Germany loses ground 1943,
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The bloody retreat,

Animated tank

3 January 1943,
Day raid on St.Nazaire. Beginning of series of raids on Ruhr.

6 January,
Opening of 4-day air attack on Japanese convoy off New Guinea.

10 January 1943,
Russia requires surrender German 6th Army.
Begin of the liquidation of German troops in Stalingrad of troops from Armygroup "Don front", General Rokossowky. Fighting during the battle of Stalingrad was bitter and exhausting.

German tanks to the Russian front
German tanks to the Russian front

10 January 1943,
The 25th Infantry Division begins the largest and final offensive on Guadalcanal; the Americans outnumber the Japanese by more than 3 to 1. Desperate attempts to resupply the Japanese by surface ships are hampered by US PT boats.

11 January 1943,
America produces in 1942; more then 48.000 planes, 56.000 tanks and the American Army count more then 7.000.000 men.

12 January 1943,
A small U.S. Army force lands unopposed on Amchitka Island, the Aleutian Islands, Alaska.

14 January 1943,
(till 24 January). Allied leaders hold a Conference in Casablanca, Marocco.

18 January,
The German Tiger tank makes its first appearance in Tunisia.

19 January 1943,
Russia liberate Leningrad.

23 January 1943,
Allies capture Tripoli.

27 January 1943,
First attack against a German target by US bombers, 64 B-17 and B-24, on Wilhelmshaven, which had also been the target for the first British daylight raid in 1939. Day raid on Copenhagen, night raid on Duesseldorf.

30 January 1943,
General Vittorio Ambrosio named as Benito Mussolini's Chief of Staff.
8th American Army B-17 (55) bombers make their first day-light raid on Germany, Wilhelmshafen, without air support!.

1 February 1943,
The Japanese begin to evacuate their troops from Guadalcanal, more then 5.000 Japanese are taken off the island.

2 February 1943,
German force surrender at Stalingrad, Soviet Union.

Il-2 Shturmovik

 The Il-2 Shturmovik was a highly-effective ground-attack craft (Shturmovik means "armored attacker") close-support, anti-tank and "train busting" aircraft, was well armored and heavily armed with a 23mm cannon, an 82mm rocket, and a 7.62mm gun.
Russian women also served flying and as gunners in the Il-2M3 Shturmovik tank busters, the "Flying Bathtub".

3 February 1943,
German radio announces three days of mourning for the German troops who died at Stalingrad.

1-9 February 1943,
Japanese forces evacuate Guadalcanal, the Solomon Islands. Again 2.000 Japanese men leave Guadalcanal on 9 February, a total of more than 12.000. The loss of the island is a major blow to Japanese morale, they have lost about 10.000 men, but their fighting resistance has cost many US troops and much US strategic effort which, if repeated on every other Pacific island of this size, would prolong the war.

28 February 1943,
Norsk Hydro 'heavy water' plant raid. Norwegian soldiers, trained in the UK and dropped by the RAF, inflicts damage to the 'heavy water' plant at the Norsk Hydro power station near Ryukan.
Atomic Bomb Research.
Although German nuclear physicists had been early leaders in research, Nazi Gennany made no real progress towards the creation of an atomic bomb. It was a German scientist who had discovered atomic fission and Germans had first published the theory of the chain-reacting pile. When the Anglo-American atomic homb was being developed during WW II, it was feared that the Gemans were conducting parallel research. A 'heavy water' plant was attacked and destroyed in Norway by a Norwegian resistance group in the hope that this would delay German production. But it not until November 1944 that the Allies were sure that German research not progressed beyond a comparatively primitive stage, and that atomic physists had not been given any significant priority for their work. Once again, Hitler's production planning relied on conventional weaponry, while Himmler tried to divert the scientists to projects that he favoured ideologically. Furthermore, the early purging from the universities of suspected intellectuals and Jews had seriously weakened the research teams, many members of which had chosen to emigrate to the USA.
Heavy water is used in certain types of nuclear reactors where it acts as a neutron moderator to slow down neutrons so that they can react with the uranium in the reactor.

2 March 1943,
Royal Air Force bomber heavily attack Berlin, Germany.
RAF- planes (Wellingtons) on mine-laying trips.

2 March 1943,
(till 4 March). Japanese navy forces suffer heavy loses at the Battle of the Bismarck Sea off the coast of New Guinea.
In the Pacific a Japanese troop convoy bound for New Guinea is attacked by aircraft of US Fifth Air Force. During the next three days all 8 transports and half of the 7.000 men aboard will be lost, as well as 4 destroyers and 25 aircraft and this sea-fight ruins the Japanese plans for New Guinea.
General von Arnim Commander-in-chief in North-Africa instead of Rommel, he became ill.

13 March 1943,
Failure attempt murder on Hitler. Von Tresckow places a bomb in Hitlers plane flying from Smolensk to his headquaters; bomb did not explode!

16 March 1943,
The Convoy SC-122 of 58 ships from Nova Scotia and the Convoy HX-229 of 40 ships from New York are attacked by 37 U-boats in 3 groups. 21 ships are lost in return for 1 U-boat. The first 3 weeks of March signal a turning-point: from now on carrier support groups and long-range reconnaissance aircraft will take their toll of the U-boats. There will no longer be substantial gaps in Allied coverage of the Atlantic, no areas where U-boats can operate freely.

7 April 1943,
Bolivia declares war on Germany, Italy and Japan.

10 April 1943,
The Italian heavy cruiser Trieste is sunk at La Maddalena, Sardinia, by attacks from 84 B-24 Liberators bombers. Other Allied aircraft continue to disrupt all attempts to fly in adequate supplies to Axis forces in Tunisia.

14 April 1943,
Sauckel publish: at 31 march 1943 3.638.056 foreign workers working in the German industry, besides 1.622.829 prisoners of war engage.

17 April 1943,
The aircraft factories at Bremen are bombed by 115 B-17 bombers of the US Eighth Army; most returned unscathed and German aviation suffers another blow.

18 April 1943,
A convoy of aircraft leave Sicily to resupply the Axis forces in Tunesia. More than half of the aircrafts are shot down by Allied fighters and those who arrive are short of requirements. Hitler agrees to Mussolini's plea for Italian II Corps to returned from the Russian front.
American P-38s from the 13th Air Force launched from Guadalcanal, flew to Bougainvillea and shot down Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto plane and killing him.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
Admiral Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by US P-38 Lightnings over Bougainville. On 13 April the Americans had intercepted a coded message giving details of flight. The US aircraft fly from Guadalcanal and engage Yamamoto's G4M bomber for no more than thirty seconds before sending it into the jungle below. The loss of their master strategist and national hero is a severe blow to the Japanese there is no official announcement of his death for month, and his state funeral is only the twelfth in Japan's long history.

19 April 1943,
The second rising of the Jews in the Gettho of Warsaw. SS-General Stroop choke the revolte in blood; 56.065 Jews killed. Illness and starvation were rife in the ghetto.

Warsaw ghetto
A view of the Warsaw ghetto, note the barbed wire which is to keep people in, not out.

26 April 1943,
Stalin breaks-off relations between the Soviet Union and the Polish Government-in-exile.

28 April 1943,
The Germans are fighting hard in Tunisia, with a counter-attack in responding to the loss of Djebel Bou Aoukaz.

30 April 1943,
Battle for Hill 609:
The Germans retake Djebel Bou Aoukaz but lose much material. US forces, fighting for control of Hill 609, gain footholds.

30 April 1943,
Operation Mincemeat was a highly successful Allied deception plan against Axis Forces when planning the invasion of Sicily. The operation involved releasing a dead man in a life jacket off the coast of Spain. A briefcase attached to the body contained fake documents identifying the man as a Major William Martin and copies of fake Allied war plans which stated that the Allies were planning an invasion of Sardinia, rather than Sicily. Local fishermen pulled out the corpse and intelligence materials. The documents were sent to Axis commanders and who were fooled by them. This information quickly reached Hitler who, on 12 May, demanded that "measures regarding Sardinia and the Peloponnese take precedence over everything else". Operation Husky commenced on 9 July, with the Allies attacking the southern tip of Sicily. The island was taken by the Allies by 7 August. Mussolini had been stripped of his power on 25 July.

4 May 1943,
East-bound Convoy ONS-5, protected by eighteen escorts, is threatened by 60 U-boats in four groups. During a battle which extended over 3 nights 13 merchantmen are lost and one is damaged, but the escorts sink 6 U-boats and badly damage 4 more. Another two collide are lost. This result is achieved without the normal level of air support.

5 May 1943,
After another British attack on the Germans positions, Djebel Bou Aoukaz, in Tunisia, returns in Allied hands.

6 May 1943,
Using their full advantage of air supremacy and artillery fire power, V Corps calls in a massive bombardment to decimate 15th Panzer Division formations and break through Axis defences to move towards Tunis. The Americans are advancing on Bizerte in the north and the French are closing on Pont du Fahs in the south-west.

7 May 1943,
End of the war in North-Africa. Bizerta and Tunis capture by the Allied, all Germans dislogde or capture in North-Africa; 252.000 Germans and Italian prisoners of war.
After the British victory at the battle of El Alamein in November 1942, General Rommel's army retreated across north Africa to a defensive position in Tunisia. The Allies brought in enormous new forces by landing on the coasts of Morocco and Algeria. Rommel's attempt at fresh offensives failed and General Montgomery broke through his positions in early April 1943. Forced to retreat again, Rommel's forces were deprived of food and supplies by the Allies. They surrendered on 13 May 1943.

Italians Autobinda armored car

 As a armored car with an advanced design, the Autobinda was used primarly for reconnaissance.It was very fast, carried a 20mm gun as well as 2 machine guns, and despite its weak armor, it had a covered turret which provided some cover from HE shells.

11 May 1943,
U.S Army invade at Attu, the Aleutian Islands.

12 May 1943,
Axis forces are completed defeat in North Africa. Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel flees to Germany.

German and Italian prisoners in Tunesia
Thousands of German and Italian prisoners, including men from the crack German Afrika Korps, wait in the North African sunlight for transportation to permanent POW enclosures

12 May 1943,
(till 25 May). "Trident Conference", Washington, D.C. Roosevelt and Churchill meet to discuss a cross-Channel invasion into France. British views differ from U.S. on timeframe and early commitment to invasion of France, and also on the strategic grounds for the invasion of Sicily. Differences threaten the agreement on Normandy because of Britain's insistence on its rights to exploit successes on Sicily and Italy, and also because it feels that the U.S. is more committed to the Pacific. Compromises are eventually reached on all issues. Target date for the invasion of Normandy (Operation Overlord) is set for 1 May 1944, and British General Sir Frederick Morgan is appointed as chief planner, given the title Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSACK).

17 May 1943,
The R.A.F destroys the Dams in the Möhnesee and Edersee.
The Dambusters raid (Operation Chastise)
In a special operation, using a specially developed "bouncing bomb", in the night of 16-17 May 1943, the Bomber Command carried out an attack, by Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron, on the reservoirs in the Sauerland, the hilly country to the south of the Valley of the Ruhr - the Dambuster sraid (Operation Chastise). The main targets were the dams of the Möhne, Sorpe and Eder as well as the Ennepe and Lister. In the course of this mission the important Möhne and Eder dams were destroyed. The gigantic flood in the Ruhr valley killed over 1.600 people in that night, mostly slave worker from Russia in the town of Neheim-Husten in the near the confluence of the Möhne into the Ruhr. By the destruction of the Eder dam about 70 persons were killed.

The destroyed dam of the Möhne, 17 May 1943, on the day after the attacks on the Eder river
The destroyed dam of the Möhne, 17 May 1943, on the day after the attacks on the Eder river.

19 May 1943,
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress.

21 May 1943,
Joseph Stalin declares an end to the Communist International (Comintern).

21 May 1943,
(till 13 June). Japan begin with the last stage of the expedition to Middle-China.

24 May 1943,
Commander-in-chief of the U-boats decision to stop the attacks on convoys at the Atlantic, after heavy losses.
Doenitz, Grossadmiral Karl (1891-1980)
Doenitz specialised in submarine warfare from 1916 and in the 1936-39 period built up the German U-Boat fleet. He played a key role in the Battle of the Atlantic during the Second World War, devising the tactic of hunting allied vessels in packs. He replaced Admiral Raeder as Commander in Chief of the German Navy in 1943 and retained the position until 1945. Hitler's final testament appointed Doenitz as President of the German Reich. He was sentenced to ten years imprisonment at the Nuremberg Trials and released from Spandau in 1956.

4 June 1943,
The Island of Pantelleria, equidistant between Tunisia and Sicily, has been bombarded by air and sea and will continue to be so for some days.

10 June 1943,
This day sees the first of the combined bombing offensives agreed at the Casablanca Conference whereby the US deploy their aircraft on daylight precision raids (Wilhelmshaven and Cuxhaven) while the British stay with their night deployments (Dusseldorf and Munster).

Losses of the British Commonwealth till now on; dead, wounded, capture and missing:
England514.993
Canada10.422
South Africa12.625
British-Indië
Hongkong
Singapore		101.979
British colony30.829
About these are 315.948 killed

 The American losses after 7 December 1941 publish:
14.594Killed
20.490Wounded
33.625Missing
19.873Capture

11 June 1943,
Operation "Husk"; the Italian islands Pantellaria and Lampedusa capture by Allied troops.

12 June 1943,
Dusseldorf suffers its heaviest air raid of the war. A Pathfinder force has led 693 bombers to their target where close to 2.000 tons of bombs have been dropped inside 45 minutes. German fighters have pursued the attackers home and shot down twenty-seven.

23 June 1943,
British aerial reconnaissance has now secured photographs of Peenemunde research base showing rockets available for firing.

28 June 1943,
Heinrich Himmler visits Peenemunde to witness the first take-off of the A-4 rocket. It crash lands nearby and destroys three aircraft, but a later firing is successful, this second rocket travelling 142 miles into the Baltic Sea.

5 July 1943,
(till 15 July)."Unternehmen Zitadelle"; Germany started the last offensive in the East, the Tank offensive at Kursk.

Relative strength on the eve of the battle.
Germany Russia
Soldiers 900.000 1.337.000
Tanks/mech.guns 2.700 3.306
Planes 2.500 2.650
Guns/mortar/rackets 10.000 20.220

9 July 1943,
At Kursk, additional Soviet tank power arrives to bring setbacks to the Germans who have already committed most of their armour. They are spending much energy and ammunition in numerous attempts to break small pockets of resistance for little or no gain.

9+10 July 1943,
(till 7 August).Operation "Husky": Allied forces invade Sicily, Italy.
This Operation was the greatest Airborne-Amphibious Operation of WWII; 3.000 ships and landing-craft with 160.000 men (8 Divisions), 14.000 vehicles, 600 tanks and 1800 guns. Army of occupations (As-troops): 315.000 Italians and 90.000 Germans.
Sicily and Italy 1943-1945
Sicily was invaded on 10 July 1943 and by August had been completely captured. The Allies moved on to invade Italy in September and gained their first foothold on the continental mainland since 1940. German forces occupied the peninsula when Italy agreed to an armistice. The Allied advance was slow and costly and hindered not only by very strong defences but also by the withdrawal of resources in preparation for the landings in northern France. The landings at Anzio in January 1944, intended to clear the path to Rome, faced heavy German counter-attack, and the effort to clear Cassino on the way to Rome took five months of bitter fighting. Rome did not fall to the Allies until 4 June 1944. However, by spring 1945 the Allies had reached the North Italian plains. The Germans surrendered unconditionally on 2 May.
 Leader General Alexander with the British 8th Army and the American 7th Army.

British troops wading ashore from a landing craft
The Allied invasion of Sicily, shows British troops wading ashore from a landing craft.

9 July 1943,
The British Piat entered service in 1943, and was first used during the Allied invasion of Sicily. The British make use of the Piat in World War II. This was a mortar, a simple, short-range infantry anti-tank weapon made possible by the development of hollow- or shaped-charge projectiles, that could be recharged and by the infantry brought to the front. The Piat had a very heavy recoil. The Americans made use of the Bazooka. This weapon was effective to use and consisted of a fire tube about 137 cm length. It was missiles with firing head hollow load of 1.5 pounds. The Bazooka was a very effective against tanks and other armored vehicles. After World War II the Bazooka was used for years by the U.S.
The PIAT Mk I (or Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank Mk I) system was the principle anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade launcher for the British throughout World War 2. The system was highly respected for it's armor-defeating capabilities but suffered from being excessively heavy and needing a two man crew to operate effectively. Nevertheless, the PIAT proved to be more effective than her American (Bazooka series) and German (Panzerfaust series) counterparts, with the PIAT sporting a grenade capable of defeating contemporary armor of the time and a launcher capable of launching multiple munition types.

Projector, Infantry, Anti Tank (PIAT)
Projector, Infantry, Anti Tank (PIAT)

12 July 1943,
(13 July). Rear Admiral Walden Ainsworth leads three cruisers and five destroyers on a combat mission up the Slot, the channel that divides the Solomon Islands in two.

17 July 1943,
Begin of the American offensive at Bougainville, South-Pacific.

18 July 1943,
The US Army have a new battlefield weapon named "bazooka", a portable anti-tank rocket.

19 July 1943,
American aircraft bomb Japanese bases on Paramushiru, the Kurile Islands.
Allied bomb Rome.

24 July 1943,
(till 28 July). Operation 'Gomorrah'; the first of 4 major Allied air raids on Hamburg plan to destroy the city. The Allies began a intensified bombing (3.010 bombers, 87 of them didn't return) effort that resulted in the famous bombings of Hamburg, using millions strips of tinfoil to disturb the German radarsystem, to produce false echoes and confuse the defences. The US Army Air Force makes 2 raids by day with 280 aircraft, losing 21 machines. Hamburg is devastated and some 40.000 civilians were killed, most of them from the firestorm that bas been created.
Mussolini with disciples are outvoted at the Fascist Grand Council after a debate.

24-25 July,
The Italian Fascist Grand Council passes a vote of censure against Benito Mussolini.Field Marshall Pietro Badoglio is appointed the Prime Minister of Italy. Mussolini is imprisoned in the Grand Sasso Hotel on the Grand Sasso plateau in the Abruzzi mountains.
Fall of Mussolini
Marshal Badoglio is asked to fotm a new government after King Victor Emmanuel III relieves Mussolini of his office. The ambitious dictator, who has lacked any organisational or leadership attributes is arrested as he leaves the meeting.

1 August 1943,
Operation "Tidelwave"; U.S. air forces, 175 B-24's from Benghazi, bomb the oil fields of Ploesti, Romania, 92 B-24's returned.

13 August 1943,
(till 24 August).Roosevelt and Churchill meet in Quebec to discuss plans for the invasion of Normandy ( Operation Overlord ). Supreme Commander for the invasion is agreed to be an American. U.S. will remain in command of Pacific operations. Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten is chosen to serve as chief for the new Southeast Asia Command ( SEAC ).
Attack by day by 61 B-24 'Liberators' of the 9th U.S.A.F at Vienna, Austria.

15 August 1943,
American troops land on Kiska, Aleoeten.

17 August 1943,
Allied troops reach Messina and occupy all of Sicily, Italy.

Allies liberate Messina
8th Army enters Messina: sunken ferryboat at the landing stage. The first troops had reached the city on 16 August 1944.

17 August 1943,
Operation 'Double Strike': First U.S. daylight air raid, with 229 B17's (36 shot down), on Schweinfurt (and Regensburg) in Germany, 320 km; the Americans attempting a daylight raid without fighter escort.
Schweinfurt was the location of huge ball-bearing factories that supplied most of the ball-bearings for the entire German military. The second raid on 14 Octobre, 291 B17's now with 60 loses.

17 August 1943,
597 RAF bombers bomb German Rocket Launching Site Peenemünde.
The production of the V1 Flying Bomb began in Germany in 1942, but the actual launch was delayed until 1944 because of successful Allied bombing of bomb sites.
Wernher von Braun(1912-1977),
Braun was made technical director of the rocket research station at Peenemunde in 1936. In the 1940s he developed the V-2 (Vergeltungswaffe or reprisal) weapon. These rockets were capable of carrying a ton of explosives for 200 miles and were used on Britain in 1944-45. Braun surrendered to US forces in 1945 and was taken to the USA. He took American citizenship and became director of the US Ballistic Missile Agency, developing the rocket which launched the US space satellite from Cape Canaveral in 1958 and the Saturn rockets used in the Apollo missions.

V1

25 August,
Germany use for the first time a new type plane, the He 177, with dirigible bombs.

3 September 1943,
Allied forces invade southern Italy.

6 September 1943,
(Till 27 Octobre).American and Australia troops on Lae (Nw.-Guinea) and Mono-island (Salomomsislands).

8 September 1943,
"Fall Achse": Disarming of the Italian Army.
Italy surrenders to Allied forces, by Marshall Badoglio.

9 September 1943,
Battleships Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio sail from Taranto.
The American 5th Army land at the Gulf of Salerno.
The Italian Fleet escape from La Spezia to Malta.

10 September 1943,
German forces (Air-borne troops from Field-marshal Kesselring) seize Rome, Italy.

12 September 1943,
Ninety Nazi German paratroopers lead by Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny "liberate" Benito Mussolini from the Grand Sasso Hotel.

13 September 1943,
(till 26 September). Fight between German and Italian troops at Korpoe, the whole Italian Army 7.000 men killed by the Germans.

17 September 1943,
In Italy in the wake of Kesselring's withdrawal, US Fifth Army is able to move out from the beachhead. Churchill sends Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean to visit Tito. He seeks to establish Tito's loyalty to the Allied cause and quantify his resources.

17+18 September 1943,
Tarawa bombed In the Pacific the island of Tarawa is attacked by B-24 Liberator bombers. The US carriers Lexington, Princeton and Belleau Wood deploy their aircraft in the raids on Tarawa.

20 September 1943,
Convoy ON-202 and ONS-18 in the North Atlantic was attacked by U-boats with new acoustic homing torpedoes and account for 3 escort vessels and 6 ships.

21 September 1943,
In Italy the Allies' advance north gathers pace and will meet little opposition except en route to Naples.
In the Solomons, Japanese evacuations of Arundel and Sagekarassa leave them clear for the Americans.

22 September 1943,
British X Corps is given the task of clearing the way into Naples. British 78th and 8th Indian Divisions land at Bari and Brindisi to join the advance.
More than 650 RAF bombers drop more than 2.300 tons of bombs on Hanover.
In Altafiord the midget submarines X6 and X7 penetrate the torpedonets around Tirpitz and attach mines to her hull. The resultant explosion cripples the ship for six months.

23 September 1943,
Vigorous German defence stops X Corps' progress to Naples. The British have superior numbers but the Germans have prepared well-sited positions in difficult terrain.
Mussolini announces the formation of the Italian Social Republic which immediately concedes huge sectors of northern Italy to German administration.

24 September 1943,
The Soviets are just east of Kiev. Their forward push has seen them move close to Smolensk in the north and towards the western shore of the Sea of Azov in the south. Soviets take Smolensk.

25 September 1943,
The Soviets take Smolensk and Roslavl.
Hitler has ordered the German forces to make a stand at the Dnieper, but the hurried nature of their retreat, as opposed to the more orderly one which von Manstein had urged, has not given them time to prepare a worthwhile counter. In most instances they have no time to build any defences before having to withdraw again.

1 October 1943,
The U.S. Fifth Army captures Naples, Italy.

4 October 1943,
French troops captures Corsica with the help of local guerillas and the Germans evacuate Sardenia.

Mark Clark
Commander of the 5th Allied Army.

6 October 1943,
Allies, US 5th Army takes Caserta and Capua and the British Army advance up the east coast of Italy. The German retreat continues and the Allies progress with little opposition.
For the island of Kos a German convoy is attacked by British cruisers and destroyers; 7 transports and an escort are sunk.

11 October 1943,
Admiral Andrew Cunningham his appointment to be Commander-in-chief of the British Fleet.

13 October 1943,
Marshal Badoglio announce: "Italy declares war on Germany" (in the presence of General Maxwell Taylor).

14 October 1943,
"Black Thursday" for USA forces when, a 8th Army Air Force raid on Schweinfurt's ball-bearing works, 291 B-17's inflict much damage but 1 in 5 of their aircrafts lose. These losses caused end of unescorted daylight flights.

15 October 1943,
Volturno in Italy line breached, and the Germans make a fighting withdrawal to the defensive lines, the Barbara Line and the Bernhard Line, while creating subsantial defences on the Gustav Line behind rivers Garigliano, Rapido and Sangro.

19 October 1943,
(till 1 November). The Conference of Moskow between Eden, Hull and Molotow.

November 1943,

1 November 1943,
U.S. Marines land on Bougainville, the Solomon Islands.

6 November 1943,
Soviet forces recapture Kiev from the Germans.

9 November 1943,
44 Nations sign in Washington the "United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association".

20 November 1943,
(till 23 December). U.S. Marines land on Tarawa (2th Marinediv.) and Makin (27th div.), the Gilbert Islands (Operation Galvanic). After 4 days Tarawa; 1.000 dead and 2.000 wounded.

23 November 1943,
(till 26 November). The first Cairo Conference held in Egypt.

28 November 1943,
(till 1 December). The "Big Three," Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin meet in Teheran, Iran.

3 December 1943,
(till 7 December). Conference at Cairo between Roosevelt, Churchill and Tsijang-Kai sjek.

4 December 1943,
In the Pacific 6 US carriers and 9 cruisers attack Kwajalein, Marshall Islands. 6 Japanese transports are sunk and other vessels damaged, and 55 Japanese aircraft are shot down.

15 December,
Operation Dexterity, an American-Australian amphibious assault on the Japanese Army at Arawe, New-Brittania.

20 December 1943,
About 1000 Allied aircraft dropped 2.000 tons bombs on Mannheim, Frankfurt and other industrial cities in South Germany and more raids in France on the V-1 ramps.

.

24 December 1943,
The Battle of Ortana ended; After 8 days heavy fighting, Ortona is taken, it was an intense close quarters fight which claimed the lives of a 1400 Canadian troops.
Eisenhower is appointed the Supreme Commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces.
Begin of the Russian winter offensive.

Dwight Eisenhower

26 December 1943,
The British Royal Navy sinks the German battleship Scharnhorst.

Tank line

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