Timeline 1943
Return to home
1943 Jan 2, The
Allies captured Buna in New Guinea.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1943 Jan 3, A US B-17 bomber was
downed over France following a bombing run over a German submarine base
in southern France. John Roten, navigator, was the only survivor. Roten
spent 28 months as a POW.
(SFC, 9/10/01, p.A11)
1943 Jan 5, George Washington
Carver, Educator and scientist, died at age 81 at Tuskegee, Alabama.
Carver was born the son of a slave woman in the early 1860s, went to
college in Iowa and then headed to Alabama in 1896. There, at the
Tuskegee Institute, Carver served as an agricultural chemist,
experimenter, teacher and administrator, working to improve life for
African Americans in the rural South by teaching them better
agricultural skills. One of the farming methods Carver devised, using
peanut and soybean crops to enrich soil depleted by cotton crops,
revolutionized Southern farming. Carver became somewhat of a benevolent
example of the potential of black intellectuals. He was well-respected
by people such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi,
Josef Stalin and Thomas Edison, whose offer of a job for more than $100
a year Carver refused. Carver worked at Tuskegee until his death.
(AP, 1/5/98)(HNPD, 1/5/99)
1943 Jan 5, The Japanese began a
planned withdrawal from Guadalcanal.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1943 Jan 7, Nicola Tesla (b.1856),
Croatian born inventor and physicist, died In NYC. In 1996 Marc Seifer
authored “Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a
Genius.”
(SFC, 12/29/96, Z1
p.2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla)(WSJ, 3/7/09, p.W8)
1943 Jan 8, The British handed
Madagascar over to the Free French.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1943 Jan 9, Soviet planes dropped
leaflets on the surrounded Germans in Stalingrad requesting their
surrender with humane terms. The Germans refused.
(HN, 1/9/99)
1943 Jan 10, Russian offensive
began against German 6th and 4th Armies near Stalingrad.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1943 Jan 11, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt flew to Morocco for a top-secret meeting with British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill. He had not flown since 1932, when he
traveled from Albany, New York, to Chicago to accept his nomination at
the Democratic national convention. No U.S. president had previously
flown while in office because the Secret Service regarded flying as a
dangerous mode of transport. Air travel was the only realistic option
for the trip to Casablanca because German submarines lurking in the
Atlantic made a surface crossing too risky.
(HNQ, 4/8/02)
1943 Jan 11, The United States and
Britain signed treaties relinquishing extraterritorial rights in China.
(AP, 1/11/98)
1943 Jan 11, The Soviet Red Army
encircled Stalingrad.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1943 Jan 12, Frankfurters were
replaced by Victory Sausages, a mix of meat & soy meal.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1943 Jan 12, Soviet forces raised
the siege of Leningrad.
(HN, 1/12/99)
1943 Jan 13, General Leclerc's
Free French forces merged with the British under Montgomery in Libya.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1943 Jan 14, Roosevelt, Churchill,
and DeGaulle met at Casablanca, Morocco, to discuss the direction of
the war. The Casablanca Conference, a pivotal 10-day meeting during
WWII between U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill, determined unconditional surrender would be
the only basis of negotiations with the Axis. Roosevelt and Churchill
also pledged maximum aid to the Soviet Union and China in the war
(AP, 1/14/98)(HN, 1/14/99)(HNQ, 1/7/00)
1943 Jan 14, Italian occupation
authorities refused to deport any Jews living on their territories in
France.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1943 Jan 15, Work was completed on
the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense in
Arlington, Va. In 2007 Steve Vogel authored “The Pentagon: A History.”
(AP, 1/15/98)(Econ, 6/30/07, p.93)
1943 Jan 16, A state record of
-60F (-51C) was recorded in Island Park Dam, Idaho.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1943 Jan 17, US Tin Can Drive Day.
(MC, 1/17/02)
1943 Jan 18, A wartime ban on the
sale of pre-sliced bread in the United States—aimed at reducing
bakeries’ demand for metal replacement parts—went into effect.
(AP, 1/18/98)
1943 Jan 18, Jews in Warsaw Ghetto
began an uprising against the Nazis.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1943 Jan 18, The Soviets announced
they'd broken the long Nazi siege of Leningrad. It was another year
before the siege was fully lifted.
(AP, 1/18/98)
1943 Jan 19, Janice Joplin
(d.1970), rock singer, was born.
(estate)
1943 Jan 20, Giacomo Benvenuti
(57), composer, died.
(MC, 1/20/02)
1943 Jan 21, A Nazi daylight air
raid killed 34 in a London school.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1943 Jan 22, Battle of Anzio:
Italy.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1943 Jan 22, Axis forces pulled
out of Tripoli for Tunisia, and destroyed bases as they left.
(HN, 1/22/99)
1943 Jan 23, Critic Alexander
Woollcott suffered a fatal heart attack during a live broadcast of the
CBS radio program "People’s Platform."
(AP, 1/23/98)
1943 Jan 24, President Roosevelt
and British Prime Minister Churchill concluded a wartime conference in
Casablanca, Morocco.
(AP, 1/24/98)
1943 Jan 24, Hitler ordered Nazi
troops at Stalingrad to fight to death.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1943 Jan 25, The last German
airfield in Stalingrad was captured by the Red Army.
(HN, 1/25/99)
1943 Jan 26, A US War Department
Disposition Form was issued with “Subject: establishment of a War
Department Fixed Radio Station in Africa.” It detailed operational
objectives for what was to become the 4th Detachment of the Second
Signal Service Battalion, Asmara, Eritrea. Over time the US paid
Ethiopia more than $360m in military aid as rent for the eavesdropping
installation at Kagnew.
(www.kagnewstation.com/history/chapter4/index.html)(Econ, 1/22/05, p.80)
1943 Jan 26, The first OSS (Office
of Strategic Services) agent parachuted behind Japanese lines in Burma.
(HN, 1/26/99)
1943 Jan 26, Nikolai Vavilov
(b.1887), Soviet botanist, died in prison. In 1929 he had traced the
genealogy of the apple to Kazakhstan.
(SSFC, 5/25/08, Books
p.3)(www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=54)
1943 Jan 27, Some 50 bombers
struck Wilhelmshaven and Emden in the first all-American air raid
against Germany during World War II.
(AP, 1/27/98)(HN, 1/27/99)
1943 Jan 30, Field marshal
Friedrich von Paulus surrendered himself and his staff to Red Army
troops in Stalingrad.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1943 Jan 31, Chile broke contact
with Germany and Japan.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1943 Jan 31, The Battle of
Stalingrad ended as small groups of German soldiers of the Sixth Army
under Gen Friedrich von Paulus surrendered to the victorious Red Army
forces.
(HN, 1/31/99)(MC, 1/31/02)
1943 Jan, Duke Ellington led the
debut of "Black, Brown and Beige," his 44-minute piece for jazz
orchestra at Carnegie Hall in a Russian War Relief effort headed by
Harriet Moore, a communist sympathizer. One vocal piece called "The
Blues" was featured. It was conceived as an opera and the music was
based on a narrative poem he had written about a mythical African named
Boola.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.E1)(SFC, 7/8/97, p.B3)
1943 Jan, Rutka Laskier (14) began
a diary in Bedzin, Poland, shortly before she was deported to
Auschwitz. The 60-page memoir ended in April and within a few months
Rutka was dead. Her diary was made public in 2007.
(AP, 6/4/07)
1943 Feb 1, One of America’s most
decorated military units of World War II, the 442d Regimental Combat
Team, made up almost entirely of Japanese-Americans, was authorized.
(AP, 2/1/97)
1943 Feb 1, American tanks and
infantry were battered at German positions at Fais pass in North Africa.
(HN, 2/1/99)
1943 Feb 2, The remainder of Nazi
forces from the Battle of Stalingrad surrendered in a major World War
II victory for the Soviets. 23 generals, 2,000 officers, and at least
130,000 German troops surrendered. This was later considered as the
turning point of WW II.
(AP, 2/2/97)(HN, 2/2/99)(WSJ, 3/28/03, p.A1)
1943 Feb 3, The US transport ship
"Dorchester," which was carrying troops to Greenland, sank after being
hit by a torpedo. Four Army chaplains (Rev. Lt. George L. Fox, a
Methodist minister; Rabbi Lt. Alexander D. Goode; Father Lt. John P.
Washington, a Roman Catholic priest; and Rev. Lt. Clark V. Poling, a
Protestant minister from the Dutch Reformed Church) gave their life
jackets to four other men, and went down with the ship.
(AP, 2/3/03)(www.fourchaplains.org/story.html)
1943 Feb 3, Finland began talks
with the Soviet Union.
(HN, 2/3/99)
1943 Feb 6, Crooner Frank Sinatra
debuted on radio's "Your Hit Parade."
(MC, 2/6/02)
1943 Feb 6, A Los Angeles jury
acquitted actor Errol Flynn of three counts of statutory rape.
(AP, 2/6/97)
1943 Feb 7, The government
announced that shoe rationing would go into effect in two days,
limiting each purchaser to three pairs for the remainder of the year.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1943 Feb 8, British General
Wingate led a guerrilla force of "Chindits" behind the Japanese lines
in Burma. Detachment 101’s support of Maj. Gen. Orde Wingate’s Chindits
and Maj. Gen. Frank Merrill’s Marauders was crucial to the Allied
success in Burma and to the eventual victory in Southeast Asia.
(HN, 2/8/98)(www.chindits.info/)
1943 Feb 8, Red Army recaptured
Kursk.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1943 Feb 9, FDR ordered a minimal
48 hour work week in war industry.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1943 Feb 9, The World War II
battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended with an Allied
victory over Japanese forces.
(AP, 2/9/08)
1943 Feb 9, The Russians took back
Kursk 15 months after it fell to the Nazis.
(HN, 2/9/97)
1943 Feb 11, General Eisenhower
was selected to command the allied armies in Europe.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1943 Feb 11, Transport # 47
departed with French Jews to Nazi Germany.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1943 Feb 13, There was a German
assault on Sidi Bou Zid, Tunisia, as Gen. Eisenhower visited the front.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1943 Feb 14, A German offensive
was made through the de Faid pass in Tunisia.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1943 Feb 14, Soviets recaptured
Rostov.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1943 Feb 14, David Hilbert
(b.1862), German mathematician, died. He is considered the father of
modern mathematics.
(Econ, 4/2/05,
p.73)(www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs462/Hall/hilbert.html)
1943 Feb 15, Women's camp Tamtui
on Ambon (Moluccas) was hit by allied air raid.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1943 Feb 15, The Germans broke the
U.S. lines at the Fanid-Sened Sector in Tunisia.
(HN, 2/15/98)
1943 Feb 16, Withdrawing Africa
Corps reached the Mareth-line in North Africa.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1943 Feb 16, Sign on Munich
facade: "Out with Hitler! Long live freedom!" was posted by the "White
Rose" student group. They were caught on 2/18 and beheaded on 2/22.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1943 Feb 16, The Red army
conquered Kharkov.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1943 Feb 17, Dutch churches
protested to Artur Seyss-Inquart against persecution of Jews.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1943 Feb 18, Augusto Pinochet
Ugarte (Chilean gen., dictator) married Lucia Hiriart.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1943 Feb 18, Munich resistance
group "White Rose" was captured by Nazis.
(http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/rose.html)
1943 Feb 18, Rommel took three
towns in Tunisia, North Africa. The intercepted communications of an
American in Cairo provided a secret ear for the Desert Fox.
(HN, 2/18/98)
1943 Feb 19, German tanks under
brig. general Buelowius attacked Kasserine Pass, Tunisia.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1943 Feb 20, German troops of the
Afrika Korps broke through the Kasserine Pass, defeating U.S. forces.
(HN, 2/20/99)
1943 Feb 21, German tanks and two
infantry battalions broke the Allied line and took Kasserine Pass in
North Africa.
(HN, 2/21/98)
1943 Feb 22, The battleship USS
Iowa, the first in the Navy’s 45,000 ton class, was commissioned. The
ship carried Pres. Roosevelt to Tehran in Nov. and was decommissioned
in 1990. Also noted as 1st in the 48,000 ton class.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A14)(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A6)
1943 Feb 22, In Germany Christoph
Probst (22), Hans (24) and Sophie Scholl (21), student members of the
Die Weisse Rose (White Rose) resistance, were executed by the Nazis.
(SFC, 9/7/98,
p.A21)(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/rose.html)
1943 Feb 23, German troops pulled
back through the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1943 Feb 25, George Harrison (d.
Nov 29, 2001) of the Beatles was born.
(SFC, 11/30/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A2)
1943 Feb 25, U.S. troops retook
the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia, where they had been defeated five days
before.
(HN, 2/25/99)
1943 Feb 26, U.S. Flying
Fortresses and Liberators pounded the Reich docks and U-boat lairs at
Wilhelmshaven.
(HN, 2/26/98)
1943 Feb 26, The German assault
moved to Beja, North Tunisia.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1943 Feb 28, "Porgy & Bess"
opened on Broadway with Anne Brown & Todd Duncan.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1943 Feb 28, In Operation
Gunnerside Norwegian commandos flown in from Britain bombed the Nazi
heavy water plant near Rjukan. The raid was later depicted in the 1965
film "The Heroes of Telemark." The 9 commandos included Claus Helberg
(d.2003) and Knut Haukelid (d.1994).
(SFC, 3/14/03, p.A27)(ON, 4/07, p.4)
1943 Feb 13, The Marine Corps
began allowing women to enlist as reserves.
(www.mcleague.com/mdp/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=63)
1943 Feb, The 442nd Regimental
Combat Team, a Japanese-American fighting unit, was organized at Fort
Shelby, Miss. Tooru Joe Kanazawa (d.2002) later authored "Close
Support, A History of the Cannon Company of the 442nd Regimental combat
Team."
(SFC, 10/22/02, p.A16)
1943 Feb, German women
demonstrated outside a Berlin community center where their Jewish
husbands and children had been rounded up for deportation to Auschwitz.
1,200 men and children were released a week later and survived the war.
It was the only public protest by Germans against Nazi persecution of
the Jews.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.C2)
1943 Feb-Nov ‘44, Sweden received
about 12.8 tons of gold from Germany.
(SFC,1/22/97, p.A9)
1943 Mar 1, The British RAF
conducted strategic bombing raids on all European railway lines. From
1939 to 1945, R.A.F. pilots and air crews waged war on Germany from
inside Hitler's Reich.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1943 Mar 1, In Amsterdam a Jewish
old age home for disabled was raided.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1943 Mar 2, George Benson, jazz,
blues guitarist (Breezin', This Masquerade), was born.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1943 Mar 2, The battle of the
Bismarck Sea began. US and Australian warplanes were able to inflict
heavy damage on a Japanese convoy.
(AP, 3/2/07)
1943 Mar 2, The center of Berlin
was bombed by the RAF. Some 900 tons of bombs were dropped in a half
hour.
(HN, 3/2/99)
1943 Mar 2, 1st transport of Jews
from Westerbork, Netherlands, to Sobibor concentration camp.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1943 Mar 3, F. Ryerson and Cohn
Claues' "Harriet" premiered in New York NY.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1943 Mar 3, US defeated Japan in
the Battle of Bismarck Sea.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1943 Mar 3, A bomb fleeing crowd
fell into London shelter and 173 died.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1943 Mar 4, Transport Number 50
departed with French Jews to Majdanek and Sobibor.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1943 Mar 5, RAF bombed Essen,
Germany. [see Mar 6]
(MC, 3/5/02)
1943 Mar 5, In desperation due to
war losses, fifteen and sixteen year olds are called up for military
service in the German army.
(HN, 3/5/99)
1943 Mar 5, The Gloster Meteor
first flew. Great Britain emerged from World War II with a decided head
start in jet technology, the only Allied power to have had a jet
fighter operational in squadron strength before the German surrender on
May 8, 1945. On July 21, 1944, the first two production Meteors arrived
at Culmhead and formed the nucleus of No. 616 Squadron, Royal Air Force
(RAF). Appropriately, the Meteor’s first duty was to defend Britain
from attacks by German V-1 pulse jet-powered guided bombs, of which
they destroyed 13 by the end of the war. Meteor IIIs of No. 616
Squadron were committed to Continental Europe in the last months of the
conflict, but they never got the opportunity to meet the German Me-262A
in battle.
(HNQ, 8/21/01)
1943 Mar 6, British RAF fliers
bombed Essen and the Krupp arms works in the Ruhr, Germany.
(HN, 3/6/98)
1943 Mar 6, Battle at Medenine,
North-Africa: Rommel's assault attack.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1943 Mar 8, Japanese forces
attacked American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville. The battle lasted
five days.
(HN, 3/8/99)
1943 Mar 8, 335 allied bombers
attacked Nuremberg.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1943 Mar 9, Bobby Fischer
(d.2008), first American world chess champion (1972-1975), was born. He
later authored “Bobby Fischer’s Games of Chess.”
(HN, 3/9/99)(SFC, 9/7/01, p.D5)(SFC, 1/19/08, p.A2)
1943 Mar 9, Greek Jews of Salonika
were transported to Nazi extermination camps.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1943 Mar 10, Hitler called Rommel
back from Tunisia in North Africa. The intercepted communications of an
American in Cairo provided a secret ear for the Desert Fox.
(HN, 3/10/98)
1943 Mar 13, There was a failed
assassination attempt on Hitler during the Smolensk-Rastenburg flight.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1943 Mar 13, Germans closed the
Krakow ghetto in Poland.
(HN, 3/13/98)
1943 Mar 13, Japanese forces ended
their attack on the American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville.
(HN, 3/13/99)
1943 Mar 14, Aaron Copland’s
"Fanfare for the Common Man" premiered in New York, with George Szell
conducting.
(AP, 3/14/97)
1943 Mar 14, The Germans
reoccupied Kharkov in the Soviet Union.
(HN, 3/14/98)
1943 Mar 17, The German
occupation authority closed Lithuanian schools of higher education and
the Academy of Education.
(LHC, 3/17/03)
1943 Mar 18, American forces took
Gafsa in Tunisia. In the crucible of Operation Torch, the men of
Sub-Task Force Goalpost received their baptism of fire capturing the
Moroccan town of Port Lyautey.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1943 Mar 18, The ships James
Oglethorpe (US) and Terkolei (Neth.), were torpedoed and sank.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1943 Mar 18, The Reich called off
its offensive in Caucasus.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1943 Mar 18, Red Army evacuated
Belgorod.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1943 Mar 19, Airship Canadian Star
was torpedoed and sank.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1943 Mar 20, The Allies attacked
Rommel’s forces on the Mareth Line in North Africa.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1943 Mar 20, German U-384
was bombed and sank.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1943 Mar 21, British 8th army
opened an assault on Mareth line, Tunisia.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1943 Mar 21, An assassination
attempt on Hitler failed.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1943 Mar 22, SS police chief
Rauter threatened to kill half Jewish children.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1943 Mar 23, Germans counter
attacked US lines in Tunisia.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1943 Mar 25, Jimmy Durante and
Garry Moore premiered on radio.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1943 Mar 26, Elsie S. Ott, US army
nurse, became the 1st woman to receive air medal.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1943 Mar 26, Battle of Komandorski
Islands, Pacific Ocean.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1943 Mar 27, US began an assault
on Fondouk-pass, Tunisia.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1943 Mar 28, Sergei Vasilievitch
Rachmaninoff (70), Russian-born composer, died in Beverly Hills, Calif.
(AP, 3/28/97)
1943 Mar 29, Eric Idle, comedian,
actor (Monty Python), was born in England.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1943 Mar 29, John Major, British
PM (1990-97), was born.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A20)(MC, 3/29/02)
1943 Mar 29, Vangelis,
[Papathanasiou], composer, keyboardist (Chariots of Fire), was born.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1943 Mar 29, World War II meat,
butter and cheese rationing began.
(AP, 3/28/97)
1943 Mar 30, Rodgers and
Hammerstein's first collaboration, Oklahoma, opened on Broadway. [see
Mar 31]
(HN, 3/30/01)(MC, 3/30/02)
1943 Mar 31, The Rodgers and
Hammerstein musical "Oklahoma!" opened on Broadway. Richard Rodgers and
Oscar Hammerstein hired Agnes de Mille for the choreography. The
original is only on documentary videotape and the 1954 film was a
"bloated mess." [see Mar 30]
(TMC, 1994, p.1943)(WSJ, 2/5/96, p.A-16)(AP, 3/30/97)
1943 Mar 31, US errantly bombed
Rotterdam, killed 326.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1943 Mar, Britain hatched the
Doctor Project, a secret plan to assassinate German Field Marshall
Rommel. It was never executed.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.C2)
1943 March-May Gen'l. Patton moved
his troops across North Africa. North Africa was secured by the Allies.
(WSJ, 12/8/95, p.A-14)(TMC, 1994, p.1943)
1943 Spring, The 418th Army Air
Forces Band under Glenn Miller began in Durfee Hall at Yale Univ. It
later became known as the Band of the Training Command through a weekly
Army radio series called "I Sustain the Wings."
(WSJ, 10/24/96, p.A16)
1943 Apr 5, The British 8th Army
attacked the next blocking position of the retreating Axis forces at
Wadi Akarit.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1943 Apr 6, British and American
armies army linked up in Africa.
(HN, 4/6/98)
1943 Apr 7, The NFL adopted its
free substitution rule.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1943 Apr 7, US Marine Lt. James
Swett (1920-2009), division leader of Squadron 221, shot down 7
Japanese bombers over the Solomon Islands. He was later awarded the
Medal of Honor for his actions on this day.
(SSFC, 1/25/09, p.B3)
1943 Apr 7, British and American
armies link up between Wadi Akarit and El Guettar in North Africa,
forming a solid line against the German army.
(HN, 4/7/99)
1943 Apr 7, Adolf Hitler and
Benito Mussolini met for an Axis conference in Salzburg.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1943 Apr 7, Lt. Colonel Claus von
Stauffenberg was seriously wounded during allied air raid.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1943 Apr 8, Michael Bennett, AIDS
victim, choreographer (Chorus Line) and theater director, was
born as Michael Bennett DiFiglia.
(NYT, 7/3/87, P.A1)
1943 Apr 8, J.P. Kavanaugh,
racehorse trainer, was born.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1943 Apr 11, Frank Piasecki,
Vertol founder, flew his 1st (single-rotor) craft.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1943 Apr 13, President Roosevelt
dedicated the Jefferson Memorial. It was designed by John Russell Pope.
(AP, 4/13/97)(HN, 4/13/98)(WSJ, 9/21/00, p.A26)
1943 Apr 13, Nazi's discovered a
mass grave of Polish officers near Katyn.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1943 Apr 16, Swiss chemist Albert
Hoffman (1906-2008) felt the first rush of LSD when a tiny amount of
the substance seeped onto his finger during a laboratory experiment.
(AP, 4/30/08)
1943 Apr 17, Admiral Yamamoto flew
from Truk to Rabaul. [see Apr 18]
(MC, 4/17/02)
1943 Apr 17, SS lt. General Jurgen
Stoop arrived in Warsaw.
(MC, 4/17/02)
1943 Apr 18, Traveling in a
bomber, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the mastermind of the attack
on Pearl Harbor, was shot down by American P-38 fighters.
(HN, 4/18/99)
1943 Apr 19, Willy Graf, Kurt
Huber and Alexander Schmorell, German resistance fighters, were
beheaded.
(MC, 4/19/02)
1943 Apr 19, In Warsaw, Poland,
young Jews under Mordechai Anielewicz directed the 1st urban uprising
against the Nazis. During World War II, tens of thousands of Jews
living in the Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant but futile battle against
Nazi forces. SS-Gen Jurgen Stroop led the destruction of the ghetto of
Warsaw: "The Warsaw Ghetto is no more!" he wrote proudly to Heinrich
Himmler and Adolf Hitler. Stroop was hanged on the site of the Warsaw
ghetto after the war. Jacek Zlatka (Jack Eisner, 1925-2003) smuggled
arms for the revolt. Eisner made a fortune in the import-export
business after the war and in 1980 authored the autobiography "The
Survivor."
(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.T11)(AP, 4/19/97)(HN, 4/19/97)(MC,
4/19/02)(SSFC, 8/31/03, p.A29)
1943 Apr 19, Swiss chemist Albert
Hoffman, following up on an experiment on April 16, deliberately
ingested .25 milligrams of LSD and soon began to feel its effects.
Hallucinations continued on his bicycle ride home and lasted for some 6
hours.
(SFC, 5/9/96, p.A-1)(Econ, 5/10/08, p.98)
1943 Apr 19-1943 Apr 20, Lance
Sgt. Haane Manahi (d.1987) of New Zealand performed gallant actions
against overwhelming odds in the bloody battle for Takrouna, a
fortified citadel in Tunisia, North Africa. In 2007 the Maori trooper
was posthumously honored he 64 years after he was denied a top
gallantry award despite a commendation signed by four commanding
generals.
(AP,
3/17/07)(www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/name-004807.html)
1943 Apr 21, President Roosevelt
announced that several Doolittle pilots were executed by Japanese.
(HN, 4/21/98)
1943 Apr 22, Louise Gluck,
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was born.
(HN, 4/22/01)
1943 Apr 22, There was German
counter attack in North Tunisia.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1943 Apr 22, RAF shot down 14
German transport planes over Mediterranean Sea.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1943 Apr 23, Herve Villechaize,
actor, (Fantasy Island), was born in France.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1943 Apr 28, German-Italian forces
launched a counter offensive in North-Africa.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1943 Apr 29, Noel Coward's
"Present Laughter," premiered in London.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1943 Apr 29, Internationally
prominent theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer was arrested by Nazis.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1943 Apr 29, Karl Adrian Wohlfart
(68), composer, died.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1943 Apr 30, Pius XII wrote a
letter to Bishop von Preysing of Berlin and referred to the
extermination of the Jews. His concluding thoughts stated: "Unhappily
in the present state of affairs, we can bring no help other than our
prayers."
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A23)
1943 Apr 30, The British submarine
HMS Seraph dropped ‘the man who never was," a dead man the British
planted with false invasion plans, into the Mediterranean off the coast
of Spain.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1943 Apr 30, Bergen-Belsen,
located near Hanover, formed as a POW camp.
(HNQ, 4/13/00)(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Dutch struck against
forced labor in Nazi Germany's war industry.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Etty Hillesum, Dutch
diarist, died in Auschwitz.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Beatrice Potter Webb
(b.1858), British socialist, reformer and writer, died. Her books
included “My Apprenticeship” (1943).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Webb)
1943 Apr, Magdaleno Sanchez
Duenas, Philippine guerrilla fighter, (1914-2005) assisted in the
escape of 10 US servicemen from the Davao Penal Colony.
(SSFC, 3/6/05, p.A21)
1943 Apr, Irena Sendler
(1910-2008), Polish social worker, and her team of some 20 people saved
nearly 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto between October 1940 and
April 1943, when the Nazis burned the ghetto, shooting the residents or
sending them to death camps.
(AP, 5/12/08)
1943 May 1, Food rationing began
in US. [see Mar 29]
(MC, 5/1/02)
1943 May 1, British India SN
Company troop transport in convoy with 23 merchantmen and escorted by
eleven destroyers, was bound for Malta. When some 30 miles north of
Benghazi, the convoy was attacked by German bombers and torpedo
carrying aircraft. On board the Erinpura (Capt. P.V. Cotter) were 1,025
troops. One large bomb exploded in the hold sinking the ship in a
matter of minutes. Forty four crewmembers, three gunners and an
unspecified number of troops were lost. On the same day, near the
Tunisian coast, another troopship (name unknown) was torpedoed and
sank. On board were a number of troops from Basutoland (later Lesotho)
who were serving with the British Eighth Army. In this tragic sinking,
618 Basutos lost their lives.
(http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/maritime-1a.html)
1943 May 1, A German plane sank a
boat loaded with Palestinian Jews bound for Malta.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1943 May 1, German forces were
deployed in the following places: Norway (200,000), France (900,000),
Africa (150,000), Balkans (80,000), Finland (180,000), Eastern Europe
(210,000), Caucasus (260,000), Russia (1,900,000).
(WSJ, 5/12/99, p.A23)
1943 May 5, Michael Palin, actor
and screenwriter (Monty Python's Flying Circus), was born.
(HN, 5/5/01)
1943 May 5, Postmaster General
Frank C. Walker invented the Postal Zone System.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1943 May 6, British 1st army
opened an assault on Tunis.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1943 May 7, Peter Carey,
Australian writer (Illywhacker, Oscar and Lucinda), was born.
(HN, 5/7/02)
1943 May 7, The last major German
strongholds in North Africa, Tunis and Bizerte, fell to Allied forces.
(HN, 5/7/99)
1943 May 9, The 5th German Panzer
army surrendered in Tunisia.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1943 May 10, Donovan Leitch,
guitarist, folk singer (Mellow Yellow), was born in Scotland.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1943 May 10, U.S. troops invaded
Attu in the Aleutian Islands to expel the Japanese.
(HN, 5/10/98)
1943 May 10, Andre Bertulot,
Arnaud/Armand Fraiteur and Maurice-Albert Raskin, Belgian resistance
fighters, were hanged.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1943 May 11, During World War II,
American forces landed on Japanese-held Attu island in the Aleutians;
the Americans took the island 19 days later.
(AP, 5/11/02)
1943 May 11, Hermann Goering
division in Tunisia surrendered.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1943 May 12, Axis forces in
Tunisia and all of North Africa surrendered.
(AP, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/98)
1943 May 14, Elizabeth Ray,
congressman Wilbur Mills' lover, was born in Marshall, NC.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1943 May 15, Halifax bombers sank
U-463.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1943 May 15, Warsaw ghetto
uprising ended in it's destruction by Nazi-SS troops.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1943 May 16, "Skipping bombs" were
used for the first and only time to breach three massive Ruhr Valley
dams--the Eder, the Mohne and the Sorpe--that supplied water and
hydroelectric power to Germany's vital armament factories. The bombs
were designed to bounce over anti-torpedo nets and explode at the base
of the dams. Despite only two months of training, Royal Air Force Wing
Commander Guy Gibson and his "Dambusters" breached the Eder and the
Mohne dams and damaged the Sorpe. While subsequent flooding in the Ruhr
Valley claimed 1,294 lives, German industrial production was affected
only briefly while the dams were repaired.
(HNPD, 5/15/99)
1943 May 16, German troops
destroyed the synagogue of Warsaw. Jewish resistance in the Warsaw
ghetto ended after 30 days of fighting.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1943 May 18, In Croatia Archbishop
Stepinac urged Pius XII to take a firm position to hold on "to its
240,000 converts." Eastern Orthodox practitioners had converted to
Catholicism to escape death camps.
(WSJ, 5/20/99, p.A21)
1943 May 18, Allied bombers
attacked Pantelleria in the Mediterranean Sea.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1943 May 19, In an address to the
U.S. Congress, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pledged his
country's full support in the war against Japan.
(AP, 5/19/97)
1943 May 19, Berlin was declared
"Judenrien" (cleansed of Jews).
(MC, 5/19/02)
1943 May 20, French, British and
US held a victory parade in Tunis, Tunisia.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1943 May 22, The 1st US jet
fighter was tested. Lockheed Martin had picked Clarence Johnson, a
Univ. of Michigan graduate (1932) to develop the nation’s 1st jet
fighter. He had already designed the P-38 Lightning. Johnson and his
staff developed a jet prototype, the Shooting Star, in 143 days.
(MC, 5/22/02)(MT, Summer/04, p.7)
1943 May 22, Stalin disbanded the
Komintern.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1943 May 23, Thomas Mann began
writing his novel Dr. Faustus.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1943 May 23-24, Some 826 Allied
bombers attacked Dortmund.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1943 May 25, Leslie Uggams,
singer, actress (Leslie Uggams Show, Roots), was born in NYC.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1943 May 25, Wynand C. Malan,
South African lawyer, NP/DP-politician, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1943 May 25, Following the Trident
conference between President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister
Winston Churchill in Washington, DC, the target date of May 1, 1944,
was set for the invasion of Europe. It actually occurred on the sixth
of June.
(HN, 5/25/99)
1943 May 25, There was a riot at
Mobile, Al., shipyard over upgrading 12 black workers.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1943 May 26, Jews rioted against
Germans in Amsterdam.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1943 May 26, Edsel Ford, president
(49) of the Ford Motor Company, died.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1943 May 27, French resistance
members under Jean Moulin met secretly in Paris.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1943 May 29, Norman Rockwell’s
portrait of "Rosie the Riveter" appeared on the cover of "The Saturday
Evening Post." Rockwell’s model was Mary Keefe (19) of Arlington,
Vermont. In 2002 the painting sold at auction for $4,959,500.
(AP, 5/29/97)(AH, 10/02, p.10)
1943 May 29, Churchill, Marshall
and Eisenhower met in the Confederacy of Algiers.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1943 May 29, Meat and cheese began
to be rationed in US.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1943 May 29, Hermann Hans Wetzler
(72), composer, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1943 May 30, American forces
secured the Aleutian island of Attu from the Japanese during World War
II.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1943 May 30, Dr. Josef Mengele
arrived at Auschwitz as research assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von
Verschuer.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.D6)
1943 May 31, Joe Namath, NFL QB
(NY Jets), $400,000 man (1969 Superbowl), was born in PA.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1943 May, Muddy Waters, the lead
disciple of blues artist Robert Johnson, bought a ticket at the
Clarksdale train station and headed to Chicago.
(NH, 9/96, p.55)
1943 Jun 1, A civilian flight
from Lisbon to London was shot down by the Germans during World War II,
killing all those aboard, including actor Leslie Howard (b.1893).
Howard was killed over the Bay of Biscay, when the British Overseas
plane he was on was shot down by Luftwaffe fighters. His last on-screen
role was that of Spitfire designer R. J. Mitchell in the 1942 film "The
First of the Few" (released in the U.S. as a trimmed version entitled
Spitfire in 1948). Leslie Howard, perhaps best remembered to modern
filmgoers as Ashley Wilkes in "Gone With The Wind" (1939), was a
World War I veteran who was advised to take up acting as therapy after
he was mustered out for shell shock. He found success throughout the
1930s, but with the outbreak of World War II, devoted himself to the
war effort--directing films, writing and broadcasting on the radio.
(AP, 6/1/98)(HNQ, 3/23/01)
1943 Jun 2, Charles Haid, actor
(Hill St Blues, Altered States), was born in SF, Ca.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1943 Jun 2, 99th Pursuit Squadron
flew its 1st combat mission over Italy.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1943 Jun 3, United Nations Relief
and Rehabilitation Administration formed.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1943 Jun 4, Race riots took place
in LA.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1943 Jun 4, In Argentina, Gen
Rawson and Col. Juan Peron led the military coup that overthrew Ramon
S. Castillo.
(HN, 6/4/98)(MC, 6/4/02)
1943 Jun 5, German occupiers
arrested Louvain University's chancellor.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1943 Jun 7, Nikki Giovanni, poet
(LHJ Woman of the Year 1973), was born.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1943 Jun 7, Ken Osmond, actor
(Eddie Haskel-Leave it To Beaver), was born.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1943 Jun 9, "Pay-as-you-go"
(withholding) US income tax deductions were authorized. [see Jul 1,
1943]
(MC, 6/9/02)
1943 Jun 10, FDR signed a
withholding tax bill into law.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1943 Jun 10, The Allies began
bombing Germany around the clock.
(HN, 6/10/98)
1943 Jun 11, The Italian island of
Pantelleria surrendered after a heavy air bombardment.
(HN, 6/11/98)
1943 Jun 13, German spies landed
on Long Island, New York, and were soon captured.
(HN, 6/13/98)
1943 Jun 14, The US Supreme Court,
in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, ruled schoolchildren
could not be compelled to salute the flag of the United States.
(AP, 6/14/08)
1943 Jun 14, A US Army B-17 took
off from Mackay, Australia, and crashed in fog at nearby Bakers Creek,
killing 40 of the 41 servicemen crammed into the bomb bay and crannies
of the aircraft. Wartime censorship restrictions suppressed news of the
crash.
(AP, 6/14/03)
1943 Jun 16, Comedian Charles
Chaplin married his fourth wife, 18-year-old Oona O’Neill, daughter of
playwright Eugene O’Neill, in Carpenteria, Calif. In 1998 Jane Scovell
authored "Oona, Living in the Shadows: A Biography of Oona O’Neill
Chaplin."
(AP, 6/16/98)(SFEC, 12/13/98, BR p.6)
1943 Jun 17, Newt Gingrich, later
Republican Speaker of the House (1995-1998), was born in Hummelstown,
Pa.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.A4)
1943 Jun 20, Race-related rioting
erupted in Detroit; federal troops were sent in two days later to quell
the violence that resulted in 34 deaths and 600 wounded.
(AP, 6/20/97)(SSFC, 12/17/00, Par p.5)
1943 Jun 21, The US Supreme Court
held the broad claims of Guglielmo Marconi's patent for improvements in
apparatus for wireless telegraphy to be invalid. First written for
publication by the Antique Wireless Association, this monograph shows
how the nation's high court arrived at its decision. It provides an
answer to the continuing argument regarding the popular misconception
that Marconi invented radio.
(www.mercurians.org/nov98/misreading.html)
1943 Jun 21, Jean "Max" Moulin,
French resistance fighter, was betrayed by fellow Frenchmen and
captured in a massive anti-resistance dragnet.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/moulin_jean.shtml)
1943 Jun 22, Federal troops put
down race-related rioting in Detroit. 36 hours of rioting claimed 34
lives, 25 of them black. More than 1,800 were arrested for looting and
other incidents, the vast majority black. Thirteen murders remained
unsolved.
(http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=185&category=events)(AP,
6/22/03)
1943 Jun 23, James Levine, pianist
and conductor, was born.
(HN, 6/23/01)
1943 Jun 23, RAF discovered and
bombed Werner von Braun's V1/V2-base in Peenemunde.
(MC, 6/23/02)
1943 Jun 24, Royal Air Force
Bombers hammered Muelheim, Germany, in a drive to cripple the Ruhr
industrial base.
(HN, 6/24/98)
1943 Jun 25, Crematory III at
Birkenau, Poland, was finished.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1943 Jun 25, Arthur Seyss-Inquart
ordered a mass arrest of Dutch physicians.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1943 Jun 29, Germany began
withdrawing U-boats from North Atlantic in anticipation of the Allied
invasion of Europe.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1943 Jun 30, Gen. MacArthur began
his island-hopping Operation Cartwheel.
(MC, 6/30/02)
1943 Jun 30, In Japan all stock
exchanges were merged under the wartime conditions as the Japan
Securities Exchange. This was dissolved after the war.
(WSJ, 3/15/07, p.C1)
1943 Jun, The US Liberty Ship S.S.
Jeremiah O’Brian was launched.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A19)
1943 Jul 1, In the US
"pay-as-you-go" income tax withholding began.
(AP, 7/1/97)
1943 Jul 2, The U.S. Army Air
Corps 99th Fighter Squadron, the first of the all-black Tuskegee Airmen
to see combat, had been based in Africa for four months when they were
assigned to escort 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers on a routine mission over
Sicilian targets. Lieutenant Charles B. Hall of Brazil, Indiana became
the first Tuskegee Airman to score a confirmed kill when he shot down a
German fighter plane. The United States would not allow black airmen to
fight for their country until 1943, when the first of a contingent
trained at Tuskegee, Alabama, were formed as the 99th Fighter Squadron
and shipped out to North Africa. That unit and the 332nd Fighter Group
that followed (which comprised the 99th) would prove their worth in the
last two years of World War II. Besides establishing an outstanding
record for not losing a single bomber they escorted to enemy fighters,
several of the Tuskegee Airmen went on to distinguished postwar careers
in the U.S. Air Force.
(HNPD, 7/5/98)
1943 Jul 3, Liberator bombers sank
U-628.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1943 Jul 4, Geraldo Rivera, TV
talkshow host, was born in New York City. He became known for his
non-conformity in the subjects he approached.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1943 Jul 4, A Liberator II
aircraft carrying Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski, Poland’s prime minister and
chief army commander, crashed into the sea just 16 seconds after taking
off from Gibraltar. In 2008 Poland began an investigation into the
crash.
(AP, 9/3/08)
1943 Jul 5, US invasion fleet (96
ships) sailed to Sicily.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1943 Jul 5, The battle of Kursk,
the largest tank battle in history, began as German tanks attacked the
Soviet salient.
(HN, 7/5/98)
1943 Jul 6, In the 2nd day of
battle at Kursk some 25,000 Germans were killed.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1943 Jul 7, Adolf Hitler made the
V-2 missile program a top priority in armament planning.
(HN, 7/7/98)
1943 Jul 7, In the 3rd day of
battle at Kursk the Germans occupied Dubrova. Erich Hartmann shot 7
Russian aircraft at Kursk.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1943 Jul 8, Faye Wattleton,
women’s rights advocate, was born.
(HN, 7/8/98)
1943 Jul 8, American B-24 bombers
struck Japanese-held Wake Island for the first time. An obscure U.S.
Navy fighter did yeoman duty when times were toughest early in World
War II.
(HN, 7/8/98)
1943 Jul 8, US invasion fleet
passed Bizerta, Tunisia.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1943 Jul 8, The 4th day of battle
at Kursk: Gen Model used his last tank reserve.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1943 Jul 8, Jean "Max" Moulin (b.
Jun 20, 1899), French resistance fighter, was executed.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/moulin_jean.shtml)
1943 Jul 9, American and British
forces made an amphibious landing on Sicily. The ‘man who never was’
pulled off one of the greatest deceptions in military history—after his
death.
(HN, 7/9/98)
1943 Jul 10, Arthur Ashe, first
black tennis player to win the U.S. Championship and Wimbledon, was
born.
(HN, 7/10/98)
1943 Jul 10, US and British forces
completed their amphibious landing in Sicily in Operation Husky.
(AP, 7/10/97)(HN, 7/10/01)(MC, 7/10/02)
1943 Jul 11(Jun 11), Heinrich
Himmler ordered the liquidation of Polish ghettos.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1943 Jul 12, The US submarine
Pampanito was christened in New Hampshire. In 1982 the sub opened to
the public at Pier 45 in San Francisco.
(SFC, 9/24/03, p.A23)
1943 Jul 12, Pope Pius XII
received Baron von Weizsacker, the German ambassador.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1943 Jul 12, Russians beat Nazis
in a tank battle at Prochorowka. Some 12,000 died.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1943 Jul 13, Greatest tank battle
in history ended with Russia's defeat of Germany at Kursk. Almost 6,000
tanks took part and 2,900 were lost by Germany.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1943 Jul 18, The U.S. Navy airship
K-74 was shot down by anti-aircraft fire from a German U-boat.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1943 Jul 18, There was a British
assault on Catania, Sicily.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1943 Jul 19, Allied air forces
raided Rome during World War II.
(AP, 7/19/97)
1943 Jul 21, Tess Gallagher,
American writer, was born.
(HN, 7/21/02)
1943 Jul 21, Edward Herrmann,
actor (Day of the Dolphin, Reds), was born in Wash., DC.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1943 Jul 22, The American Seventh
Army forces led by Gen. George S. Patton captured Palermo, Sicily. Gen
Patton moved his troops across Sicily through August.
(TMC,1994,p.1943)(WSJ,12/8/95,p.A-14)(AP, 7/22/07)
1943 Jul 23, Battle of Kursk,
USSR, ended in Nazi defeat. 6,000 tanks took part.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1943 Jul 23, Meijer de Hond,
[Emanuel Querido], rabbi of Sobibor, died.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1943 Jul 23, Emanuel Querido,
publisher (Sobibor), died.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1943 Jul 24, The U.S. submarine
Tinosa fired 15 torpedoes at a lone Japanese merchant ship, but none
detonated.
(HN, 7/24/98)
1943 Jul 24-1943-Aug 2, The RAF
bombed Hamburg. Firestorms from the bombing left at least 40,000 dead
in the 1st 3 days. American B-17 Fortresses flew 252 daylight sorties
in the two days following the first of 4 RAF night raids. Sir Arthur
Harris directed 4 major raids against Hamburg in the space of ten
nights, known as “Operation Gomorrah.”
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWhamburg.htm)
1943 Jul 25, Jim McCarty, rocker
(The Yardbirds-For Your Love), was born.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1943 Jul 25, Janet Margolin,
actress (Take the Money & Run, David & Lisa), was born in NYC.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1943 Jul 25, Benito Mussolini was
dismissed as premier of Italy by King Victor Emmanuel III and placed
under arrest. Mussolini was later rescued by the Nazis and re-asserted
his authority.
(AP, 7/25/97)(HN, 7/25/98)(news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday)
1943 Jul 26, In England Mick
[Michael Phillip] Jagger, musician, member of the Rolling Stones, was
born in Dartford, Kent.
(SFEM,11/9/97, p.9)(HN, 7/26/01)
1943 Jul 26, Otto Skorzeny's
commando group arrived in Rome.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1943 Jul 28, Mike Bloomfield,
blues musician (Analine), was born.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1943 Jul 28, Bill Bradley, U.S.
senator, professional basketball player, was born in Crystal City, Mo.
(HN, 7/28/98)
1943 Jul 28, President Roosevelt
announced the end of coffee rationing.
(AP, 7/28/97)
1943 Jul 29, Lt. Robert Scott
(d.1999 at 85) led a platoon on New Georgia in the Central Solomons to
capture a hilltop overlooking the Munda Point airstrip. He found
himself alone and continued fighting with grenades and his rifle to
force an enemy withdrawal. 28 Japanese were found dead from his attack.
He received the Medal of Honor in Oct 1944.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A24)
1943 Jul, Lt. Thomas McConnell of
Kansas crashed in his B-24 Liberator in deep fog on Guadalcanal after a
strike against a Japanese air field. He was one of the 3 "Flying
McConnell Brothers."
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A22)
1943 July-Aug. The Allies invaded
Italy. Gen'l. Patton moved his troops across Sicily.
(TMC, 1994, p.1943)(WSJ, 12/8/95,
p.A-14)
1943 Aug 1, Race-related rioting
erupted in New York City’s Harlem section, resulting in several deaths.
(AP, 8/1/97)
1943 Aug 1, Over 177 B-24
Liberator bombers attacked the oil fields in Ploesti, Rumania, for a
second time.
(HN, 8/1/98)
1943 Aug 2, A Navy patrol torpedo
boat, PT-109, commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy, sank after being
sheared in two by the Amagiri, a Japanese destroyer, off the Solomon
Islands. Lt. John F. Kennedy, towing an injured sailor, swam to a small
island in the Solomon Islands. The night before, his boat, PT-109, had
been split in half by the destroyer Amagiri. Kennedy was credited with
saving members of the crew. Two members of the crew were killed in the
collision in the Blackett Strait off Gizo, the main town of western
Solomon Islands. An injured Kennedy and the ship's other survivors
clung to the wreckage and swam to a nearby island, where Aaron Kumana
and Biuku Gasa found them. The pair rowed 35 miles through enemy-held
waters to summon a rescue boat.
(AP, 8/2/97)(HN, 8/2/98)(AP, 8/30/07)
1943 Aug 2, The 10-day allied
bombing of Hamburg, Germany, ended.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWhamburg.htm)
1943 Aug 2, In Poland at the Nazi
Treblinka concentration camp some 600 prisoners staged an uprising and
fled into the woods. Only 40 survived. In 1999 Ian MacMillan authored
"Village of a Million Spirits: A Novel of the Treblinka Uprising."
(SFEC, 8/22/99, BR p.5)
1943 Aug 3, Gen. George S. Patton
slapped a private at an army hospital in Sicily, accusing him of
cowardice. Patton was later ordered by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to
apologize for this and a second, similar episode.
(AP, 8/3/97)
1943 Aug 5, American forces took
the Munda Point airstrip on New Georgia in the Solomon Islands.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A24)
1943 Aug 9, Bertolt Brecht's
"Galileo," premiered in Zurich.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1943 Aug 9, Franz Jaegerstaetter,
an avowed conscientious objector, was executed outside Berlin for
treason after his request to be excused from regular army service for
religious reasons was denied. The married father of four was
posthumously exonerated in 1997 by a Berlin court. In 2007 he was
beatified by the Roman Catholic Church.
(AP, 10/27/07)
1943 Aug 9, Chaim Soutine
(b.1893), Jewish expressionist painter, died in Paris of a perforated
ulcer.
(WSJ, 5/14/98,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Soutine)
1943 Aug 10, Hitler watched the
lynching of allied pilots.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1943 Aug 11, Richard Strauss' 2nd
Horn Concerto premiered.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1943 Aug 12, Actor Clark Gable,
after being assigned to make a training film for aerial gunners,
trained and flew a mission from England with the 351st group over the
Ruhr. 25 airplanes were lost on the mission.
(WSJ, 12/24/96, p.A9)
1943 Aug 13, Harold E. Stearns
(b.1891), American journalist, died. His books included “Liberalism in
America” (1919). He also edited the influential “Civilization in the
United States An Inquiry by Thirty Americans” (1922), the book that
inspired many dissatisfied young Americans to go abroad.
(www.bookrags.com/biography/harold-edmund-stearns-dlb/)(WSJ, 1/4/08,
p.W5)
1943 Aug 13, The British bombed
Milan. Elmer Alifano was an injured American held captive in a Milan
hospital during the bombing where he received more injuries and where a
third of the Allied prisoners were killed.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A19)
1943 Aug 15, Allies landed on
Kiska in the Aleutians.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1943 Aug 16, Bulgarian czar Boris
III visited Adolf Hitler.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1943 Aug 17, Robert DeNiro,
American actor, was born. He won Oscars for his roles in "The Godfather
Part II" and "Raging Bull."
(HN, 8/17/00)
1943 Aug 17, The Allied conquest
of Sicily was completed as U.S. and British forces entered Messina.
(AP, 8/17/97)(HN, 8/17/98)
1943 Aug 18, The Royal Air Force
Bomber Command completed the first major strike against the German
missile development facility at Peenemunde.
(HN, 8/18/98)
1943 Aug 18, Final convoy of Jews
from Salonika, Greece, arrived at Auschwitz.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1943 Aug 18, The Heinkel-111 of
Otto Skorzeny, Waffen SS commander, was shot down at Sardinia.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1943 Aug 18, Hans Jeschonnek,
German air force general, chief-staff, committed suicide.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1943 Aug 19, Belgian church
excommunicated Nazi Leon Degrelle.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1943 Aug 22, Soviet troops freed
Kharkov.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1943 Aug 25, U.S. forces completed
the occupation of New Georgia in the Solomon Islands during World War
II. Losing Hill 700 to the Japanese meant defeat for the American
forces on Bougainville. To the men of the 37th Infantry Division, that
was unthinkable.
(AP, 8/25/97)(HN, 8/25/98)
1943 Aug 25, Lt. Andre Devigny
(d.1999 at 82) escaped from a German prison in Lyon, France. He was
sentenced to be executed on Aug 28 for assassinating the head of the
Fascist Italian secret police. He was captured the next day and escaped
again by diving into the Rhone River. In 1957 Robert Bresson made the
film "A Man Escaped" based on his story.
(SFC, 2/19/99, p.E2)
1943 Aug 25, Lord Mountbatten was
appointed Supreme Allied Commander in SE Asia.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1943 Aug 25, Red Army under
Gen Vatutin recaptured Achtyrka.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1943 Aug 26, The United States
recognizes the French Committee of National Liberation.
(HN, 8/26/99)
1943 Aug 28, Denmark declared a
universal strike against Nazi occupiers.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1943 Aug 28, Mussolini was
transferred from La Maddalena Sardinia to Gran Sasso.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1943 Aug 29, Responding to a
clampdown by Nazi occupiers, Denmark managed to scuttle most of its
naval ships.
(AP, 8/29/97)
1943 Aug 30, Robert Crumb, US,
cartoonist (Father Time, Fritz Cat), was born.
(MC, 8/30/01)
1943 Aug 30, Jean Claude Killy,
France, skier (Olympic-3 golds-1968), was born.
(MC, 8/30/01)
1943 Aug, Italy's surrender to
Allied forces weakened Italian hold on Albania; Albanian resistance
fighters overwhelmed five Italian divisions.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1943 Sep 3, The British Eighth
Army invaded Italy, landing at Calabria, during World War II. Italy
signed a secret armistice with the Allies, but it was not announced
until Sep 8.
(AP, 9/3/97)(HN, 9/3/98)
1943 Sep 4, Allied troops captured
Lae-Salamaua, in New Guinea.
(HN, 9/4/98)
1943 Sep 4, British 8th army
landed at Taranto in South Italy.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1943 Sep 6, The United States
asked the Chinese Nationals to join with the Communists to present a
common front to the Japanese.
(HN, 9/6/98)
1943 Sep 6, The "Black Ghost," a
B-17 bomber, was shot down over occupied France. Its crew survived 13
missions, but anti-aircraft flak and the Luftwaffe's Messerschmitt and
Focke-Wulf fighters claimed the airplane. All 10 crew members survived
the war.
(AP, 8/13/05)
1943 Sep 7, Fire in a decrepit old
Gulf Hotel killed 45 in Houston, Texas.
(MC, 9/7/01)
1943 Sep 8, Italy surrendered to
the Allies in WW II.
(www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignsItaly.htm)
1943 Sep 9, Allied forces in
operation Avalanche landed at Salerno and Taranto during World War II.
They encountered strong resistance from German troops.
(AP, 9/9/97)(HN, 9/9/98)(MC, 9/9/01)
1943 Sep 10, German troops
occupied Rome and took over the protection of Vatican City.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1943 Sep 11, The Jewish ghettos of
Minsk & Lida in Belorussia were liquidated.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1943 Sep 12, Michael Ondaatje,
Canadian novelist and poet, was born. His work included "The English
Patient."
(HN, 9/12/00)
1943 Sep 12, German paratroopers
took Benito Mussolini from the hotel where he was being held by Italian
resistance forces. Waffen-SS troops under Otto Skorzeny freed Mussolini
at Gran Sasso in the Abruzzi Mountains.
(AP, 9/12/97)(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A15)
1943 Sep 13, Chiang Kai-shek
became president of China.
(AP, 9/13/97)
1943 Sep 13, Germans counter
attacked at Salerno.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1943 Sep 14, German troops
abandoned the Salerno front in Italy.
(HN, 9/14/98)
1943 Sep 18, Hitler ordered the
deportation of Danish Jews (unsuccessful).
(MC, 9/18/01)
1943 Sep 19, Liberator bombers
sank U-341.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1943 Sep 22, The Destroyer Keppel
sank U-229.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1943 Sep 23, Julio Iglesias De la
Cueva, Spanish singer (To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before…), was born
in Madrid.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Iglesias)
1943 Sep 23, Benito Mussolini
formed a rival fascist government in Italy.
(www.cifr.it/Chapter_05.html)
1943 Sep 24, Soviet forces
reconquered Smolensk. [see Sep 25]
(MC, 9/24/01)
1943 Sep 25, The Red Army retook
Smolensk from the Germans who were retreating to the Dnieper River in
the Soviet Union. [see Sep 24]
(HN, 9/25/98)
1943 Sep 26, The Germans placed an
extortion on the Jews of Rome with an order to produce 50 kg of gold
within 2 days or face massive deportations. Pope Pius XII offered to
loan the Jewish community 15 kg of gold with interest and with
repayment due within 4 years after the war. Rome’s Jews and citizens
came up with sufficient gold to make the Pope’s offer needless.
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A23)
1943 Sep 27, Bing Crosby, the
Andrews Sisters and the Vic Schoen Orchestra recorded "Pistol Packin’
Mama" and "Jingle Bells" for Decca Records.
(AP, 9/27/98)
1943 Sep 28, J.T. Walsh, actor
(Col. Frank Bach, Dark Skies), was born.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1943 Sep 29, Adolf Hitler’s book
Mein Kampf was published in the United States.
(HN, 9/29/98)
1943 Sep 29, General Dwight D.
Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio signed an armistice
aboard the British ship Nelson off Malta.
(AP, 9/29/97)
1943 Sep 29, Lech Walesa, Polish
labor leader who founded the Solidarity party and later became the
president of Poland, was born.
(HN, 9/29/98)
1943 Sep 30, The Women’s Army
Auxiliary Corps became the Women’s Army Corps, a regular contingent of
the U.S. Army with the same status as other army service corps.
(HN, 9/30/98)
1943 Sep, The National Geographic
included a map of the Pacific Ocean and the Bay of Bengal in this issue
to help people understand the Pacific War theater.
(NG, 5/95, p.69)
1943 Sep, Pearl Cornioley
(1916-2008), a British agent, parachuted into France as a secret agent
to help arm and organize the Resistance. In 1995 she wrote an
autobiography and in 2006 Royal Air Force officers presented her with
her parachute wings in a ceremony at her Paris retirement home.
(AP, 3/8/08)
1943 Sep, German forces invaded
and occupied Albania.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1943 Sep, Trieste was occupied by
the Germans and held until the end of the war. Many of the city’s Jews
perished at the nearby Risiera di San Sabba Nazi death camp.
(SFC, 2/3/97, p.C3)
1943 Sep, Jeannie Rousseau, code
name Amniarix, collected enough information on V-2 rockets from German
officers in France to send a detailed report to England. Reginald
Jones, chief of Britain's scientific intelligence, included her text in
his book "The Wizard War."
(SFC, 1/2/99, p.A10)
1943 Sep, Pope Pius XII offered
Vatican assets to ransom Jews from the Nazis and in Italy ran an
extensive network of hideouts for escaping Jews.
(WSJ, 4/25/97, p.A18)
1943 Oct 1, Allied forces captured
Naples during World War II. British troops in Italy entered Naples and
occupied Foggia airfield.
(HFA, ‘96, p.38)(AP, 10/1/97)(HN, 10/1/98)
1943 Oct 1, Germans attacked Jews
in Denmark.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1943 Oct 4, German occupiers
forbade the flying of kites. Violation carried a 6 month jail sentence.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1943 Oct 6, The Battle at Vella
Lavella was fought in the Solomon Islands.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1943 Oct 6, Himmler ordered the
acceleration of "Final Solution."
(MC, 10/6/01)
1943 Oct 7, Weill's, Perelman's
and Nash's musical "One Touch of Venus," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1943 Oct 7, Approximately 100 U.S.
prisoners of war remaining on Wake Island were executed by the Japanese.
(HN, 10/7/98)
1943 Oct 9, Alexander Fleming
reported in Lancet the 1st successful treatment of streptococcal
meningitis with intramuscular and intrathecal (directly into the spinal
fluid) injections of the just-purified penicillin.
(WSJ, 10/17/02, p.A19)
1943 Oct 9, A Luftwaffe squadron
operating from Rhodes lost several Stukas to allied ships and aircraft.
In 2006 Greek divers raised the wreckage of a Stuka bomber, believed to
be one of the lost planes.
(AP, 10/6/06)
1943 Oct 10, Chiang Kai-shek took
the oath of office as president of China.
(AP, 10/10/97)
1943 Oct 11, The US submarine
Wahoo, Under the command of Dudley "Mush" Morton, was sunk by the
Japanese navy as it returned from its seventh patrol. All 79 crewmen
died. In 2006 Russian divers found the wreckage in the La Perouse
Strait.
(AP, 8/18/06)
1943 Oct 12, The Radio Corporation
of America announced the divestment of the NBC Blue radio network to
businessman Edward J. Noble for $8 million. Noble first called it just
"The Blue Network." By Feb 1945 it was renamed the American
Broadcasting Company.
(NYT, 10/12/1943, P.23)(NYT, 10/17/1943, P. XII)
1943 Oct 12, The U.S. Fifth Army
began an assault crossing of the Volturno River in Italy.
(HN, 10/12/98)
1943 Oct 12, The US bombed Rabaul,
New Britain (S. Pacific, Bismarck Archipelago).
(WUD, 1994 p.962)(MC, 10/12/01)
1943 Oct 13, During World War II,
Italy declared war on Germany, its one-time Axis partner.
(AP, 10/13/97)(HN, 10/13/98)
1943 Oct 14, US 8th Air Force lost
60 B-17 bombers during assault on Schweinfurt.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1943 Oct 14, In Germany Rev. Max
Josef Metzger was sentenced to death for treason by Roland Freisler,
chief judge of the Nazi’s People’s Court. He had written a letter to
the British government that denounced the Nazis and called for a German
state based on Christian democratic and legal principles. He was
exonerated by a Berlin court in 1997
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A10)
1943 Oct 14, Some 300 of 600
prisoners escaped from the Nazi’s Sobibor death camp in Poland. The
event was later documented in the book "Escape from Sobibor" by Richard
Rashke (1982) and the film of the same name with Alan Arkin. Josef
Vallaster, an Austrian guard, was among 11 SS officers and 11
Ukrainians killed in the escape. Most of the escaped prisoners were
killed as they fled. Only 50 prisoners survived the war. Vallaster had
operated the motor that funneled gas into Sobibor’s shower rooms.
(HC, 5/30/98)(SFC, 7/11/03, p.A19)(SSFC, 2/17/08,
p.A8)
1943 Oct 16, Chicago Mayor Edward
J. Kelly officially opened the city’s new subway system during a
ceremony at the State and Madison street station.
(AP, 10/16/00)
1943 Oct 16, In Italy the Nazi SS
police and Waffen SS began rounding up the Jews of Rome. There was an
anti Jewish riot in Rome as the Jewish quarter was surrounded by Nazis,
and Jews were evacuated to Auschwitz. Pope Pius XII made no public
protest, though he did send some messages of disapproval through
intermediaries.
(WSJ, 10/18/99, p.A46)(MC, 10/16/01)
1943 Oct 18, US bombing of
Bougainville, Solomon Islands.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1943 Oct 19, Delegates from the
U.S.S.R. met with representatives from the Allied nations of Great
Britain, the U.S., and China, in an attempt to hammer out a greater
consensus on war aims, and to improve the rapidly cooling relations
between the Soviet Union and its allies.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1943 Oct 19, Camille Claudel
(b.1864), assistant, model and mistress to sculptor Auguste Rodin, died
in France.
(www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Camille_Claudel)(Econ, 1/7/06, p.75)
1943 Oct 20, A US B-17 bomber
crashed in the Netherlands near the small town of de Bilt. Of the 10
men on board 5 died and 5 were captured. Robert Surdez, co-pilot, died
in 2004.
(SFC, 3/30/04, p.B1)(SFC, 8/11/04, p.B7)
1943 Oct 22, Catherine Deneuve,
[Dorleac], actress (Repulsion, Hunger), was born in Paris.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1943 Oct 23, The 1st Jewish
transport out of Rome reached Birkenau (Poland) extermination camp.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1943 Oct 24, Anti-Nazi Clandestine
Radio Soldatsender, Calais, began transmitting.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1943 Oct 25, Japanese
forces held an official ceremony was held for the 415-km Thailand-Burma
railroad. The rail was completed Oct 17 at Konkuita, Thailand.
During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and
were buried along the “Death Railway.” An estimated 80,000 to 100,000
civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labor
brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam
(Thailand) and Burma (Myanmar). The movie “The Bridge on the River
Kwai” (1957) was a part of this effort and is today a big tourist
attraction in Thailand.
(www.bmw.ukf.net/3pagodas/TBRandON.htm)
1943 Oct 28, The German U-220 sank.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1943 Oct 29, 3 Allied officers
escaped the German camp Stalag Luft 3.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1943 Oct 30, The
Molotov-Eden-Cordell Hull accord over operations at UN.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1943 Oct 31, Max Reinhardt,
Austrian stage manager (Turandot), died.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1943 Oct, Capt. Austin Shofner
(25) led a group of 10 men who escaped from a Japanese prison camp in
the Philippines, where the survivors of the Bataan Death March were
being held. They told of how some 15,000 prisoners had been shot or
hacked to death during the 3-day march in 1942.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A26)
1943 Oct, Germans demolished the
ghetto buildings of Minsk, known as the Yama, or Pit, in an effort to
find Jews in hiding. 2,000 remaining Jews were rounded up and killed.
More than 100,000 Jews were killed there from August 1941.
(AP, 10/21/08)
1943 Nov 1, American troops
invaded Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.
(HN, 11/1/98)
1943 Nov 2, The Battle of Empress
Augusta Bay in Bougainville ended in U.S. Navy victory over Japan.
(HN, 11/2/98)
1943 Nov 2, Jewish ghetto of Riga,
Latvia, was destroyed.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1943 Nov 3, William Reid (died
2001 at 79), RAF bomber pilot, flew his badly damaged Lancaster bomber
on a bombing mission to a ball-bearing factory in Dusseldorf, Germany,
and managed to return the crippled plane to England.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A25)
1943 Nov 3, SS and police units
shot at least 6,000 Jewish inmates of the Trawniki and Dorohucza Labor
Camps.
(www.ushmm.org/wlc_ie/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007397)
1943 Nov 5, Sam Shepard, American
playwright and actor, was born.
(HN, 11/5/00)
1943 Nov 6, Michael Schwerner,
civil rights worker, was born. He was murdered in 1964.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1943 Nov 6, Soviet forces
reconquered Kiev.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1943 Nov 7, Joni Mitchell, singer,
songwriter, was born as Roberta J. Anderson in Alberta,
Canada.
(HN, 11/7/00)(MC, 11/7/01)
1943 Nov 7, British troops
launched a limited offensive along the coast of Burma.
(HN, 11/7/98)
1943 Nov 9, Bernhard Lichtenberg
(67), German clergyman and antifascist, died.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1943 Nov 11, In Lebanon the French
voiced their dissent by arresting Bishara al-Khuri and most of the
government. An insurrection, British diplomatic efforts and one
more crisis in 1945 finally left the government restored.
(HNQ, 12/24/00)
1943 Nov 14, Leonard Bernstein,
the 25-year-old assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, made
his debut with the orchestra as he filled in for the ailing Bruno
Walter during a nationally broadcast concert.
(AP, 11/14/02)
1943 Nov 14, An American torpedo
was mistakenly fired at the U.S. battleship Iowa, which was carrying
President Roosevelt and his joint chiefs to the Tehran conference; the
torpedo exploded harmlessly in the Iowa's wake.
(AP, 11/14/01)
1943 Nov 16, One hundred and forty
American bombers flew from British bases to Vemork, Norway, to destroy
the Nazi heavy water facility near Rjukan, where production had resumed
despite a commando raid in February. Only 14 of some 700 bombs hit the
plant killing 24 civilians. The bombing did not harm the basement level
where the heavy water was collected and stored.
(ON, 4/07, p.5)
1943 Nov 18, 444 British bombers
attacked Berlin.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1943 Nov 18, U-211 sank in the
Atlantic Ocean.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1943 Nov 19, U-536 sank in
Atlantic Ocean.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1943 Nov 20, US Marines began
landing on Tarawa and Makin atolls in the Gilbert Islands, encountering
fierce resistance from Japanese forces but emerging victorious three
days later.
(AP, 11/20/05)
1943 Nov 20, U-538 sank in the
Atlantic Ocean.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1943 Nov 22, Billie Jean King,
U.S. tennis player and women's rights pioneer, was born.
(HN, 11//00)
1943 Nov 22, President Roosevelt,
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Chinese leader Chiang
Kai-shek met in Cairo to discuss measures for defeating Japan.
(AP, 11/22/99)
1943 Nov 22, US troops landed on
Abemada, Gilbert Island.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1943 Nov 22, RAF began bombing of
Berlin.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1943 Nov 22, Lyricist Lorenz Hart
died in New York at age 48.
(AP, 11/22/97)
1943 Nov 23, Andrew Goodman
(d.1964), murdered civil rights worker, was born.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1943 Nov 23, During World War II,
U.S. forces seized control of the Tarawa and Makin atolls from the
Japanese. [part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands] Makin Atoll was the
first central Pacific island to be reconquered by the Allies.
(AP, 11/23/97)(SFC, 1/26/98, p.A17)
1943 Nov 25, U-600 sank in the
Atlantic Ocean.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1943 Nov 26, Bruce Paltrow, U.S.
director and producer (d.2002), was born
(AP, 11/26/02)
1943 Nov 26, During World War II,
the HMT Rohna, a British transport ship carrying American soldiers, was
hit by a German missile off Algeria; 1,138 men were killed, including
1,015 American troops.
(AP, 11/26/01)
1943 Nov 26, Edward H "Butch"
O'Hare, US pilot, lt-comdr (Chicago Airport named for him), died in
battle.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1943 Nov 28, President Roosevelt,
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin
met in Tehran, Iran, to map out strategy during World War II.
(AP, 11/28/97)(DT, 11/28/97)(HN, 11/28/98)
1943 Nov 29, US aircraft carrier
Hornet was launched.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1943 Nov 29, In Yugoslavia
partisan Tito formed a temporary government in Jajce, Bosnia.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1943 Nov 29, U-86 sank in the
Atlantic Ocean.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1943 Nov, In Germany Michael
Negele joined the Death’s head Battalion of the Waffen-SS. He later
immigrated to the US and withheld information on his wartime
activities. In 1997 a Missouri court acted to strip him of US
citizenship.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.A3)
1943 Nov, The 2-day Nazi
"Operation Harvest" at the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland
executed men, women and children. Nazi officer Alfons Goetzfried later
admitted to having personally shot 500 people. Over 42,000 people,
mostly Jews, were killed in the operation. In 1999 Alfons Goetzfrid
(79) was convicted for assisting in the murders of 17,000 Jews at the
camp. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A14)(SFC, 5/21/99, p.D2)
1943 Dec 1, President Roosevelt,
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin
concluded their Tehran conference and agreed to Operation Overlord
(D-Day).
(AP, 12/1/00)
1943 Dec 2, "Carmen Jones," a
contemporary reworking of the Bizet opera "Carmen" by Oscar Hammerstein
II with an all-black cast, opened on Broadway.
(AP, 12/2/98)
1943 Dec
2, The 1st RSHA (Reichsicherheitshauptamt, the central SS-department)
transport out of Vienna reached Birkenau camp (Poland). One of the
powers of the RSHA was the imposition of "Protective Custody," which
meant the deportation to a concentration camp without trial or the
possibility of appeal for the victims.
(www.wsg-hist.uni-linz.ac.at/Auschwitz/HTML/RSHA.html)
1943 Dec 3, Howard Hanson's 4th
Symphony premiered.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1943 Dec 3, Battle of Monte
Cassino, Italy began.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1943 Dec 8, U.S. carriers sank two
cruisers and down 72 planes in the Marshall Islands.
(HN, 12/8/98)
1943 Dec 10, Franklin D. Roosevelt
signed a bill that postponed a draft of pre-Pearl Harbor fathers.
(HN, 12/10/98)
1943 Dec 10, Allied forces bombed
Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.
(HN, 12/10/98)
1943 Dec 11, John Kerry,
Massachusetts Senator and 2004 Democrat presidential candidate, was
born in Denver, Colorado.
(SSFC, 2/29/04, p.D2)
1943 Dec 11, Donna Mills, actress
(Knots Landing, Incident), was born in Chicago, Illinois.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1943 Dec 11, U.S. Secretary of
State, Cordell Hull, demanded that Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria
withdraw from the war.
(HN, 12/11/98)
1943 Dec 12, The exiled Czech
government signed a treaty with the USSR for postwar cooperation.
(HN, 12/12/98)
1943 Dec 12, The German Army
launched Operation Winter Tempest, the relief of the Sixth Army trapped
in Stalingrad. The attempt to relieve Stalingrad fell short due to
stubborn Soviet resistance and the Germans' indecision within the
besieged city.
(HN, 12/12/98)
1943 Dec 15, Thomas "Fats"
Waller (39), US jazz stride piano artist (Hot Chocolate), died in
Kansas City, Mo. Guitarist Al Casey performed with Waller for 10 years
prior to WW II.
(SFEM, 10/6/96, p.16,18)
1943 Dec 16, Steven Bochco,
producer (Hill St Blues, LA Law, St Elsewhere, NYPD Blue), was born.
(MC, 12/16/01)
1943 Dec 17, U.S. forces invaded
New Britain Island in New Guinea.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1943 Dec 19, William De Vries,
surgeon-inventor (Symbion artificial heart), was born in Brooklyn.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1943 Dec 20, "International" was
no longer USSR National Anthem.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1943 Dec 20, Soviet forces halted
a German army trying to relieved the besieged city of Stalingrad.
(HN, 12/20/98)
1943 Dec 22, Beatrix Potter
(b.1866), English author, died. She first told the story of Peter
Rabbit in the form of a "picture letter" to Noel Moore, the son of
Potter's former governess in 1893. A 2nd illustrated letter the same
month later became “The Tale of Jeremy Fisher.” The “Tale of Peter
Rabbit” was published in 1901. At her death she bequeathed all her
holdings, 14 farms and 4,000 acres of land, to the National Trust.
(Econ, 1/6/07,
p.67)(www.visitcumbria.com/bpotter.htm)
1943 Dec 23, The 1st telecast of a
complete opera (Hansel & Gretel) was made from Schenectady, NY.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1943 Dec 23, Gen. Montgomery was
appointed British commandant for D-day.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1943 Dec 24, President Roosevelt
appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces
as part of Operation Overlord. Almost everyone had believed the
position would go to American Chief of Staff George C. Marshall.
(AP, 12/24/97)(HN, 12/24/00)
1943 Dec 26, Count Claus von
Stauffenberg tried in vain to plant a bomb in Hitler's
headquarters.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1943 Dec 26, The 32,000-ton German
battleship Scharnhorst sank off Norway following an Allied attack led
by the British battleship Duke of York. Only 36 of the 1,900 crew
survived. Researchers found the wreck in 2000.
(CMW, 1968, p.589)(HN, 12/26/98)(SFC, 10/4/00, p.A12)
1943 Dec 27, Cokie Roberts,
American political broadcaster for NPR and ABC, was born.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1943 Dec 27, President Franklin
Roosevelt ordered the U.S. Army to take temporary possession of all
railroads in order to prevent a strike by railway workers. The action
was taken under the wartime Labor Disputes Act. The railroads were
returned to private management on January 18, 1944.
(HNQ, 7/16/98)
1943 Dec 31, John Denver, singer
(Rocky Mt High), was born in NM.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1943 Dec 31, Ben Kingsley, actor
(Gandhi, Betrayal, Maurice), was born in Scarborough, England.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1943 Dec 31, NYC's Times Square
greeted Frank Sinatra at the Paramount Theater.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1943 Tammy Wynette (d.1998 at 55),
country singer, was born as Virginia Wynette Pugh on a cotton farm in
Itawamba County. In 1968 she recorded her hit song "Stand by Your Man."
(SFC, 4/798, p.A7)
1943 Max Ernst created his
painting "Flute of the Angels."
(WSJ, 6/10/99, p.A24)
1943 Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000)
painted "Ironers."
(WSJ, 8/3/01, p.W8)
1943 Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)
created his 500-pound work titled “Mural,” a canvas nearly 8x20 feet.
It marked a transition from his modestly sized easel paintings to his
drip paintings.
(WSJ, 7/30/08, p.D7)
1943 Diego Rivera painted
Vendedora de Alcatraces and Retrato De La Senora Natasha Gelman. Frida
Kahlo painted "Diego En Mi Pensamiento."
(SFC, 4/14/96, EM, p.18)
1943 Pablo Picasso painted "First
Steps," and created his bronze sculpture "Man With a Lamb." The
sculpture represented the death of a friend in a concentration camp. He
also painted "Atelier Window."
(SFEC, 9/20/98, DB p.39)
1943 Jean Potter Chelnov returned
to Alaska to research her book "The Flying North," a book on aviation
in Alaska. It was edited by Dashiell Hammett, detective author then
serving in Alaska.
(SFC, 1/8/96, p.A17)
1943 Lillian Hellman wrote her
play: "The Searching Wind."
(WSJ, 2/23/96, p.A-10)
1943 Larry LeSueur (d.2003 at 93),
war correspondent, authored "Twelve Months That Changed the World,"
based on his 1941-1942 reports from the Russian front. He was initially
hired by Edward R. Murrow in 1939.
(SFC, 2/8/03, p.A1)
1943 Erle Loran (d.1999 at 93)
authored "Cezanne's Composition," an instructional book on 20th century
art.
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.C4)
1943 Jerre Mangione (d.1998 at 89)
published his first book "Mount Allegro." It was a non-fiction account
of his life as the son of Sicilian immigrants but his publisher,
Houghton Miflin , insisted that it be published as a novel.
(SFC, 9/1/98, p.A20)
1943 Jean-Paul Sartre wrote his
best play "The Flies." It was based on an ancient myth.
(WSJ, 8/12/98, p.A13)
1943 Curt Siodmak authored the
novel "Donovan’s Brain." It was about a disembodied brain with
malicious intentions.
(SFC, 11/21/00, p.A25)
1943 "The Little Prince" by
Antoine de St. Exupery (d.1944) was published.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)
1943 William Whyte (d.2000 at 86)
authored "Street Corner Society," a study of Italian gangs in Boston’s
North End.
(SFC, 7/20/00, p.C2)
1943 Wendell Wilkie published his
"One World."
(V.D.-H.K.p.318)
1943 Ira Wolfert (d.1997 at 89)
wrote his novel "Tucker’s People." It was made into the 1948 film
"Force of Evil." He also wrote the nonfiction work "Battle for the
Solomons."
(SFC,11/28/97, p.B8)
1943 The musical "Carmen Jones"
was based on Bizet’s opera "Carmen" in turn based on the novella by
Prosper Merimee.
(SFC, 10/24/96, p.D1)(WSJ, 2/5/97, p.A16)
1943 Bartok composed his "Concerto
for Orchestra," one of the great works in the modern Western canon.
(WSJ, 7/1/03, p.D8)
1943 The ballet "Kratt" (The
Goblin) by Eduard Tubin was first performed in Estonia. Tubin left
Estonia in 1944 and took up residence in Stockholm.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.C8)
1943 Columbia Pictures released
its first color film.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, Par p.4)
1943 Roy Acuff, country music
superstar, invited the governor of Tennessee to a party. Gov. Prentice
Cooper snubbed him saying that he and his awful musicians were making
Tennessee “the hillbilly capital of the United States.”
(Econ, 12/23/06,
p.45)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prentice_Cooper)
1943 Texan singer Ernest Tubb
began performing for the live radio show, the Grand Ole Opry. He had an
amplified sound heavy on the fiddle and steel guitar.
(Hem., 4/97, p.69)
1943 The music "Rapsodia Negra" by
Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona had its premier in Carnegie Hall.
Lecuona was the composer of "Malaguena."
(WSJ, 5/27/99, p.A24)
1943 "Tico Tico" was composed by
Zequinha Abreu.
(SI-WPC, 1997)
1943 Sy Oliver composed his jazz
piece "Opus One."
(SI-WPC, 12/6/96)
1943 "One Touch of Venus" was an
eccentric opus with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ogden Nash about
Venus coming to life and falling for a New jersey barber. It made a
star of Mary Martin.
(WSJ, 4/15/96, p.A-16)
1943 A UN concert was presented by
the SF CIO and featured Paul Robeson.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, DB p.23)
1943 Francoise Gilot met Picasso
as a 23-year-old art student and became his lover for 10 years and
mother of 2 children. She later married Jonas Salk, the polio vaccine
pioneer.
(SFC, 10/5/96, p.E1)
1943 Eugene O'Neill, playwright,
burned most of the plays in his planned cycle "A Tale of Possessors
Self-Dispossessed." Two of the plays survived: "More Stately Mansions,"
and "A Touch of the Poet." The Mansions play was incomplete and had
instructions to be burned upon his death, but was later staged. Eugene
O'Neill wrote his last play "A Moon for the Misbegotten."
(WSJ, 10/8/97, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/8/00, p.A24)(WSJ,
3/22/00, p.A20)
1943 Rex Applegate (d.1998 at 84)
published his book "Kill or Be Killed," a military manual on
hand-to-hand combat.
(SFC, 7/28/98, p.A20)
1943 David Brinkley began his
career as a correspondent for NBC News in Washington.
(SFC, 10/18/96, C6)
1943 Maxine Reams (d.1997 at 79)
became the first female staff photographer for the LA Times.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A23)
1943 The American Bar Association
(ABA) opened its ranks to black lawyers
(WSJ, 8/14/02, p.A1)
1943 The All-American Girls
Professional Baseball League began in this year. Teams like the Racine
(Wisconsin) Belles and the Rockford (Illinois) Peaches participated. In
1992 the movie "A League of Their Own" depicted the first season of the
Peaches.
(Smith., 4/95, p. 44)
1943 Ira Wolfert received a
Pulitzer Prize for his telegraphic reporting on the 1942 sea battle off
Guadalcanal.
(SFC,11/28/97, p.B8)
1943 The US Smith-Connally Act
prohibited labor unions from contributing to federal campaigns.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D9)
1943 Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt
signed the act that repealed the Chinese exclusion laws after China
became an ally in WW II. Chinese were given the right to naturalize and
a token annual quota of 105 was set.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W39)(SFEC, 2/6/00, Rp.10)
1943 Congress authorized the US
Cadet Nurse Corps under the leadership of Lucile Petry Leone (d.1999 at
97).
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.B2)
1943 An anonymous letter to FBI
chief Herbert Hoover unmasked Soviet spies. The letter said that
Vassili Zarubin and his wife, Soviet diplomats, were spies. The FBI did
not take action against them but focused on ways to fight spying.
(WSJ, 10/4/96, p.A1)
1943 Lady Bird Johnson purchased
KTBC, a low-powered radio station in Texas. The Federal Communications
Commission, which reviewed all broadcast-license transfers, was close
to being abolished. Congressman Lyndon Johnson used his political
influence in both Congress and the White House to prevent that from
happening. In 1945 the FCC OK'd KTBC's request to quintuple its power,
which cast its signal over 63 counties.
(Econ, 7/21/07,
p.85)(www.slate.com/id/2170481/nav/navoa/)
1943 Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran
convinced the U.S. military that qualified women pilots could free men
for combat duty by performing non-combat missions. Supported by Eleanor
Roosevelt and Army aviation chief General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold,
Cochran's goal was achieved with the formation of the Women's Air Force
Service Pilots (WASPs).
(HNPD, 2/25/99)
1943 The US began minting steel
pennies in order to save on copper for the war effort.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, Par p.21)
1943 A new $68 million carrier USS
Hornet was commissioned. It was named in honor of the carrier that was
sunk by the Japanese Oct 26, 1942 near Guadalcanal. The new Hornet was
the 8th US Navy ship to take the name.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A22)
1943 The new carrier USS Intrepid
was deployed and served as a mainstay of the war against Japan in the
Pacific. By the end of the war it lost 270 crew members. It was
decommissioned in 1974. New York builder Zach Fisher saved it from the
scrap year and by 1982 it was berthed off Manhattan as the Intrepid Sea
Air & Space Museum.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.A4)(WSJ, 11/8/08, p.W9)
1943 The US introduced the P-51
airplane.
(WSJ, 8/14/97, p.A13)
1943 The Hanford nuclear
reservation was constructed in Washington state for the Manhattan
Project. Hanford made plutonium until the 1980s.
(SFC, 4/10/99, p.A7)
1943 The battleship Missouri was
launched. The Iowa class battleship was later made into a memorial at
Pearl Harbor.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A16)(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A6)
1943 In the Pacific, the marines
fought their way from Guadalcanal to Tarawa.
(TMC, 1994, p.1943)
1943 The Allies decided on
demanding unconditional surrender and a second front invasion was led
by Eisenhower.
(TMC, 1994, p.1943)
1943 Coast Guard Lt. Carlton
Skinner (d.2004) took command of the weather ship Sea Cloud, the 1st
fully integrated US naval warship.
(SSFC, 8/29/04, p.B7)
1943 In California Cesare Mondavi
purchased the Charles Krug winery in Napa Valley and began making wine
with his sons Robert and Peter. Robert Mondavi (1913-2008) persuaded
his parents to buy Charles Krug Winery. Robert became the salesman and
his brother Peter the winemaker.
(USAT, 6/17/98, p.2D)(SFC, 5/17/08, p.A7)
1943 Two American oil firms
decided to expand their refinery in Bahrain and hired Bechtel. Capacity
was doubled to 65,000 barrels per day.
(SSFC, 5/4/03, p.A8)
1943 The RP-5A was designed as a
reusable target drone for use by student aerial gunners. It was flown
by remote control and weighed 120 lbs. with a maximum speed of 85 mph.
It ran on a 2-cycle, 2-cylinder motor and gasoline.
(FB, 9/12/96, p.B1)
1943 General Motors invited Peter
Drucker (1909-2005), a young author, to study the company from the
inside. His seminal study of General Motors: “The Concept of the
Corporation” (1945) introduced the idea of decentralization as a
principle of organization, in contrast to the practice of command and
control in business.
(http://tinyurl.com/8c4na)(Econ, 11/19/05, p.72)
1943 The RCA Corp. was forced to
divest one of its two networks, the Blue radio network, and the
American Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) was formed.
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.B3)(SFC, 12/29/99, p.E3)
1943 Willem Kolff invented the 1st
dialysis machine in Holland.
(WSJ, 10/2/03, p.A2)
1943 US psychiatrist Leo Kanner
1st described a autism. Symptoms included a lack of interest in others.
(SSFC, 2/2/03, Par p.4)
1943 By this year the Hopi land
had dwindled to 624,000 acres and was surrounded by a 16-million-acre
Navajo reservation.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A26)
1943 Paul Fagan, the wealthy San
Francisco businessman, shipped a herd of Hereford cattle to Hana on the
island of Maui, Hawaii. He owned the San Francisco Seals of the pacific
Coast League.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, p.T8)
1943 Preston T. Tucker (1903-1956)
of Ypsilanti, Michigan, developed an innovative new passenger car for
postwar America. The Tucker, of which only 51 were built, boasted disc
brakes, pop-out windshields, padded dashboards and front-passenger
crash compartments. It pioneered several automotive features that would
later become standard. Tuckers were capable of a top speed of 122 mph
and originally cost about $2,450. The last Tucker was manufactured in
1948, shortly before Preston Tucker faced charges of fraud by the
Securities and Exchange Commission. Tucker successfully fought off the
SEC charges and was at work on an automobile to be built in Brazil, the
Carioca, when he died in 1956.
(HNPD, 10/3/98)
1943 Richard James (d.1974)
observed a torsion spring balance bounce off a ship’s deck while
working at a Philadelphia shipyard and conceived the idea of a "slinky"
toy for children, named by his wife Betty James (d.2008). In 1945 they
founded James Industries. In 1998 the company was sold to POOF Products
of Michigan.
(IBCC, 10/97, #9)(SSFC, 11/23/08, p.B9)
1943 A US Army exercise used live
ammunition on the wrong beach at Slapton sands near Torquay, England,
and hundreds of people were killed.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.T16)
1943 Abraham Maslow, American
behavioral scientist, published an article entitled “A Theory of Human
Motivation,” in which he argued that people everywhere are subject to
what he called a “hierarchy of needs.”
(Econ, 2/14/09, SR p.7)
1943 Stephen Vincent Benet
(b.1898), novelist and poet, died. His poem "Western Star" won a 2nd
Pulitzer Prize shortly after his death. He authored the story "The
Devil and Daniel Webster."
(SFC, 1/2/98, p.C20)
1943 Marsden Hartley (b.1877), one
of the 1st American modern painters, died.
(SFC, 3/8/01, p.D7)
1943 Oscar Hartzell (68), former
Illinois farmer, died in a prison hospital with assets of 10 cents. At
the turn of the century he had sold to some 100,000 Midwesterners
pieces of the purported $100 billion estate of Sir Francis Drake. He
was tried and convicted of mail fraud in Sioux City, Iowa. In 2002
Richard Rayner authored "Drake’s Fortune."
(WSJ, 5/17/02, p.W11)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.M1)
1943 Gustav Vigeland (b.1869),
Norwegian sculptor, died. His major life's work was the creation of 212
sculptures of 600 figures in an Oslo park named Vigeland Park.
(SSFC, 6/22/03, p.A1)
1943 Laszlo Biro, fled his native
Hungary to Argentina, where he patented his ballpoint pen. England soon
manufactured some 30,000 pens for use by RAF navigators in
unpressurized cockpits, where fountain pens failed.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)
1943 A draught occurred in the
outback of Western Australia.
(NH, 2/97, p.12)
1943 In Austria Sister Restituta
Kafka was beheaded by the Nazis for putting up crosses in a hospital.
Pope John Paul II planned to beatify her in 1998.
(SFC, 6/20/98, p.B3)(SFC, 6/22/98, p.A10)
1943 Gladwyn Jebb (1900-1996),
British diplomat, prepared the early drafts for the proposed UN Charter.
(SFC, 10/26/96, p.A20)
1943 Anthony E. Pratt, fire warden
in Leeds, England, conceived the game of "Clue," based on a pre-war
social game called Murder.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, p.C14)
1943 British scientists led by
Tommy Flowers developed Colossus, the world’s first large electronic
valve programmable logic calculator, in order to break the German
communication’s code. Colossus is considered by many to be the world‘s
first digital, programmable electronic computer. Its existence was only
made public in 1989!
(Wired, 10/96, p.78)(HNQ, 8/16/00)
1943 Britain’s National Trust
purchased the stone circles of Avebury, Windham Hill and adjoining
lands.
(SSFC, 12/24/00, p.T4)
1943 Arthur Osborne, ceramic
designer, died in England. His business, which made plaster-of-Paris
plaques, continued operations under his daughter until 1965. W. H.
Bossons bought the company in 1971, removed the “AO” mark and operated
until 1997.
(SFC, 10/24/07, p.G2)
1943 A Vultee BT-13 Valiant
disappeared on a flight from San Antonio, Texas, to Chile. Pilot Werner
Martinez and Sgt. Tomas Ayala were on ill-fated flight, which crashed
in Costa Rica. In 2008 police were led to the crash site after an
anonymous caller reported seeing a local resident carrying plane parts
in the town of San Isidro de El Guarco.
(AP, 2/27/08)
1943 Over 7,000 Danish Jews
crossed to Sweden to escape the Nazis.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.46)
1943 King Boris Cobourgh-Gotha III
died shortly after he yielded to pressure from Adolph Hitler to ally
with Nazi Germany. Prince Simeon (6) acceded to the thrown and reigned
under regencies until 1946 when the monarchy was abolished.
(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A19)
1943 Fitzroy Maclean parachuted
into German-occupied Yugoslavia as Brigadier commanding the British
Military Mission to the Tito partisans. He later wrote his memoir:
"Eastern Approaches" that described his 2-years there.
(SFC, 4/2/99, p.A20)
1943 Working with a script by Jean
Cocteau, Jean Delannoy (1908-2008) revisited the Tristan and Isolde
legend in "L'Eternel Retour" (Eternal Return).
(AP, 6/19/08)
1943 In France Sabina Zlatin
(1907-1996) opened a home in Izieu to help Jewish children threatened
by Nazi capture. She managed to smuggle about a 100 children to freedom
before being ruthlessly shutdown. [see 4/6/44.]
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.B2)
1943 Germaine Tillion (1907-2008)
was sent to the Nazi camp for women and children in Ravensbruck,
Germany, for her work with France's underground Resistance network.
Later she was the recipient of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor,
one of France's highest distinctions.
(Reuters, 4/20/08)
1943 In France Jacques Cousteau
and Emile Gagnan used a modified gas feeder valve as an oxygen
regulator for the "aqua lung."
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A7)
1943 In Germany Karlrobert
Kreiten, a piano virtuoso, was executed by the Nazis after a neighbor
denounced him for offhand remarks about Hitler.
(SFC,11/28/97, p.B8)
1943 In India there was a major
famine in Bengal that left 3 million people dead.
(SFC, 10/15/98, p.A2)
1943 Iraq declared war against the
Axis after British troops ran military leaders in support of Hitler out
of the country.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, Z1 p.8)
1943 Primo Levi (25) was sent to
the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. He later authored "Survival
in Auschwitz."
(SFEC, 3/5/00, BR p.8)
1943 Roman Frister (15) was sent
to the Nazi concentration camp at Plaszow. In 1993 Frister published
his biography "The Cap: The Price of Life."
(SFEC, 3/5/00, BR p.8)
1943 Slave laborers at the
Japanese NKK Corp. went on strike. Kim Kyung Suk (16) of Korea was
hanged from a ceiling by company employees and beaten with wooden and
bamboo swords for leading the strike against the steel giant. Suk filed
suit in 1991 and was awarded $33,900 in compensation in 1999.
(SFC, 4/8/99, p.C3)
1943 Bishara al-Khuri was elected
the first president of modern-day Lebanon. Lebanon did not become fully
independent from French rule until 1946. Khuri had previously been
Secretary-General of Mount Lebanon (a political predecessor to modern
Lebanon administered by the French) as well as its Prime Minister on
several separate occasions. In 1943, the French held general elections
to fulfill their earlier promises of Lebanese independence. The new
government promptly passed legislation to remove French influences in
the constitution.
(HNQ, 12/24/00)
1943 William Tubman was elected
president of Liberia. He promoted foreign investment and local
participation in government.
(AP, 7/1/03)
1943 In Mexico the evangelical
church "Light of the World" began a relationship with the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI). The cult provided crowds at political
rallies in exchange political leverage.
(SFC, 2/19/98, p.A8,10)
1943 Parcutin Volcano in central
Mexico began a 9-year eruption.
(AM, 3/04, p.50)
1943 The Russians won the Battle
of Stalingrad.
(TMC, 1994, p.1943)
1943 In Sweden the Riksbank
director Ivar Rooth wrote a memorandum that said he and Trade Minister
Hermann Eriksson discussed the risk that the gold Sweden received from
Germany was looted.
(SFC,1/22/97, p.A9)
1943 Ingvar Kamprad (b.1926) of
Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd, began selling farm implements by mail order under
the name IKEA. The first deliveries were made by milk truck. The 1st
catalog was published in 1951 and the 1st showroom opened in Almhult in
1953. By 1996 the Swedish firm had grown to $6.5 billion in sales. In
1999 it had 152 stores in 28 countries. See Ikea timeline @
http://tinyurl.com/ej5h4.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A24)(SFC, 3/10/00, p.B2)
1943 In Tunisia Khaled Abdelwahhab
hid a group of Jews on his farm outside Mahdia, saving them from the
Nazi troops occupying the North African nation. In 2007 Abdelwahhab
became the first Arab to be nominated for recognition as "Righteous
Among the Nations," an honor bestowed on non-Jews who risked their
lives to save Jews from Nazi persecution.
(AP, 1/30/07)
1943 Some 35,000 Poles in Lviv,
Ukraine, were massacred by extreme Ukrainian nationalists. Poland
opened investigations around 2001.
(SFC, 6/27/01, p.A12)
1943 Venezuela negotiated the
first 50-50 oil deal with Shell Oil and Standard Oil of New Jersey.
(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.R4)
1943-1944 Some 2,264 Japanese people from 13 Central
and South American countries were sent to the US for internment. In
1998 the US apologized and agreed to pay each of the people $5,000.
(SFC, 6/13/98, p.A1)
1943-1944 The US submarine Seahorse, commanded by
Capt. Slade D. Cutter (d.2005), sank 19 Japanese ships.
(SFC, 6/17/05, p.B5)
1943-1945 "FDR & Stalin: A Not So Grand Alliance"
by Amos Perlmutter covers this period.
(WSJ, 11/19/96, p.A22)
1943-1945 Some 4,800 soldiers of Germany’s Afrika
Corps were held in a POW camp near Hearne, Texas.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.28)
1943-1945 Ho Chi Minh worked for American
intelligence during this time rescuing downed American pilots and
reporting on Japanese troop movements in Vietnam. His story was later
told in the 1998 book: "Our Ho: Fact and Fiction" by Alan Trustman.
(A.Com, 1/25/98)
1943-1947 Archibald Wavell (1883-1950), British Field
Marshal, served as the penultimate viceroy of India. In 2009 Adrian
Fort authored “Archibald Wavell: The Life and Times of an Imperial
Servant.”
(Econ, 1/17/09,
p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Wavell,_1st_Earl_Wavell)
1943-1947 Thousands of Italians were killed by
Yugoslav partisans in and around the Istrian peninsula, which had
fallen to Italy after the 1st world war. Mussolini’s fascists had
brutally Italianized the peninsula prior to the arrival of the
partisans.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.48)
1943-1948 Little Lulu starred in an animated cartoon
series that later ran on TV. She appeared in comic books from
1945-1980s and in newspapers from 1950 to 1969. Kleenex advertisements
featured her from 1944-1960.
(SFC, 2/4/98, Z1 p.6)
1943-1949 Chiang Kai-shek (1886?-1975), Chinese
statesman and president of the Republic (1943-1950).
(WUD, 1994, p.254)
1943-1955 Thomas E. Dewey (d.1971), born in Owosso,
Mich., in 1902, served as governor of New York. He also was a two-time
Republican presidential nominee,.
(HN, 3/24/01)(AP, 3/24/02)(AH, 12/02, p.4)
1943-1957 The Kalmyks of southern Russia were
banished to Siberia on charges of collaborating with the Nazis. In
their absence their land was overgrazed and turned to desert. In an
attempt to solve the problem the steppe was irrigated with water from
the Volga which brought underlying salt to the surface and turned some
of the land to marsh.
(SFC,11/6/97, p.D2)
1943-1960 Those born in this period in the US were
considered part of the "baby boomer" generation. In 2001 Joe Queenan
authored ""Balsamic Dreams: A Short But Self-Important History of the
Baby Boomer Generation."
(WSJ, 5/25/01, p.W8)
1943-1965 Members of the Special Operations Division
from Maryland’s Fort Detrick biological weapons program conducted over
200 tests during this period on the effectiveness of aerially dispersed
pathogens. At least 4 men died during the years of the project. Some
658,039 animals were killed, including sheep, ferrets, cats, pigs,
white mice and guinea pigs.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.A11)(AH, 6/03, p.46)
1943-1986 Building E5625, the “Pilot Plant,” at the
US Army Aberdeen Proving Ground was built and used for experiments and
production of agents in chemical and biological warfare. In 1977 public
knowledge of the pathogen experiments caused citizen outrage.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.A11)
1943-1970 Janis Joplin, American rock singer: "Don’t
compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got."
(AP, 8/19/97)
1943-1971 Jim Morrison, American rock singer: "When
you make your peace with authority, you become authority."
(AP, 11/11/98)
1943-1996 Bobby Enriquez (aka the Wild Man of
Mindanao) jazz pianist. He was known for his fast fingerwork and style
of attacking the piano. In the Philippines he was hailed as the
"Ambassador of Jazz."
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.A20)
Go to 1944