Posted on 01/20/2013 5:54:48 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate
Valuiki Captured – 2-3
Germany’s Defeat Feared in Hungary (Phillips) – 3
Tiny Fort Held Out in Long Nazi Siege (Parker) – 3-4
Nazis Spur Troops by Desperate Fear – 4
War News Summarized – 4
Nazis Warn People of Russian Threat – 5
Desert Units Gain (Parr) – 5-6
British in Tunisia Repulse Two Thrusts and Push On (Middleton) – 7
Nazis Now Building 2 U-Boats for Every One the Allies Sink – 8
Holland Displaced in War Plants Post (Egan) – 8
Start Drive Today to Cut Mishaps 70% - 9
Marcantonio Rebuff (Krock) – 10
81% Favor a Ban on Strikes in War (by George Gallup) – 10
Fighters Fly Seas (by Hanson W. Baldwin) – 11
‘Gas’ Stations Put on Definite Hours – 11
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on Fighting in Various Zones – 12-14
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/jan1943/f20jan43.htm
Red Army Continues to Advance
Wednesday, January 20, 1943 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... German Army Group A, in the Caucasus, continues its withdrawal under Soviet pressure. The Red Army takes Nevinnomyssk and Proletarskaya.
In the Solomon Islands.. On Guadalcanal, Japanese resistance on Mount Austen weakens. Likewise, the Japanese Gifu strongpoint has suffered heavily from artillery fire.
In North Africa... Elements of the British 51st Highland Division occupy Homs as the Axis forces fall back.
In Morocco... The Casablanca Conference. The Anglo-American strategy discussions continue.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
January 20th, 1943
UNITED KINGDOM: Battersea, London: Maj. Cyril Arthur Joseph Martin (1897-1973), who had done disposal work since 1940, removed the TNT from a bomb in a long and dangerous operation. (George Cross)
Submarine HMS Untiring launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: Himmler demanDave Shirlaw more trains to “wind up” the extermination of the Jews quickly, even though they are desperately needed to ferry arms to the eastern front.
A young Polish farm worker from Ebersbach, near Wurttemberg, is hanged because he had a sexual relationship with the farmers daughter. All slave workers from five kilometres around, were rounded up and brought in to witness the penalty for such a crime.
About the same time, ten German women are caught having sexual relations with French prisoners of war. Between May and August, 1942, the Gestapo dealt with 4,960 cases of forbidden relations between Germans and foreign slave workers.
These two separate, but similar responses to threats to parts of Nazi Ideology are typical of life in Germany during the last two years of the war.
(Denis Peck)
U-1301 laid down.
U-311 launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
NORTH AFRICA: U-66 landed espionage agent Jean Lallart on the coast of Mauritania near Cape Blanc. Lallart and the two crewmen who rowed him ashore (Bootsmaat Wagner and Matrosenobergefreiter Daschkey) were immediately captured by the French. After waiting in vain for over 13 hours for the crewmen to return, Kptlt Markworth was forced to abandon his crewmen to whatever fate they had suffered. Ten days later Markworth learned of the capture of his men. (Dave Shirlaw)
SOLOMON ISLANDS: Guadalcanal: No action against the “Gifu” today due to heavy rain.
U.S.A.: The 14th Anti-aircraft Artillery Group is activated at Camp Stewart as the 14th Coastal Artillery Group (AA). (Jean Beach)
Escort carrier USS Midway laid down.
Destroyers USS Paul Hamilton and Twiggs laid down.
Submarine USS Capelin launched.
Destroyer escort USS Brennan commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
CHILE: Santiago breaks off diplomatic relations with Berlin. (Mike Yared)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-553 (Type VIIC) is missing and presumed sunk, in the mid North Atlantic after going missing in January 1943. 47 dead (all hanDave Shirlaw lost) . Last radio-message sent on 20 Jan, 1943: “Seerohr unklar” (periscope not clear)
Previously on 25 April, 1941 U-553 was forced to return to base due to major engine trouble. (Alex Gordon)
Between 1633 and 1635, U-453 fired four torpedoes at Convoy KMS-7 off Cape Tenès and heard three detonations and one ship sinking. The only ship hit and sunk was the Jean Jadot, which carried 323 soldiers. 6 dead and 397 survivors. (Dave Shirlaw)
"The successor to Reinhard Heydrich, Ernst Kaltenbrunner devoted himself to completing his predecessor's agenda of hate.
"Born near Hitler's birthplace of Braunau, Austria, Kaltenbrunner enjoyed the advantages of wealth, earning a degree in law.
A fierce antisemite, he joined the Austrian Nazi Party in 1932 and subsequently became a member of the SS.
His Nazi activities led to imprisonment, but with the Anschluss (Germany's annexation of Austria) Kaltenbrunner was rewarded with an appointment as minister of state security.
He cooperated with boyhood friend Adolf Eichmann to force the emigration of Austrian Jews.
Following Heydrich's death in 1942, Heinrich Himmler promoted Kaltenbrunner to head the Reich Security Main Office in 1943.
"An imposing figure with a huge facial scar, Kaltenbrunner preferred the shadows of anonymity.
He hid in the Austrian Alps at the end of the war, but was captured and indicted.
At the Nuremberg Trials, he pleaded ignorance and innocence.
He could not escape, however, the fact that the position he held from 1943 to 1945 gave him extraordinary power to carry out the 'Final Solution.'
Witnesses placed him at the Mauthausen gassings, and he was charged with ordering the executions of Allied POWs.
Judged guilty, Kaltenbrunner was executed on October 16, 1946."
Errol Flynn suspected of dallying with jail bait on page 7.
The phrase "in like Flynn" became quite popular with the troops.
Even during WWII, life went on . . . :-))
It is true that U-Boat production was peaking in 1943. However, the vastly improved resources the Allies were able to throw into the Battle of the Atlantic would turn the tide and allow the Allies to sink almost as many as were produced in 1943.
The Germans lost 41 U-Boats in May 1943 alone. Thereafter Allied merchant tonnage built exceeded tonnage lost.
In Churchill’s underground bunker in London the map room has charts and maps where convoys were monitored and tonnage shipped and lost was recorded. It was quite a worry for the island nation until the tide finally turned.
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