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September 29th, 1943 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Frigate HMS Trollope laid down.
Frigate HMS Deane launched.
Escort carrier SS Empire Mackendrick launched.
Minesweeper HMS Plucky launched.
Destroyer HMS Wizard launched.
Frigates HMS Bligh and Chelmer commissioned.
FRANCE: Paris: PPF member Dr. Jolicoeur, secrétaire fédéral of the Marne is killed.
GERMANY: During the night of 29/30 September, RAF Bomber Command sent 352 aircraft, 213 Lancasters, 130 Halifaxes and nine Mosquitos, to bomb Bochum; 316 bombed the target with the loss of nine aircraft, five Halifaxes and four Lancasters, 2.6 per cent of the force. The Oboe-assisted Pathfinder plan worked perfectly and led to accurate and concentrated bombing. A second mission of 11 Mosquitos bombed. Lancasters also laid mines in the Baltic Sea: six laid mines off Danzig and four laid mines off Pillau.
POLAND: During the night of 29/30 September, three RAF Bomber Command Lancasters laid mines in the Baltic Sea off Gdynia.
U.S.S.R.: Kremenchug and Rudnya fall to the Soviets. The Red Army takes control of the Smolensk to Vitebsk railway, in the north-west, and occupies Kremenchug in the south, the last German strong point on the eastern bank of the Dnieper Rive, and continue to close in on Kiev to the northwest.
ITALY: The attack against Avellino by the US Fifth Army, 3rd Div begins during the night. The US X Corps advance passes Pompeii.
British General Harold Alexander, Commander in Chief 15th Army Group, issues instructions for future operations, to be conducted in two phases: (1) capture of Naples and airfields to the north and Foggia airfields, while advancing to a general line Sessa Aurunca-Venafro-Isernia-Castropignano-Biferno River-Termoli; (2) advance to a general line Civitavecchia-Terni-Visso-San Benedetto del Tronto. The U.S. Fifth Army directs the VI Corps, upon capture of Avellino, to shift to the left along a general line Avellino-Montemarano-Teora. British X Corps units seize the bridge at Scafati. This is the only bridge now standing across the Sarno River. Reconnaissance units are pursuing retreating Germans. In the VI Corps area, U.S. 3d Infantry Division units converge on Avellino and open an attack on it during the night of 29/30 September.
US Twelfth Air Force B-25 Mitchells and B-26 Marauders bomb bridges at or near Piana, Castelvenere, Amorosi, and Cancello Amone; P-38 Lightnings bomb Ausonia defile and a bridge near San Apollinare; US and RAF tactical aircraft hit the town of San Giorgio del Sannio and roads in the area S of Benevento.
During the night of 29/30 September, 44 RAF aircraft of No. 205 (Heavy Bomber) Group bomb a highway junction at Formia.
General Eisenhower and Marshal Badoglio sign the full armistice agreement on HMS Nelson at MALTA.
But why HMS Nelson. In the words of A.B. Cunningham:
“The British and American Governments were anxious that the full terms of surrender should be signed by Badoglio with some ceremony. I suggested that one of the battleships of Force “H” at Malta should be the scene of the signing, and Eisenhower asked me to make the arrangements. My first inclination was to hoist my flag in my old ship, the RODNEY; but on second thoughts I decided that the NELSON, Admiral Willis’s flagship should be the place of meeting”. (Peter Beeston)
CHINA: Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, commander of the U.S. China-Burma-India Theater, Chief of Staff to Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, commander of the Northern Area Combat Command and deputy commander of the South-East Asia Command, issues “A Program for China,” in which he recommends that 60 Chinese Nationalist divisions be re-formed.
BURMA: 9 US Fourteenth Air Force B-24s based in China bomb Myitkyina and Sadon during routine ferry trips over the Hump.
NEW GUINEA: In Northeast New Guinea, Australian troops encounter strong resistance around the town of Finschhafen while the 2/2nd Independent Company ambushes the Japanese near Kesawai in the Ramu River Valley inflicting heavy casualties.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: On Choiseul Island, P-40s, P-38s, and P-39Airacobras join USMC fighters in supporting a strike by USN SBD Dauntlesses on a barge depot at Kakasa; other P-40s strafe and set afire a barge off Sambi Point.
SOUTHWEST PACIFIC: US Fifth Air Force B-24s on armed reconnaissance attack scattered shipping in the Netherlands East Indies and Solomon and Bismarck Seas.
U.S.A.: Houghton Mifflin Company publishes the first unabridged version of German Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s 1925 book “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle) to be released in the U.S. In July 1933, Houghton Mifflin stated that it would issue an abridged edition of the book removing some of the more anti-Semitic and militaristic statements and this book was finally published in 1937. The publication of this version caused Alan Cranston, who was an American reporter for United Press International in Germany and later a U.S. Senator from California, to publish his own abridged and annotated translation, which he believed to more truly reflect the contents of the book. In 1939 Cranston was sued by Hitler’s publisher for copyright infringement and a Connecticut judge ruled in Hitler’s favor; the publication of Cranston’s version had to be stopped after about 500,000 copies had been sold.
Minesweeper USS Indicative laid down.
Submarine USS Jallao laid down.
Frigate USS Grand Forks laid down.
Destroyer escort USS Henry R Kenyon laid down.
Frigate USS Everett launched.
Destroyer USS Lewis Hancock commissioned.
Destroyer escorts USS Poole, Reybold and Peterson commissioned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-532 sank SS Banffshire.
Thanks Homer.