February 28th, 1943 (SUNDAY)
GERMANY
: Berlin: Women drivers are needed in Germany. An appeal was issued today by the German Women's Association, which plans special courses both to teach women to driver and to help them maintain their vehicles. The courses will be free and the aim, as with other recent measures such as labour mobilization, is to release more men for work at the front; everything is now secondary to war production.Another sign of this came earlier this month with the decree of 4 February shutting "luxury" businesses - from jewellers to sweet manufacturers - which are not considered essential for the war effort.
NORWAY:
Operation Gunnerside.Occupied Europe: In the yard of Block 25 at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp there is a pile of bodies stacked up like firewood. Occasionally the pile stirs as the dying struggle to free themselves from those already dead. Enormous rats scuttle around gnawing the corpses.
At Treblinka, inmates are made to dig up the buried dead for burning. The stench of rotting flesh fills the air. Female corpses are used as kindling because they burn more quickly; the pregnant women burst open to reveal blackened foetuses.
At Sobibor, the SS guards compete to throw Jewish children the furthest. One of them, Hubert Gomerski, enjoys beating people to death with an iron watering can.
10,000 Hungarian Jews have been deported to a Yugoslav copper mine for hard labour that will certainly kill many of them. 4,000 Jews from Marseilles, have been rounded up for deportation, and Bulgaria has agreed to deport 11,000 to Treblinka.
The Nazis are liquidating the Polish ghettoes. The last 5,000 Jews of Bialystock have been dispersed to Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz. All but 300 went straight to the gas chamber.
U.S.S.R.:
The Soviet attacks in the Caucasus continue.
Black Sea: The GRUZ, a Russian Minesweeper is torpedoed by S(E)-Boats off Cape Myshako. (James Paterson)
The bravery and effectiveness of the partisans fighting behind the German lines is now fully recognized by the Soviet government. 14 partisans have been made Heroes of the Soviet Union, and a new medal struck to be awarded "To a Partisan of the War for the Fatherland."
The exploits of the partisans make stirring reading, and Stalin has issued a special order urging that the "flame of partisan warfare shall be kindled and spread". Some of the partisan brigades are over 1,000 strong and are supplied from the air with weapons, explosives, radios and even printing presses to spread the word of resistance.
The effect of their activities may be judged from the diary of a German officer killed by partisans in Byelorussia. "We entered a gloomy wilderness in our tanks. There wasn't a single man anywhere. Everywhere the forests and marshes are haunted by the ghosts of the Avengers. They would attack us unexpectedly, as if rising from under the earth. They cut us up to disappear like devils into the nether regions. Night is setting in and I feel them stealthily approaching from out of the darkness, they are the ghosts and I am frozen with fear."
Journeys through forested areas are extremely hazardous for the Germans. Bridges are blown, mines laid and ambushes set. Some units heading for the front have to fight their way through. These activities have brought a violent reaction from the Germans who mount full-scale operations against the partisans and kill anyone whom they capture. Zoya, a famous 18-year-old girl partisan who was captured near Moscow in 1941, was hanged and mutilated as an example.
Not everyone approves of the partisans. They live off the country and expect the peasants to feed, clothe and shelter them, and the Germans need little excuse to execute those suspected of helping the partisans. The partisans are just as ruthless as the Germans and will kill anyone suspected of collaboration with the enemy.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: At 1710, U-371 fired one torpedo at an eastbound convoy off Dellys, Algeria and observed the hit. At 1718, another torpedo was fired. U-371 heard a hit, but no detonation after 35 seconds. SS Daniel Carroll was struck by one torpedo on the starboard side at the bow. A second torpedo struck the ship but failed to explode. The explosion extensively damaged the Liberty ship, but the ten officers, 33 men, 27 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in, one 3in and eight 20mm guns) and 30 passengers remained on board. A British tug towed the Daniel Carroll to Algiers, where she arrived on 1 March. The most of her cargo was saved by salvors. On 11 May, she proceeded to Gibraltar for intermediate repairs, arriving two days later. On 22 July, left in convoy GUS-10 for New York, where she arrived on 9 August. She returned to service in Jul 44. Daniel Carroll had left New York for Casablanca in Convoy UGS-4 and was then proceeding from Gibraltar to Algiers in station #23 of convoy TE-16.
U.S.A.:
Destroyers USS Bullard, Kidd, Thorn and Turner launched.
Submarine USS Ray launched.
Light fleet carrier USS Monterey launched.
Destroyer escort USS Hill launched.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: US Liberty Ship Wade Hampton sunk by U-405 at 59.49N, 34.43W. Soviet RPT-1 (ex USS PT-85) and RPT-3 (ex-USS PT-87), deck cargo on Wade Hampton, were lost as well.