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.

Sunday, August 15, 1943. Joint Operations.

U.S. and Canadian forces landed on Kiska and found it abandoned.

Canadian soldier looking down the sites of a Japanese light machine gun.

There were casualties.  Four American soldiers were killed by mines and 24 by friendly fire by troops operating in fog. The island was expected to be heavily defended and the Japanese withdrawal was a surprise.

Americans and New Zealanders landed on Vella Lavella in the Solomons.

U.S. troops on Vella Lavella.

The British took Taormina in Sicily. The U.S. conducted another amphibious landing on the northern Sicilian coast.

Karachev fail to the Red Army.

The Polish Uderzeniowe Bataliony Kadrowe raided Mittenheide.

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.

Thursday, August 12, 1943. German withdrawals, Polish and Albanian raids, German reports, Pacific staging.

The Germans, in one of the most successful withdrawals of the Second World War, carried on with day two of its evacuation of Axis forces from Sicily.

Franklin Roosevelt broadcast a message to the Filipino people, promising to establish full sovereignty for the nation upon liberation from the Japanese.  The scheduled date for that was already July 4, 1946.  As it was, liberation of the island would not come until July 1945 and the scheduled date was kept.

The Polish Home Army executed Operation Góral and recovered a massive amount of cash being taken out of the country by the Germans.  On the same day, the Albanian resistance ambushed a German convoy successfully in the Kurtës Ambush

The German Sicherheitsdienst, the SD reported on the attitude of young Germans. Among other things, it reported:

Most boys and girls have not the slightest interest in becoming a member of the NSDAP. All attempts by the relevant authorities to get them involved have been in vain. For the boys it's the Wehrmacht which is now the thing not the Party.

And: 

The reserve shown towards the Party is also encouraged by the unresolved Party-Church question. Since a large section of youth, and above all their parents, are still loyal to the Church, remarks aimed at the "sacred beliefs which they have held hitherto" by Party comrades, cadres and HJ leaders have a negative impact. This is particularly the case at the present time because, as a result of the current war situation, young people too notice that the Church pays great attention, for example, to caring for the relatives of those who have been killed, and that the priests give clear answers on questions concerning life and the present time. In addition, rumors about alleged positive remarks about the churches by leading personalities, soldiers who have been decorated etc. have a big impact.

The SD and related organizations carried on a lot of secret polling of this type during the war. 

Things were happening in the North Pacific. 

USS Tennessee (BB-43) at Adak, Aleutians, August 12, 1943, just before the Kiska landings.

On the Eastern Front, Luftwaffe Hptm Hans-Ulrich Rudel completed his 1300th mission and his tail gunner OFw Hentschel’s completed his 1000th.

Wednesday, August 11, 1943. Retreats.

The Germans commenced withdrawing from Sicily.

Sarah Sundin notes this on her blog, also noting that 100,000 Axis troops would be evacuated to the Italian peninsula, a significant failure in the Allied campaign in that they were not able, in spite of attempting, to trap them in Sicily.  There were efforts to do so, as she also noted:

Today in World War II History—August 11, 1943: 80 Years Ago—Aug. 11, 1943: US Seventh Army makes amphibious landings at Brolo on Sicily’s north shore, but fails to cut off German retreat.

Hitler ordered the creation of an "Eastern Wall" to defend conquered territory in the Baltics.

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.

Thursday, August 5, 1943. WASPs.

While by this point, this story is now confusing because of predecessor organizations, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were officially formed.

WASP wings.

The Red Army recaptured Orel.

The British took. Catania, Sicily.

The crew of the PT-109, including future President John F. Kennedy, were found by two Solomon Island coastwatchers, namely Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana.

Eva-Maria Buch and Rose Schlösinger of the Red Orchestra were executed in Berlin.

Most of the members of the Red Orchestra were Communists, but 22 year old Buch was not.  Indeed, she was Catholic.

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.

Thursday, July 22, 1943. Palermo falls to the Seventh Army. Greeks riot over Macedonia, US landings at Munda Point.

Patton's Seventh Army entered Palermo to an enormous celebration by the residents of the ancient city.  Two captured Italian generals, in turn, claimed to be happy about the event because "the Sicilians were not human beings but animals" ("i Siciliani non erano esseri umani ma animali").

Seventh Army staff aboard SS Monrovia, en route to Sicily, June/July 1943.

The Italian fascist government had held anti-Sicilian views due to Sicily's long peculiar history.  

The island has been inhabited since ancient times and was a destination for Italic and Phoenician colonists as far back as 1200 BC, who displaced the already existing Sicilian population.  Greek colonization commenced around 750 BC.  In antiquity, it was contested by the Greeks and Carthaginians, both of whom conquered it at different times.  The Romans conquered it and displaced the Carthaginians and declared that the island should be latinized, although its culture remained, at the time, Greek.  With the fall of the Roman Empire, it fell to invading Germanic tribes, with the Vandals taking Palermo in 440.  The Byzantine Empire then retook it, as the Eastern Roman Empire, and ruled it from the 550s to the 960s, during which time the Arabs began to attempt to take it.  From the 820s through the 960s, it slowly fell to Muslim invaders.

The Normans arrived starting in 1038, around thirty years prior to their invasion of England, and began to take it from the Arabs.  They formed a Norman kingdom that lasted until 1198, becoming part of the typical drama of European kingdoms at the time.  The Normans imported European settlers to the island, which went from being 1/3d Greek speaking and 2/3s Arabic speaking to being latinized once again.  It went back and forth to varying European households until 1860, when the Italians conquered it.  It became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.

During the fascist period the island was subject to unwelcome attention in part because Italians have never really regarded Sicilians as Italians, given their multi-ethnic heritage, and part because the strong local character of the island was unwelcome. Also, unwelcome was the fairly strong local Communist Party and the Sicilian Mafia. The fascist nearly crushed the Mafia during their period in power.

A general strike was called in Athens over Bulgarian intentions to annex Macedonia, which resulted in a massive protest in the city over the same thing.

The protests were successful in that they postponed the Bulgarian plans to the point that they were never carried out.

The SS executed all of the remaining 2,500 inmates of the Tarnopol concentration camp.

US infantry during the battle.

The Battle of Munda Point began on New Georgia.  The object was the points' airfield, in what would become a hard fought campaign.

The U.S. Navy raided Kiska.

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.

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, 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.

Tuesday, May 18, 1943. Reaching out.

The Allies commenced bombing Pantelleria, 100 miles from Tunis and 60 miles off of Sicily.  

On a clear day, Tunisia is actually visible from Pantelleria.  The island, while it has had some occasional human residences since pre historic times, has been continually occupied since taken by the Carthaginians at the beginning of the 7th Century, B.C.

Pope Pius XII

Pope Pius XII appealed to Franklin Roosevelt to spare Rome from bombing.

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.

Thursday, January 28, 1943. Glyndwr Michael.

Glyndwr Michael, age 34, died.  The homeless Welsh man's body would be used in Operation Mincemeat, in which he was set adrift off of Spain with a fictional British Army identify carrying invasion plans for Sardinia. The Sardinian operation was a deception for the anticipated invasion of Sicily.

Michael's true identity would not be revealed for 55 years, something typical of the British mania for secrecy.

His tomb, baring honors, is in Spain.

The recent movie on this matter, Operation Mincemeat, is excellent, and does a superb job of depicting the events of Operation Mincemeat from beginning to end, including selecting Michael's body.  This is the first references to the film here, but it's a very good film in all respects.

Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson announced the US would "ease restrictions on Americans of Japanese ancestry and employ loyal ones in war work", meaning the U.S. would form a Japanese American Army unit.  In fact, the US was already employing some Japanese American servicemen as interpreters, but this paved the way to wider use of Japanese American volunteers 

The Japanese submarine I-65 shelled Port Gregory, Western Australia, to no effect.