|
|
06/01/1943 On the home front, the crisis in the American coal fields boils over when 530,000 members of the United Mine Workers go on strike after mine operators reject a $1.50-per-day pay increase.
Admirals King and Nimitz meet in San Francisco and agree on grand strategy to defeat Japan: First, cut off Japan's oil supplies; next, devastate its cities with heavy bombing strikes; finally, conquer the home islands.
King and Nimitz also choose leaders for the drive across the central Pacific, Vice Adm. Raymond Spruance, the victor of Midway, will be overall commander. Guadalcanal veteran Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner will direct amphibious operations. Tempestuous Marine Maj. Gen. Holland "Howling Mad" Smith will command ground forces.
In the Mediterranean, a Royal Navy task force led by the cruiser Penelope bombards Pantellaria.
Movie star Leslie Howard and 16 others are killed when a Lisbon-to-London airliner is shot down by a German plane. One of the victims is a thickset, cigar-smoking man whom Nazis spies in Lisbon have misidentified as Churchill.
06/02/1943 The Senate sends a pay-as-you-go income tax bill to President Roosevelt for his signature. The legislation, which takes bites of up to 20 percent from workers' wages, is the nation's first withholding tax.
06/03/1943 Vice Adm. Halsey issues orders for the invasion of New Georgia in the central Solomon Island.
Later this month, Army and Marine troops will resume the Allied drive in the South Pacific by taking Munda, a Japanese-built airfield on southern New Georgia. Planes based at Munda will cover landings in the northern Solomons this year.
The New Georgia operation will be conducted by New England National Guardsmen of the 43rd "Winged Victory" division and two battalions of Marine raiders.
Domestically, Roosevelt orders striking coal miners to return to work by June 7 and warns no contract negotiations will be allowed until they do.
Four nights of brawls between young soldiers and sailors and "zoot suiters," mostly black and Hispanic teenagers, begin in Los Angeles.
In central France, saboteurs badly damage the Michelin tire works at Clermont-Ferrand.
06/04/1943 United Mine Workers' policy committee bows to a government demand that it order 530,000 striking miners to return to work.
In Washington, the House passes legislation making it a crime to instigate strikes and lockouts in government-operated war plants and facilities.
American and British bombers continue the massive assault on Pantelleria. Omar Bradley, commander of the U. S. II Corps in Tunisia, is promoted to lieutenant general. Bradley is rapidly becoming Eisenhower's right-hand man.
Army Maj. Kermit Roosevelt, 53, a son of the late President Theodore Roosevelt, dies while on active duty in Alaska.
06/05/1943 Realizing the Allies are readying an offensive in the central Solomons, the Japanese launch a heavy air strike against American bases in the Russell Islands north of Guadalcanal. Twenty-four Japanese planes are shot down. The Americans lose seven.
Allied bombers and a Royal Navy task force led by Royal Navy cruiser Newfoundland continue the bombardment of Pantellaria. Eisenhower orders his staff to begin planning a September invasion of southern Italy.
06/06/1943 With the landing on Pantellaria only five days off, the Allied aerial bombardment zeroes in on shore batteries and gun emplacements. The Allies' continuous air raids and naval bombardments have taken nearly all of the fight out of the island's 11,000-man Italian garrison.
Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, American and British bombers pound Axis airfields in Sardinia.
06/07/1943 Adm. Nimitz returns to Pearl Harbor after a strategy conference in San Francisco to find the carrier Essex, the first of the new flattops to join his Pacific fleet.
Domestically, most of the 530,000 striking coal miners return to work, and negotiations resume between the union and the coal operators.
A sweeping modernization of the Red Army's tanks, planes, trucks and other equipment is underway.
Thousands of new tanks, superior to the Wehrmacht panzers, are rolling off production lines east of the Urals. The Red Air Force is being re-equipped with new Russian Stormovik fighter-bombers and American P39 Aircobra fighters.
One critical improvement is motorizing the Red Army with Dodge and Studebaker trucks provided by the American Lend-Lease program. The American trucks will make possible deep and swift Russian penetrations into German-held territory.
06/08/1943 An accidental explosion destroys the Japanese battleship Matsu in Hiroshima Bay. Matsu is the third battlewagon the Japanese have lost in seven months.
On the home front, the Navy declares Los Angeles out-of-bounds to stop brawling between servicemen and zoot-suited, teen-age civilians.
Thirteen Royal Navy warships bombard Pantellaria as the British 1st Infantry division prepares to invade. Allied planes drop leaflets urging the island's 11,000 Italian defenders to surrender.
The first move of the Sicily campaign begins with a convoy carrying part of the U. S. 45th "Thunderbird" Infantry division sailing from Norfolk, Virginia. The Thunderbird's Texans, Oklahomans and New Mexicans will become one of the Army's hardest fighting National Guard divisions.
06/09/1943 Domestically, California Gov. Earl Warren establishes a commission to investigate the zoot suit riots in Los Angeles. A curfew has ended fighting in the city, but skirmishes are occurring in the suburbs.
Eisenhower watches the Allied air and naval bombardment of Pantellaria from the deck of the British cruiser Aurora. Ike has a bet with Churchill on how many Italians are on the island. Churchill estimates 3,000. There are 11,000 and he will lose $16.
In southern Russia the Red Army crosses the Mius River west of Rostov. The Germans fail to dislodge the bridgehead and gain no ground with an attack in the eastern Ukraine.
06/10/1943 The American and British joint chiefs of staff issue a directive for aerial attacks on Germany and Europe's occupied nations.
Large formations of American B17s and B24s will smash German manufacturing plants with daylight raids, and British, Canadian and Polish bombers will bomb German cities by night. But there will be little coordination between the day and night raids during the next six months and the Allies will suffer heavy losses to flak and fighters.
06/11/1943 A few hours before the British 1st Infantry Division's scheduled assault, the 11,000-man garrison on Pantellaria surrenders. It is the first time in history a military force has surrendered after being attacked only by bombers and naval gunfire.
Pantellaria's occupation costs the Allies one casualty: a British Tommy bitten by a mule.
With the surrender, Roosevelt urges Italians on the mainland to overthrow Mussolini and boot the Germans out of Italy.
Later in the day, the Royal Navy turns its guns on Lampedusa, an island 85 miles southeast of Pantellaria.
06/12/1943 The Japanese lose 31 planes during an air strike on Guadalcanal. Six American fighters are shot down.
After 24-hour bombardment by a Royal Navy squadron, the small Italian garrison on Lampedusa -- an island south of Sicily -- surrenders to a detachment of the British Army's Coldstream Guards.
Allied bombers intensify the pressure on Mussolini's tottering government with heavy raids on Palermo and Catania, two of Sicily's largest cities.
06/13/1943 For the third time in three days, a war-weary Italian garrison on an island south of Sicily surrenders. This time it's the detachment on Linosa, an islet 25 miles from Lampedusa which is rounded up by a shore party from British destroyer Nubian.
American B-17 Flying Fortresses suffer heavy losses to German fighters and flak during an attack on U-boat construction yards at Kiel in northern Germany. Twenty-two of the 60 Forts are shot down -- the worst loss the U. S. 8th Air Force has suffered thus far. But more than 100 other B-17s inflict severe damage on U-boat yards at Bremen.
06/14/1943 Domestically, Selective Service director Lewis Hershey announces the scheduled drafting of married fathers will be delayed until August 1.
Allied U-boat hunters follow up last month's victory in the North Atlantic with a successful campaign in the Bay of Biscay.
During the next seven weeks, 33 U-boats will be sunk or damaged near their French bases by Allied long-range patrol bombers and warships. Notable are three sinkings by a squadron led by the Royal Navy's most famous sub killer, Cmdr. Frederick 'Johnnie' Walker.
The Germans will beef up their subs' anti-aircraft guns and increase the Luftwaffe's Atlantic air patrols. But the tactics will fail and U-boat chief Karl Donitz will be forced to order his subs to remain in port until they can be fitted with radar detectors that indicate a plane or ship is nearby.
06/15/1943 A Royal Navy landing party occupies Lampione -- the fourth island south of Sicily to be taken in the past four days -- and U. S. Air Force bombers bomb five Sicilian airfields. Sicily is now wide open to Allied invasion.
The French begin planning a late summer invasion of Corsica.
Over Germany, RAF bombers batter Oberhausen, a steel and coal center in the Ruhr, but German night fighters and anti-aircraft knock down 16 raiders.
The Luftwaffe tests the first twin-engined jet bomber.
06/16/1943 A Japanese air attack on an Allied convoy near Guadalcanal is a bloody fiasco as nearly 100 planes were shot down by American fighters and anti-aircraft guns. Two American ships are wrecked and a third damaged.
In Italy, Naples is severely damaged by RAF night raiders.
Domestically, War Production Board member Donald Nelson tells a congressional committee the Allies are way out-producing Germany, Italy and Japan. He estimates the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain are producing $125 billion worth of war goods per year and the Axis nations only $65 billion.
06/17/1943 A powerful Royal Navy task force that includes four battleships and carrier Indomitable sails from Scapa Flow north of Scotland and heads for the Mediterranean to participate in the invasion of Sicily.
The Sicily landings, tentatively scheduled for July 9, will be made by 13 American, British and Canadian divisions and include the Allies' first large-scale use of parachute troops. More than 180,000 men will storm ashore from 2,500 ships and landing craft. They will have 600 tanks, 1,800 guns and 14,000 vehicles. About 4,000 American and British aircraft will support the operation.
RAF bombers continue their Battle of the Ruhr with heavy attacks on Cologne and several steel and armaments centers. American B24 Liberators blast cities in southern Italy.
06/18/1943 The Joint Chiefs of Staff order Nimitz to begin a drive across the central Pacific later this year.
For the first step, the JCS recommends seizing five atolls in the Marshall Islands -- but Nimitz objects because the Marshals are beyond the range of land-based planes. He persuades the JCS to invade two Japanese bases in the Gilbert Islands that can be reached by land-based aircraft.
The decision sets the stage for one of the Marines' bloodiest battles: Tarawa. Army GIs will take Makin. The invasions are tentatively scheduled for Nov. 15.
06/19/1943 After four months of quiet, the Allies are about to resume their offensive in the South Pacific.
Forces commanded by Gen. MacArthur and Adm. Halsey will make three landings in the central Solomons and New Guinea. The offensive will be supported by a powerful fleet that includes the carrier Saratoga, British carrier Victorious, three American "jeep" carriers and battleships Colorado, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts and North Carolina.
New equipment has arrived, including Army P-38 "Lightning" and Marine F4U "Corsair" fighters and new LCM and LCVP landing craft to offload men, tanks, guns and equipment on invasion beaches.
Army and Marine infantrymen now carry the M1 Garand rifle, instead of the Springfield '03, and 15-shot carbines and bazooka rocket launchers. Even the troops' combat rations are different: new 10-in-one packets contain Spam or other meat, bacon, cheese, coffee or tea and cigarettes.
06/20/1943 The RAF unveils a new "shuttle bombing" tactic in which long-range Lancaster bombers take off from England, blast a German city, fly to Africa, rearm and refuel, then hit another target while returning to England.
The first shuttle raid hits radar manufacturing facilities at Friedrichshaven in Germany. Three nights later, the RAF blasts the Italian naval base at La Spezia on its return leg.
A troop convoy carrying the Canadian 1st Infantry division and Royal Marine commandoes sails from Scotland to participate in Operation Husky -- the invasion of Sicily.
A murderous race riot erupts in Detroit with whites beating up blacks and wrecking stores and homes in black neighbor-hoods. Four people are killed and 186 injured.
06/21/1943 The Allies renew their South Pacific offensive with the rescue of a courageous Australian coast watcher.
Though the American attack in the central Solomons isn't to begin until next week, coast watcher Donald Kennedy needs immediate help. From his radio command post on Japanese-occupied New Georgia, Kennedy has alerted the Allies to a new Japanese airfield at Munda, warned Guadalcanal of incoming air raids, saved downed Allied pilots and with a band of Melanesians harried enemy patrols.
But the Japanese have pinpointed his location and are closing in. He's saved by two companies of Marine Raiders.
06/22/1943 Roosevelt orders 5,000 troops to Detroit to suppress a race riot that has caused 34 deaths, 700 injuries and $2 million worth of damage.
An advance unit of the U. S. 43rd "Winged Victory" Infantry division joins Marine Raiders on New Georgia in the central Solomons. Next week, the 43rd's New England National Guardsmen and other units will begin a five-week battle to take the island's Munda airfield.
Near New Guinea, elements of the U. S. 112th Cavalry regiment take Woodlark Island where engineers will build airfields to bring the Japanese base at Rabaul within fighter range.
06/23/1943 The U. S. 185th Regimental Combat Team makes a picture perfect amphibious landing to take Kiriwina, the largest of the Trobriand Islands near southern New Guinea.
The airfields on Kiriwina and nearby Woodlark Island will play a major role in MacArthur's South Pacific campaign. Importantly, the carefully planned Kiriwina operation directed by Rear Adm. Daniel Barbey will be the model for future Allied amphibious landings in the Pacific.
In the Solomons, two American cargo ships are torpedoed and sunk by Japanese sub RO-103.
Domestically, Roosevelt calls the coal strike "intolerable" and threatens to draft all striking miners into the Army.
06/24/1943 The Germans and Russians are completing preparations for what will be history's largest tank battle.
In early July, 1 million Germans will assault the Kursk salient in central Russia, a 75-mile-wide bulge in the Red Army's defense line. The Wehrmacht's Ninth Army will attack from the north and Fourth Panzer Army from the south. The plan calls for the German armies to meet near the city of Kursk, then roll 300 miles to Moscow.
But the plan has been betrayed by a spy ring. Under Marshal Georgi Zhukov, 1.3 million Russians are waiting behind 15 lines of trenches, protected by minefields and barbed wire. The two sides will commit 6,000 tanks, 30,000 heavy guns and 4,000 planes.
Over Europe, 500 Allied planes blast airfields and oil depots in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Mussolini warns the Fascist Party that an Allied invasion of Sicily or Italy is imminent.
Domestically, 300,000 of 530,000 striking coal miners return to work.
06/25/1943 The pre-invasion bombardment of Sicily intensifies as 100 American B-17 Flying Fortresses drop 300 tons of bombs on the Italy-to-Sicily ferry terminal at Messina.
American engineers have astonished the RAF by building an airfield in 13 days on Gozo, a rock island near Malta.
06/26/1943 An amphibious force carrying part of the U. S. 41st "Sunset" Infantry division begins moving toward Nassau Bay on the east coast of New Guinea.
It's the opening move of a clever campaign devised by Australian Gen. Thomas Blamey. The Aussie-American target is actually is Lae, a small port that is a Japanese naval and air base. The Nassau landing force will sucker the Japanese into believing the Allies are attacking nearby Salamaua, another small port, and the Japanese will rush most of their army from Lae to Salamaua. Aussie and Yanks will then pounce on nearly vacated Lae.
Domestically, more than 200,000 coal miners ignore their union's order to return to work and are still on strike.
06/27/1943 A task force that includes escort carrier Core and destroyers sail from Norfolk, Va., on its first anti-submarine patrol in the central Atlantic. During the next three months, Core and hunter-killer squadrons from jeep carriers Bogue, Card and Santee will sink 16 U-boats. German subs will sink only one Allied ship in convoys protected by the small flattops.
Domestically, the National Education Association reports 2 million teenagers have left school to take war production jobs.
Fighting picks up on the Russian front as the Red Army makes probing attacks near German-held Orel, an ancient fortress and railroad junction 200 miles south of Moscow. Later this year, Orel will be obliterated during a fierce battle.
06/28/1943 A Royal Air Force reconnaissance plane photographs large rockets at the Peenemunde research center on Germany's Usedom island in the Baltic. The pictures confirm that the Nazis are developing long-range missiles to attack London and other British cities.
The rockets are V2s, liquid-fueled vehicles that carry a ton of high explosive 50 miles into the atmosphere and hit targets 465 miles away. These forerunners of the space age have been developed by German Army researchers led by Dr. Werner von Braun.
American bombers sink the cruiser Bari during a raid on the Italian naval base at Leghorn.
06/29/1943 The long-awaited offensive in the South Pacific begins with a task force that includes cruisers Cleveland, Columbia, Denver and Montpelier bombarding a Japanese base on Bougainville in the northern Solomons.
The naval gunfire is a feint to draw Japanese attention from a convoy carrying the U. S. 43rd Infantry division to Rendova and New Georgia. Advance units of the New England National Guard division will land on Rendova tomorrow.
The Solomons operation and coming attacks on New Guinea are the opening of a limited Allied offensive. During the next six months, U. S. forces led by Gen. MacArthur and Vice Adm. Halsey will threaten a 100,000-man Japanese army at Rabaul but won't challenge it.
Yugoslav spokesmen in London announce Gen. Draja Mikhailovich's partisans are attacking German and Italian forces in Bosnia, Montenegro and Herzegovina.
06/30/1943 GIs and Marines make eight landings in the central Solomons, New Guinea and Trobriands.
More than 6,000 of the U. S. 43rd "Winged Victory" Infantry division and Marine Raiders land on Rendova, New Georgia and three other islands in the Solomons. The 43rd swiftly annihilates a small Japanese garrison on Rendova. The offensive will trigger 20 naval and air battles in the next three months. In the first battle, Rear Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner's command ship McCawley is wrecked off Rendova, but American fighters and anti-aircraft guns shoot down 40 bombers. On New Guinea, the U. S. 41st "Sunset" Infantry division -- National Guardsmen from the Pacific Northwest -- makes a landing at Nassau Bay.
In the Caribbean, a French naval squadron at Martinique joins the Allies.
