ashore. His and of the landing operations of Sicily successfully begun, Rear Admiral Alan G. Kirk, USN, (rear), goes ashore to watch Major General Troy H. Middleton, (second right), direct ground tactics near Scoglitti. Photograph released August 3, 1943. Photographed through Mylar sleeve. U.S. Navy Photograph."

Georgia lowered the voting age to 18.  It was the first state to grant 18-year-olds, at that time liable for the draft and fighting in World War Two, the right to vote.

The Red Army launched Operation Rumyantsev aimed at recovering to recapture Belgorod and Kharkov. As with many such actions, the offensive would gain ground, but feature huge Soviet material and manpower losses.

Gen. George S. Patton visited the 15th Evacuation Hospital in Nicosia, Cyprus and slapped Pvt Charles H. Kuhl with his gloves.  Kuhl was in the hospital for malaria, dysentery and shell shock, and made the mistake of giving Patton the incomplete answer to an inquiry about why he was there with  "I guess I just can't take it."  The level of his illness was not appreciated until after the incident, and he had in fact been in the hosptial on two prior occasions prior to it occuring and returend to the front.  The "can't take it" line had been put on his admittance notes.

Kuhl's malarial infection was undiagnosed at the time, and he was actually much sicker than initially believed.  He passed off the Patton incident and didn't seem to think it a big deal.  Patton later apologized directly to him, following the firestorm of bad publicity and official reprimand this incident was partially responsible for, and noted that Patton hadn't realized he was so ill.

Kuhl noted later that when he met Patton, Patton seemed to be quite worn out.  Depictions of Patton fail to appreciate this, but he was constantly ill during World War Two, a condition probably partially brought on by chain-smoking cigars.  Additionally, there is reason to suspect that he suffered from lingering after affects from horse accident related head injuries.

The incident is depicted in the movie Patton, although a second incident that would occur on August 10 is not.  They would ultimately hit the press, but the public, contrary to what might be suspected, largely supported Patton.

Kuhl died at age 55 from a heart attack.

OS2U-3Kingfisher being lifted off a recovery sled  to be swung aboard the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) on August 3 1943.  I had no idea how they did this.

Wednesday, July 21, 1943. Stormy Weather.

By some accounts the classic film Stormy Weather was released on this date, and not the one we noted a couple of days ago.

It was in fact a day of stormy weather.

A terrible storm hit Indiana. As the National Weather Service notes:

The Great Wawasee Storm of 1943

Weather.gov > Northern Indiana > The Great Wawasee Storm of 1943

 

The Great Wawasee Storm of 1943

The sun rose into a partly cloudy sky on the 21st day of July in 1943. The atmosphere was muggy...dew clung heavily to the blades of grass in people's green lawns. Stepping out into the morning haze it was easy to tell that this was going to be another hot, humid Indiana summer day...the fourteenth day in a row that the mercury would top 80 degrees...might even make it up to 90 if there was enough sunshine.

Though it had been a warm month, it was not unusually oppressive for July, especially when compared with the searing heat Midwesterners suffered through several years earlier. Also, a good deal of rain had fallen on northeast Indiana over the first half of the warm season. The Weather Bureau Airport Station in Fort Wayne reported one and a third inches of rain falling from the 6th to the 7th of July, and two more inches from the 16th to the 17th. That July would end up being the sixth wettest July on record, and although June had been dry, May 1943 was Fort Wayne's second wettest May on record. As a result, lawns were green and the corn was tall.

The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette's small weather section that morning called for another warm day, as if anyone needed to be told, with "widely scattered thunderstorms in Ohio this evening". Many residents on the Indiana side of the border hoped a passing thundershower might cool off their day as well.

As morning melted into afternoon, the heat grew. Although skies were partially cloudy, the summer sun was allowed to send the mercury climbing, and by mid-afternoon thermometers in the area were giving readings in the middle and upper 80s. Farmers and city folks alike sought shelter from the beating sun. Restaurants had a brisk business selling iced tea and lemonade, served in tall glasses that one could place against his forehead and let the beads of water on the outside of the glass trickle coolly over his fingers. Squinting out the window into the glare, hopes for a refreshing thundershower diminished.

---

Sergeant Lloyd Burkholder was ready for a break. After 51 bombing missions over Europe and north Africa, the twenty-five-year-old was planning on getting every ounce of relaxation that he could out of his week's furlough. He was on his way from Europe to Salt Lake City, and had decided to spend the week between the two assignments at home in Indiana. He rented a cabin on Ideal Beach at Lake Wawasee, just down the road from his parents' Goshen home.

Lloyd shared the cabin with eleven other people, ranging in age from 9 to 32, although most of them were in their early to middle 20s. They had been having a great time on their summer vacation, spending many happy hours playing games on the beach and taking rides on Lake Wawasee.

Ray Reim, a twenty-seven year old resident of Goshen and one of Lloyd's guests, owned a 17-foot speedboat. He loved to tear across the lake in it, especially when crammed with as many of his friends as possible. Although there had been a few nighttime showers passing through the area that week, the days had all been sunny and warm, and the large group from the Ideal Beach cabin had been taking regular rides on the boat. Wednesday, the twenty-first of July, would be no different.

"Hey, are we going to go out on Wawasee today or not?" Lloyd directed at Ray.

"I dunno. Sounds good to me. Are any of you people ever gonna help me with gas money? Gas ain't free, you know!"

"Yeah, yeah. We'll draw up a collection at the end of the week. So you wanna get everybody together or what?"

"Sure. I heard we might see some storms this afternoon, but it sure looks okay out there to me."

"Oh please. Since when do the weathermen know what they're talking about? Look at that - it's already almost five o'clock and there's just a bunch of harmless fluffy white clouds floating around. If something was going to happen, it would have happened by now."

"Good point. Let's get everybody together."

It took Ray and Lloyd a solid forty-five minutes to assemble their friends. As they were corralling the people, the sun grew dimmer and eventually was blotted out entirely by the thickening overcast.

"Gosh, it looks like it's wanting to rain" cautioned Barbara Castetter. Barbara was one of the three grade school aged students in the group. She was shy, and tended to stick close to Betty Yoder, who was of the same age.

Betty replied "Oh, those aren't rain clouds. Rain clouds are down low and are real dark. Those clouds look too high up in the air."

"Okay. I just would hate to get stuck in the middle of the lake during a rainstorm. I just got over a fever and don't much feel like getting cold and wet."

In fact, a large thunderstorm had blown up over the southwest tip of Michigan as the friends at Wawasee were gathering. The storm's intensity increased rapidly, and when it crossed the border it was angrily rushing across the fields of far northern Indiana. At 6:05pm the storm's winds streamed into Elkhart, ripping trees from the ground and blowing down power lines throughout the city. The people of the town were plunged into darkness, with the exception of the brilliant lightning forking from the sky. A woman caught outside in the sudden storm was struck and knocked to the ground by lightning. A few miles southwest of town large stones of hail were beating down on the cornfields, causing a great loss to the farmers who had just that morning been working amidst the tall, green rows.

The fourteen people at Ideal Beach were talking loudly in their excitement to get out on the water, while Ray readied the boat. Robert Yoder, nine years old, had been watching the sky grow darker in the northwest. He was getting worried, but didn't want to look like a scared little kid to the others, so he kept his mouth shut. He shot a glance at Billie. Billie was the sweetest girl he had ever known. She was friendly, pretty, and always treated him like a regular one of the gang, even though he was eleven years her junior. He looked at Billie, watched her laugh and chatter with her girlfriends, and decided everything would be okay.

Eloise, Ray's wife and Lloyd's sister, had been helping Ray with the boat when she glanced up at the sky. "Gee, Ray. I hadn't noticed how dark it had gotten over there on the horizon. Maybe we shouldn't go out?"

"Where's the sky darkest?"

"Northwest."

"Around here strong storms come out of the southwest. If the northwest sky is the darkest, then it should miss us and go off to our north." Eloise hesitantly went back to her work on the boat.

By 6:10 the leading edge of the storm's winds had traveled the ten miles from Elkhart to Goshen in about ten minutes. Branches and phone lines were felled simultaneously in Goshen and in Middlebury, several miles to the northeast. The brunt of the storm's fury was gathering south of Goshen, where hail the size of hickory nuts was showering to earth. The oat fields were flattened by the wind and torrents as though a huge roller had moved over them. In New Paris, two smokestacks, eighty feet tall and weighing four tons each, were not able to withstand the force of the gusts as they roared into the town. Trees were being felled and hail was coming down in Millersburg and Benton in the eastern parts of Elkhart County, but the storm's worst anger was concentrating in southern sections of the county, and was screaming to the southeast.

"All right everybody, the boat's ready!" shouted Ray. "It's already a quarter after six -- let's get this ride in before it gets dark or that weather to our northwest decides to come down this way."

"It's already dark", thought Robert, but of course he didn't dare say anything.

The 14 people piled onto the boat and shoved off into the lake. The engine leapt to life and they began moving through the water. The air was oppressively humid and warm, and there was an odd, almost tinny odor to it. The sky to the west was working on turning from grey to black, while the southeastern horizon was still bright, giving the lake an odd shimmer as one side of the tiny waves reflected the light to the east and the other side absorbed the pall of the gathering storm clouds in the opposite direction.

At half past six Dorothy Beckerich, who was one of the two people from the next-door cabin and had come up from Indianapolis to spend a few days at the lake, said worriedly "Okay, it's starting to get green in the west. We've got to get back to shore. Come on, Ray, turn this tug around and let's get back to the beach."

Trees were being laid flat to the ground along routes 6 and 13 in the Syracuse area. Hail was stripping the corn stalks in the fields, reducing them to rubble.

Crashing thunder followed a dazzling streak of lightning. "That was really close!" shouted Lloyd. "Let's go! Let's go!"

"All right!" shouted Ray. "Let me turn 'er around!"

At 6:35pm the terrible gust of wind sped across the lake and slammed full force into the boat and its occupants. The people instinctively looked away from the direction of the wind and shielded their faces. As Ray was beginning to turn his boat around the waves on the lake began growing at an alarming rate. The boat was leaping and falling violently upon the waves, prompting the people to hold on as tightly as possible. The women's mouths were open but their screams of terror could barely be heard over the howling gale. Ray felt a pull at his shoulder. "Barbara's overboard!!" screamed Lloyd as close to Ray's ear as possible. Before Ray could respond, a wave six feet tall - the tallest ever seen on Lake Wawasee - crashed broadside into the boat, capsizing it and sending all of the remaining thirteen people into the lake's black turbulent waters.

In the South Shore Inn, a group of guests had gathered behind the large picture windows that viewed the lake. There was a general murmur of conversation: "...my goodness look at that!..." "...I've never seen such waves on Wawasee..." "...you can't even see a hundred feet through the rain..." "...I hope there's nobody on the water..."

Seventeen-year-old Rita Niesse had come up from Indianapolis for vacation, and was talking with sixteen-year-old Jacqueline Casey of Anderson. They had become quick friends over the previous few days, sharing a deep love of swimming. "Wow! Look at that wind! The trees are just about bent all the way over!" said Rita excitedly.

"Yeah - the windows are even starting to shake!" replied Jacqueline with large, stunned eyes.

A tree several feet from the window crashed to earth, narrowly missing the building. The onlookers near the window backed away nervously. "Yikes! That was close!" yelled Rita.

In the lake, behind the curtain of driving rain that prevented them from being seen by the inn guests, the fourteen friends were being pitched violently across the water from one wave to the next. Their bearings were lost, and it was extremely difficult to know which way was up, let alone which direction the nearest shore was. Rain and hail pummeled the lake and its occupants so completely that the demarcation between lake and air was barely detectable. As they gasped for air and struggled to keep the water out of their lungs, the boaters swam as best they could while the wind blew them along. Eventually several of the people managed to get a hold on a sailboat that had been anchored in the lake, while others were swept up onto the shore. Still others were lurching about in the water, getting beaten without mercy by the wind, waves, rain, and hail.

A loud crash startled the folks by the inn window. They looked out to see the terrible storm reach its peak intensity. Trees were being torn down left and right...parts of roofs were flying through the air...shingles were getting stripped from the roof of the inn...piers were collapsing and sending their boards on a quick flight across the property. All of this happened very suddenly and spectacularly, like the finale at a Fourth of July fireworks display.

After a few long minutes, the hail stopped and the winds and rain began to slacken. People started leaving the window, shaking their heads in amazement. Rita, captivated by the weather, and Jacqueline, too terrified by it to turn away, crept closer to the window and continued watching. Soon Rita said, "Hey - what's that out there across the lake? See? Way over there."

Jacqueline said "It looks like a sailboat anchored in the lake."

"Right, but what are those things on the side?"

"I dunno - nets I suppose."

"They can't be nets. It looks like they're - they're waving! They're people!" Without thinking, Rita ran out of the building into the pouring rain. Jacqueline fell in step right behind her.

They ran into the lake and began swimming as hard as they could, fighting the still falling rain and the waves that were yet in the process of calming down. After several minutes of intense work, they reached the sailboat and started helping people across the lake. Several trips had to be made in order to help everyone to safety on the shore outside the inn. About half-way through the rescue, a man in a boat reached the scene to assist the swimmers.

The group stumbled into the inn and fell about the floor. Guests ran for towels and began comforting the boaters. Some were sobbing, others were simply staring at the floor. Barbara, who had fallen out first but managed to stay afloat and reach the anchored sailboat, suddenly looked up and with terror in her eyes shouted "How many of us are here!??" The rest of the party looked up and counted. Eight. Again. Eight. Once more. Eight. Oh no...only eight. "Where are the others??" shrieked Barbara. "Where are they??"

Instantly several men ran out of the room, headed for their boats. The police and ambulance had been called and were on their way. A total of twenty rescue boats were launched onto the lake to search for the remaining six people who had been on Ray Reim's boat half an hour prior.

While the storm was terrorizing the people on and around Lake Wawasee, it was also busy leveling cornfields and ripping down trees and power poles in Topeka, Ligonier, and North Webster. Trees were torn completely out of the ground along route 13 from Syracuse to North Webster. By 7pm the storm had covered route 33 from Ligonier to Churubusco with trees, telephone wires, and hail. In Churubusco a tree fell on a car that was driving down one of the little town's streets. A barn north of Collins was blown down.

The tempest had spent a great deal of energy destroying property around Lake Wawasee, and, while still very powerful, was not quite the unwelcome terror in Noble and Whitley counties that it had been earlier. However, as it entered northwest Allen County shortly after 7pm, it had rested long enough and made the decision to attempt to return to its previous fury.

The storm created a swath of destruction from the northwest corner of the county to the north side of Fort Wayne. Hail and wind leveled cornfields. Corn that wasn't blown down by the terrific wind was stripped by the hail, reducing their height from three feet to twelve inches. Windows were blown out of farm houses and several barns were beaten to the ground. Hail the size of hens' eggs battered the Irene Byron Sanatorium near Wallen, breaking dozens of windows. Torrential rain flooded all roads in the north part of the county. The Weather Bureau Airport Station, at Smith Airport on the north side of Fort Wayne and less than a mile away from the large hail, reported 1.34 inches of rainfall between 7pm and 8pm. The road outside the weather office was washed away.

Around 8pm Dorothy Beckerich's body was discovered.

Dorothy was from Indianapolis and had just turned twenty-one. She had been having a great time with her friend Virginia Rush, with whom she shared a cabin on Ideal Beach. That afternoon Lloyd from the cabin next door had asked her and Virginia to go out on the lake in Ray's boat. They didn't have to think twice - a boat ride would be great. Three hours later Dorothy's water-soaked body washed up onto the beach, half a mile east of the South Shore Inn, not far from the remains of her twenty-year-old roommate, Virginia.

The storm raged on as it ripped down trees and power poles in Saint Joe, New Haven, and Monroeville. At Harlan the trees were stripped of their bark and leaves. A barn was blown across a road into a farmhouse. A hundred chickens and a cow were killed when another barn was demolished by the unrelenting gusts.

At 8:30pm the storms crossed the Ohio line. They produced two tornadoes. The first one struck southwest Paulding County between McGill and Tipton where it produced F2 damage to two barns. The second tornado dropped from the sky just northwest of Van Wert around 9pm and inflicted F2 damage to six barns. Nobody was killed or injured in either tornado.

The last of the six bodies at Lake Wawasee was found at 5:45 Friday morning, nearly thirty-six hours after the accident. Fortunately Robert Yoder, who had silently depended on her for support as the storm clouds gathered that Wednesday afternoon, was not present to watch the men pull Billie's lifeless body from the water, where she had drowned and been held seven feet below the surface by sunken debris.

Epilogue

On Wednesday, July 21, 1943, a terrible storm swept across northeast Indiana. Directly in the path of its untempered fury was Lake Wawasee, and a boat with fourteen friends out for an evening on the lake. The boat capsized in the tallest waves ever seen on the lake, spilling all fourteen people into the water. Eight of those people never forgot the terror they were put through that night.

Perished

Sergeant Lloyd Burkholder, age 25, of Goshen

Dean Yoder, age 21, of Elkhart

Lloyd Conklin, age 21, of Goshen

Dorothy Beckerich, age 21, of Indianapolis

Billie Binkley, age 20

Virginia Rush, age 20

Survived

Earl Markham, age 32, of Goshen

Ray Reim, age 27, of Goshen

Eloise Reim, age 24, of Goshen

Doris Radkey, age 22, of Goshen

Betty Radkey, age 20, of Goshen

Barbara Castetter, age 13, of Rome, New York

Betty Yoder, age 13, of Goshen

Robert Yoder, age 9, of Goshen

The survivors owed their lives to two teenage girls from central Indiana: Rita Niesse and Jacqueline Casey.

Click on the image for a map of the track of the storm

References

Grazulis, Thomas, 1991: Significant Tornadoes, 1690-1991,

DOC,NOAA,NWS, 1943: Monthly Meteorological Summary for Fort Wayne, Indiana, National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, NC.

DOC,NOAA,NWS, 1943: Daily Maximum Temperature by Years, National Weather Service Office, South Bend, IN.

DOC,NOAA,NWS, 1943: Total Precipitation, National Weather Service Office, South Bend, IN.

Goshen News Democrat. July 22, 1943

Columbia City Post and Mail. July 22, 1943

Columbia City Post. July 23, 1943

Elkhart Truth. July 22, 1943

Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. July 22, 1943

Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. July 23, 1943

Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. July 24, 1943

 

The Battle of Roosevelt Ridge which saw US and Australian forces pitted against the Imperial Japanese Army began on New Guinea.

Patton's Seventh Army took Castelvetrano, Santa Margherita, Corleone, Valledolmo, and Alimena, Sicily.  This action cleared the western part of the island.

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.

Wednesday, July 14, 1943. Airborne landing at Primosole Bridge, Belarussians ordered to blow up the rail lines, US War Crime in Sicily,

British airborne dropped in Sicily in Operation Fustion, which was designed to take the Primosole Bridge. The action was one of two in Sicily which saw the oddity of Allied paratroopers fighting German paratroopers who initially thought the British were reinforcements. The German paratroopers had come in on the 9th as reinforcements.

Primosole Bridge after capture.

While the bridge was ultimately taken, the action itself had mixed results.

Following a meeting with Stalin, Gen. Panteleimon Ponomarendo leader of the Belarusian pro Soviet partisans, issued Order No. 42 directing 123 partisan units to destroy the rail lines that had been used by the invading Germans, thus making their retreat from Russia, particularly with heavy weapons, difficult.

Communist, or at least anti-German, Belorussian partisans, 1943.

Ponomarendo was an ethnic Ukrainian who had been either in the Red Army or a Communist politician/functionary since the early days of the Russian Civil War.  Destruction of the railways was something he'd urged.  During the war, his troops killed around 300,000 Germans, a massive number.

They also killed some members of the Polish underground, executing some of its officers.  It's claimed that his forces provided information on Polish underground members to the Germans.  His views on western Poland may be summed up by this statement:

The western oblasts of Soviet Belarus are an integral part of the Republic of Belarus. The nationalist divisions and groups formed by Polish reactionary circles should be isolated from the population by creating Soviet troops and groups consisting of working people of Polish nationality. Nationalist units and groups should be fought by all means.

Ponomarendo died at age 81 in 1984.

Belorussia lost 25% of its pre-war population during World War Two.  Young men were typically faced with no options other than joining the partisans or joining Nazi collaborationist elements.

The Battle of Mubo in New Guinea ended in an Allied victory.  The battle, between Australian troops and the Japanese, had been going on since April.

The Biscari Massacre occured when troops of the 180th Infantry Regiment, which had been performing so poorly that thought had been given to relieving its commander, killed 71 Italian and 2 German POWs in two separate incidents.

In the first incident, Maj. Roger Denman ordered Sgt. Horace T. West to take a group of POWs to the rear and hold them in an inconspicuous place for questioning.  He separated eight of them to be taken to S-2 for questioning, borrowed a Thompson submachine gun, and killed them.  The bodies were found the next day and the chaplain, Lt. Col. William E. King, took the matter up.

In the second incident, Cpt. John T. Compton, who was extremely sleep-deprived, ordered 35 Italian POWs shot on the belief that they had been snipers who had been firing at his command. They were executed by firing squad.  Compton later told the following to investigators about the incident:

Q. How did you select the men to do the firing?

A. I wished to get it done fast and very thoroughly, so I told them to get automatic weapons, the BAR [Browning Automatic Rifle] and Tommy Gun.

Q. How did you get the men? Did you ask for volunteers?

A. No, sir. I told the [SGT] to get the men.

Q. Do you remember exactly what you told him?

A. I don't remember exactly.

Q. What formation did you get them in before they were shot?

A. Single file on the edge of a ridge.

Q. Were they facing the weapons or the other side?

A. They were in single file, in a column, rifle fire from the right.

Q. Were the prisoners facing the weapons or the other side?

A. They were facing right angle of fire.

Q. What formation did you have the firing squad (sic)?

A. Lined 6 foot away, about 2 yards apart, on a line.

Q. Did you give any kind of a firing order?

A. I gave a firing order.

Q. What was your firing order?

A. Men, I am going to give ready fire and you will commence firing on the order of fire.

While first passing off on it, Gen. Patton ordered that the participating soldiers be court-martialed.  West was convicted of pre meditated murder, stripped of his rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment.  His sentence was remitted in 1944, and he served the rest of the war, ironically gaining a semi heroic status as a sniper.

He died in Oklahoma in 1974.

Compton was court-martialed and acquitted, but a Judge Advocate review declared that the action had been unlawful.  Compton was transferred and then killed in Italy in 1943.

Both West and Compton sited a speech by Patton as the partial basis of their action.  Compton specifically stated:

During the Camberwell operation in North Africa, George S.Patton, in a speech to assembled officers, stated that in the case where the enemy was shooting to kill our troops and then that we came close enough on him to get him, decided to quit fighting, he must die. Those men had been shooting at us to kill and had not  marched up to us to surrender. They had been surprised and routed, putting them, in my belief, in the category of the General's  statement.

Patton was cleared of wrongdoing by investigators, and this was likely at least in part a defense crafted by their lawyers.

While not really knowing the story of either men, West was 32 years old at the time of the incident and seems to have likely been a fairly tough Texan/Oklahoman.  He may really not have seen anything wrong with his actions.  Compton seems to have been extremely fatigues, although that offers a poor excuse.

Beyond that, this event offers a rare glimpse into a well documented US war crime during the war.  Allied war crimes are not much discussed, and were not discussed at all until relatively recently, but they did occur.  Executions of POWs such as the West example, while certainly never sanctioned, were more common in the ETO than we might like to imagine, and taking Japanese POWs was something that was only rarely done, for a variety of reasons, after the fairly early stages of the war, one of those reasons being that the Japanese weren't inclined to surrender.  The strafing of farmers was also much more common in the ETO than recognized for the most part.

For this same day, on Sarah Sundin's blog, the following is noted:

Today in World War II History—July 14, 1943: On Sicily, British Eighth Army takes Vizzini, Lentini, and Simeto. In Krasnodor, Russia, Soviets try 11 Germans in the first war crimes trial of the war.

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.