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10/01/1943 Hitler makes a critical decision in the Italian campaign: He junks his plan to abandon Rome and most of the Italian peninsula and orders Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's 10th Army to hold at powerful defenses centered on Cassino, 75 miles south of Rome.
In the Soviet Union, the Red Army now controls 400 miles of the eastern bank of the Dnieper River from White Russia to Dnepropetrovsk. During the coming week, the Russians will establish new bridgeheads across Dnieper near Kiev, Kremenchug and Dnepropetrovsk.
10/02/1943 In the Pacific, the 9th Australian division takes Finschafen, New Guinea, marking the successful conclusion of a 10-day campaign to drive the Japanese out of the Huon peninsula.
Japanese warships rescue the remnants of the Imperial Army's garrison on Kolombangara in the Central Solomons.
Paratroopers of the U. S. 82nd Airborne Division move into Naples as the American-British 5th Army slogs north toward the German defenses along the Volturno River, 20 miles north of the city.
The U. S. 3rd and 45th divisions are driving toward Benevento, a highway junction in the Abruzzi mountains northeast of Naples. German resistance is stiffening and forcing the Americans to fight for every mountain and village.
10/03/1943 One of Churchill's stratagems begins falling apart in the eastern Mediterranean's Dodecanese Islands.
Churchill has sent handfuls of British troops to occupy Cos, Leros, Samos and several other islands to open a supply route to Turkey and the Soviet Union. He hopes to encourage Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to join the Allied cause. Eisenhower has opposed the gambit because Allied forces have their hands full in Italy.
After initial British successes with help from the islands' Italian garrisons, a German counterattack retakes Cos, the only island with an airfield. The fall of Cos dooms Churchill's undermanned maneuver.
In Italy, the U. S. 34th "Red Bull" division takes Benevento, a 2,200-year-old city on the Appian Way 35 miles northeast of Naples, and establishes a bridgehead across the Calore River. On the Adriatic side of the peninsula, a German panzer division tries to retake Termoli, a small port, from the British 8th Army.
10/04/1943 Unaware that Hitler has ordered his army to dig in and fight south of Rome, Eisenhower and his battlefield commander, Gen. Harold Alexander, predict Allied troops will take Rome by the end of the month. It is Ike's worst prediction.
Free French forces complete the liberation of Corsica by taking Bastia, the island's largest city; but 40,000 Germans have escaped from the island to reinforce Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's 10th Army in Italy.
Planes from the American aircraft carrier Ranger -- operating with the British Home Fleet -- sink or damage 11 German merchant ships at Bodo, Norway.
In England, Adm. Sir Dudley Pound, commander-in-chief of the Royal Navy since 1939, resigns after being incapacitated by a stroke. He is replaced by Adm. Andrew Cunningham, Royal Navy commander in the Mediterranean.
10/05/1943 A U. S. Navy task force powered by new aircraft carriers Essex, Lexington, Yorktown, Cowpens, Independence and Belleau Wood begins a two-day air and sea bombardment of Wake Island, now a Japanese outpost in the central Pacific.
Bombers from the six flattops cause heavy damage and cruisers Birmingham, Mobile, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Santa Fe and San Francisco blast the island with gunfire. Twenty-six American planes are shot down, but submarine Skate -- performing the war's first lifeguard mission -- rescues six downed airmen.
Adm. Nimitz issues orders for the conquest of Tarawa, Makin and Abemama atolls in the British-owned Gilbert Islands. American forces will storm ashore in late November.
In Italy, British patrols from Gen. Mark Clark's 5th Army reach Volturno River, 20 miles north of Naples. Except for long-range guns, German artillery no longer can harass Naples harbor which is being cleared of mines and sunken ships.
10/06/1943 An American destroyer squadron is nearly wiped out by a Japanese "Tokyo Express" that successfully evacuates 600 marooned countrymen from Vella LaVella island in the Central Solomons.
Torpedoes from six Japanese destroyers sink tincans Chevalier and Selfridge and O'Bannon is damaged by a collision. An American torpedo disembowels Japanese destroyer Yugumo.
The disastrous night fight marks the end of the three-month Central Solomons campaign which has cost 5,000 Allied casualties. Admiral Halsey's forces have captured or built four airbases in the archipelago.
In Italy, British troops of Gen. Mark Clark's 5th Army take Caserta and its ornate Palazzo Reale, 18th century home of the kings of Naples. Clark and other high-ranking Allied officers will make the palace their headquarters.
Along the Adriatic, the British 8th Army wins the battle for Termoli and solidifies its bridgehead across the Biferno River.
10/07/1943 Another massacre is perpetrated on Wake Island in the Pacific when Rear Adm. Shigematsu Sakaibara orders 100 American prisoners executed in retaliation for a recent raid on Wake by a U. S. Navy task force.
Domestically, Ex-Minnesota governor Harold Stassen becomes the first 1944 Republican presidential candidate by entering the Nebraska primary.
The Allied campaign is Italy pauses as the American-British 5th Army probes German defenses along the Volturno River.
After a month of bloody fighting highlighted by the battle of Salerno, the Allies have established a 120-mile front across the Italian peninsula. Nine American and British divisions are opposing nine German divisions. Most of the future fighting will be along strips of comparatively low ground near the Mediterranean and Adriatic coasts.
As they reach the Volturno, British units take Capuya, 20 miles north of Naples -- best known for the training school that the legendary rebel gladiator Spartacus escaped from in AD 71.
In the eastern Mediterranean, a British naval squadron led by cruisers Penelope and Sirius massacres a German troop convoy.
10/08/1943 Australian-based B24 Liberators batter oil and naval facilities at Macassar in the Dutch East Indies.
The Red Army's astonishing three-month offensive in central and southern Russia has run out of steam.
In their first successful summer assaults, the Soviets have smashed the Germans in the Battle of Kursk and driven them from Kharkov, Smolensk, the Donets Basin and a 200-mile-wide strip of central Russia and the Ukraine. For the rest of the war, the Russians will be the attackers, the Germans the defenders.
The Russians are strengthening their bridgeheads across the Dnieper River and preparing major offensives near Kiev and Leningrad.
More than 350 American B17 Flying Fortresses attack Bremen -- Germany's second-largest port -- and manufacturing plants in nearby Vegesack. German fighters and anti-aircraft guns inflict severe losses.
10/09/1943 Allied intelligence warns Eisenhower and top Allied commanders in Italy that the Germans have decided to defend Rome and the southern (northern ? - R. O. B.) two-thirds of the Italian peninsula.
Intelligence has discovered that three elite German divisions have reinforced Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's 10th Army along the Volturno River, 20 miles north of Naples. Intelligence also has learned the Germans are using Italian laborers to prepare a stronger position -- called the Gustav Line -- 85 miles south of Rome.
In the eastern Mediterranean, German divebombers sink British destroyer Panther and damage cruiser Carlisle.
The Red Army eliminates the last vestiges of the German bridgehead in the northern Caucasus. During the mop-up, 20,000 Germans have been killed and 3,000 taken prisoner.
American bombers blast Gydnia in Poland -- accidentally sinking a German hospital ship.
10/10/1943 Hitler's decision to fight for Rome dooms Churchill's plan to take the Dodecanese Islands in the eastern Mediterranean and open a supply route to Turkey and the Soviet Union.
During a strategy conference, Eisenhower and his top commanders realize they don't have enough men and equipment for two Mediterranean campaigns; one in Italy, the other in the Dodecanese. Ike angers Churchill by refusing to send part of his forces to the islands.
In Italy, the U. S. 45th "Thunderbird" Infantry division edges close to German defenses along the Volturno River by taking Pontelandolfo, a mountain town 11 miles northeast of Benevento.
Yugoslav partisans attack German forces in Trieste, a large port near the Italian-Yugoslav frontier. The partisans penetrate into several of the city's suburbs and ignite a fierce battle.
10/11/1943 Depth charges dropped by a Japanese patrol plane sink U. S. sub Wahoo and its ace skipper, Cmdr. Dudley "Mush the Magnificent" Morton, off Hokkaido -- Japan's northernmost island. During five patrols, Morton and Wahoo sank 19 ships.
In the South Pacific, Maj. Neal Kearby, an Air Force P47 fighter pilot, shoots down seven planes near Wewak, New Guinea. He'll win the Medal of Honor and down 24 planes, then be killed in action.
The Red Army encircles Gomel, a provincial capital and rail center in White Russia.
Yugoslav partisans battle to within 23 miles of Belgrade and raid Zagreb, Croatia's capital.
10/12/1943 A surprise raid by 350 Army Air Force planes pulverizes Rabaul, New Britain, the largest Japanese base in the South Pacific.
Waves of U. S. 5th Air Force bombers sink or damage 12 Japanese ships, including three destroyers and three submarines, and batter Rabaul's airfields and ground facilities. The attack initiates an Allied air offensive aimed at isolating Japanese bases in the Bismarck Archipelago, the chain of islands north of the Solomons.
10/13/1943 Six American and British divisions of Mark Clark's 5th Army attack German defenses along the Volturno River, 20 miles north of Naples. The U. S. 3rd, 34th and 45th Infantry divisions establish three bridgeheads on the north side of the Volturno. The government of Italy's Marshal Badoglio declares war on German and becomes a co-belligerent with the Allies.
In Russia, Gen. Feodor Tolbukhin's army fights its way into Melitopol in the Ukraine, a way station on the Moscow-to-Crimea railroad. Tolbukhin's attack threatens to cut off the German-Romanian 17th Army in the Crimea and ignites a fierce 10-day battle.
10/14/1943 Fighters and flak shoot down 60 and damage 140 of the 291 American Flying Fortresses attacking ball bearing plants at Schweinfurt, South Germany.
The disaster, the Army Air Force's worst, temporarily halts long-range raids into Germany. Henceforth, bombers will be escorted by P47 Thunderbolt and P51 Mustang fighters.
In Italy, Gen. Mark Clark's 5th Army expands its bridgeheads across the Volturno River. The U. S. 3rd, 34th and 45th Infantry divisions have pushed four miles beyond the river.
The Red Army takes Zaporozhye-on-the-Dnieper, a historic Cossack headquarters in Ukraine.
German pilot Maj. Walter Nowotny shoots down his 250th Russian plane. Before war's end, four other German pilots will surpass Nowotny's score.
10/15/1943 In the Pacific, Adm. Halsey issues orders for the invasion of Northern Solomons.
British units of Gen. Mark Clark's 5th Army finally break German defenses and push across the Volturno river, some on pontoon bridges built by combat engineers of the U. S. 3rd Infantry division.
10/16/1943 In the Pacific, the 9th Australian division uses captured documents to smash a Japanese attack near Finschafen, New Guinea.
German U-boats have a bad day when they attack two Allied convoys in the North Atlantic. Eight U-boats are sunk or damaged by RAF patrol planes and warships. The Germans sink only one merchant ship. During October, 23 U-boats will make their death dives; Allied losses will be negligible.
The Germans do better in the Soviet Union, where they defeat Russian tanks and infantry trying to break out of a Dnieper bridgehead south of Kiev.
In the southern Ukraine, a group of Red armies led by Gen. Ivan Konev crosses the Dnieper, bursts through German defenses and pushes toward Krivoi Rog, a steelmaking center.
10/17/1943 Near Japan, the U. S. sub Tarpon sinks the German cruiser Michel, the last disguised raider on the high seas. During the past 18 months, Michel has destroyed 17 Allied merchant ships.
The Allied campaign in Italy has slowed to a crawl in the face of bad weather and fierce German rearguard actions.
During the next month, Clark's 5th Army and Montgomery's 8th Army will creep forward about a mile per day, fighting mud, mines and booby-traps and Germans entrenched on the high ground.
Cold and hungry front-line infantrymen build rock shelters to protect themselves from snipers and shellfire. By mid-November, the 5th Army will be so bloodied and exhausted that Clark will order a two-week halt to rest and recuperate.
The Germans are methodically withdrawing to three south-of-Rome defense lines called Barbara, Bernhard and, the toughest, Gustav.
10/18/1943 In the Pacific, large formations of Allied planes pound Rabaul and targets in the Northern Solomons to pave the way for Adm. Halsey's upcoming landings on Bougainville and the Treasury Islands.
The slowly advancing U. S. 3rd, 34th and 45th divisions take two dozen Italian towns and villages as the Germans retreat toward their mountainous Barbara defense line, 35 miles north of Naples.
For the past month, Allied planes have been trying to wreck German troop and supply trains. But the Germans are organizing their trains in Austria and making high-speed night runs to depots near the front lines.
Several thousand disabled Allied and German prisoners are swapped at Goteborg, Sweden, and Barcelona, Spain.
10/19/1943 In Washington, Navy Secretary Frank Knox announces American subs have sunk 319 Japanese ships since Pearl Harbor.
America's involvement in World War II has reached the halfway point. The hardest and bloodiest 23 months are still ahead.
In Italy, the 34th "Red Bull" Infantry division takes Dragoni, a village 28 miles north of Naples.
In the Mediterranean, Allied planes sink a German transport near Crete. The ship is carrying 2,700 British and Italian prisoners; only 566 survive.
U. S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull begins an 11-day meeting in Moscow with Soviet and British foreign ministers Vyacheslav Molotov and Anthony Eden.
10/20/1943 GIs complain all rivers in Italy are named Volturno. Because the Volturno changes course frequently, the 34th Infantry has bridged the river three times in the past week.
10/21/1943 Eisenhower begins a five-day inspection trip to Naples and the American-British 5th Army near the Volturno River.
He is shocked by the muddy chaos caused by the autumn rains. The only upbeat note: the harbor at Naples has been cleared of mines and sunken ships and now is the Allies' major Italian supply port.
Based on what he has seen and intelligence reports indicating the Germans have more men in Italy than the Allies, Ike realizes the Italian campaign is stalemated.
In the Soviet Union, the Red Army offensive in the Ukraine pushes to within 20 miles of Krivoi Rog, a large steelmaking center west of the Dnieper River. The Germans are desperately trying to organize a defense line to save their forces in the Crimea and protect Romania.
10/22/1943 The Germans repulse an attack by the U. S. 34th Infantry in the mountains north of the Volturno River and defeat a British 8th Army attempt to cross the Trigno River near the Adriatic coast.
Italy's cold, rain-soaked mountains are causing misery for both sides. Much of the fighting is by small units, sometimes fewer than 100 men, because roads and trails are narrow and precipitous. Rock splinters from artillery fire inflict nearly as many casualties as bullets and shells. Mules bring up ammunition and supplies. Some units use carrier pigeons to communicate.
Allied bombers destroy two-thirds of Kassel, one of Germany's tank manufacturing centers.
10/23/1943 U. S. planes sink six Japanese ships, including a destroyer, during a raid on Rabaul, the main Japanese base in the South Pacific.
The Red Army wins the violent 10-day battle for Melitopol in the southern Ukraine and resumes its drive toward the mouth of the Dnieper River. The Soviet victory threatens to isolate the German-Romanian 17th Army in the Crimea and Field Marshal Erich von Manstein orders it to pull out. Since their defeat at Stalingrad nine months ago, the Germans have retreated 500 miles.
In Italy, a British division of Gen. Mark Clark's 5th Army takes Sparanise, a town adjacent to the ancient Roman Appian Way, and nears the Germans' Barbara defense line, 95 miles south of Rome.
A surprise attack by German torpedo boats in the English Channel sinks British cruiser Charybdis and destroyer Limbourne.
10/24/1943 In the Pacific, Marine Corps divebombers sink Japanese destroyer Mochizuki near Rabaul.
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin are making arrangements for their first meeting, a four-day conference in Tehran that will begin November 28. They will discuss the Allies' 1944 European strategy and post-war boundaries.
In the Mediterranean's Dodecanese Islands, German planes and minefields sink or damage six British and Greek warships, including Royal Navy cruisers Sirius and Aurora.
In the Allies' painfully slow Italian offensive, the U. S. 34th "Red Bull" Infantry takes Sant Angelo, a German strong point in the Volturno river valley.
10/25/1943 In the Pacific, Vice Adm. Raymond Spruance issues detailed plans for the opening of the Central Pacific offensive: amphibious landings on Tarawa, Makin and Abemama atolls in the Gilbert Islands.
Eisenhower and his commanders in Italy decide to continue attacking the tough German defenses south of Rome. Even though the Germans outnumber the Allies in Italy nearly 2 to 1, Ike hopes to take Rome and most of the Italian peninsula before Christmas.
The decision commits the American-British 5th Army and British 8th Army to a bloody slugging match with Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's German 10th Army.
In Russia, the Red Army attack bursts across the middle Dnieper in a surprise attack and takes Dnepropetrovsk, the Ukraine's third-largest city. Berlin radio announces German forces in southern Russia are facing a crisis.
10/26/1943 In the Pacific, Emperor Hirohito tells the Diet that Japan's situation is "truly grave." On New Guinea, the Japanese concede defeat in the month-long battle for Finschafen and begin a starvation retreat.
The Red Army's awesome summer offensive has drastically changed Stalin's outlook on the war.
During the past three months Soviet armies have liberated Kharkov, Smolensk, Dnepropetrovsk, the Donets Basin and a 300-mile-wide strip of the Ukraine and central Russia. Gen. Ivan Konev's 2nd Ukrainian Army adds another victory by storming into Krivoi Rog, an iron and steel manufacturing center 70 miles west of Dnieper.
Stalin is now convinced the Soviet Union can beat the Germans without American and British help. Henceforth, Roosevelt and Churchill will find Stalin much more difficult to deal with.
10/27/1943 The Allied offensive in the Northern Solomons opens with Marine paratroopers led by Lt. Col. Victor "Brute" Krulak making a diversionary raid on Choiseul, a large island southeast of Adm. Halsey's actual target: Bougainville.
The feint fools the Japanese. They send a large force to defend Choiseul, but Krulak's raiders will be withdrawn after Halsey's invasion force lands next week at Bougainville's Empress Augusta Bay.
A New Zealand brigade takes Stirling and Mono in the Treasury Islands, southeast of Bougainville.
In Italy, the 1st Canadian Infantry division makes a substantial advance in the Abruzzi mountains. The British 8th Army finally throws a bridgehead across the rain-swollen Trigno River.
The Germans launch a desperate counterattack in the southern Ukraine to prevent the isolation of the German-Romanian 17th Army in the Crimean Peninsula.
10/28/1943 Speculation is increasing on who will command the Allied invasion of Western Europe next spring.
Most pundits believe the assignment will go to Gen. George C. Marshall, the U. S. Army's brilliant chief of staff. But Roosevelt says he won't be able to sleep if Marshall, his finest strategist, isn't in Washington.
In Italy, British units of Gen. Mark Clark's American-British 5th Army begin assaulting mounts Massico and San Croce -- key bastions of the Germans' Barbara defense line.
The British make surprisingly good progress and push close to the Garigliano River.
The Germans' crisis in southern Ukraine deepens when feeble counterattacks fail to halt the Red Army's lunge toward the lower Dnieper.
The Soviet thrust threatens to cut off 65,000 Germans and Romanians in the Crimean peninsula.
10/29/1943 The Red Army storms to within 25 miles of the lower Dnieper River in the southern Ukraine. German hopes of evacuating 65,000 men from the Crimean peninsula are dwindling fast.
The Germans do better in White Russia where Gen. Gothard Heinrici's 4th Army smashes Soviet attacks near Vitebsk, an ancient fortress city and rail center on the Dvina River.
In Italy, British units of Mark Clark's 5th Army take Mondragone, the coastal anchor of the Germans' Barbara defense line, six miles north of the Volturno River. Further inland, the U. S. 34th Infantry and 82nd Airborne divisions make small gains against elite German units.
Domestically, Roosevelt says he will take "decisive action" against 900,000 striking coal miners if they don't return to work by November 1.
10/30/1943 Kesselring is battling the Allies in Italy with a clever and tenacious defense.
Using large number of Italian laborers, he's turned southern Italy into a maze of fortifications and manned them with some of the Wehrmacht's best units.
Kesselring's defenses are concentrated along the coasts. Three panzer divisions oppose Clark's 5th Army on the Mediterranean side. On the Adriatic coast six divisions -- including the elite 1st Parachute -- battle Montgomery's 8th Army. Only small units defend the nearly impenetrable Abruzzi mountains in the center of the peninsula.
When the Allies flatten one defense, his troops fall back to the next line. The Allies will be halted during the winter and spring by the nearly impregnable Gustav line, 85 miles south of Rome.
In Russia, the Red Army takes Genichesk, one of the two entrances to the Crimea. Hitler orders the 65,000-man German-Romanian 17th Army to abandon the Crimea on November 1, but, once again, his order is too late to avert catastrophe.
10/31/1943 In the South Pacific, an Allied task force carrying the U. S. 3rd Marine and U. S. 37th "Buckeye" Infantry divisions assembles near Guadalcanal and heads for Bougainville in the Northern Solomons.
The German General Staff estimates the Wehrmacht has suffered 1,786,000 casualties on the Russian front during the past 12 months. Nearly 350,000 Germans have been killed or captured; nearly 1 million wounded; and the remainder hospitalized with serious illnesses.
