March 12th, 1943 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
Aircraft carrier HMS Unicorn commissioned.
GERMANY: RAF aircraft drop 1,000 tons of bombs on Essen, severely damaging the Krupps plant.
ITALY: 230,000 workers stage a protest strike against Mussolini's regime, bringing war production to a halt.
U.S.S.R.: Soviet troops liberated Wjasma. (Michael Ballard)
Germans and Russians battle at Kharkov.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: German Motor Torpedo Boat (S-boat) S-55 torpedoed and sank destroyer HMS Lightning in the Sicilian Straits.
Submarine HMS Turbulent sunk off Maddalena, NE of Sardinia by depth charges from Italian MTBs. Turbulent was declared overdue on 23 March 1943 when she failed to return to base.
NORTH AFRICA: Preparations of the 8th Army in Tunisia for a flanking movement begin. The 2nd New Zealand Division and the 8th Armoured Brigade are secretly begin to concentrate west of Wilder's Gap.
General Spaatz, commanding general of the USAAF Twelfth Air Force in North Africa receives a temporary promotion to Lieutenant General.
Whilst operating with Force Q, destroyer HMS Lightning is torpedoed by German S-boats of the 7th Flotilla and sunk. There are 46 casualties but 170 survivors are picked up by HMS Loyal. Location: off Bizerta at 37 53N 69 50E. (Alex Gordon)(108)
U.S.A.: Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" is performed for the first time, by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra with Eugene Goossens conducting.
Destroyer USS Hickox laid down.
Submarine USS Sand Lance laid down.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-130 is sunkwest of the Azores, position 37.10N, 40.21W, by depth charges from the US destroyer USS Champlin. 53 dead (all hands lost). (Alex Gordon)
At 1820, U-638 attacked a straggler from Convoy ON-168 SW of Cape Farewell (grid AJ 5897) and thought they'd missed, but the Empire Light was damaged and abandoned. 39 crewmembers and six gunners were lost. The master, three crewmembers and one gunner were picked up by destroyer HMS Beverley and landed at St John's. At 2212, U-468 sank the abandoned Empire Light by two coup de grāce.
SS Thomas Hooker sunk by U-653 at 53N, 43W in Convoy ONS-169.
A man from U-354 took his own life. [Maschinenmaat Helmut Richter].